XI: IntraWeb 11 is now IntraWeb XI

XI: IntraWeb 11 is now IntraWeb XI

It is more than a name change. In fact, its because of the other changes that we felt we had to change the naming to signify those changes.

Important Update

This post has been superceded by a later post.

Overview

Our original plans for IntraWeb 11 are just too big to perform inone step. During the beta, we still need to maintain 10, and overall itwould prolong the development. Because of this, we have decided tosplit the original plans into IntraWeb 11, and IntraWeb 12. IntraWeb 11will be a major change in our development process moving forward.

IntraWeb XI

To differentiate this, it will be called IntraWeb XI (11 in romannumerals).

We wanted to avoid the confusing mess that some companies havecreated with version identifiers (Windows 3, 3.1 numbers, 95, 98, ME,XP, Vista, and finally back to numbers again, 7), but still somehowsignify that XI is not just the next version of IntraWeb, but a majorchange.

IntraWeb XII

IntraWeb XII is the next version after XI and will contain theintegrationwith CrossTalk and ASP.NET. IntraWeb XI lays the groundwork for thismajor step and will allow us to spend less time on maintenanceversus IntraWeb 10.

Goals

The goals of IntraWeb XI are as follows:

  • Simplified code base for easier maintenance
  • Very high level of compatibility with IntraWeb 10
  • Provide foundation for IntraWeb XII

Discontinued Features

IntraWeb XI will discontinue many older features to allow us tocleanthe code base. Because there aresome users using some of the discontinued features, unlike previousreleases, IntraWeb 10 will continue to be supported after IntraWeb XIis released for these features.

Discontinued – WAP and HTML 3.2

Both of these features have been mature for several years. Whilethey are supported up through IntraWeb 10, no major changes to theirfunctionality has been made since their introduction to IntraWebseveral years ago. A few users do use these features, but they addcomplexity to the code base. WAP and HTML 3.2 users will continue to besupported with our extended support of IntraWeb 10.

Discontinued – Older Browsers

We have yet to decide on what the minimum browser standards will befor IntraWeb XI. However currently we are investigating the following:

  • Firefox 2, possibly 3.0
  • Internet Explorer 7, or possibly6. – IE 6 is waning quickly in usage in favor of 7 and 8. By thetime IntraWeb XI is released, IE 6’s numbers are expected to be veryminimal. In addition, there are several active web campaigns to eliminate supportfor IE 6.
  • Opera

Discontinued – Development Environments

IntraWeb 10 supports Delphi 5 to Delphi 2010 (except Delphi 8), andC++ Builder 5 through CDS 2010. At a minimum we know that we mustsupport Delphi 7. Supporting Delphi 6 and Delphi 5 do not require muchextra effort, but do complicate the build process quite significantly.Our proposed development environment support for IntraWeb XI is asfollows. Users of discontinued environments will still be supported forIntraWeb 10. IntraWeb 10 is not being “end of lifed”.

Version Delphi C++
5 No No 6 Maybe No 7 Yes
N/A 8 No N/A 2005 No No 2006 Yes Yes 2007 Yes Yes 2009 Yes Yes 2010 Yes Yes

These are the proposed supported environments. If there is enoughdemand for ones marked as “no”, they will be re-examined.

Discontinued – Client Side Data Sets (Completed)

These are not the VCL CSDS, but the IntraWeb ones. These use anolder technology, that we will replace at a later time using newerfunctionality now available in browsers.

Discontinued – Client Side Charts (Completed)

For the same reason as Client Side Data Sets.

Discontinued – umPartial (Completed)

umPartial was many years ahead of its time. Even today umPartial cando many things that AJAX cannot. However maintaining twoimplementations has grown quite complex. From IntraWeb XI and forward,we will continue to upgrade our AJAX support so that it can match allthe features of umPartial and also remain more powerful than other AJAXimplementations.

Discontinued – Page Mode (Completed)

We are considering discontinuing the existing page mode for a newermore modern page mode with more features and better integration withapplication mode.

Discontinued – Apache DSO (Completed)

CodeGear discontinued it a long time ago and we only “unofficially”support it now, now we will fully discontinue it. Further, Apache cannow run ISAPI DLLs.

Discontinued – DynGrid (Completed)

The DynGrid depended on client side datasets (discontinued) and willbe replaced with an enhanced Silverlight based control.

Discontinued – Tracking Options (Completed)

IntraWeb 10 supports tmURL, tmHidden, and tmCookie. When thetracking options were first designed, most websites did not use cookiesand many users explicitly blocked all cookies. Browsers and websiteshave matured, and on today’s Internet, cookies are much more common. Inthose days, many users also completely disabled Javascript. BothJavascript and cookies are essential to the modern Internet. Users whowhich to control cookies, control them with granularity by monitoringthem, rather than restricting all. Corporations, instead of applyingblanket policies, enforce URL based restrictions.

Using cookies to track sessions allows IntraWeb to implement manymore features, including a better page mode that is integrated withapplication mode, and URL mapping. Because of this, all sessions inIntraWeb XI will be tracked using cookies.

Some users used tmHidden or tmURL to allow single users to runmultiple sessions in separate tabs or windows. tmCookie does not allowthis. We are aware of this need, and will provide a low impact solutionthat will preserve this capability for those developers that requirethis.

What’s New?

Some users may be wondering about all the discontinued features. Butnot to worry, there will be many new features as well in addition tothe new sleeker cleaner code base.

New – Code Cleanup and Streamlining (Completed)

Despite the fact that IntraWeb some time ago dropped support forKylix, Visual Studio.NET, and Delphi.NET there are still many IFDEFstatements and extra code left over. We generally left them because wedid not want to risk changing working code. As part if IntraWeb XI wewill remove this extra code, and refactor many areas to be much simplernow that we can focus exclusively on native VCL.

New – Custom Session Tracking

For developers requiring multiple sessions per user, we will createa custom session tracking option that will require minimal coding toimplement. We envision only a few events on the Server Controller willneed to be implemented.

New – WebKit support

We are going to explicitly support WebKit based browsers like Chromeand Safari.

New – HTML 5 Base

HTML 5 is not official yet and still changing quite a bit. HoweverIntraWeb XI will be prepped to be ready for HTML 5.

New – Language Specific Versions

We plan to target specific countries and languages with localpricing. For example, we may produce a version of IntraWeb that canonly serve Russian content, but available at a localized prices forRussian speaking economies. We will target several languages, likelyRussian, Chinese, and others. Spanish and Portuguese are moredifficult, because they are used in both Western European countries aswell as developing countries.

New – Silverlight Enabled Controls

For many years we have wanted to create “super” controls. Weexperimented with both Java and Flash. However for many reasons wefound the path undesirable. Silverlight finally enables us to movetoward this path. Use of Silverlight will be optional, and IntraWeb XIapplications will still be able to be developed which do not requireSilverlight.

New – Website (Completed)

The complete Atozed website is being redeveloped from scratch. Wewill keep the general design and layout, however the content is beingreworked from scratch. Other parts of the Atozed site have already beencompleted. Next is the IntraWeb section.

New – Language Support

We plan to specifically target Portuguese, Spanish, and Chinese inaddition to English with website content, documentation, and eventuallysupport.

New – Page Mode

A new more modern page mode that allows finer grained control andbetter integration with application mode.