clipper.htm

The Power of GUI At The Speed Of DOS For DOS And LAN Environments

Application Development For The Professional Developer

CA-Clipper is a complete application development system that can be customized to fit real-life operational requirements. Its powerful, intuitive environment is the foundation for rapid delivery of applications that precisely fit the business needs of professional developers.

Taking xBASE To The Max

Developers of mission-critical or "line-of-business" applications place greater demands on development systems. Dependability, security, integrity and performance must all be lifted to new levels. As applications get more complex, development tools must be able to manage this complexity.

As they deal with larger data volumes and transaction rates, systems must be able to handle the load. The technological foundation of the language and database must meet the demands of complex systems, and development tools must not only allow, but actively aid the developer in constructing a higher quality of application.

CA-Clipper applications can now support graphics mode.

Protecting Your Investment

DOS is a key operating platform for many XBASE users, and for many users it is likely to remain the standard. Even organizations that decide to migrate to GUI platforms will need to operate in a mixed environment. DOS is a strategic, efficient operating system, and CA-Clipper is the strategic XBASE development system of choice for DOS developers.

Today's professional developer faces a critical challenge: to rapidly deploy and maintain applications in the midst of constant change. CA-Clipper arms developers with an optimal balance of power, productivity and flexibility. The result is effective applications built to adapt to inevitable change.

CA-Clipper consists of a robust programming language, efficient linkers, a flexible preprocessor, a high-performance compiler, a source-level debugger, and superior programming utilities. Together, these elements form a complete system for the development and distribution of PC and LAN-based applications.

CA-Clipper Brings New Excitement To DOS Development

The CA-Clipper® Workbench

CA-Clipper features a Windows-based IDE (Integrated Development Environment). This IDE fully supports the CA-Clipper language and provides an easy-to-use development environment for the creation of CA-Clipper applications.

With CA-Clipper, you can debug DOS applications from within the Windows environment.

The CA-Clipper Workbench IDE will familiarize you with the CA-Visual Objects™ IDE, thereby serving as a stepping stone in the move toward Windows development using CA-Visual Objects. The CA-Clipper Workbench features:

DOS Development Under Windows
The Workbench allows you to work on CA-Clipper applications and libraries in a GUI environment, while keeping the sources in external PRG files. It provides the ability to browse the sources and edit them from within the IDE, while continuing to let you use your favorite DOS or Windows editor.

Automatic Build And Make Facility
The Workbench has an automatic Build and Make facility which processes the source code and creates dependency information. This information is then used internally to build compile and link scripts. The compiler and linker options for the programs are entered through GUI dialog boxes. They are also saved for all future build and link operations. Errors from the compile and link cycle are returned to the user through the error browser.

The Clipper Debugger
You can debug your application from within the IDE. When an application is launched from the debugger, a DOS-box is opened where the application executes. However, the debugger runs within the IDE and its GUI interface is used to debug the application. Various debugging features, such as single stepping, stepping to cursor, setting and deleting breakpoints, viewing the stack, viewing workareas, etc., are supported. If you do not wish to debug under Windows, CLD, the CA-Clipper DOS debugger, is still provided with the product for developers wishing to debug applications in DOS.

CA-Clipper features a Windows-based IDE.

Form And Menu Editors
The form editor lets you define character-based forms for CA-Clipper applications. These forms can have checkboxes, listboxes, push buttons, etc. to enable you to build better DOS applications. The Form Editor then generates code to display the form using the GET system. The menu editor behaves similarly. These tools let the CA-Clipper developer build the front-ends for their applications quickly.

Graphics-Mode Support

CA-Clipper, in cooperation with D.F.L. Software, now provides graphics-mode support in CA-Clipper applications with the VGA version of Light Lib Graphics. The incorporation of graphics support allows DOS applications to have the look and feel of a GUI program. You can display bitmaps, fonts and a host of elegant GUI objects including push buttons, scroll bars, listboxes, etc. With the inclusion of these new GUI objects, your CA-Clipper applications will be even more user-friendly than ever before.

Full Mouse Support

CA-Clipper fully incorporates mouse support. For example, mouse support is now integrated in the GET/READ system and the debugger, as well as the INKEY( ) function for event detection and handling.

