Data and the Web

Hello everyone,

We're happy to announce that Kirix Strata Beta 8 is now available for download!

There's been lots of good work on Strata over the past month or so, with much of it focused on bug fixes and other tweaks for a better overall user experience. That said, here are a list of some of the bigger things we've tackled for Beta 8:

Data Conversion

We continue to try and make opening, saving, connecting to and integrating data as seamless as possible. We've taken another good step in this direction by enabling “Save As” to work between external database systems and external folders. So, for example, now you can do things like connect to a MySQL database and drag a table from there into an Oracle database system. This basically lets you copy tables from one system (or local folder) to another. And, of course, you can also do this same type of copying operation with data files already saved to your Strata project.

User Interface Enhancements

• We've done a lot more work on the Bookmarks toolbar. We're also delighted to finally have favicons in, which makes things feel slightly more “normal” when browsing and using bookmarks.
• The Project Manager has been given a very nice face lift and is far more usable than it was in Beta 7.

Report Writer

We've optimized the layout engine so that reports created with large data sets are now generated SIGNIFICANTLY faster.

Scripting

We've added the following functionality:

• Support for FTP and SFTP to push data back and forth. We're working on some example extensions that will make great use of this functionality.
• A new, improved ListView control.
• A HostPreferences class for storing and retrieving application and extension preferences.
• A HostApp.createPane() and HostApp.createDocument() so that forms can be added to the application as docked panels or documents.

As always, please take the new version for a spin and let us know what you think. Bug reports and all other feedback are more than welcome. Thanks!