Version 9.1

Version 8.1.7

Version 8.1.1

• XML Parser/Assembler
• HTTP API Extensions, including support for HTTPS
• User-specific .ini file, enabling proper support for Windows Terminal Services)

UI Toolkit

• Ability to remove, modify, and reorder buttons after they are added to a UI Toolkit window or list
• Ability to get information about the UI Toolkit menu system (%M_INFO)
• Ability to specify a view length for an input field (Windows)
• Ability to control the arrangement of radio buttons
• Upgrade to FarPoint Spread version 6 for ActiveX list control
• Ability to highlight an entire row with the ActiveX list control

Synergy Language

• Cross-reference improvements to the variable usage utility
• Support for fields, subscripts, and records to exceed 64K on 64-bit platforms
• SLEEP statement support for millisecond precision
• Increased maximum for number of ELBs that can be linked against (256)
• Performance improvements in compiler and Synergy DBMS

In the Installation

• Increased stability and maintainability
• Reduced disk space requirements
• Ability to comply with Microsoft standards
• Upgrade to InstallShield version 7.04

• Support for SCO Linux powered by United Linux

Version 7.5

Web development

• Repository “Excluded by Web” flag for use by xfNetLink COM and WebBuilder
• Expanded date support by WebBuilder
• Smaller WebBuilder validation modules sent to browser

General development

• Synergy Language compiler option to identify unused variableso New “wrappers” to %AP_MISC routines, which provide useful system information via Synergy Language and UI Toolkit.
• Ability to control toolbars within UI Toolkit environment
• Increased selection window entries in UI Toolkit
• Backup license server on Windows

Component development

• xfServerPlus test skeleton generator utility
• New “interface view” for Method Definition Utility

Synergy Configuration Program

• Configure backup server
• Configure license manager logging Install Visual SlickEdit version 6 keys
• Specify whether xfServer can access data on xfServerPlus port
• Specify that server data sent to client by xfServer should be compressed

Workbench

• Launch Macromedia®’s Ultradev™ product (as well as Dreamweaver™)Upgrade to Visual SlickEdit version 6
• Support Java class wrapper generation
• Improved tools for creating and interfacing to Java component
• Launch new test skeleton generator and new compiler “unused variable” utilities
• View methods and properties of ActiveX controls

Installation

• In-place upgrade, enabling users to replace their existing Synergy/DE version with 7.5

Version 7.3

Professional Series WebBuilder

• With Professional Series WebBuilder, you can rapidly bring your Synergy applications to the Web. As an add-on to Professional Series Workbench, WebBuilder enables you to create Web front ends based on your Synergy repository definitions, and then connect your new Web pages to your proven Synergy business logic. WebBuilder is based on Macromedia® Dreamweaver™, the industry leader in Web page design and production. Dreamweaver offers many features that can save time and effort when designing a site.o Page templates enable you to maintain a consistent look and feel throughout your site.

• Site management helps you synchronize a local site with a remote (live) site. Styles Palette provides an easy way to apply styles to selected text.
• History Palette enables you to replay various editing actions.o Layers allow you to lay out your page with precise positioning of page elements.
• In addition to Dreamweaver, WebBuilder has a comprehensive set of Synergy extensions called Synergy Objects for Dreamweaver. With these extensions, WebBuilder enables you to:
  • Generate Web forms based on the structures and fields you have defined in your Synergy repository.
  • Reposition form elements and override individual attributes (like you can do with Synergy/DE Composer).
  • Update all repository-based fields in your form with one command (if you change your repository).
  • Automatically provide field-level validation of user input based on your repository attributes.
  • Ability to switch between WebBuilder and Workbench: You can switch between designing your Web page layout visually with WebBuilder, and editing your HTML and client- or server-side scripting code (Active Server Pages or JavaServer Pages) in Workbench. You can also edit any HTML code generated by Dreamweaver in the Workbench editor.

"Synergy/DE Web" project type

• You can now create a Synergy/DE Web project that enables you to organize and manage all files that are used to construct a site.

