This document covers the following topics:
With NaturalONE Version 8.2.6, the performance in huge projects with more than 20,000 objects has been significantly improved, and memory comsumption has been reduced. To make use of these enhancements, proceed as follows:
Clean all existing projects in your workspace (that is, go to the menu and choose ).
Exit the Software AG Designer.
Restart the Software AG Designer.
See also Recommendation for Huge Natural Applications Developed with NaturalONE in the Installation documentation.
NaturalONE Version 8.2.6 now supports Google Chrome. The Google Chrome support is based on Google Chrome Version 19. Due to frequent version upgrades of Google Chrome, compatibility of NaturalONE Version 8.2.6 with future versions of Google Chrome cannot be fully guaranteed. Possible incompatibilities will be removed during the regular maintenance process of NaturalONE.
For a list of the currently supported web browsers, see Supported Browsers in the Installation documentation.
This section describes new features and enhancements in NaturalONE's basic functionality for Natural application development. It covers the following topics:
Updating the Library Properties with the Settings from the Server
Multiple Incremental Deployments of a Natural Application in a Single Project
It is now possible to debug Natural RPC applications and external Natural applications. A debug attach server is required for this purpose. See Using a Debug Attach Server in Using NaturalONE.
A new page named Debug Attach Settings is available in the Natural preferences on which you can enable the use of the debug attach server. See Debug Attach Settings in Setting the Preferences which is part of Using NaturalONE.
A new page named Debug Attach Settings is also available in the project properties. The debug attach server uses a unique client ID to manage its attach records, which is shown on this property page. If you want to debug an external Natural application or, if necessary, for testing purposes, you can define a custom client ID. See Debug Attach Settings in Changing the Project Properties which is part of Using NaturalONE.
New commands are available which allow you to activate and deactivate the debug attach mechanism for a Natural application that is started outside of NaturalONE. See Debugging an External Natural Application in Using NaturalONE.
Note:
The debug attach server is currently only available for Windows.
It is now possible to parse dependent objects after a Natural source has been saved. A dependent object is, for example, a program which uses the fields from a data area. When a change results in an error in a dependent object and syntax parsing is enabled, the dependent object is now shown with an error marker.
You can also specify that syntax parsing is to be stopped after the first error. This reduces the number of error markers and thus improves the performance of syntax parsing and reduces memory consumption.
The new options Enable syntax parsing, Parse syntax automatically and Stop after first error are available in the Natural preferences, and the new commands and are available in the menu. See the following sections in Using NaturalONE:
Natural > Builder in Setting the Preferences
Parsing Dependent Objects in Using the Natural Editors
It is now possible to delete the error messages on the server before the error messages from a project are uploaded. For this purpose, the new option Delete error messages on server before upload is available in the Natural preferences and in the project properties. See the following sections in Using NaturalONE:
Natural > Options in Setting the Preferences
Natural in Changing the Project Properties
It is now possible to write the history of the Natural builder to a log file. For this purpose, a new page named Logging is available in the project properties. See Logging in Changing the Project Properties which is part of Using NaturalONE.
When you assign your project to a different Natural environment, a dialog box appears now which allows you to change or keep the current security status. When you change the security status, you can specify that the properties for all libraries are to be adapted so that they match the properties of the new environment. See Runtime in Changing the Project Properties which is part of Using NaturalONE.
In the library properties, it is now only possible to change the parameters which can also be changed with Natural Security in the Natural environment. All other parameters, which are shown in grey on the different property pages of the Security subnode, are inherited from the project properties and cannot be changed here. See Changing the Library Properties in Using NaturalONE.
A new command, , is available for each library in a project which pertains to a Natural environment protected by Natural Security. Using this command, you can update the Natural profile parameters settings of a library in your workspace with those which are currently active on the server. See Updating the Library Properties with the Settings from the Server in Using NaturalONE.
In the Dependencies view, it is now possible to copy a node and all of its visible subnodes as text to the clipboard, and it is now possible to export all visible nodes as text to a file in your Eclipse workspace. See Dependencies View in Using the Source Editor which is part of Using NaturalONE.
It is now possible to generate counter fields for periodic groups and multiple-value fields. See Generating Counter Fields in Using the Source Editor which is part of Using NaturalONE.
The Natural profile parameter MAXYEAR can now be
set in the Natural preferences, when creating a new project using the wizard, or when changing the project properties
or library
properties. See the following sections in Using
NaturalONE:
Parser > Parameters in Setting the Preferences
Creating a New Project Using a Wizard in Creating Natural Projects
Parser > Parameters in Changing the Project Properties
Parser > Parameters in Changing the Library Properties
When you are working in a new workspace and create a project which applies to a Natural server, the user ID in the project wizard is initially set to the user ID that you have used to log on to your operating system. Each time you enter a different user ID in the project wizard, this user ID is now persistently stored in Eclipse and will be provided as the default value the next time you create a new project. See also Creating a New Project Using a Wizard in Creating Natural Projects which is part of Using NaturalONE.
The launch configuration for a Natural application now provides the new option Start in library. Using this option is helpful, for example, when your startup program is located in a steplib and the main program which is invoked by the startup program is located in a different library. See the following sections in Using NaturalONE:
In the NaturalONE debugger, it is now possible to add breakpoints while the Natural runtime on the server is suspended. The new breakpoints are considered when the Natural runtime is resumed. See also Editor Area in Debugging Natural Applications which is part of Using NaturalONE.
