Version 5

Change History for AppStudio 5 -- Not yet released!

If you own a previous version of AppStudio, you need to buy the upgrade to use Version 5. You can do this from within the app or from our order form.

Until you have bought the upgrade, you can use AppStudio 5 in Demo mode. Once you buy, your copy will convert automatically to the full version.

Version 5.0.0

Major New Features

1. IE 11 is now supported.
2. Responsive Design
3. Windows Design Screen is faster and smoother.
4. Ten new controls

IDE - General

1. About Dialog: reformatted.
2. Find: Opens with "Find What" selected.
3. General: Look and feel of IDE updated - new buttons
4. Help: can now display HTML formatted text.
5. Open Sample: Find option added.
6. Open Sample: Now allows nested folders, for better organization
7. Open Sample: Samples are now sorted case insensitively.
8. Project properties: New styleheader property saves your styling rules.
9. Properties Window: ChangeForm and firstform now have pickers.
10. Properties Window: Events set properly on control copy and paste.
11. Run menu: Improved menu names.
12. Save: Saving a project no longer changes the Project ID.
13. Startup: Projects with deprecated controls will get a message when loading is attempted.
14. Startup: Splash screen on Mac OS startup no longer required.
15. Startup: When project reopened, tabs are all reopened and same one returned to.
16. Tools Menu: New option to convert a BASIC project to JavaScript.
17. View menu: new option to close all tabs.
18. Installer: Checks if IE11 is installed on Windows
19. Installer: Modifies registry so IE11 recognizes AppStudio.

Code Window

1. Code Window: 'error' is no longer auto capitalized.
2. Code Window: Code converted to JS is now beautified.
3. Code Window: Error when typing 'screen.' fixed.
4. Code Window: function dropdown button replaced by Function List in Toolbox.
5. Code Window: JSONP files are now edited as JSON files.
6. Code Window: Now shows an alpha list of functions and subs.
7. Code Window: Problem with auto indentation fixed.
8. Code Window: ToolTips now appear for user functions.

Design Screen

1. Design Screen: controls are relative if their parent is.
2. Design Screen: Double click opens Code Window.
3. Design Screen: Dump wxWebkit. Now smaller, faster.
4. Design Screen: Internally uses IE to render controls.
5. Design Screen: Paste now shows on the right click menu.
6. Design Screen: Right click to lock it from changes.
7. Design Screen: Snap to grid is now gray, not black.

Project Explorer

1. Project Explorer: Delete file now has confirmation message.
2. Project Explorer: Folders can now be dragged and dropped.
3. Project Explorer: JSON files can now be dragged and dropped.
4. Project Explorer: SQLite databases can now be dragged and dropped.
5. Project Explorer: Warning if drag and drop of existing file.

Language

1. Ajax() can now have a callback as a second argument.
2. Ajax() can now take an object for its parameters.
3. Ajax() now supports a fail callback.
4. Case normalization is now handled in Code Window
5. Case normalization moved out of hfunc.js, killing hundreds of lines of code.
6. ChangeForm() now supports visual effects.
7. Language version bumped. Existing projects will take longer to compile first time they are run using the new version.
8. Map is now a keyword.
9. Overlay() function deleted - it was obsolete.
10. ReadFile() can now be used asynchronously.
11. Referencing a control by name itself will return its value.
12. Referencing a control by name will return a numeric if possible.
13. Style/End Style deprecated. See 'Breaking Changes'.
14. NSBCurrentForm changed to NSB.currentForm.
15. Arrays no longer have to be declared in all modules.

Toolbox

1. All: -webkit prefix removed from css.
2. All: Border properties are now consistant.
3. All: BorderColor and BorderWidth added all controls with borders.
4. All: Bounds can now be 'inherit' and 'initial'.
5. All: Disabled property fixed.
6. All: font selectors normalized.
7. All: HTML output for borders streamlined.
8. All: New onresize event.
9. All: New transitions: fadeIn, fadeOut, slideUp, slideDown.
10. All: no longer load function code they don't use.
11. All: Toolbox definitions can now share property definitions.
12. All: Updated to work with IE11.
13. Camera: value can now be set at Design Time.
14. New: Container control for text, html and other controls.
15. Date and Time: appearance improved.
16. Dialog is now on top of scroll bars.
17. Facebook: unneeded font property removed.
18. Functions for AppStudio's controls moved from complexfunctions.js to nsbFunctions.js.
19. Functions for jqMobile controls moved from complexfunctions.js to jqmFunctions.js.
20. Functions for jqWidget controls moved from complexfunctions.js to jqxFunctions.js.
21. Generic: Deprecated - replaced by Container.
22. Grid: .cellstyle can be read at runtime.
23. Grid: .colWidths can be read at runtime.
24. Grid: Cells add at runtime are formatted with cellstyle.
25. Grid: fix alignment style bug on first column.
26. Grid: styling moved from complexfunctions to nsbstyle.css.
27. Help now has pointers to Wiki.
28. HTMLview: Emitted code improved.
29. HTMLView: fix warning from Safari.
30. HTMLview: Percentage widths fixed.
31. NSB.MsgBox: Appearance improved on RTL systems.
32. NSB.MsgBox: formatting error with two buttons fixed.
33. NSB.MsgBox: iOS 6 style MsgBoxes are gone.
34. NSB.MsgBox: now handles former _msgbox_confirm function.
35. NSB.ShowProgress is now modal.
36. PayPal: Allows user specified image.
37. PayPal: Only deploy image which is used, not all four.
38. Toolbox: Now has a Find area on the bottom.
39. Toolbox: Right click now opens proper Wiki page for all controls.