"Launch Home Page" menu entry and toolbar button

• When either is selected, Workbench launches the defined Web browser, which opens the URL stored in the Web project file.

Easier installation and configuration

• The new Synergy Configuration Program makes it easier for you to configure your Synergy/DE products (including License Manager, xfServer, xfServerPlus, and SQL Connection) and to obtain and install product configuration keys. With this easy-to-use tool, you can:
  • Change your license configuration from server or stand-alone to client
  • Change a client to use a different license manager server
  • Add a new xfServer or xfServerPlus service
  • Modify xfServer or xfServerPlus settings for port, logging, or security
  • Select databases to be used with SQL Connection
  • Obtain your product configuration keys online, or automatically send a key request via e-mail to Synergex
  • Install your keys once you receive them
  • Synergy Key Files (.skf) simplify installation of product configuration keys. You can now obtain your product configuration keys from Synergex in a Synergy key file (.skf) and then install all keys at once on your system. You can use Synergy Key Files with the Synergy Configuration Program (Windows) and with the "lmu" utility.
  • Windows Installer is now used for our installation program. Our Windows installation program now uses Windows Installer and takes advantage of the latest installation technology to provide you with a simpler installation process.

Other enhancements help you install and manage your system

• Avoid mistakes when installing. When you install your Synergy/DE products on Windows, the installation program now prompts you for "Licensee name" rather than "Company name" for consistency with Synergex's licensing process.
• Display your licensee name (for server and stand-alone license configurations) or your license server name (for client configurations) with the updated "lmu -b" command.

Enhanced debugging capabilities

• Save and restore debugger settings. The new "SAVE filename" debugger command enables you to save the current debugger state to a file, including WATCH, BREAK, and SET commands.
• Track license logins with the new "-s" option for the "lmu" utility. This option displays the License Manager session and seat IDs, which can be useful when tracking license logins with the DEBUGLOGGING option.
• Trap more errors with the new $ERR_CATCH error literal. o $ERR_CATCH enables a routine to set an ONERROR trap that will be called whenever an untrapped error occurs in a routine lower in the call tree. This is especially useful when calling remote routines with xfServerPlus.
• Retrieve error traceback information with the new %ERR_TRACEBACK function: %ERR_TRACEBACK enables you to control the reporting of error information to your users. It is especially useful with distributed Synergy applications using xfServerPlus.

