Studio Developer 8.8.7 contains various enhancements that are detailed in the release notes. 

Two notable new features are:

1) Bulk PAD Extract

You can now extract multiple action diagrams to a text file including view details. From the Model Explorer, select one or more action diagrams and click the Actions->Extract PAD menu option. All of the selected action diagrams are extracted to a chosen folder.

2) Refactoring Statements

The action diagram editor provides a refactoring function that will move selected statements to a new action block, for example to assist with modularising a complex action block. You start by selecting the statements to be refactored (i.e. moved into a new action block) and choose the Refactor menu option. 

   

Once you have specified a name for the new action block, you can specify view sections for referenced views, for example, the original statements might reference a local view whose values need to be shared with the refactored statements. If the view(s) referenced in the statements selected for refactoring are also referenced in other statements in the original action block, then by default they are created as exportable import views, otherwise they are created in the same view section, though you can override this by specifying a new view.

   

Once you have completed choosing the view locations, the refactor action block is created along with a USE statement in the original action block.

   

Release 8.8.7 is now available to download. 

You can view the release notes here: https://www.iet.uk/Download/RelNotes.htm

IET recommend that you install the service packs to obtain the latest fixes and new features.

Release 8.7 of GuardIEn and associated products (genIE, VerifIEr, IET-Assist, pathvIEw, etc.) will be retired on 31st March 2026. After this date, whilst support will still be available, no new fixes or enhancements will be produced. 

It is highly recommended that customers on this release (and previous releases) upgrade to Release 8.8.

xTrace 2.6.6 is available to download.

This update only affects the server components and contains the followinmg enhancement:

Dynamic Storage Allocation for import/export views
When an action block that uses high-performance views is generated with trace, the entire import and export view structures are passed to TIRTRCE as a single W-IA and W-OA data item and the import and export views are moved from their respective linkage section data items to W-IA or W-OA.

The xTrace post-processor already contains an optimisation to only move the data when the trace user is displaying the view values, however the W-IA and W-OA data items are still statically defined in working storage.

In cases where the import and/or export views contain very large repeating group views, the memory requirement for these additional data structures can be considerable.

To alleviate this problem, the xTrace post-processor now supports an option to modify the generated source code so that the W-IA and W-OA data items are dynamically allocated only if the trace user has the import or export view windows open to inspect the data values, and the storage for the data items is freed at the end of the action block.

Release 8.8.6 and Release 8.7.9 are now available to download. 

You can view the release notes here: https://www.iet.uk/Download/RelNotes.htm

IET recommend that you install the service packs to obtain the latest fixes and new features.

With great sadness we announce that Gary Donoghue (a.k.a Gazza) our friend and colleague of nearly 30 years passed away in July 2024 after a period of illness.
 
Gary joined IET in its early days and will be well known to many of you from his roles in customer support, training and product development.
 
He had a great sense of humour, was always fun to work with and is much missed.
 
RIP Gazza.

   

A very powerful feature of Object List+ is the ability to define custom functions. 

Custom functions allow you to easily run more complex queries against the model. As an example, assume that you want to list action blocks that have entity action views. This requires a check that the action block has an entity action view, or an import or export view that has the 'supports entity actions' property ticked. To perform this check against each action block would be very time-consuming, but once developed as a custom function, it can easily be run on demand.

Custom functions can be developed in two ways - either using custom SQL queries (via the System Admin client) or, for more complex requirements, using C or COBOL in the user exits.

   

IET provide various example custom functions and you can download examples of custom sql queries from the the IET support centre.

If you have an idea for a custom function that could be useful and want help developing it, get in touch.

Release 8.8.5 is now available to download.

You can view the release notes here: https://www.iet.uk/Download/RelNotes.htm

IET recommend that you install the service pack to obtain the latest fixes and new features.

In addition to fixes and minor enhancements, Release 8.8.5 also includes these new features:

Studio Developer

Compare to Minor Version
The PAD Editor contains a new feature to compare the current PAD to a minor version. Invoking this function displays a dialog box from which a minor version is selected. The current PAD is then extracted to a text file in the same format as the minor version and a Beyond Compare window is opened to display a line-by-line comparison between the current PAD and the minor version. 

Default Return Exit State
You can specify the name of a default ‘returns on’ exit state in the Model Preferences. If this preference is set and an exit state is found in the model or subset with this name, then when adding a new link dialog flow, the returns on exit state is defaulted to this exit state.

Search Text includes views
The search and replace text function now includes view names as part of the search when <ALL>, Action Diagram or Views is selected. 

Viewing Screen / Window Designs using Studio Editors
There is now an option to view screen and window designs from the GuardIEn Studio client (i.e. from Object List+) using the Studio Developer screen/ UI designer rather than the GuardIEn GUI Windows client. The advantage of the Studio viewer is that you can choose alternate dialects to display and see more details compared to the GUIO viewer. The choice is made using the GuardIEn Studio preferences dialog.

GuardIEn

New Tutorial Structure
The Tutorials have been enhanced to provide additional Getting Started Guides and content update. The Tutorials option accessed from the main menu now only contains the option to view the course material, with the setup of the Tutorial Projects moved to the System Admin client.

CICS Newcopy step for HE
The CICS newcopy/phasein was previously implemented via a SU exit step for the HE. It is now provided as a standard step type with support for remote job submission to cater for CICS regions that reside on a separate LPAR.

HE FTP step now supports RPD
The HE FTP step to transfer source, ncal, dbrm and load modules now also supports the use of the GuardIEn Remote Processing Daemon (RPD) as the transfer mechanism.

We wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Instead of posting cards, we are making a donation to our wonderful local hospice Dorothy House.

   

Rapide 4.0 is now available to download from the IET web site.

For full details on enhancements and fixes in this release, please consult the release notes.

For further details on Rapide, visit www.iet.uk/rapide