What's New - IntraWeb 6.0

This is a overview of the major features that are new to IntraWeb 6.0. IntraWeb 6.0 like its predecessors is a major jump forward in technology and provides for many new exciting and powerful features.

IntraWeb 6.0 is a free upgrade for subscribers who are current at release date of each release. It is not a free upgrade to users of the Delphi 7 bundled version.

Download IntraWeb 6.0 now!

Partial / Progressive Page Updates

This is probably one of the most powerful features of IntraWeb 6.0. One of the biggest problems of any web based application is that for every user interaction the complete page must be refreshed. If the page is large, this resets the user position to the top left of the page, uses bandwidth, and also creates a flashing effect as the page is re rendered.

IntraWeb 6.0 updates only the portions of the page that have changed. If an application has a form with dozens of buttons, labels and other controls, but the users action only causes 2 controls to be changed, only those two controls will be updated. This drastically lowers the bandwidth requirements, eliminates the re render flash, and keeps the user positioned on the same location in the page.

This feature brings web applications one huge step closer to performing like a rich native GUI application.

Scrollable Regions

Each TWIRegion (similar to TPanel) can now support scrollbars at run time.

Many Small Improvements

This list contains the major new features planned for IntraWeb 6.0, however IntraWeb 6.0 also contains many small and medium enhancements to existing functionality and components.

Connection Speed Simulation

Want to know how your application will perform on slow connections? IntraWeb 6.0 allows you to throttle your connection speed using the debug console to simulate slower connections from ADSL speeds, all the way down to a 300 baud modem. Using this feature you can test the speed and responsiveness of your application at real world speeds.

Server Side Resizing

Window size information for the users browser is now available on the server side for more dynamic resizing. This combined with a server side resize event allows for maximum control. Aligns, anchors, and templates. Server side events allow custom handling of browser resizing when something more specific is required without requiring the developer to resort to custom and error prone Javascript. This feature also allows forms to be adjusted to completely different formats for different user screen configurations instead of just simply resizing controls. For example, on a wide screen two grids might be positioned side by side, but if a low resolution system is detected, the grids can be repositioned vertically.

IWP Mode

IWP files are an expansion to page mode that allow easier deployment, and URL linking among pages. IWP files also integrate with common content management systems such as FogCreek's CityDesk.

Templates with TIWRegion and TFrame

TIWRegion and TFrame can now optionally specify their own templates to be included with the form template (if templates are used) for maximum reusability.

SSL On Demand

SSL requires a fair amount of CPU power for both the client and server. Entering and exiting from an SSL page also causes most browsers to provide the end user with warning or status dialogs. IntraWeb 6.0 allows you to enter an application in normal mode, and switch in and out of SSL as needed. This allows you to deploy an application without SSL, but require SSL for only specific forms in an application instead of the entire application.

.Net Common Code Base

IntraWeb/VCL has been merged with the IntraWeb for ASP.NET code base and now shares a large amount of common code. The components also share a common API, which means that if Delphi is used to implement components, DCCIL can be used to allow those components to work with IntraWeb/VCL or IntraWeb.net. IntraWeb for ASP.NET and IntraWeb for VCL are separate products, however it is very likely that we will provide special pricing for cross grades, and bundles.

HTTP Compression

For browsers that support HTTP compression, IntraWeb now can compress the HTTP data.

Improvements to Aligns / Anchors

Many improvements have been made to allow aligns and anchors to work better.

Fonts Now Use Pixels

Fonts in IntraWeb 6.0 are rendered using pixels instead of points. This provides for more accurate rendering and eliminates problems with users who alter their font sizes.

RGB Entry in Color Property Editor

The color property editor now supports direct RGB entry.