APPX Runtime Subroutine API Overview

Over 100 new subroutines are available for designers to use.

Overview:

Release 5.1 contains over 100 subroutines for designers to use in developing or deploying their applications. Some of these are formalized versions of older subroutines that are currently in use, while others provide brand new capabilities. The older subroutines will continue to work, but designers should begin migrating away from those routines.

The full list of subroutines and their parameters can be found here.

The new routines can be grouped into the following catagories. Subroutines that provide new or significant capabilities are in bold:

General Routines - Application Routines

Contains routines to change the current application phase (Live Operations, Recovery Processing, Initial Setup) or to select a new database.

General Routines - Utility Routines

Contains routines to add/change/delete a user, change a user's auxiliary password, test a user's security code, add/change/delete Hook records, activate temporary Hook records, compile processes, process the Data Dictionary, switch user context, update application documentation, pause execution for a specified number of seconds (with or without a countdown timer), implement timeouts, indirect field referencing (to set or retrieve a field value by name), and more.

General Routines - Web Processing

Contains the routine to populate Appx variables from a CGI Script.

General Routines - Widget Routines

Contains routines to apply a theme to your GUI screens, convert colors (including the new transparency option), turn the standard menus and buttons on or off, debug the current --- WIDGET file, copy to/from the --- WIDGET file, and more.

Data Manipulation - Conversion

Contains routines to convert data to/from Hex, splits a number into its whole and fractional parts, convert a text field to HTML encoding, and more.

Data Manipulation - Text

Contains routines to fill a field with a character, search & replace text, convert to/from upper/lower case, parse a line into fields, and more.

System Information - Environment

Contains routines to get the command line parameters, environment variables, configuration information, parent process name, data file paths, application license info, and more.

System Information - Client

Contains routines to check the client version, upload/download files (with and without conversion), read/write the clipboard, and load a URL. In particular, the .CLIENT LOAD URL routine has been significantly enhanced to print or display files, start new sessions, and change client settings

File System - File Manipulation

Contains routines to perform a variety of file operations, creating, copying, archiving, deleting, moving, restructuring and more.

File System - Stream Routines

The stream processing routines have been significantly enhanced. You can now open multiple stream files at once, open STDIN:, STDOUT: and STDERR:, and open a URL to read a website directly.

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-- JeanNeron - 2012-04-12