What's New in Version 9.1.3

This document covers the following topics:


Installation

Software AG Designer 10.7, which includes NaturalONE, uses Eclipse Version 4.15. If you prefer to use NaturalONE in your existing Eclipse environment, see also Using Your Own Eclipse in the Installation documentation.

The selection of components during the installation has changed. For more information, see Installing NaturalONE in the Installation documentation.

Deployment Package

After installing NaturalONE and applying all relevant fixes, you are now able to create a compressed package of NaturalONE for deployment on additional development stations. For more information, see Preparing a Deployment Package in the Installation documentation

Basic Functionality for Natural Application Development

This section describes new features and enhancements in NaturalONE's basic functionality for Natural application development. It covers the following topics:

DDMs in the Server View

The preference Display DDMs in library is no longer available. Displaying DDMs in the Natural server view has been enhanced in the following way:

For Natural Development (NDV) servers which are protected with Natural Security, all DDMs which are accessible to the current user in a specific library are shown in a DDMs group node of this library, regardless of whether the DDMs are public or protected. The DDMs system file node is no longer available in this case.

If the NDV server is not protected with Natural Security, the DDMs will either be displayed below the DDMs system file (Mainframe server or servers with FDDM) or in the DDMs group node of the libraries (for Linux, or Windows environments without FDDM).

This new behavior is also described under Working with DDMs in section Managing Objects Directly on a Natural Server.

List Natural Mainframe Objects in the Natural Server View

When a huge number of objects are contained in a library, the listing of these objects in the Natural Server view can take a long time. Natural for Mainframes Version 9.1.2 on z/OS provides a new hyperdescriptor that can significantly improve the database access required for this purpose. The installation of the hyperdescriptor is described in Performance Aspects in NaturalONE in a Nutshell.

ECHECK

The ECHECK parameter is now supported in NaturalONE when parsing sources in the Natural source editor. When adding projects from an NDV server environment, the ECHECK parameter is also downloaded to the Natural project properties. This enhancement does currently not apply to NDV mainframe servers.

Natural Tools and Utilities

This section describes new features and enhancements concerning Natural tools and utilities available in NaturalONE. It covers the following topics:

Debugger

The debugger has been enhanced to show the complete value of a large or dynamic variable of the type A, U or B. See Display Options in Setting the Preferences and Variables View in Debugging Natural Applications for further information.

In order to provide the variable chunk support for large and dynamic variables, a Natural server change is necessary. This means that the functionality is only available with the most current versions of the Natural Development (NDV) servers on Linux and Windows that correspond to NaturalONE Version 9.1.3.

Natural Profiler

A new drop-down list box which is shown at the top of the Hot Spots page allows switching between different built-in display layouts. See Viewing the Profiler Output > Hot Spots in Using the Natural Profiler for further information.

The default layout that is initially used can be set in the Natural preferences. See Profiler > Hot Spots in Setting the Preferences for further information.

Natural Data Browser

The data browser now supports Adabas protected files. See Creating a Report Template in Using the Data Browser for further details.

In addition, to use the maximum number of occurrences for periodic groups and multiple fields in Adabas files, a new preference has been introduced. For details see Displaying the Properties for a Field in Using the Data Browser and Data Browser in Setting the Preferences for further details.

Deploying Natural Applications

This section describes new features and enhancements in the NaturalONE deployment area. It covers the following topics:

New Optional Batch Deploy in Predict

A new functionality has been added to Predict which allows you to deploy from a batch file. For more information, check Managing Predict Components > Steps required in your Natural Project(s).

Eclipse-Independent Application Testing

It is now possible to execute a Natural unit test bed with an Ant script outside the context of a NaturalONE/Eclipse environment. This is especially important for providing full DevOps support if you also want to execute test cases unattended in a lean command line environment. This extension will also simplify the integration of Natural unit test processing with continuous integration tools like Jenkins.

The functionality of writing Natural unit test cases is already covered by NaturalONE. However, this has now been extended with a new Natural unit test Ant Script wizard, which can be used to generate Ant based testing scripts. These scripts support several targets like checkout for checking out a test project or unittest for executing a Natural unit test bed.

For testing purposes, you can now also execute a testing Ant script inside NaturalONE via the Eclipse built in Run As Ant Script functionality. The results of a test run will be displayed in the Console view.

Refer to Creating Ant Scripts to Run Unit Tests in the Application Testing documentation for further details.