New developer productivity features

• Professional Series Workbench enhancements:
  • Analyze the "call trees" for your routines. This will help you view the list of routines called by a specific routine across multiple source files. As you expose Synergy routines to external applications, this feature will identify the routines called by the routine you want to expose.
  • Create method code for buttons and input fields in Composer with new code templates. When creating a button or input field in Composer, you can now select a drilldown button for the button, display, or edit format methods. This will launch Workbench, which will either take you to the code for an existing method or add template code for a new method to the end of the method file.
  • New STRUCTURE and FIELD template tokens make it easier to generate methods for input windows. Within a code template, you can specify the new #STRUCTURE# and #FIELD# tokens, and Workbench will replace these with references to actual structure and field names when it generates methods for input windows.
• New commands help you set environment variables in Workbench
• syn_set sets an environment variable at the project level
• o syn_set_global sets one at the global level (which gets reset whenever a project is made active)
• syn_set_synergy_ini loads the environment variable from the [synergy] section of the synergy.ini file
• Reorganized Synergy/DE menu column and toolbar provide easier access to the Synergy/DE tools. We added WebBuilder and Synergy Online Manuals to the Synergy/DE menu column, and we moved some of the utilities to a new Utilities submenu. In addition, we added WebBuilder, Online Manuals, and the Method Definition Utility to the Synergy/DE toolbar.
• Generate more UI Toolkit code with new aliases for common code segments. You can now generate code for the following UI Toolkit code segments: Input processing loops, list load methods, list double-click methods, list processing loops, and tab set methods. You can also add your own aliases and/or customize or reuse the existing aliases.
• Visual SlickEdit 5. Visual SlickEdit provides the visual editing and project management capabilities in Workbench. We've upgraded our SlickEdit to version 5, which provides you with these additional features:
• Symbol references and uses: Visual SlickEdit 5.0 introduces dynamically updated references for Java, C/C++, COBOL, Slick-C, Ada, Delphi, and InstallScript. New functionality for references includes a new References tab on the Output toolbar, next/previous reference hot keys, and a context menu item for querying references for the symbol at the cursor.
• DIFFzilla™ enhancements: DIFFzilla is Visual SlickEdit's set of file differencing tools. It is used to merge changes from one version of a file to another or help you determine what changes have been made to a file. You can difference two files, two source trees, or two directories. DIFFzilla's Diff dialog supports selecting and operating on multiple files in a directory tree, as well as the capability to exclude entire directories from a diff. Auto Reload now provides you with the option to diff an open file with the copy on disk when Visual SlickEdit detects that another application has modified the file.
• Project management enhancements: You will enjoy the added capability of seamlessly opening a Visual C++ workspace. Multiple projects may now be defined in a workspace, and projects can be shared between other workspaces. Dependencies may be defined between projects in a single workspace allowing a more sophisticated build process. Another powerful project management enhancement is support for projects with multiple language file types. For example, Context Tagging now supports a mix of C/C++ and Assembly source files in the same workspace. In addition, relative workspaces and projects allow you to easily relocate your workspace, project, and source files.
• FTP Client: Even more powerful than before, the FTP Client toolbar and FTP Open tab allow recursive FTP directory operations. You will be able to upload, download, and delete entire directories. More host support is available in Visual SlickEdit 5.0, including OS/400, VM, VOS, Windows NT, OS/2, MVS, VMS, Netware, and MacOS.
• Additional features: Visual SlickEdit 5.0 for Windows is packed with new and advanced time-saving features which include Javadoc Editor (supports Java, C, C++, and Slick-C), HTML and Javascript Beautifier, emulation for Visual C++, and Print Preview/Schemes.
• Visual SlickEdit v5.0 also provides additional language support for PL/I, JCL, OS/390 Assembler, and IDL, as well as embedded language support for JavaServer.

Other Synergy/DE Productivity enhancements

• Improvements to Repository's user interface. (Windows) We added close boxes and Minimize and Maximize buttons to all input windows and lists; Add, Copy, and Delete buttons to all lists, where appropriate; an Assign button to the File Definition list and input window; and an Attributes button to the Structure Definition list and input window.
• Launch Workbench from Repository's Method tab. (Windows) You can quickly define methods for fields or templates. Workbench either takes you to the code for an existing method or adds template code for a new method to the end of the method file.
• New DDINFO_INGLOBAL symbol makes it easier to access information about your repository. When using the Repository subroutine library, you can now include ddinfo.def in your global data sections by preceding the include statement with the new DDINFO_INGLOBAL symbol. (This will prevent the inclusion of STACK RECORDs and STRUCTUREs.)
• Call DLL subroutines on Unix. The new %DLL_CALL function calls a routine in a DLL (or shared library) and gives you a choice of calling conventions, enabling you to call DLLs on Unix.

New capabilities for your Synergy applications

Windows features

• ActiveX list API enhancements give you more cell-level control. You can now:
• Set color and font for all cells or per cell
• Set column width
• Specify visibility of scroll bars
• Set font for header and footer
• Set column for visible display
• Get notification of change in origin of display
• Get notification of click on column line, header, and footer section
• Set and retrieve paper source for a printer with the new subfunction DWP_PAPERSOURCE for the %WPR_SETDEVICE and %WPR_GETDEVICE Windows printing functions. (For example, upper tray, lower tray, etc.)
• Control whether window borders are turned off. Use the new WPO_KEEPBRDR subfunction to WP_OPTION to prevent window borders from being turned off due to the size of the window. Use WPO_HIDEBRDR to restore the default behavior. Use the new KEEP_BORDER environment variable to cause the WPO_KEEPBRDR setting to be used initially.

