Brian Leach Consulting Limited
Your home for independent UniVerse and UniData Consultancy in the UK.
NEWS - January 2012
New Server
As if I didn't have sufficient to do with finishing off the pieces of mvStudio (soon to be announced), I'm
also moving servers. So there may be some site disruption to the downloads and to the U2UG website: my apologies
in advance if any of these affect you.
Of course, the U2UG site is looking a little aged now, so that will be getting a full refit in the coming weeks; and there
is a whole bunch of new features that having better capacity and an better O/S will bring.
Finally watch this space for product announcements. mvStudio is obviously the main focus of attention, but I've got a significant
catalog of products to release this year.
NEWS - December 2011
mvStudio First Glimpse
Check out the blog for the first view of mvStudio,
the new development toolkit from Brian Leach Consulting!
This is a very exciting product release - the culmination of two years' development and a potential game changer for the U2 market.
mvStudio has been out in the field for several months now and will be
going on general release early next year.
NEWS - March 2011
Incubator
The first of the incubator series has been launched on the U2UG Website.
The incubator project is a collaborative effort to create a showcase series of applications to demonstrate
the different facets of U2 technology.
The first of these, a C# client accessing a demonstration database over UniObjects, has been contributed by
Brian Leach. Hopefully other community members will now step up and add their pieces.
SSL and UniVerse
Please check out my blog for new postings on SSL and UniVerse.
U2 University UK
See you at the U2U event in Birmingham, UK.
NEWS - Dec 2010
mvPDF 2.1.1
The new versions of mvPDF and mvPDF Lite are now available.
These add a powerful new tool to the mvPDF range: a fully featured banded
report designer. This allows users and developers to design complex reports,
complete with multiple sections at each level, conditional sections, support
for multivalue repeats, summary operations at the row and value levels, charts,
tables, barcodes, images and graphics.
Once designed, the reports can be fired from TCL using a friendly enquiry-like
syntax; can be run programmatically using the mvPDF Basic API in a way that
allows developers to pass their own data into the report, however it is
generated; and can be directly linked to a report mining extraction map. This
lets developers reformat existing reports, or provide report customization
services for their clients.
Look out for new products appearing in the New Year!
NEWS - July 2010
mvPDF Document Markup
A lot of behind-the-scenes work has been going on with mvPDF over the past couple of months, inspired by feedback from clients.
Much of this has been focused on improvements to the PCL support which is now more standards compliant.
A welcome addition has been the inclusion of its own mvPDF Document
Markup. This uses a much more user friendly syntax than PCL and is designed to
make it simpler to upgrade existing capture documents to include support for:
- Graphics
- Images
- Barcodes
- Font management
- Page management
NEWS - March 2010
New Versions of mvScript and mvInstaller for Windows 7 Released
The following new versions have been released today with support for Windows 7:
- mvScript 2.1
- mvInstaller 1.4
New BCI.IMPORT Tool.
The first in a new set of free tools for data import and management, BCI.IMPORT is a command line driven utility for updating files from remote data sources over BCI. Features multiple file updates, dictionary driven syntax, calculations, multivalued data updates, simple validation and enrichments. See my blog for more details.
NEWS - February 2010
Windows 7 Changes
Windows 7 has added a number of changes to the way in which products may be installed and registered.
This affects the whole range of client/server products.
New versions will be added to this site during March and April to support these Windows 7 changes.
NEWS - December 2009
Self Paced Training - UniVerse Client Developer Released
The third book in my Self Paced Training series for users of IBM UniVerse and UniData platforms has now been released.
You can find details here.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
NEWS - November 2009
mvPDF 2 goes Beta
Following the interest generated in the new version of mvPDF, mvPDF 2 is
now available for a public beta.
Please download your copy from the products section.
NEWS - October 2009
U2 and Rocket Software
The big news has been the acquisition of the IBM U2 assets by Rocket
Software.
The good news is that the entire U2 team has moved with the products, ensuring
a healthy continuity and that deep technical resources will remain in place. We
wish them, and the new owners, every success.
mvPDF 2
On an equally exciting front, work has been under way on the new version of
mvPDF.
This features a powerful banded report writer that can hook into the PDF
production through TCL commands, Basic or - most important of all - from the
Report Mining. Now you can take your existing reports, mine them for content
and fully restyle them using the report generation features, all in single
operation.
To complement this, the Report Mining introduced in mvPDF Version 1.6 has been
enhanced to cover a wider range of more complex report layouts.
New Administration Guide
A new guide, First Steps in UniVerse Administration by Brian Leach,
has been published on the U2UG website as part of the Learner Pack.
NEWS - August 2009
mvScan Beta
For those who have been asking about mvScan, this has been going through
beta testing for the new version.
Details on general availability will be posted soon.
Conduit on UniData
The data export tool, Conduit, has been migrated to UniData.
Evaluation versions for UniVerse and UniData are now available on this site.
NEWS - June 2009
Changes to mvPDF
This month has seen some major changes to the mvPDF products, with the introduction of a new mvPDF Lite Edition.
This offers the most frequently requested features at a budget-friendly price, and is aimed both at
smaller sites and at application vendors wishing to improve their print and report offerings.
Hand in hand has been the introduction of Report Mining giving sites the chance to unlock their investment
in their existing reports as resources for creating new dynamic documents and exports.
Last but not least, the PCL parser has been totally rewritten with assistance from Reflex Data, and now includes
better mapping of PCL codes and coordinates, new compressed mode type, and support for
EPSON FX format barcodes - a format that is also used by Brother, IBM and HP printers.
