1.10+ Release Notes Overview

WebHub Class Library

Overall

• No Splash Commandline option
  Use "/NS" commandline switch to keep the hub or your apps from showing the splash-screen.
• Enhanced Performance
  WebHub now uses binary searches on strings hashed into a longint to offer for exponentially faster access to chunks, macros, and built-in events.
  
  • BuiltInEvents
    Make slight changes to existing code using HtWebApp.pas as an example and gain a big edge over the pos function used previously.
    
  • Chunks, Macros, Pages.. etc..
    Many of the system's internal lists use the TWebStoreList's enhanced lists to offer radically improved performance. This is totally transparent to the casual user, yet as it is a recent enhancement is not 100% transparent to the advanced user. While there is not a lot to keep in mind, you'll need to know this:
    • When replacing a string in a sorted list where you're not changing it's order (sorted by the leftofequal portion) use this sequence temporarily:
      Sorted:=False;
      Strings[i]:='new=value';
      DisableSort:=True;
      Sorted:=True;
      DisableSort:=False;

Classes

• ThtTagList
  turn a string into a list of tags and name=value pairs. optimize quotes for html, eliminate whitespace; usage: create as a global helper object. use AsTag property; see htTagLst.int for the interface
  
• ThtHeaderList
  turn an http header block into a stringlist and back through the AsHeader property; see htTagLst.int for the interface.
  
• TWebStoreList
  Enhances TtpList and is the foundation for most lists in the system. Adds Name=Value smart quicksort, hashing of names, sorting by object and a lookup mechanism faster than the VCL's.
  To create hash-values, set StoreHashValues:Boolean; to sort by hash, enable SortByObject. That's all. A timing test app will be linked <HERE>

Components

• TWebApp

  • procedure BrandFile(const FileName,DefaultFile:String);
    Designed to maintain state in exported pages. See the BrandFile macro.
    
  • WhComments: new published property
    Defaults to true and if set will strip all lines starting with '//' from the output. This flag is recognized by the files-editor which will show WhComments in their own color
    
  • UseEvents: new public property
    used by the hub to suppress creation of the Events tab by the htHtml form. If your app does not use events, feel free to set this flag to false from the init or OnFormcreate procedures.
    
  • OnError: changed event definition
    The structure of the error event has been changed to accomodate a 'Handled' variable which you can set to true if you want to suppress WebHub's built-in error handling, most notably the standard 'Logged:' message.
    
  • Pick AppID: new verb
    On the surface, that's exactly what it is. It's a new verb, and finally! a property editor that let's you pick an AppID based on what's currently available for your SetupID.
    Under the hood, this feature marks the completion of what Michael thinks is a truly significant aspect of WebHub's design. The dream of letting components have live editors at design-time has come full circle and these editors are not just live at runtime (as in the first release), not just able to parent themselves inside page-controls (as in .9xx), they now show truly live data 'from the inside out.' Adding this feature involved finishing touches in the TWebStringList classes and the DoUpdate method of the TWebApp alone. We're really proud of this one and hope to write about these concepts and spin them into a distinct product for everyone's use eventually.
    
  • Error Handling when parsing
    The Errors Panel has been moved onto the Web/HubApp panel. Illegal page names now produce an entry in the errors list instead of crashing/hanging the app. Duplicate Macro/Page/Chunk definitions are also being recognized and produce an entry in the Errors List.
    

• TWebCommandLine

  • Design Time Testing
    When setting TWebCommandline.UseWebHub to do designtime testing, the hub will now report Delphi20 and Delphi30 as opposed to Delphi32
     
  • Potential DCOM troubles resolved
    Using DCOM to trigger requests on other machines can lead to error messages reporting that an async process is interfering with proper operations. To avoid these errors, we've added an OnDOM TNotifyEvent and a ExecuteDCOM method to the TWebCommandline object. Assign the event then trigger the method for DCOM calls to be executed without fail.
    ALTERNATIVELY use code like this around your DCOM calls (uses WebCall,tpIpcObj):

    • with WebCommandLine.cs do try
        Lock;
        <Call remote objects here>
      finally
        Unlock;
        end; 

• TWebInfo

  • Added Pick SetupID to TWebInfo
    Just like the above; This one lets you pick from existing SetupIDs. When changing SetupId's you should _probably REFRESH the App as well; We've held off from making this an automatic process for the time till we think about this some more.

DataBase

• TWebDataSource
  • BEND FIELD POINTERS providing you with enhanced single-user emulation to lets you utilize high speed direct pointer access to fields. This lets you use pre-instantiated fields with cloned datasets knowing that the original pointers will track the clone for you. This is controlled with the new BendPointers:Boolean property. Example
  • Clones dBase tables and other table format without primary keys if the form or datamodule containing the master/original dataset is saved with the table's primary index selected in the dfm; And the KeyfieldNames property set in WebDataSource.
  • Supports scrolling cloned tables based on dbase expression indexes.. You need to add code in the OnFindKeys event to support locating with an expression index as there's no way for either Delphi or WebHub to do that for you optimally or automatically, but if you do not need to locate as is the case when you're scrolling through clones, you'll be covered.
  • Changed OnExecute Event to fire AFTER the WebDataSource has activated the dataset instead of before. This will let you move code scattered among OnExecute events of components using the WebDataSource into one place.
  • Added .Close method which closes the current surfers clone (or the main query if it's not a clone). use this instead of WebDataSource.command:='CLOSE'; when you want to setup a completely new query.
  • Added read-only property OriginalDataSet:TDataset providing a pointer to the original dataset which is used when cloning
     
• TWebDataScan
  • Added OnInit:TNotifyEvent for the datascan. This event is called as soon as the dataset is activated and before any actions are taken (e.g. before the OnEmptyDataset event)
    
  • Added OnFinish:TNotifyEvent. This event is called when the scan is complete, e.g. in the datagrid context, just after the </TABLE> has been sent.
    
  • Recursion problem (introduced in 1.06) fixed
    
  • Added OverLapScroll:Boolean; This property controls if the height of the last page in a scan will be the full pageheight (if true), or be only as high as needed to show the records on that page (if false).With the introduction of the property the default has been changed to false.
    
• ThtDbWApp
  • LiteralsIntoSQL(const Value:String):String; new function
    use to replace the parameters in a parameterized SQL statement with the matching literals. You'd want to use this on a Query.OnBeforeOpen event like this:
    query.sql:=wdbapp.LiteralsIntoSQL('select :fields from :table');
    or like this if you want to let the user provide the sql:
    query.sql:=wdbapp.LiteralsIntoSQL(wdbapp.compareto('token')); (see the compareto function notes for what can be a token. includes properties, macros, textareas, literals..)

EMail

• TWebMailForm
  'Nextpage' can now specified as 'http://..' or by '/..'. The check for relative addresses make your setups easier to clone.
   
• TWebMail
  Added function ValidEMailAddress(var Text:string):Boolean;. This function returns true if you pass a properly formed email address like: 'ax@href.com'. It is used by the component to SKIP over improperly formed addresses. (*)
  The function takes a var parameter as it automatically adjusts compuserve addresses entered with commas instead of periods.
  Internally it is referenced by the function eMailAddress(const Value:String):String; which extracts the address portion from a string like 'Michael Ax <ax@href.com>' and which returns blank if the address was not valid.
  (*) when an ill-formed address is encounted then new OnBadAddress event is triggered giving you a chance of adjusting (or voiding) the email address and continuing sending to that address.