Cross-platform features

• Display and process pop-up menus. New %M_POPUP function allows you to pop up a menu anywhere on the screen.
• Override or add to UI Toolkit's functionality when displaying your data or formatting your editable data. Use two new input field methods, %IDISPLAY_METHOD and %IEDITFMT_METHOD, when you want to display data differently from how Toolkit will display it, or when you want to format editable data differently from how Toolkit will format it.
• Modify UI Toolkit prompt and field positions at runtime with two new I_FLDMOD qualifiers: D_FLD_POS for the prompt position and D_FLD_FPOS for the field position.
• Turn your lists' borders and/or drag bars on or off. A new routine, L_BORDER, enables you to turn the border and/or drag bar (caption bar) on or off for an ActiveX or UI Toolkit list.o Suppress automatic resizing of your lists. (Windows) Specify the new .LISTCLASS option NOAUTOSIZE to prevent the size of a list from being affected by the size of its container. When NOAUTOSIZE is active, the list can only be resized by L_RESIZE.

Version 7.1

Professional Series Workbench

• A new integrated development environment for Synergy developers, Workbench includes a Synergy Language-sensitive visual editor, access to all the Synergy development tools from an integrated launch pad, and several project management tools. Based on Visual SlickEdit™, Workbench features include:
• Context Tagging™: Workbench generates tags and cross-references for all main routines, functions, and subroutines, taking you directly to the source for these code blocks between files or across source trees with the simple click of a mouse.
• DIFFzilla™: The DIFFzilla file-differencing tools help you merge changes from one version of a file to another, or isolate the changes you’ve made to your files. Using the DIFFzilla™ dialog box, you can locate the differences between files or entire source trees. Dynamic Difference Editing™ enables you to edit file versions while comparing them, uses color to highlight to differences, and immediately displays the color-coded changes.
• FTP support: Visual SlickEdit includes a complete FTP client, enabling you to open, edit, and save files on remote machines beyond a local area network. Where FTP access is available, the editing process is transparent, occurs in real time, and emulates local access. This is especially useful for support and for remote Web page editing.
• Synergy Language sensitivity: Catch misspellings immediately and reduce compile-time errors! Synergy Language keywords (such as “xcall”) are automatically color-coded as you type. Comments are distinguished by fully customizable color and formatting.
• Synergy Language compiler integration: Correcting compile-time errors is greatly simplified.
• When you compile and build your Synergy application in Visual SlickEdit for Synergy/DE, you can click on generated errors and immediately open your code at the source of the error.
• Also includes these features:
  • Common project files, shared between Composer and Workbench's project manager
  • Automatic script compiling when script or project files are saved
  • Toolbar integration between S/DE components—all S/DE components are accessible with buttons on the Workbench toolbar
  • Variable and label tag capability
  • API support for Synergy/DE routines, for listing parameters associated with Synergy routines

Version 6.3

• User friendly features on any platform, such as localization, dynamic menu changes, and Repository-support for ODBC field names enable developers to offer applications that are easier to use.
• Windows user interface features, such as ActiveX API let you easily enhance your Windows user interface by adding such features as calculators, calendars, and data representation charts. The new ActiveX List Control provides extended list functionality. Proportional fonts and custom cursor support provide the native Windows look that users require. The Windows Print API allows users to take advantage of Windows print capabilities. Developers can allow users to use the Enter key to select the default button, and add Windows commands (such as Cut, Copy, and Paste) to menu columns.
• Productivity features, such as the debugger “set watch” function, compiler macro expansion, and improved Repository user interface, enable developers to more easily and quickly develop applications. Developers can also generate irecovr exception files.
• Greater developer flexibility, such as ability to implement change methods for fields, specify custom fonts for objects, programmatically disable standard buttons, and save application window settings
• Additional Year 2000 support, including methods for customers who use two-digit years and enhancements to ReportWriter