Protected-Mode Development

We recognized the need for creating protected mode applications, so ExoSpace™ was installed into CA-Clipper as an add-on linker, making it available to all CA-Clipper developers. We have taken this a step further by integrating ExoSpace into the base CA-Clipper product. Now you can create and run CA-Clipper DOS applications in either real or protected mode.

Real-Mode Blinker

Blinker, the highly rated linker from Blink, Inc., has been integrated into CA-Clipper as its real-mode linker. Using Blinker, you can create real-mode CA-Clipper applications faster than ever before.

Additional Changes

In addition to such popular objects as TBrowse and Get, CA-Clipper now includes new, reusable user interface objects, such as check- boxes, listboxes, radio buttons, push buttons, scroll bars, menu items and menu bars, etc.

With its high-performance, language extensions and open architecture, CA-Clipper is the premier application development solution for programmers worldwide.

Get Class Enhancements
The GET/READ system has been enhanced to make it aware of new forms and menu objects, and now provides the ability to tie a message to each Get field. Other enhancements include:

Mouse Support

Accelerator Key Support

Message/Status Bar

TopBar Menu Integration

New Gets: @GET CHECKBOX, @GET LISTBOX, @GET PUSHBUTTON, @GET TBROWSE, etc.

New Get class functions, including Caption, Get:CapRow, Get:CapCol, Get:Message, Get:HitTest( )

TBrowse Enhancements
New TBrowse class functions include:

TBrowse:Border

TBrowse:ColorSpec

TBrowse:mRowPos

TBrowse:mColPos

TBrowse:HitTest( )

TBrowse:SetKey( )

TBrowse:ApplyKey( )

TBrowse:SetStyle( )

Upgrade of Microsoft C

CA-Clipper has been upgraded to Microsoft C 8.0. This upgrade switches from alternate to emulator floating-point support, enabling CA-Clipper to utilize a math coprocessor if present.

Note that with this new release, you still get all the functionality of CA-Clipper 5.2 (for example, command-line compiling and linking, DBU, etc.) so you can mix and match the toolset as your needs require.

The new IDE not only provides a more powerful development environment for all users, it makes CA-Clipper easier to learn for new users. It will productively continue your CA-Clipper development while serving as a stepping stone in the move toward CA-Visual Objects for future Windows development.

Planning For The Future

CA-Clipper provides the perfect growth path to CA-Visual Objects. With CA-Clipper you can create well-structured programs that move easily to the world of GUIs and full object-orientation under CA-Visual Objects. Since CA-Clipper shares a common toolset with the CA-Visual Objects IDE, we've provided a way for you to learn the new toolset while productively continuing your CA-Clipper development, and then turn that knowledge into an immediate gain when you move to Windows development projects with CA-Visual Objects.

By providing convenient and dependable ways of using third-party components, CA-Visual Objects gives any developer a quick and easy way of building very powerful systems. Combined with the visual development tools, CA-Visual Objects is an efficient and productive tool that richly rewards the investment in learning a few new concepts.

The Right Solution For...

In-House Application Developers
With its high-performance, language extensions and open architecture, CA-Clipper is a robust tool for development of mission-critical applications. Its enhanced performance, security and integrity make it the clear choice to meet the accelerating demands of corporate developers.

Furthermore, with a dependable, proven method of code customization, corporate developers will find CA-Clipper a better way of managing code from third-party developers and consultants. This combines the economic benefits of buying off-the-shelf software products with the flexibility of custom development.

As applications get more complex, the development tools must be able to manage their complexity.

Third-Party Product Developers
The open architecture of CA-Clipper lays a foundation that has created a robust industry of third-party developers of tools and extensions for CA-Clipper, and vertical products built with the system. CA's commitment to continue this openness ensures that this industry continues to thrive. CA's object-oriented development systems provide additional opportunities to market tools and solutions in the form of class libraries.

The OOP world is an open world, providing many opportunities to market "plug-in" tools. In particular, vertical solutions can be packaged as class libraries, letting the independent software vendor (ISV) deliver a powerful solution while giving the client full development flexibility. In effect, this reduces the difference between development tools and vertical solutions, leading to a class of products that might be called "vertical development tools."

Consultants And Custom Developers
The consultants and custom developers who use CA-Clipper to build business solutions can continue within an even more open architecture, knowing that any database interface, for example, can be built under the public RDD specification. CA-Clipper is supported by productive solutions designed to provide users with maximum development capabilities: