New type supported by 4D: Null
4D introduces a new Null type to ease the management of objects and collections. Thanks to the null value, you can represent a missing value and easily verify if your object or collection is correctly set.
4D initiates a new variable type: Collection
4D v16 R4 introduces a new type of variable called Collection. What are these variables intended for? Like Objects or BLOBs, collections can be used to hold almost any kind of variable types like texts, numerics, booleans, objects and even other collections. The good thing is that, all these variables types previously mentioned can be mixed inside the same collection, where arrays must always contain the same type of elements!
Easily design your own 4D Write Pro toolbar with standard actions
You need a custom 4D Write Pro toolbar for your application but you’re concerned it might take too much time to implement it? Good news, with 4D v16 R4 standard actions can now be assigned to checkboxes and pop-up menus. Save time with this ready-to-use feature and easily create a user-friendly interface perfectly matching your needs!
You can now create a pop-up menu to control the font size or the border style for your 4D Write Pro area just in one click, no code needed! Just assign the action using the property list and it’s done. And the object status and value will be automatically updated by 4D depending on the context and text selection! Simple and powerful…
Validate your JSON object
We use more and more the JSON format. For example, to save settings in a file, to store software configuration, or to exchange client-data on the web with other servers.
How can you validate that the received data is in the expected format? How can you validate that all the necessary information is actually present? How can you do this validation without writing a tiresome method for each type of JSON format?
Simply by writing a JSON schema and use the JSON Validate new command!
4D introduces SDI mode for applications on Windows!
Hot news! 4D applications on Windows are entering a new world thanks to 4D Windows 64-bit. Do you remember the grey-background main window which contains all other application windows? This main window is technically called MDI (which stands for Multiple Document Interface) and now there’s a way to get rid of it and move to SDI (Single Document Interface) where application windows are all independent…
Interested? Just activate the SDI mode with a single checkbox and it’s done…without a line of code!
The complete Windows 64-bit product line is now Altura-free
We are pleased to announce that 4D v16 R4 is the very first version where the whole 4D Windows 64-bit product line is no longer relying on the Mac2Win library from Altura! As announced in last April, in this strategy announcement post, we have done the work on 4D Server Windows 64-bit, which was the last step to reach.
Our Windows 64-bit product line can now fully take advantage of some modern technologies and make you benefit from it, such as support of Single Document Interface (SDI) windows for instance, also delivered with 4D v16 R4!
4D View Pro spreadsheet is here!
After the advanced list usage completely covered with 4D v16, 4D v16 R4 reaches a major step toward with 4D View Pro by providing our customers with the first step of our 4D View Pro spreadsheet solution, provided as a preview.
Add an hyperlink to your company logo in 4D Write Pro
A less well known usage of 4D Write Pro product is the production of HTML emails. In fact you can create a 4D Write Pro document including 4D expressions, text and images, then modify the document, paragraph or text properties and send it by email. In this context, a very common need is to add a link to a picture, e.g. your company logo.
4D Write Pro has been enhanced with 4D v16 R4 so that hyperlinks can now been added to text and/or pictures. Setting a link to your company logo or company name is now as easy as styling some text to bold.
Discover how object notation can simplify your developer’s life!
With the object notation, available as a preview in 4D v16 R4, your code is simpler to write, easier to read and more natural to think. That is true. But did you really see the full potential of the object notation?
Before 4D v16 R4, when you wanted to create a detail form to enter contact information from an object field, you had no choice but to write an expression like OB GET ([CONTACT]Info; “City”) in the variable data source. You could retrieve the attribute value, but it was not possible to change it. Moreover, you had to write a loadRecord method with the OB GET command for each attribute and a saveRecord method with the OB SET command for each attribute.
What does object notation change in this scenario? From 4D v16 R4, you just write [CONTACT]Info.City in the variable data source! This variable is available in Read/Write mode. OB GET and OB SET commands are no longer necessary. That’s it! Now you see the full potential.
4D Write Pro supports tables!
Your wish has finally come true, you can now insert and fill tables by programming in your 4D Write Pro documents. We are not talking about bar tabs mimicking tables here, this is all about “real” tables! Tables where the text will automatically wrap to fit into the column size you defined, that will not “break” when your data changes.
This feature is the first major improvement exceeding the old 4D Write set of functionalities. You will now be able to generate invoices containing tables, fully by programming and style them exactly as you want with a few line of codes! Another scenario is that you can now provide your users with a button in your application UI that will insert a table with a predefined number of lines and rows, a predefined size for each column then you can let the user edit and style the content by itself.
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