With the deployment wizard for Natural applications, it is now possible to run more than one incremental deployment inside a single Natural project. Each of the incremental deployments maintains its own state of changed files. See also Deploying Natural Applications in Using NaturalONE.
Using the new option Retain sources of unchanged files in the deployment wizard for Natural applications, you can determine that only the sources of changed files are updated on the Natural server. See also Controlling the Scope of Files to be Processed in Deploying Natural Applications which is part of Using NaturalONE.
To avoid overwriting of sources that have been modified directly on the server, it is now possible to enable time stamp checking in the deployment wizard for Natural applications. For this purpose, the wizard provides the new option Check time stamp on server. For detailed information, see Checking the Time Stamps in the Natural Environment in Deploying Natural Applications which is part of Using NaturalONE.
With NaturalONE Version 8.2.6, the Natural Navigator view is still provided as a preview version. There will be no support for this preview version. Any feedback from our customers on this new view is greatly appreciated. Since the Natural Navigator view is still under development, a later version of NaturalONE may include substantial changes for this view. See Using the Natural Navigator View in Using NaturalONE.
New features in this version are:
When you paste an object, the Natural Navigator view now checks whether another folder of the target library already contains an object with the same name. If such an object already exists, a dialog box appears asking, for example, if you want to create the object in the selected folder and at the same time remove the duplicate object from the other folder.
When a paste operation in the Natural Navigator view causes the deletion of an object, separate commands for undoing the delete operation and for undoing the copy operation are now available.
It is now possible to copy and paste objects from different parents.
See also the information on the Natural Navigator view under Copying and Pasting Objects and Libraries in Using NaturalONE.
The command is now available in the Natural Navigator view. See also Moving Objects and Libraries in Using NaturalONE.
The command is now available in the Natural Navigator view. See also Renaming Objects and Libraries in Using NaturalONE.
The command is now available in the Natural Navigator view. Special handling has been added for nodes which do not physically exist in the file system (for example, a Programs group node). When you delete such a node from the Natural Navigator view, a dialog box appears, asking, for example, if you want to delete all programs located in the current library or library folder from the file system. See also Deleting Objects and Libraries in Using NaturalONE.
With NaturalONE Version 8.2.6, support for Arabic shaping is still provided as a preview version. There will be no support for this preview version. Any feedback from our customers on this new feature is greatly appreciated. Since support for Arabic shaping is still under development, a later version of NaturalONE may include substantial changes to this type of support.
See Arabic Shaping in Using NaturalONE.
This section describes new features and enhancements in Natural for Ajax and Ajax Developer. It covers the following topics:
Defining Data Types with the COMBOFIX and RADIOBUTTON Controls
Defining the Same Natural Session for Multiple Tabs of the ROWTABSUBPAGES Control
Using the new debug attach server, it is now possible to debug workplace applications in NaturalONE. For this purpose, the new command is available in the Ajax Developer. A prerequisite for this, however, is that a Natural Web I/O Interface server (NWO) is installed which runs in the same environment as the Natural Development Server (NDV) which is used in NaturalONE. For further information, see the section Executing and Debugging Workplace Applications in the Natural for Ajax documentation.
The command in the Ajax Developer has been renamed to .
For additional information on the above commands, see Executing and Debugging User Interface Components in the Ajax Developer documentation.
With Ajax Developer, it is now possible to design page layouts with a right-to-left (RTL) layout direction.
You can select the layout direction in the Ajax Developer preferences, when creating a new user interface component, or when changing the properties of an existing user interface component. See the corresponding sections in the Ajax Developer documentation.
The selected layout direction will then be used in the preview area of the Layout Painter.
Using the new NJX:SESSIONPARAMS control, you can change the style sheet of a running Natural for Ajax session, and you can define Sunday or Monday as the first day of the week.
It is now possible to assign the value "allpopup" to CMDCLOSECONTENTPAGE. In this case, a yes/no pop-up will appear, asking whether you really want to close all content pages. See also the description
of the NJX:XCIWPACCESS2 control in the Natural for Ajax documentation.
The TEXTOUT control now supports the property testtoolid which is used for automated testing.
The COMBOFIX and RADIOBUTTON controls now support the property datatype. The following data types can be selected:
N n.m
P n.m
string n
string
The GRIDCOLHEADER control now supports the property movablecol which allows you to define the columns in a ROWTABLEAREA2 control as movable columns. During runtime, the columns can thus
be rearranged using drag-and-drop. See also Making Columns Movable in the Natural for Ajax documentation.
It is now possible to define the same Natural session for multiple tabs of the ROWTABSUBPAGES control. For this purpose, the adapter interface supports the new element PAGENAME.
The built-in event nat:browser.end, which is available since version 8.2.4, is now available in the adapter code when the adapter is created.
* VALUE U'nat:page.end',U'nat:browser.end' * /* Page closed. * IGNORE
Important new features are available with the following optional components. For detailed information on the new features, see the Release Notes in the documentation of the corresponding optional component.
A new type of Natural unit test is available called "sequence unit test".
The documentation for the Application Testing component, which was previously contained in the Business Services documentation under the heading Test Functions, is now available as a separate documentation unit. For detailed information on this component, see the new Application Testing documentation.
The documentation for the Natural Engineer component has been revised and is now available in HTML format. See the revised Natural Engineer documentation.
The mechanism for maintaining the state of an incremental deployment has been changed. Due to technical reasons, a newly generated Natural deployment script for an incremental deployment will treat all files in the project as changed files during the first deployment run.