Forms

1. Background renamed backgroundImage.
2. Borders can be specified.
3. Controls copy and pasted to new forms are not repositioned.
4. Form submit properties removed from Toolbox.
5. Forms are now a <div> element, not <form>
6. Forms can now have bounds in percentages (if fullScreen is false).
7. New BackgroundColor property.
8. New BorderColor property.
9. New BorderWidth property.
10. New modal property: can make form float modally over rest of app.
11. New parentForm property.
12. New position property. Can be absolute, fixed, etc. Good for Responsive Design.
13. New visual effects: fadeIn, fadeOut, slideUp, slideDown.

Runtime

1. Comments between forms added to output code.
2. Indenting of code improved.
3. Main div renamed to NSBPage from Page_jqm.
4. Needless blank lines removed.
5. Output code cleaned up.
6. Return value of function renamed returnValue (was savethefunction_rval)
7. ReturnValue not created if function does not return a value.
8. CSS files moved to head for faster rendering.
9. Generated code reformatted by JSBeautify.

Deploy

1. Cache: error message improved.
2. Cache: Mime types set on local server - Some Windows systems set incorrectly.
3. Cache: New global NSB.cacheStatus is available to your app.
4. Cache: User now prompted before web app is updated.
5. Check Deployment: Additional checking added.
6. Native Build Status: Auto refresh every 3 seconds.
7. Native Build Status: Links added for iOS 'Error' message.
8. Native Build Status: Links added to Tech Note for app stores.
9. Native Build Status: Refresh button deleted.
10. nsb folder: User image in nsb caused problems uploading to nsbapp.com fixed.
11. PhoneGap: CLI progress window can now be closed.
12. PhoneGap: Config.xml no longer gets deployed (It's only for PhoneGap)
13. PhoneGap: Default configxml updated.
14. PhoneGap: New PhoneGap Camera sample.
15. PhoneGap: Project Location build uses Auth Token.
16. PhoneGap: Splashscreen is now automatically added to manifest.
17. PhoneGap: splashscreen property now uses image picker.
18. PHP: Umlauts (and other extended characters) are now OK in PHP files.
19. Preferences: Static localhost port# added.
20. Project Explorer: Entire folders can be dragged and dropped.
21. Project Explorer: JSON files can be dragged and dropped for deploy.
22. Project Explorer: SQLite databases can be dragged and dropped for deploy.
23. Run: from local filesystem uses default browser.
24. Run: Local deploy is to 127.0.0.1 instead of localhost to deal with poorly configured systems.
25. Run: Local deploy pathnames can now have spaces.

jQuery Mobile Framework

1. All: jQuery Mobile 1.3 controls and samples have been removed.
2. All: Toolbox files tweaked for proper display in IE11.
3. Button, List: Text appearance improved.
4. Button: Groups now have ID numbers.
5. Icons now draw more sharply.
6. New: Collapsible control shows popup text.
7. Panel: icon now drawn correctly.
8. Select: addItem can now accept multiple items
9. TextArea: Added maxlength property.

jqWidgets Framework

1. All: controls now have hidden, disabled, theme and rtl properties.
2. All: Design settings are available at runtime in the NSB.jqxSettings[id] array.
3. All: Functions for jqx controls moved from complexfunctions.js to jqxFunctions.js.
4. All: Remove jqxSettings_ variables from global namespace. Now in NSB.jqxSettings["controlName"]
5. All: Toolbox files have been streamlined.
6. Checkbox: Icon updated.
7. Menu: wrong height on pulldown fixed.
8. New themes: Android, Web, Bootstrap, Metro and Office.
9. New: DateTimeInput control.
10. New: Docking control.
11. New: Editor control.
12. New: MaskedInput control.
13. New: NavigationBar control.
14. New: PasswordInput control.
15. New: Validator control.
16. New: Window control.
17. Samples: Numerous fixes to samples.

iWebKit Framework

1. All iWebKit controls and samples have been removed.

Samples

1. All samples updated to use the new release.
2. Desktop files for WebSockets samples moved to Wiki in zip format.
3. Fix incorrect default splashscreen paths.
4. Many updates and fixes.
5. New Collapsable sample.
6. New Modal sample.
7. New PhoneGap Camera sample.
8. New samples for all the new jqWidgets controls.
9. Samples are now organized into subdirectories.
10. Update Ajax samples to use asynchronous calls.

Documentation

1. TechNotes: New Responsive Design Made Simple

Internals

1. Internals: PyV8 no longer used.
2. Internals: wxWebkit is no longer used.
3. Internals: wxPython updated to 3.0.0.
4. Internals: node.js now now used for translation and syntax checking.
5. Internals: PyInstaller is now used to create Mac installer instead of Py2App.
6. Internals: Complexfunctions and hfunc cleaned up using jshint.
7. Internals: Complexfunctions and hfunc reformatted.
8. Internals: exception handling improved.
9. Internals: FastClick updated to 1.0.6

Breaking Changes

1. Form submit() removed from Toolbox. Ajax is a better way to do this.
2. Windows XP is no longer supported. Microsoft is no longer issuing security patches. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-ca/windows/end-support-help
3. Internet Explorer 11 is now a prerequisite on Windows systems.
4. iOS 6 style MsgBoxes have been updated to current style.
5. Style/End Style is no longer supported. Putting styling rules inline in code is messy and can cause performance problems. Copy the code inside your Style/End Style blocks and paste into the new styleheader Project property. It will then be put in the correct place at runtime.
6. iWebKit and jQuery Mobile 1.3 are no longer supported
7. jqWidgets: settings variable renamed from controlName_setting to NSB.jqxSettings["controlName"]
8. NSBCurrentForm replaced by NSB.currentForm