4D v17 R5 introduces new built-in data encryption for your 4D databases. Data can be encrypted via code or the user interface, for all tables or only selected tables. 4D’s encryption tools are based on a passphrase. It's composed of a sentence or a combination of words which is used to generate a binary encryption key to encrypt data with the AES algorithm. In order to work with an encrypted data file, the passphrase or the binary encryption key is mandatory.

It's important to note: If you lose the encryption key, there is NO workaround. The data will be locked forever!

4D for iOS - Preview 

Named placeholders for values

4D v17 R5 makes it easier to write generic ORDA queries thanks to named placeholders for values. These placeholders are provided as object parameters in the query settings and replaced by another value when the query string is evaluated. 

Named placeholders for attribute paths

You can also use placeholders for attribute paths (fields names in tables). Two types are available: Indexed - inserted as :paramIndex (e.g. :1, :2,… with an increment of 1) in the query string and their corresponding values are provided by the sequence of value parameter(s), and  Named - inserted by as :paramName and their values are provided in the attributes or parameters objects in the query string. 

In heavily used servers (e.g., many parallel users or processes accessing records, while other users modify/create records of the same table), an improved internal locking mechanism can drastically improve performance. This can lead to significantly faster speeds (4-8xs) with higher CPU usage, as threads spend less time waiting for micro locks.

Because 4D v17 R5 is 64-bit only, multiple libraries have been updated: Hunspell v.1.7.0 (spell checker), PHP v7.3.1, CEF 3626 (Chrome Foundation, internal web area), OpenSSL v1.1.1 (allowing the support of TLS 1.3), and ICU 63.1 (new Unicode versions. This update will cause an automatic reindexing of text, alpha, and object fields).

With 4D v17 R5, you can run multiple clients on the same computer and simultaneously connect them to the same 4D Server. Each client connection now includes a separate cache folder containing the connection’s IP address, port, and a hash code. Thanks to this, you can also connect several clients from the same machine to multiple servers on different machines. No configuration necessary.

Read 4D object fields with SQL Engine

The SQL engine in 4D v17 R5 has been updated to allow reading 4D object fields. To browse the content of an object field, the SQL CAST function has been extended to return a JSON representation of the field.

Object notation to handle files and folders

4D v17 R5 provides commands to handle files and folders via object notation. A new Folder command has been added which lets you create a folder object from a constant, a POSIX path, or a platform path. The folder object has properties (e.g., name, modificationDate, modificationTime) and methods (e.g., create(), moveTo(), rename(), delete()) that enable the creation and manipulation of folders. As with folders, the File command is available to handle files. The new file object allows accessing and manipulating file attributes. You can use file methods to write and read the contents of a file, move it, delete it, etc.

More information about web processes

New information about the URL used by web processes is available with 4D v17 R5. This information can be retrieved two ways: via the 4D Server Administration Window or via the 4D language with the Get process activity command; a new “url” attribute is added to the process object when the process type is a web process.

Define an alternate name for 4D user account

A new command is available to define a custom name to use in place of the current 4D user account name: SET USER ALIAS. It accepts a string as parameter. That string (alias) will replace the 4D user name in the 4D environment. This command can only be called from 4D remote or 4D single-user applications, not on 4D Server. An alias enables using your own user/password system, or an external user directory such as Active Directory or LDAP while still benefiting from all of 4D’s built-in user identification concepts.

Links to 4D methods

4D v17 R5 includes the new command, WP SET LINK. It allows you to set URLs, and also gives you the ability to invoke a method from your 4D application (with parameters) or target bookmarks from your document. The new WP Get links command returns a collection of all the links in a document, in a single call. Each link of the collection is an object with a description of the link in its attributes.

Tab settings

As of 4D v17 R5,  tabs can be set with a collection of strings, numeric values, or even a collection of objects! If you only need to modify the default tab values, you can use an object with the new wk tab default constant (added specifically for this purpose).

Handle the view properties by programming

With 4D v17 R5 you can handle the view properties by programming. TheWP SET VIEW PROPERTIES command allows dynamically setting one or more view properties of the 4D Write Pro area. The settings can be returned in an object with all the view properties via the WP Get view properties command. 

More targets and renamed commands

The commands listed below have been extended in 4D v17R5 to accept any kind of target as first parameter. They can still use a range, but now they can also use a reference (header, body, footer), an element (picture, paragraph), or the entire document as target:

• WP SET TEXT
• WP INSERT BREAK
• WP INSERT DOCUMENT
• WP INSERT PICTURE
• WP Insert table
• WP SET ATTRIBUTES
• WP GET ATTRIBUTES

Also, several commands have been renamed:

Ribbon-style toolbar

4D v17 R5 provides a powerful, ribbon-style toolbar to enhance the 4D View Pro user interface. It allows you to organize 4D View Pro features into a set of tabs, to increase the discoverability of functions and enables quick access to different commands. It’s worth mentioning that this toolbar also introduces new functions such as PDF and CSV export options.