Hi all,

I've put out Release Candidate 1 for Web Connection 6.0 last night. This means this version is feature complete at this point and there won't be anymore changes other than bug fixes and minor adjustments based on feedback. What's left to do at this point is cleaning up and adding more samples (the samples are being reworked - fewer but better organized hopefully) and there are a few outstanding issues related to installation and the various Wizards. Otherwise this release is pretty much production ready.

You can download the latest shareware release from here:

http://west-wind.com/webconnection/download.aspx

If you're a registered user of Web Connection 5.50 you should have gotten an email to access the registered RC1 one version to download along with a download link. Although the RC1 is available for you to try, Version 6.0 RTM and beyond will be a paid upgrade to Version 5.x users unless you have purchased Web Connection within the last year in which case the upgrade is free.

Make sure you check out the new version 6.0 documentation which has a new look and feel and is easier to navigate:

http://west-wind.com/webconnection/docs/

There are also 3 new up to date Tutorials:

• Getting Started
• MVC Development with Business Objects
• Creating a JSON REST Service and Angular Client

The latter is still under construction but will be updated over the next few days.

There's is also an earlier video I put out for the beta that is still perfectly relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kga8Fuhzlwg

What's new in Web Connection 6.0

The list of new features in Web Connection 6.0 is pretty major and you can find it here: http://west-wind.com/webconnection/docs/_s8104dggl.htm

However even with all those changes listed there, the upgrade from Web Connection 5.x to 6.0 will be very straight forward. Fundamentally the framework has not changed, most of the improvements are at the top level and either expand functionality or provide new features that don't affect existing behavior.

The biggest change for new projects likely will be the new project system and the new default templates if you choose to use them that provide a much more modern look and feel and mobile ready UI for your pages. Be sure to check out the demos that ship with Web Connection 6.0 to see what this looks like and how you can use them in your own applications.

The biggest changes besides this are all the improvements made for Scripting and Templating for MVC style development. New support for Layout/Master pages, Partial Pages and Sections makes it much easier to create complex pages with minimal repetition in your HTML layout making it much easier to create modular HTML.

There's also much improved support for JSON based REST services via the wwRestProcess class which makes it easy to create JSON Services or AJAX backends for your rich client applications like the MusicStore sample provided in the samples.

There are also many new Html Helpers that facilitate display of complex HTML layouts that are data aware and can bind data. Several new helpers to handle error display and binding error information have been added.

RC1 Specific Updates

• New wwJsonServiceClient Class This class makes it easy to wrap JSON services with logic that automatically handles calling a JSON service and converting parameters to JSON, and converting result JSON into FoxPro results. Great for wrapping all service methods into a class that isolates the service logic from your application code. There's a usage example in the Tutorial.
• Updated ThreadRunner for Multi-Threaded FoxPro COM components I've updated the ThreadRunner component in Web Connection. ThreadRunner lets you create multi-threaded FoxPro code by creating a FoxPro COM object that is called on separate threads and can fire notifications back into your code. The innards have been reworked to work through wwDotnetBridge that provides robust error handling and much better support for callbacks to Foxpro via plain FoxPro objects passed in as optional parameters.
• Web Connection Module Page now uses a customizable Template and a new consistent Layout The Web Connection Module administration page now uses _AdminPageTemplate.html as a template to render the admin page. The page shell can be customized with branding for your own application rather than the default Web Connection formatting. The admin status display has also been updated to a cleaner layout.
• Async Method Invocations in .NET with wwDotnetBridge You can now invoke methods asynchronously in .NET using wwDotnetBridge::InvokeMethodAsync() and InvokeStaticMethodAsync().You can pass in a FoxPro callback object that receives OnCompleted() and OnError() callbacks to get notified of completion of the async operation optionally.

There is of course much more but these are some of the highlights...

+++ Rick ---