New Features in Stonefield Query SDK Version 3.2

Work has just begun on Stonefield Query version 3.2 and we've already added a bunch of new features. In no particular order:

• The Preview window has a new Email button allowing you to send an email directly from the window.
  
• The Login dialog no longer displays a choice for the database to query on if the database is specified as a command-line parameter.
  
• The Login dialog now shows the default user name and password (ADMIN and ADMIN) when the program hasn't been activated so new users don't have to guess or (heavens!) read the help file.
  
• Multi-page TIFF files are now supported for report output.
  
• Stonefield Query now looks in the Windows Registry for the location of the help file if the UseRegistry setting in Data.INI is Yes.
  
• Stonefield Query now returns error code -27 when called from another application and it cannot locate its resource file.
  
• You can now select more than about 20 files at a time when importing reports.
  
• You can now specify an expression for a chart title.
  
• The Expression Builder now has a Test Syntax button.
  
• The Reports Explorer and Field Properties dialog now load faster when there are lots of reports. Also, the report dropdown list on the Link page of the Field Properties dialog no longer displays folders that have no reports.
  
• You can now tell Stonefield Query to ignore an ask-at-runtime filter condition in a report run from another application by specifying "Value=" (that is, with no value specified) in the command line parameters.
  
• The performance of some reports with a filter condition on certain types of fields was improved, especially when there are lots of records in the table.
  
• The Add License dialog has a new Copy button which places the license information on the Windows clipboard.
  
• The Use old engine setting in Step 5 of the Quick Report Wizard is now always enabled, not just when Advanced layout is turned on. Turning this on allows the Preview window to appear more quickly, especially for very long reports, but the Preview window used when this is turned on has fewer features and some advanced options, such as dynamic formatting and rotation, aren't supported.
  
• Multiple filter conditions on the same field are now supported in linked reports as long as each condition uses a different operator.
  
• Deleting a folder now deletes all reports in that folder rather than giving you an error message and requiring you to manually delete all the reports.
  
• New Create/update column heading and Adjust field width automatically options in the Field Properties dialog of the Advanced Report Designer provide you with more control over what Stonefield Query does automatically when you save a field.
  
• The AfterRun code for a report can now change something about how a report is output and re-run the output.


• You can now define a default table for each data group.
  
• The new Icon File configuration setting allows you to specify your own icon for the Stonefield Query dialogs.
  
• The new Display Application Name configuration setting allows you to specify whether the application name is displayed before the logo in the About dialog.
  
• The new Support Subscription Reminder configuration setting allows you to specify whether your users will receive reminders when their subscriptions are due to or have lapsed.
  
• Stonefield Query now supports the TopSpeed ODBC driver.
  
• New DataEngine.AfterResultSetRetrieved, DataEngine.SetOperatorList, and Application.ReportsExplorerActivated events are available.
  
• You can now double-click a memo field in the window displayed when you select View Table Contents in the Configuration Utility to display the contents of the memo field in another window.
  
• The dialogs displayed when you call the DataEngine object's GetValuesForField or GetValuesForParameter methods now include the "ignore this condition" option. You can also pass these method a collection of default values to use.
  
• The Application object has a new GetValuesCollection method and new ApplicationDirectory, ApplicationDataDirectory, ShortApplicationName, and Version properties.
  
• The ADODataSource object has new ConnectionTimeout and CommandTimeout properties so you can control timeout settings.
  
• The LoadProject method of the SQProxy object now accepts the name of the data source to query on as a parameter.
  
• The SQProxy object now has a Parameters collection you can use to pass user-defined parameters to Stonefield Query, much as you can pass user-defined parameters on the command line.
  
• Turning on or off the checkbox for a database in the Data Groups or User Groups pages now turn on or off the checkboxes for all tables in that database.
  
• You no longer have to specify parameters in a stored procedure passed to the ExecuteSQLStatement method of a Database object using syntax like "exec MyProcedure ?FirstParameter, ?SecondParameter". Instead, pass a parameters collection as the second parameter to ExecuteSQLStatement and specify the stored procedure with any parameters (in other words, simply "exec MyProcedure").

A lot of other features are planned: see http://stonefieldquery.blogspot.com/2007/10/whats-next-for-stonefield-query.html and http://stonefieldquery.blogspot.com/2007/10/version-32-features-proposed.html for some of them. We've also fixed a number of bugs; these will appear in the next blog entry.

If you'd like an early peek at these new features, contact us and we'll send you an interim build (this is only available for current subscribers). Keep in mind that interim builds haven't been fully tested and the documentation hasn't been updated, so you shouldn't distribute this to customers unless there are features or bug fixes they really need.