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 WebSmart 6 Beta Available Soon
The WebSmart 6 development team is wrapping up the upcoming release of the software, and we are now accepting beta applications. You can request the WebSmart 6 beta at our web site.
WebSmart 6 includes many new features, including these highlights:
- The inclusion of SmartCharts at no extra cost, allowing you to create dozens of styles of graphs and charts.
- A powerful interactive debugger fully integrated into the IDE.
- Improved integration with Nexus.
- Numerous PML syntax enhancements, as well as improvements to existing functions.
- Expanded template capabilities and improvements to style sheets.
- Many improvements for installing and operating in non-English environments.
- Piping support, to write data to web services, the IFS and email.
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For those of you who have participated in previous WebSmart beta programs, 
you are already familiar with the high quality of both the beta versions and our developers' response to any issues that you encountered. For first-time candidates, we invite you to try us out! By participating in the beta you get the earliest possible access to all the new features, as well as the opportunity to give us some feedback on how the new features will ultimately work in the production release.
If you have any questions about the upcoming release, or any of the new features, please contact Technical Support.
Chicago-Area and Victoria, B.C. WebSmart Training in Late Summer/Early Fall
We are beginning to put together a public WebSmart Fundamentals class in Chicago during the late summer/early fall.
There will be Advanced WebSmart public training seminar August 14-17, 2006 at our technical office on the West Coast of Canada near Victoria, BC.
If you are interested in attending either training seminar, please fill out the Training Request form at our web site.
You can find additional information about the content of the WebSmart Fundamentals class and the Advanced class in our online course overview. If you have any other questions please contact Tech Support
Nexus 3 Beta Available
The first wave of Nexus 3 betas has already shipped and the installations have all gone smoothly. Over the next several weeks we will be releasing the Nexus 3 beta to a broader audience, so if you would like to
participate in the Nexus 3 beta program,
please visit our web site to sign up.
Nexus 3 includes exciting changes in several main areas, including the Enterprise Content Manager (ECM; previously the WOW) and group management areas. There is also an entirely new skins feature, a long list of user interface additions and enhancements, and a greatly improved calendar. For a more detailed overview of the features, please refer to the article in the April Tech Update. 
Participate in the Nexus 3 Beta!
For further information about the Nexus Beta, please contact Technical Support, or fill out the
Nexus 3 Beta Request Form. By participating in the beta, you'll get early access to all these new features (most of which have been up and running in our internal portal for a few months now), and be in an ideal position to request modifications or further enhancements to better suit your own usage of the product.
If you have any questions about the upcoming release, or any of the new features, please contact Technical Support.
WebSmart 6 Feature Profile: Debugging from the IDE
One of the WebSmart 6 highlights is the new interactive IDE debugger. The debugger is entirely contained within the IDE, and available for Free Format generated code only. Here is a quick overview of how to use it.
Running a Program In Debug Mode
To run a program in debug, you must first generate it for debug.You can do this by checking the 'Generate for Debugging' option from the Debug menu in your WebSmart program. After selecting this option, regenerate your program.
Setting Breakpoints
To set a breakpoint, put the cursor insertion point on the line you with to break on, and select the option Debug >> Breakpoints >> Set Breakpoint.
Alternately, you can use the debug toolbar button (as indicated below):
In the illustration at right, you have placed the cursor at the spot indicated by the bottom circle and have just clicked the debug toolbar button in the top circle. In the left margin of the PML you can now see a green hand icon indicating that the breakpoint has been placed.
To maximize your debugging flexibility, you are allowed to place breakpoints at any location in both the PML and tab view of your HTML.
Launching the Debugger
After you set all your breakpoints, first you will save your definition, and then select Debug >> Run >> Automatic Launch (or click the toolbar button).
When you do this, WebSmart displays the message "Starting debug." while the debugger sets up. Then the program starts, then breaks when the first breakpoint is encountered. At this point the IDE highlights the appropriate line in your PML or HTML.
Then you can go to the lines in your PML or HTML and hover over your fields to review the field values.
In the second illustration, below, we have toggled over to the HTML view, and have hovered over the first field in our fields list:
The top circle indicates our cursor location, and the bottom circle is around the pop-up displaying the field value. As you move the cursor to different fields in your HTML, WebSmart displays their values.
You can also change field values and step through your program to monitor its progress. Finally, when you're done, you can use the Debug menu or icons to stop debug.
This feature is entirely new in WebSmart 6, and in internal testing with our development team has already shown its usefulness.
For additional details about this feature, or to sign up for the WebSmart 6 beta, please contact Tech Support
Nexus 3 Feature Profile: Editing Pages
One of the most useful and impressive features in the upcoming release of Nexus is the ease with which you can now edit your pages. Below is a quick outline of how you can do this, with illustrations of the more useful elements.