Natural for Ajax / Ajax Developer

This section describes new features and enhancements in Natural for Ajax and Ajax Developer. It covers the following topics:

Responsive NatLogon and NatDisconnect Pages Supported

Responsive and non-responsive NatLogon and NatDisconnect pages are now supported. In NaturalONE you can create your own custom NatLogon and NatDisconnect pages using the New layout wizard.

Bootstrap 4 Supported in Responsive Pages

Bootstrap 4 is now supported for responsive controls. Bootstrap 4 is the default. If you still need to use Bootstrap 3, you can use the attribute uselatestbootstrap in cisconfig.xml to run all pages with Bootstrap 3 or use the property uselatestbootstrap in the NATPAGE control to run a single page with Bootstrap 3

See Ajax Configuration for details.

Support for Natural-specific Properties like njx:natname in Responsive Controls

Most responsive controls now support Natural-specific properties like njx:natname in the same way as non responsive controls.

PAGEBODY Container obsolete for Responsive Controls

The PAGEBODY tag is now obsolete for responsive controls. The templates for responsive pages do not contain the PAGEBODY tag anymore. Responsive pages with PAGEBODY tags are still supported but contain obsolete HTML code.

New Template for Responsive Pages with Sidebar

The Layout Painter supports a new page template for development of responsive pages with sidebars. See also Responsive Page Layout and Controls for further details.

Major Enhancements of Responsive Forms

A more flexible and lightweight BMOBILE:FORM container is now supported. The BMOBILE-FORMGROUP containers now supports horizontal and vertical forms. For the usage in bar controls - like the BMOBILE:HORIZONTALBAR and the BMOBILE:SIDEBAR - a BMOBILE:FORMINLINE container is supported. A BMOBILE:FTEXTOUT control has been added to support plain read-only text in forms.

BMOBILE:COL: visisbleprop now supported

The BMOBILE:COL container now supports a visibleprop property.

Enhanced Testing Support for Responsive Controls

Most responsive containers and controls now support a testtoolid property.

New Responsive Containers: BMOBILE:SIDEBAR*, BMOBILE:HORIZONTALBAR, BMOBILE:CONTENT

The new responsive containers BMOBILE:SIDEBAR*, BMOBILE:HORIZONTALBAR and BMOBILE:CONTENT support frequently used patterns for modern responsive pages.

Additional controls like BMOBILE:TOGGLER, BMOBILE:SIDEBARGROUP, BMOBILE:BARTEXT support corresponding functionality for flexible rendering.

Help IDs supported in Responsive Input Controls

Responsive input controls like BMOBILE:FFIELD now support a helpid property in the same way as non-responsive controls.

Enhanced Tooltip Support for Responsive Controls

Bootstrap 4 tooltip support is now used to render tooltips. The rendering can be customized via CSS style classes. All form controls now also support setting the tooltip text dynamically from within Natural. Use the property titleprop in the corresponding controls.

Page Pop-Ups Fit to Parent

The file cisconfig.xml now supports the new settings pagepopuponresize, pagepopuphorizontal and pagepopupvertical. Use these settings to fit a page pop-up to its parent.

See Ajax Configuration for details.

FIELD Control: New Value in Property formautocomplete Supported

The formautocomplete property of the FIELD and BMOBILE:FFIELD controls now supports the value new-password. In the current versions of Chrome, this can be used to prevent Chrome from autofilling form fields.

FIELD Control With New properties onclickmethod and ondblclickmethod

Natural programs can now react to click and/or double click events. Refer to the description of the FIELD control properties for details.

RPIECHART With New Property animateselection

Use the new RPIECHART property animateselection if you want to render the selected slice with a bigger radius (= move out effect).

Several Responsive Modal Enhancements

A new BMOBILE:HELPMODAL dialog shows help texts for specified help IDs. All responsive modal dialogs - BMOBILE:MODAL, BMOBILE:INTMODAL, BMOBILE:HELPMODAL - are now draggable and resizable.

For BMOBILE:MODAL, the page URL can now be specified dynamically at runtime.

Optional Components

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.

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Documentation

The NaturalONE in a Nutshell documentation has been enhanced. A new section Performance Aspects has been added, providing information on what actions and best practices can improve the performance.

Known Issues

Subclipse NullPointerException

If you are working with the SVN Repository Exploring Perspective or Views, it might happen that a dialog with a NullPointerException pops up. This problem has been observed especially, if you switch from the SVN perspective to the NaturalONE perspective.

This is a known Subclipse problem which is described in the following Subclipse issue: https://github.com/subclipse/subclipse/issues/126.

Even if it is annoying, you can ignore this exception.