Version 8.3

xfServerPlus

· Support for a client method name that is different than the associated Synergy routine’s name
· Support for a parameter name that is different than the structure name
· Ability to launch more xfServerPlus processes
· Ability to include comments for Javadoc or API documentation in the MDU (xfNetLink Java, xfNetLink .NET)
· Increase in the number of rsynd services supported
· MDU enhancements
· Improved xfServerPlus logging
· Improved xfServerPlus security
· Support for passing parameters with a binary data type (xfNetLink Java, xfNetLink .NET)
· Automatic retry for connection on "no available ports in range" error

xfNetLink.NET

· Workbench support for Synergy/DE .NET Component projects
· Support for Microsoft .NET Framework version 2.0
· Ability to more easily call methods on a dynamically instantiated object
· Enhanced support for strong-named and delay-signed assemblies so it can be used with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 (Whidbey)
· Separate log files for each session
· New gencs utility options (when generating C# classes)
· Improved performance when calling methods that pass structures or arrays of structures

xfServer

· Improved xfServer security
· READS prefetching
· Ability to close a specific xfServer connection with the Monitor utility, synxfmon (Windows)
· New verbose logging option for xfServer event logging
· Ability to install xfServer and xfServerPlus simultaneously (OpenVMS)

• Support for variable length arrays of structures in xfNetLink .NET xfNetLink Java Editions
• Support for runtime specification of xfServerPlus host and port in xfNetLink .NET Edition
• Custom package names in xfNetLink Java Edition
• Structure fields now properties in xfNetLink .NET Edition

• xfServerPlus performance improvements
• Servstat enhancements on OpenVMS
• Improved xfNetLink performance with arrays of structures

• Java connection pooling

Version 8.1.1

• Support for more than 64K arguments
  • Ability to send variable length data that could exceed 64K to Synergy routines when using xfServerPlus
  • Ability to specify a port to the xfServer Monitor utility “Unix”;
  • Improved xfServerPlus performance, especially when passing structure and array parameters

Version 7.5

• xfServer
  • Monitor facility on Windows to report on file locks
• COM support
  • Create pools of pre-initialized COM objects and xfServerPlus connections
  • Will no longer use J++
  • Simplified process for non-Windows developers to develop Synergy COM type libraries
• Improved xfServerPlus performance
  • Caching of SMC records
  • xfServer data access will be disabled on the xfServerPlus port. (User can enable it with new rsynd option.)
• Support for Java class wrappers
  • Called from Java on a JavaServer Page or from a Java servlet
  • Provides more natural Java interface using standard Java data types and supporting structures
  • Synergy details hidden within the implementation of the classes
  • XML support
    • Send or receive XML documents via HTTP

Version 7.3

• Interface generation tools. With the new "Synergy/DE Component" project type in Workbench and related tools, you can create a COM type library of Synergy methods. Type libraries make it possible to call Synergy logic from COM-compliant front ends such as Visual Basic (VB) and Active Server Pages (ASP).
• Synergy Type Library Configuration utility: This utility assists you in configuring your client machine for use with Synergy/DE xfNetLink COM. It enables you to add and modify registry settings at the default and interface levels for xfNetLink COM on the client machine. This utility…
  • Registers a Synergy type library in the Windows registry
  • Enables you to add and change settings for logging, the range of ports you want the client to listen on, the name of the Synergy/DE xfServerPlus host machine, and the port that xfServerPlus is listening on
• Structures defined in Repository can now be passed as arguments to the routines grouped in a generated COM type library, and their properties can be set and retrieved in ASP and VB front ends.
• SMC/ELB Comparison utility (smc_elb.exe): This utility reads methods and their associated ELBs in the SMC, and then verifies that there is an ELB containing those methods. This utility can be useful at deployment time to ensure you have all the necessary files.
• General improvements help you manage your distributed environment:
  • The default port for xfServerPlus has been changed to 2356 so that it no longer conflicts with the default port for xfServer, which remains 2330.
  • More robust error handling: This includes new error messages to assist in troubleshooting and the ability to run an xfServerPlus debug session from a COM client.
  • New xfNetLink COM test program, xfTestchm.exe: The xfTestchm.exe