ODABA Releases TODBMS and Tools 12.1.1
The latest version of the Terminology-Oriented Database Management System (TODBMS) ODABA has been released on Thursday, June 26th, 2012. The release mainly is a 12.1 bug-fix release. Besides, it provides some minor extensions for the ODABA kernel and the GUI framework. Documentation for GUI framework has been improved (designer reference documentation).
Detailed changes (ODABA)
Some minor changes have been made to the system interface. OSI interface classes have been added in order to support file access and specific system functionality from within OSI functions. Minor changes have been made in the ODABA API.
ODABA Database kernel (base)
ODABA now supports two additional OSI interface classes in order to support file access and other special functions from within OSI functions. Some new features have been added and several bugs have been removed from the database kernel.
- Improved exception handling in OSI functions
- ODABA API
- Document generator support for tables
- Initalizing and maintaining generic indexes for generic attributes has been improved.
- Extended resource search for expressions and data type definitions
- FileHandle support has been provided for OSI functions
- SystemClass support by OSI
Exceptions are passed to caller properly, when no ON_ERROR block has been defined within an OSI function that raises an exception.
The function initialize was renamed to initializeAttributes.
In order to limit the number of instances to be listen for a table call, table templates may receive a count of instances to be listed.
Besides searching the dictionary, resources are also searched in the resource database when being defined in the data source.
Now, one may refer to a number of file handle functions supported by the OSI FileHandle interface. The interface is simple and can easily be expanded when it is not sufficient.
Now, OSI functions may refer to several functions provided in system class.
ODABA Application Program Interface (base/opa)
Besides changes in the system API, which do not affect application programs, some minor changes have been made in the API:
- Property::initialize() – function renamed to initializeAttributes()
Detailed changes (ODE)
ODABA 12.1.1 provides several new control styles for the GUI framework and releases calendar controls. Moreover, a number of bugs have been removed, which are reported in the change logs and handling of international strings has been completed.
The GUI framework and ODE tools provide additional and extended features. Several bug fixes have been made.
New features have been provided for ODE tools and GUI framework in order to support generic features like search and update when running applications. Besides, several bugs have been removed, which are reported in the change log.
GUI Framework (gui)
ODABA 12.1.1 provides new control types and added some features to other control types. Several bugs has been removed, which are reported in the change logs.
New features provided with this version are:
- Calendar controls (day(s) and month calendar) have been released
- New control types Slider and SpinBox are supported
- List views support list and image mode
- Qt style sheets (.qss) are supported, which allow changing the application style individually
ODE tools (ode)
Some extensions have been provided for GUI framework and ODE tools. Besides, several bugs have been removed, which are reported in the change log.
- All GUI framework applications
- GUI framework application's layout might be changed by Qt style sheet files (.qss).
- Default actions for dynamic list selection (SetSelection, ResetSelection) have been provided in order to provide ad-hoc filter conditions for the currently selected collection (property).
- Default action UpdateEntries for updating selected or all instances in a collection is supported by entering OSI expressions or functions.
- Designer
- Designer supports control styles DayCalendar and MonthCalendar. Moreover, two new control types (Slider and SpinBox) are supported.
- List views support image view mode in order to display resizeable images.
- Additional control properties might be set for list views
- ODE tools
- Notice forms got several line colors depending on notice states.
ODABA Documentation
Documentation has been extended. Especially, documentation for Designer's style reference has been improved. If anybody needs specific topics or areas to be documented, we will consider this in our documentation priority list.
Installing ODABA
ODABA, including applications and libraries, is available for free under Open Source licenses (GPL). ODABA runs on various hardware configurations, operating systems and works on many desktop environments. ODABA can be obtained as source code distribution and in various binary formats from http://sourceforge.net/downloads/odaba/
Previous Releases
When running ODABA 11.x.x, no upgrade is necessary. When still using ODABA 10.x.x, resource databases and databases referring to ODABA system data types need to be upgraded. Details about how to call a database upgrade are described in the readme file for the ODABA 11.0.0 installation.
With the release of ODABA 12.1.1 we declare the end of live for all previous released ODABA versions. Bug fixes on 11.2.1 version are provided on demand.
System Requirements
In order to get the most out of this release, we recommend to use a recent computer with at least 1 GB of memory and 2 GHz CPU or better. In order to install the binaries, about 100 MB are required. Installing sources requires about 50 MB. 80 MB are required in addition, when installing the documentation locally.
About RUN-Software
RUN-Software develops database management system ODABA and tools since 1994. Besides general and particular software solutions, RUN-Software publishes theoretical works about database theory and terminology in connection with data modeling.