Turning on Edit Mode
To edit your page layouts in Nexus 3 first select the My Pages link in the upper right corner. Once your pages are loaded click on the Edit My Pages option in the same spot. When you do this Nexus reloads the page, adding a number of options to your page as well as to each portlet currently displayed. The new options are indicated by the circles below:
The two top circles indicate where Nexus has added new options to work with the general page design. From these options you can add and delete pages, as well as modify the page properties. You can also work with the available portlets, and set up the one that are included on the page.
The bottom circle indicates the options from which you can edit the individual portlet attributes and authorities.
To switch back to normal display reselect the 'My Pages' icon in the top right of the page.
Moving Portlets Around
Another feature added in Nexus 3 to improve the page design process is the interface for moving portlets around. In previous releases, to move a portlet you had to enter the page edit mode and adjust locations and sequence numbers for your portlets. This older process, while taking only a minute or two to complete, now seems positively prehistoric in comparison to how you make these changes in Nexus 3.
In the upcoming version of Nexus, all you have to do is start by left-clicking on the header area of the portlet you want to move, and the page instantly transforms into 'Move' mode, shown below:
Once in this mode, all you have to do is drag the portlet to its new location in any of your columns or the new page header and footer areas.
In the illustration above we are about to complete a move of a Company Events calendar portlet from its initial location in the right column, to the (also new) page header area, spanning the width of the page. As soon as you release the portlet header, the page reverts to normal edit mode (as shown in the top illustration).
The enhancements and new features related to page design are just a few more of the many reasons to upgrade to the next version of Nexus. Nexus 3 is currently in beta, and we are now accepting candidates to participate in the second and third waves of the beta.
If you have any questions about Nexus 3, or would like a walk through of the new features, please contact Technical Support.
BCD @ iSeries Core Decisions Conferences
BCD will have a sales team at the upcoming iSeries Core Decisions conferences on
June 27 in Columbus, OH and
June 29 Dallas, TX. If you plan to attend either of these events, we hope to see you there.
For further information on these events, the speakers, and the topics they will be addressing, you can visit the iSeries Network Roadshows page.
Last Call for Catapult 6 Beta Participants
The Catapult 6 Beta is available for download for a short while longer. If you would like to participate in the Catapult 6 Beta, please fill out the form at our web site.
Catapult 6 is a major new release which includes many significant new features, including:
- Support for polling PC directories and distributing PC files using the same grab rules features that you apply to iSeries files.
- Grab-rule security, to specify who is authorized to view and edit specific grab rules.
- CC and BCC emailing support.
- Updated Console and Poller Configuration UI.
- Support for retrieving distribution/mailing list values from outside files.
- Support for mail group entry replacement values.
Support for polling network directories has been in particularly high demand, and we're sure you'll enjoy trying this feature out. Depending on the formats of the files you select, not only can you distribute them with Catapult, but you can also split and extract other data from them, just as you do with your iSeries reports.
If you have any questions about the upcoming release, or any of the new features, please contact Technical Support.
New WebSmart Example Programs: Using SmartCharts to create professional-looking graphs.
The WebSmart support group has added another two new WebSmart example programs to our library:
- Example 113 -
SmartCharts Single-Set Graph. This example shows you how to build a professional looking Single-Set Flash Graph using the SmartCharts included with WebSmart. Use SQL and PML to build the necessary XML and pass that XML to the SmartChart Flash object.
- Example 112 -
SmartCharts Multi-Set Graph. This example shows you how to build an impressive Multi-set Flash Graph using the SmartCharts included with WebSmart. Use SQL and PML to build the necessary XML and pass that XML to the SmartChart Flash object.
With the inclusion of SmartCharts in WebSmart 6 there will be many more options available to you as you consider how to present your data in the most effective way. For further details on any of the WebSmart examples, or if you have any questions on how to implement the techniques they demonstrate, please contact Technical Support.
Summary List of Recent Updates
ProGen Plus 8.05
These are the latest ProGen Plus updates (all these require V5R1 or later):
- PG8R058 - 2006/05/15 - Corrects a problem that would cause style X and F programs to lose the upper limit key after doing a ZCHGDBF, when the same key field was used. Requires OS/400 V5R1 or later.
Please visit the ProGen Plus Updates page for further information on the available updates.
WebSmart 5.27
There is a new update for the iSeries side of WebSmart 5.27, update W527001P. This update fixes an issue with the setsmurf for numeric data, and updates the program fields, removing non-existent field pgmf_gdslibl.
For additional information on this and other updates, please visit the WebSmart Updates page.
Catapult 5.71
Catapult 5.71 is now available for download from our web site. Version 5.71 includes the following features and fixes:
- Resolved a problem involving a European language iSeries and US region Windows OS, which caused the console to hang.
- If a rule fails to connect to a network resource when saving a report, the request is now flagged as an error.
- Resolved a problem where using a negative bottom margin value was causing the sequence number to become negative.
- Resolved a level checking problem with the ZDSTSPLF command.
Please visit the Catapult updates page for further information.
© 2006 ExcelSystems Software Development, Inc.
ProGen WebSmart and ProGen Plus are Registered Trademarks in the US and Canada, and Trademarks in all other countries.
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