Clarion News

New Beta release is out

Today we pushed out a new beta release, and this one has a lot you can't easily see, plus some new features that you can see.
What you can't see is the new IDE parser.  The parser is responsible for everything related to code completion (tooltips, dot code completion, method insight, etc.),
plus input for the Class Browser, Quick Class Browser, and parsing input for Report/Window designers and Forms Designers for Clarion#, all refactoring, bookmarks, and I'm still
probably missing a few more...  in short its a key core component.

Here's an idea of the features provided by the new parser:

- Better overall speed and less memory consumption; this affects background parsing, opening of any of the Designers and the Controls tab in Dictionary Editor
- Vastly improved code completion, including the following new features:
      - support for Generics
      - code completion for delegates (for generated Invoke, BeginInvoke and EndInvoke methods)
      - support for aliases declared in a Using directive
      - resolving of equates.  (Equates are now also included to the Ctrl+Space completion list)
      - support of names defined with a PRE attribute, and code completion after the ':' to show accessible members
      - special code completion while writing member (i.e. not global) procedure definition. It shows all procedures with missing definitions.
      - Alt+RightArrow word completion contains the data from Ctrl+Space completion list plus all reserved language keywords

In addition to that;
- Class Browser now shows all data; including local variables, local classes, Routines and local Procedures
- Class Browser has been reorganized for Clarion 7 projects. All objects are now grouped by the file name they are located within.
- 'Show in Class Browser' command now works for all user defined objects
- Quick Class Browser shows nested and local classes
- Ctrl+Enter in the editor takes you directly to the declaration of the class object under the cursor
- Ctrl+Shift+Enter in the editor to go directly to the definition of the method under the cursor
- resolving and code completion for .Net attributes is implemented
- new support for documentation comments to allow them to be shown in tooltips
- inclusion of all Code Snippets to the Ctrl+Space code completion list (+option to enable/disable this feature)
- resolving and code completion for Implicit variables
- Show in Class Browser command for objects from their references (Clarion# only)
- support for variables defined with LIKE
- tooltips for the generic parameters after the '<' (Clarion# only)

Even with all that, the performance improvements and the reduction in memory usage are tremendous.

Outside of all that we introduced some very nice refinements in the Dictionary Editor, these are usability features based on your feedback, and we also
added the new 'Reports View' drill-down into the Dictionary metadata module to the Data Diagrammer (I posted a blog on this here)
And of course we squashed a large number of bugs.

Overall this release (build 3276) is a big one. The development team worked very hard to get these features implemented and we all hope you enjoy it!

posted on Wednesday, April 16, 2008 8:42 PM by Robert Zaunere