APL2000

APL2000 is Pleased to Announce the Release of APL+Win 6.0

Rockville, MD - December 15, 2005 — On December 12, 2005, new APL+Win product availability, license structure and price adjustments took effect.

It is anticipated that APL+Win 6.0 will be available as a beta in mid-December 2005 and as a production release by March 31, 2006.

APL2000 anticipates that there will be updates to APL+Win 6.0 released in each of the remaining quarters of 2006, available only to “subscription” licensees.

Versions of APL+Win prior to the current version (6.0) will no longer be available as separate licenses. Upon licensing the current version of APL+Win, the customer will be able to download prior versions of APL+Win that are still maintained by APL2000.

What's New in APL+Win 6.0

APL+Win 6.0 represents the continuing support by APL2000 for the APL application development language on the Microsoft Windows 2000/XP operating system platform.

APL File Shell Extension

The APLFileShExt.DLL module displays component information about your APL share and colossal component files in the Windows Explorer. When you look at the properties of the file there will be another tab (Component Summary) with additional information specific to APL component files. The information shown includes name of the file, the component file type (original or colossal), the component index range, the file size, and some information about space used. For colossal files, if component 0 exists and is either a character vector or matrix or a two-column nested array where each item is a character vector, then its contents are also displayed.

onContextMenu Event Handler

When the user clicks the right mouse button in a window, the ContextMenu event fires, with the mouse position in ŒWARG.

New ŒMom Object System

The MOM object system extends APL with simple facilities for object oriented programming, a predominant design and structuring paradigm for modern programming languages. MOM objects are typeless, classless, and inherently polymorphic. They provide syntactic and semantic foundations for future elaboration guided by experience. Entirely internal to APL, MOM objects are not related to ŒWI objects, COM objects, ActiveX objects, or any other family of objects.

Implicit Output Control Enhancement

The system command )OUTPUT helps to manage implicit output. This command allows the programmer to turn implicit output off or on. It also provides a means for locating code which performs implicit output. The command sets a three state switch in the active workspace. This switch is workspace relative. It is saved with the workspace on a )SAVE command and loaded with the workspace on a )Load command. The )Clear command resets it to the default value.

Implicit output states only apply to expressions executed within a function or an event handler. They do not apply to immediate execution statements.

The three states are set by the following arguments to the system command:

Exception Handling Control Structures Enhancement

:TRY
    APL_statement(s) performing application-specific functions
:CATCHIF APL_boolean
    APL_statement(s) performing appropriate error-handling
:CATCHALL
    APL_statement(s) performing additional error handling
:ENDTRY

File Open Mode Information Enhancement

File tie state information is now available via a new monadic variant of the ŒNTIE, ŒXNTIE, ŒXFTIE, ŒFTIE, and ŒCFTIE functions.

Monadic forms of these functions take a tie number as the right argument and return a two-element integer vector indicating the file tie state.

The values of the first element are the same as the open mode arguments to the dyadic version of ŒNTIE and indicate what the current open mode of the file is. These same values apply for the component and colossal component ties. The open mode values are sums of the following:

Needed + Granted
0 read access 0 compatibility mode
1 write access 16 no access (exclusive)
2 read and write access 32 read access
48 write access
64 read and write access

For native file ties, if an open mode argument was specified when the file was tied, the result of monadic ŒNTIE is that value. If no open mode argument was specified the return value is dependent on whether read or write access is granted and what value of <network> was specified in the APL configuration file. For the component and colossal component file ties, the values are dependent on whether the tie request was for a shared or exclusive tie and whether read or write access is granted.

The second element indicates if the tie was share tie (i.e. ŒFSTIE, ŒXFSTIE, or ŒCFSTIE) or an exclusive tie (i.e. ŒFTIE, ŒXFTIE, ŒCFTIE). Share ties show a value of 0, exclusive ties show a value of 1. The values of the second element are applicable only to component and colossal component file ties. The second element value is meaningless for native file ties.

APL Delay Statement Enhancement

ŒDL has been enhanced to better share CPU resources while maintaining support for the user interface. There are no changes required to your application.

Initial Support for Unicode Character Data

ŒUCS system function supports a 32-bit Unicode character data representation.

Initially support is provided for some primitives and planned for others and the other primitives yield the appropriate NONCE or DOMAIN error messages.

Unicode character data displayed in the Session Manager will be shown as <<<UCS Characters>>>.

The ŒWI interface with Windows has been enhanced to interchange Unicode character data with ActiveX controls. The unicodebstr property has been added to control this behavior.

ŒDR data type for Unicode character data is 322.

Session Manager Enhancements

The information retained in the log file has been enhanced to include version and other data. A new INI file setting, [Session] Logging System Info has been added to control this. Including any of the following keywords, separated by commas, in Logging System Info will display the corresponding information at the beginning of the session:

For example, Logging System Info=sysver,exe will display ŒSYSVER and the executable name in the session.

The highlight scrolling speed is now automatically adjusted. When using the mouse to highlight text, the scrolling speed is determined by the distance of the mouse from the client area of the session. The further the mouse is from the client area, the faster the text is scrolled. The rate of change is inversely dependant on the distance. So slow scrolling changes quickly as the mouse is moved and fast scrolling changes less quickly. If the mouse is moved all the way to the top or bottom of the screen, control of the scroll speed is released and scrolling speed proceeds at its maximum rate.

Compressed Data Format Support

A new facility to deflate (compress) and inflate (uncompress) data objects using ŒDR. With this option it is possible to trade the processing time to deflate/inflate for a reduction in the volume of data transmitted over the web or stored in files.

APL+Grid Enhancements

As presented at the 2005 APL2000 User Conference.

Subscription Programs and APL+Win 6.0

APLDN “premium” is now reserved for “subscriber” licensees only. The features of APLDN “premium” remain unchanged and include all APLDN “standard” features plus, among other features, the ability to download APL+Win updates as they are released by APL2000 throughout the subscription period.

APLDN “premium” is now included with all “subscription” licenses, including Tier 7 and Tier 8. The Tier 7 and Tier 8 subscription license price will now include the APLDN ”premium” cost. No other changes in the “subscription” license prices are being made at this time.

The APL2000 Academic Partner Program offers universities the opportunity to purchase the equivalent of a Tier 8 subscription for a one year term at a 33% discount.

“Edition” license of APL+Win 6.0

APL+Win 6.0 Edition licenses will include the following APLDN features:

Note: These APL+Win updates are available only to “subscriber” licensees.

APL+Win Edition Pricing1

Full Upgrade
Professional Edition $1,900 $1,350
Enterprise Developer Edition $2,750 $2,200

Licensed users of APL+Win 5.0 or higher are eligible for the upgrade price for an “edition” license of APL+Win 6.0. Prices are in US dollars.

1 Outside the U.S., please contact a local APL2000 Dealer in your geographic region.