Release Overview
Version 6.0

Thin Client Enhancements

Socket encryption and data compression

Data encryption and compression are now performed by our internal socket layer. This enhancement standardizes encryption and compression operations across Acucorp's product line. The runtime configuration variables that implement these operations must be set before any socket communication occurs. Note that they cannot be changed via the SET ENVIRONMENT statement. For information about the AGS_SOCKET_ENCRYPT and AGS_SOCKET_COMPRESS configuration variables, please refer to section 6.3.1, "Configuring the Remote Application Runtime," in the AcuConnect User's Guide.

W$KEYBUF support

The W$KEYBUF library routine is modified in Version 6.0 for thin client support. In particular, OP-CODEs 7, 8, and 9 behave differently in the thin client environment from the standard Windows runtime. For details about these OP-CODES, refer to section 8.6.3, "W$KEYBUF Library Routine," in the AcuConnect User's Guide and Appendix I in Book 4, ACUCOBOL-GT Appendices.

W$BITMAP enhancement

The W$BITMAP library routine is enhanced with new operations that load a bitmap file as an ImageList. An ImageList is a data type that represents one or more images. It is often used by ActiveX® controls that can show images. The new feature provides a simplified way to load and destroy ImageLists in a thin client configuration.

Use the new W$BITMAP operations WBITMAP-LOAD-IMAGELIST and WBITMAP-DESTROY-IMAGELIST to load and destroy ImageLists. For details about these two operations, refer to section 7.2.3, "Installing ActiveX Files," in the AcuConnect User's Guide and Appendix I in Book 4, ACUCOBOL-GT Appendices.

CREATE verb support

Thin client support for the CREATE verb is available in Version 6.0. This verb lets users create a new instance of an Automation Server, or OLE, object on the client. Note that server-side creation is not supported.

Performance improvements

AcuConnect Version 6.0 includes some enhancements designed to improve thin client performance.

Use of the tree view control ITEM-TO-ADD property no longer requires a network round trip for each item added to the control. The thin client does not send an acknowledgement message to the server. The server assumes that the item was successfully added to the tree view control.

In another improvement involving the tree view control, a new TC_TV_SELCHANGING configuration variable controls the frequency with which Msg-Tv-Selchanging events are passed between the client and the server. Different values for this variable allow users to suppress the generation of the message event to varying degrees. Details about this configuration variable can be found in section 6.3.1, "Configuring the Remote Application Runtime," in the AcuConnect User's Guide and Appendix H in Book 4, ACUCOBOL-GT Appendices.

The compiler produces some internal data items to hold intermediate values when a Screen Section USING, TO, or FROM data item is indexed or reference modified. This behavior is slightly improved to use the same intermediate item when both the FROM and TO items refer to the same data item, consuming slightly less memory. With this enhancement, a program with a Screen Section that stores its values in tables may be able to use the performance benefit of a lower TC_CONTROL_SYNC_LEVEL configuration setting when you are running in thin client. For information about this configuration variable, please refer to section 6.3.1, "Configuring the Remote Application Runtime," in the AcuConnect User's Guide.

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