APLX^TM: New features in Version 3.0

 
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This page relates to APLX Version 3, released in 2005. The latest version is 4.1 - see New Features in APLX Version 4.

MicroAPL is proud to offer Version 3 of APLX with built-in charting facilities, image manipulation, integrated database and ODBC support, easy-to-use networking, e-mail and HTTP objects, a Web Browser object, and much more!

This is a brief summary of what is new in APLX Version 3 (released Spring 2005) compared with Version 2. For full details, see the New Features in Version 3.0 document. (PDF format**, 612KB).

Built-in Charting

APLX Version 3.0 introduces a new object class, the Chart. This is a control which can display a range of different business, statistical and scientific graphs. The actual data which is displayed in the graph is held in one or more Series objects.

Note: Using the Chart and Series objects, you have full control over the appearance of the graph. However, if you do not need this, a simpler (but less flexible) way of drawing a graph is to use the Quad-CHART system function, or simply to right-click on the name of a suitable variable and select 'Display as Chart' from the pop-up menu.

The Chart object can display the following types of graph:

Although you can customize many aspects of the display of a Chart object, it is designed so that it automatically selects defaults which should give a good appearance for the chart with minimal programming. For example, if a chart is re-sized, by default the font sizes are adjusted appropriately, and reasonable values for the chart scale, tick positions, and labels are automatically chosen.

Charts by default are displayed in color. You can select your own colors for all the major elements of a chart, or you can leave the Chart object to select defaults. You can also ask for the chart to be displayed in monochrome.

As well as being displayed within your APL-created windows, charts can also be printed, copied to the clipboard, and saved to file in various formats.

You can also customize a chart by adding your own graphics elements using the Draw method.

Image Manipulation

The new Image object is an interface to ImageMagick^TM, which allows you to do image conversion to/from over 90 different formats graphics formats.

It also provides a huge range of image manipulation operations. For example, you can shear, scale, crop, rotate or skew the image, sharpen edges, adjust colors and intensity, and filter out noise. You can also apply special effects to the image, such as making it look like a charcoal drawing or an oil painting.

You can use the Draw method (or a Chart object) to create the image to be manipulated or saved, or you can read it from file or from the clipboard.

New Web Browser class

The new Browser object allows you to incorporate web pages in your APLX application. It is based on Internet Explorer under Windows, and Safari under MacOS X. (Under Linux, a limited version of the Browser object is provided).

New Networking classes

APLX Version 3 introduces four new networking and Internet access classes. The SendMail and GetMail objects allow you to send and receive e-mail under program control, and the HTTPClient object fetches pages and other files from web sites into APL variables. There is also a new Socket object for low-level networking.

ToolButton Control

The ToolButton class is similar to a Button, but allows you to specify one or more images (as bitmaps) which can be displayed on the button face, depending on its state (Normal, Disabled, Being Clicked, and Selected). It is typically used for tool bars and similar controls.

Built-in database interface

The new system function Quad-SQL provides a built-in, extensible, cross-platform interface to standard relational databases such as Oracle, SQL Server, IBM DB2, MySQL, or PostgreSQL, using Structured Query Language (SQL). It can also be used (via ODBC) to access data from spreadsheets, Microsoft Access, db2 files, and many other data sources.

You can use it to retrieve data from relational databases as nested arrays in the workspace, or to update a database directly from within APL.

Speed-ups and fixes

As well as the enhancements described above, the new version of APLX incorporates several bug-fixes and a major speed-up to the Linux version, plus various extensions and refinements suggested by APLX users.

Features which were added in Version 2

This is a brief summary of what was added in APLX Version 2 (released March 2004) compared with Version 1.1. For full details, see the New Features in Version 2.0 document. (PDF format**, 612KB).

Multi-tasking

• Create a new session from the menu, creates an independent APL task with its own session window:

  
• Create a new APL task under program control, optionally with session window
• New properties and methods for controlling APL child tasks, eg Execute method causes child task to execute APL expression or system command
• New events allow parent task to be notified when child task starts or ends execution of an expression, hits an untrapped error, or terminates
• Signals for the child and parent task to talk to each other and pass commands/results
• Tasks can share data through shared variables and Quad-WI delta-properties

APL Interpreter

• Removal of 64KB limit on executing token strings
• Increase of maximum array rank to 63
• )CLEAR N allows you to change WS size
• Full path names on workspaces:

      )LIB C:\Workspaces
      )LOAD C:\Workspaces\myws.aws

• Quad-VI and Quad-FI for character to numeric conversion
• Quad-TCxx character constants for APL*Plus compatibility
• Quad-UCS for converting chars to Unicode and vice-versa
• Quad-PFKEY allows you to program the function keys
• Unicode conversion in native-file read/write
• Automatic allocation of tie numbers in native file system
• Capture the output from executed system commands.

Quad-FTIE family Component File System

• Quad-FTIE Quad-FCREATE etc for compatibility with other APL interpreters (in addition to existing APL.68000-style component file system)
• Extensions to allow insertion or deletion of components anywhere in the file
• Multi-user and multi-tasking support (not in Personal Editions of APLX)
• Tie number can be allocated automatically by APLX if required
• Component files compatible across Windows, MacOS and Linux

Grid object

• Built-in Grid class for spreadsheet-like control with text or numeric cells:

  
• Can be used for display, user-editing, or both
• Natural syntax, compatible with other Quad-WI controls
• Set and read cell arrays directly as APL arrays

Other GUI programming enhancements

• Enhancements to the Draw method including TextSize, Seg etc
• Delta-properties allow you to store as many APL variables within an object as you like
• New fonts property of System and Printer objects give names of installed fonts
• New unicode property of System object for reading/writing clipboard as Unicode
• New firstvisible property of List object returns/sets first visible line
• Enhancements to OCX interface to allow returned LPDISPATCH handles to be used (Windows only).

**Note: This PDF file includes the APLX font as an embedded TrueType font. To display this correctly, you need Adobe Acrobat Reader 4.0 or later, available free of charge from Adobe's website www.adobe.com. Older PDF viewers, and some third-party viewers such as Apple Preview, may not display embedded TrueType fonts correctly.