Rev 2.9 hits a home run with users
Eagerly awaited upgrade exceeds expectations, sets new
quality standard

by Bill Marriott

Serving as the capstone of a two-year drive to dramatically enhance the functionality and stability of the world's leading natural-language programming environment, Revolution 2.9 has hit the "sweet spot" for users at all experience levels. Advanced users will find more tools at their disposal to create professional solutions. Beginners benefit from an all-new user guide. And everyone will enjoy the confidence of working with the most rigorously tested and improved development environment in the product's history.

Although Revolution 2.9 touts reworked support for Linux and dozens of other enhancements, perhaps the most significant advantage of moving to this version is the focus on product quality. The official kickoff of this version began with the launch of the "Open Beta" program in November 2006 and the introduction of a new, easier-to-use "Quality Control" center. Our developer community responded enthusiastically: over 800 customers put this version through everyday operations in a variety of settings, filing hundreds of reports and guiding the Runtime engineering team to the areas of concern most important to them. The result has been a marked improvement in satisfaction with this version compared to where we began.

An essential component of the quality initiative was regular "report cards" in the form of surveys measuring our progress against key elements comprising product quality. How did we do? Here's a look at a key part of those surveys:

The graph shows our testers give Revolution 2.9 higher marks in every category over earlier versions of the product. Using Revolution 2.7.4 as a baseline, our previous version - the well-received Revolution 2.8.1 - was about 20% better. Topping those results wasn't easy, but Revolution 2.9 weighs in at 35% better on average. According to real users, Revolution is faster, more robust, more powerful, and better documented than ever.

Why do our testers like this version so much? Here's a drill-down into what makes Revolution 2.9 so popular.

World-Class Documentation
The user guide has doubled in size, with all-new sections on databases, Unicode, XML and many other vital areas you want to know about. The Database Query Builder gets a much-needed demystification, making it easier for you to build database front-ends. There's a great section on how to deploy your solution as a standalone application. We show you how to use the debugging tools in Revolution to squash bugs in your code. And by popular request, there's a thorough look at working with the Internet. To use a program effectively, good information, instructions and tutorials are a must. We've really taken this to heart, with the vastly expanded user guide, as well as a host of new and revamped tutorials available on our all-new website.

Stability
This version addresses over 500 bugs and issues relative to 2.8.1, and more than a thousand fixes since the "Open Beta" initiative began after version 2.7.4. Addressing a long-standing limitation, Windows Remote Desktop support enables both the IDE and any runtimes built with Revolution 2.9 to be accessed remotely without visual artifacts, opening up the possibilities for custom utilities to manage common server tasks and remote operations. Revolution 2.9 features a completely renovated clipboard handling facility, with more reliable transfer of information and new commands to inspect and manipulate the contents of the clipboard.

One of our beta testers, Mark Weider, wrote, "With this release, thanks in part to the version management system that allows reversion to a previous release, in part to the long wonderfully-managed beta program, and mostly thanks to the effort the Rev team has put into the immense revision of some of the areas that affect me most, I'm quite happily diving head-first into the 2.9 release. I do feel that this is probably the most important release since version 2.1."

Resource Usage & Speed
As reported by beta testers, Revolution 2.9 is the fastest and leanest Revolution ever, with dramatically improved handling of graphics, image data, and other operations. Performance has been tuned across the board so your applications crunch data faster, present media more smoothly, and are more responsive. "Kudos to the whole team!" said developer Eric Chatonet. "Thanks for this great work, probably the best done since 2.6.1."

Thoughtful New Features
Of course a major new aspect of Revolution 2.9 is revamping Linux for feature parity with the other editions and making sure it looks fantastic with contemporary window managers. But there's a lot more to look forward to, whatever platform you use to author and deploy to. Revolution continues to expand the more than 1,600 commands in its lexicon with new key words that enable you to get things done more efficiently than ever. The new commands deliver productivity enhancements for building database front ends, manipulating arrays, and controlling the user experience. If you're looking to get projects done faster, then Revolution 2.9 is for you. Here is a rundown of new feature areas:

• Eight new commands enable you to target queries set up with the Database Query Builder tool. Choose the query you want to work with, jump to specific records, modify the SQL statement used in the query, update display of data, and more. This collection of commands makes it possible to perform most common database tasks without the need to get into low-level database scripting.
• More than 20 new and updated commands for printing give you a degree of control over reports and output not available before. Now you can programmatically specify every aspect of the print job. Complex jobs can be completely automated, the user experience is much more professional, and errors due to misconfiguration can be eliminated. Specify paperless output with PDF on Mac OS X and XPS on Windows Vista.
• Handy new operators like "begins with" and "ends with" help you generate more readable code and, like many other Revolution commands, save you the trouble of writing custom function with several lines of statements. You can also check whether a variable is an array or not, and use the "among the keys of" expression to scan arrays without the need for repeat loops.
• Integrate applications with Active Scripting. You can now use the "do ... as" command to manipulate applications that support the Active Scripting architecture in Windows, including Microsoft Office and Adobe applications. Now you can use both AppleScript on OS X, VB Script and JScript on Windows to manage workflow across multiple programs and enjoy greater control over the Windows operating system.

Now's the Time to Rejoin the Revolution
With Revolution 2.9, our aim was to eliminate any reason to use older versions of the software, and to give everyone else new reasons to consider Revolution as their cross-platform development platform of choice. If you want the highest-quality results and the confidence your solution will perform smoothly on virtually every desktop computer in use today, this is the version you need to use.

"Fantastic work. Many, many congratulations to everyone at RunRev," wrote user Ben Rubinstein. "I think we all have some idea of how much hard work has gone from all of you into this release. I think it's a really great one, with an excellent combination of new features and improvements; and I'm especially pleased that it will go to so many people to set the new base for everyone's experience of Rev."

We invite you to try a free trial version of Revolution today. Just click here to get started. And, as a special thank-you to the community, we're selling the professionally-printed copy of the manual at half-off until the end of April for those who purchase or renew their Revolution license.

There's never been a better time to get the best version of Revolution we've released.