Valentina 2.3 for Revolution Released

BREAKTHROUGH SPEED ON JOINS; NEW SQL COMMANDS

Leading multi-platform database vendor Paradigma Software, Inc, makers of the ultra-fast Valentina 2 Office Server, announce the shipping of Valentina 2.3.

Valentina 2's next generation, object-relational database model builds on the traditional relational database model much like C++ builds on top of the C language. All that you know from working with traditional database systems from IBM, Oracle and Microsoft also apply to Valentina-based development. This robust technology excels at ultra fast management of millions of records. Valentina is not another in-memory database but a true disk based DBMS.

Valentina 2.3 also includes the following new features and improvements:

• Improved speed and performance in Add Record commands.
• New SHOW commands: SHOW TABLES, SHOW COLUMNS, and SHOW DATABASE. These
return the database structure as a cursor.
• SQL: SELECT ... ORDER BY ... [NULLS FIRST | LAST]
• SQL: CREATE TABLE ... IF EXISTS

Valentina 2.3 for Revolution is available through Runtime Revolution's RevSelect program.

ADK Standard Edition ADKs start at $199; VDN pricing begins at $499. Owners of the 2.x versions of the products receive a free upgrade to 2.3.

For more information, visit the Paradigma Software website.

During RevConWest 2006, .com Solutions will have special pricing for FmPro Migrator which will be priced at $75 (compared to the regular price of $100). FmPro Migrator is a Revolution developed application available for MacOS X and Windows which facilitates database migrations between FileMaker Pro and 8 other databases (including MySQL, Oracle, Access, SQL Server, Sybase, DB2, PostgreSQL and FrontBase).

"Chipp, we're putting together a special for the RevCon West show. We plan to do Podcasts and VidCasts from the show, so have folks look to be interviewed and then have your smiling face spammed all over the web... (just kidding about the spam part...;-). We're also giving away a dozen copies of eXpertLingo.

And, if that's not enough, we are also building a custom eBook on Online Visibility for your RunRev crew. It tackles everything from optimizing PAD files and RSS feeds, to general SEO and how to use PR, blogs and Forums to build traffic. No one's going to want to miss this one!"

GREAT STUFF MARK!!!

And for those of you who don't know PRWeb, here's the quick 401 (as hipster R. Gaskin would say;-)

PRWeb is the leader in Direct-to-Consumer Press Release Distribution. Their proprietary Search Engine Optimized platform allows anyone, on any budget, to develop a PR campaign that will visibly increase their Online Visibility, enhance search engine rankings and sell your products using text, images, sound and video. Take advantage of PRWeb’s affordable services, most free for basic users: PRWeb, PRWeb Podcast, PRWebPhotowire, RSSPad and 301URL.com. All can be found at www.PRWeb.com.

PRWeb, The Online Visibility Company

For those of you multimedia types, who like to create rollover buttons: Finally, there's a RIGHT WAY to do this, which works each and every time.

First, let's talk about how it was done in the past. The simplest and most direct way is to just set the armedIcon icon of a button to the ID of the image you want displayed when the mouse is within the rect of the button. Then, the button will automatically display the icon assigned during a mouse rollover. Also, the hiliteIcon assigned creates the mouseDown image. And ,of course, the disabledIcon image is assigned to the button when you set it's disabled property to true.

But, here's the rub. If, your button is inside a group, sometimes it will 'stick' on when the mouse rolls over and off of it. Bummer, having buttons with the rollover state stuck on, is problematic at best. After some back and forth with RunRev's Mark Waddingham and some outside help from Richard Gaskin, a fix was arrived at.

The gist of it centers around the fact that the 'mouseLeave' message is sometimes not sent to a button within a group. It turns out this only happens when the autoArm property of the button is true. In order for the earlier method to work, the autoArm must be true, so there's the problem. The fix is to set the autoArm property of a button to false. You'll have to do this manually, because ever since 2.1, there's not been a checkbox for it in the Property Inspector. Or, you can use one of a number of free 3rd party property inspector's including my own altPropEditor and Richard Gaskin's devolution.

After you set the button to false, create a custom prop for it (I'm calling it 'altRollover') and set it to true. Then insert somewhere in the message path (I've created a library which I just "start using", you can put it in your stack script if you like):

on mouseEnter
  if the altRollover of the target is true then
    set the cOriginalIcon of the target to the icon of the target
    set the icon of the target to the armedIcon of the target
  end if
end mouseEnter

on mouseLeave
  if the altRollover of the target is true then
    set the icon of the target to the cOriginalIcon of the target
  end if
end mouseLeave

That's all there is to it. Now, you've got professional custom rollover buttons! If you want to review this in action, just copy and paste the below text into your message box and hit enter. You can also use the button there as a template for creating your own rollover buttons.

go URL "http://www.gadgetplugins.com/chippstuff/CorrectButtons.rev"

Till next time!
-Chipp

This will be the fourth gathering of Revolution enthusiasts in which Daniels & Mara has participated and my expectations for advancing my skills and expanding my network of colleagues has never been higher.

We will be releasing Galaxy Bar and giving it to each participant at the conference. Galaxy Bar is a free plugin that replaces the Revolution "dock" with a slim horizontal bar at the top of your screen. Drag it upward to temporarily hide the menubar on Macs. Place your mouse over any object and see its name, icon, id--even images embedded in text. Hold down command and option keys to inspect an object's script or properties without even clicking. Great for laptops, small screens and lovers of open space and efficiency. Works seamlessly with Constellation, Object Gadget and Transcript Gadget--or good old Revolution IDE components.

It will be unavailable until the Conference, so you better come and a v1.0.0 copy!

-Jerry