Conduit
Conduit is a data export program designed to populate remote SQL data sources with the maximum of flexibility and the
minimum of user intervention. Conduit was written as part of a consulting project for a large site needing to update a SQL Server
database with data drawn from UniVerse in near real time, and is now packaged up as a tool
in the new and growing Utilities section.
mvScript Changes
mvScript 2.0 is now nearing release. This adds a rewritten connection manager
to the product and now supports IBM UniVerse, IBM UniData and Ladybridge QM.
There are a number of 'under the hood' changes in anticipation of releasing a
runtime only version for precompiled websites, making it easier for vendors to
deploy websites without the cost of an mvScript license.
Website Refresh
The website was looking a little tired, so it has had a much needed facelift. Pity I can't
have the same.
NEWS - April 2009
What's been happening
The news page has been dormant for a few months, but that doesn't mean that nothing has been going on.
First, thank you to those who have voted in the new
U2UG board, and have put me back into the fray as Vice President.
We have a challenging programme this year and we are all eager to move the group forward.
Thanks go to Laura for all the work she has done shepherding the group over
the last 12 months.
On the product side, mvPDF is getting a number of significant additions, aimed at making it easier to migrate your existing
reports to new formats - without recoding. That's being previewed now by some financial customers.
The big news is that I have finally settled down to building a new reporting tool.
This picks up from the work I did designing and writing mvQuery for the
late MMT Plc.
This includes a fully featured banded report designer, report generation in PDF, report distribution and scheduling,
and a range of options for requesting reports including Basic API and web pages.
Finally, the blog has got
under way with a high level overview on UniVerse and reasons why you should
consider this technology for your next project, and Spectrum articles on
SQL DataSets in UniVerse and Using LINQ with UniVerse XML.
NEWS - December 2008
New blog.
I have a new blog (http://mvdeveloper.blogspot.com)
Here I will be posting weekly articles about MultiValue technology and IBM U2 specifically.
Check out my new article for Spectrum on creating a global logging client.
NEWS - October 2008
IBM Data Champion 2008-2009
Brian Leach has been presented with a prestigious IBM Data Champion Award for 2008-2009.
It is particularly wonderful to see IBM U2 represented among the list of IBM Data Champions, and I would like to thank all those
who have helped me over the last 18 months, especially - but not limited to - my fellow board members at the U2UG.
NEWS - August 2008
New Publication - IBM Server Developer!
The long-awaited sequel to the first volume in the Self Paced Training series for IBM UniVerse is now available.
Self Paced Training - IBM UniVerse Server Developer is a 420 page
book introducing new and experienced developers to the power
of UniVerse as a business platform. Content includes creating dictionaries and paragraphs, the UniVerse Basic language,
working with data, creating applications, structuring code, working with external data sources, printing, exporting,
network programming and XML.
You can find more details in the new Publications sections here.
mvInstaller v1.3
A new version of mvInstaller is being tested. Watch this space for the download details!
NEWS - June 2008
New mvDeveloper 1.3 posted.
A new version of mvDeveloper has been posted with a number of interface
changes to improve the product. Please see the Download page for
details.
ENTER v2
A new version of ENTER is being road tested. This has improved
navigation, cursor control, field allocation and some other neat
features. Watch this space for the download details!
NEWS - May 2008
New mvDistributor Version Available
A new version of mvDistributor is now available with a number of internal
improvements to threading and resilience. Please see the Download page for
details.
Upcoming - New Spectrum Article
This next issue will see an article on using the C# extension methods
to add new funtionality to UniObjects.
Don't forget you can download these directly from the Spectrum site.
NEWS - February 2008
New mvDeveloper Version Available
At last, the new version of the FREE mvDeveloper Personal Edition is available for download.
This includes the first support for OpenQM and a host of requested features.
NEWS - January 2008
Upcoming - New Spectrum Articles
Having recovered from writing the first Self Paced Training Guide, I'm now refreshed and ready to start on Spectrum again.
This next issue will see an critique of the new IBM ADO.NET Provider
for U2 - in case you missed its launch you can
find this on the DB2 section of the IBM website!
And look out for my new Spectrum series on Microsoft Silverlight for later
in the year- the first genuinely exciting thing to come out
of Microsoft for years.
NEWS - December 2007
Self Paced Training Guide to IBM UniVerse Enquiry
Now Published
If you were wondering why the News section has been quiet for the last 2
months - here's the reason.
After many requests, the first volume in Brian's new series of Self Paced Training Guides for
UniVerse is now available!
The Self Paced Training Guide to IBM UniVerse Enquiry is a 190 page training course
for anyone wishing to learn about the IBM UniVerse data model and the Enquiry
Language features,
and includes a complete set of worked examples to test your understanding.
See the Training section for more details.
The publication retails at GBP 30.00 with a discount available to active U2UG members.
This will be followed by a series of volumes covering development and
design of UniVerse and UniData applications.
NEWS - November 2007
Spectrum Article on UniVerse Triggers
Watch out for Brian's new article in International Spectrum magazine on using Triggers with IBM UniVerse.
See the details at:
http://www.intl-spectrum.com.
NEWS - September 2007
U2UG Wiki is Launched
A new and exciting opportunity for the IBM U2 community, Brian Leach has
launched the U2UG Wiki.
See the details at:
http://www.u2ug.org.
NEWS - July 2007
First U2UG Learner Pack Article now Available.
Written by Brian Leach, the first article in the U2UG Learner Pack
series is now publicly available.
The article is titled: Writing your First UniVerse Application.
The article is aimed at developers new to the IBM U2 model, and includes
an introduction to the enquiry and UniVerse BASIC languages, the
UniObjects for .NET middleware and leads the step by step to creating
their first UniVerse application using Microsoft Visual Basic .NET.
The learner pack can be downloaded from:
http://www.u2ug.org.
UniVerse for PICK Professionals
Brian Leach Consulting Limited is pleased to announce a new training
course: UniVerse for PICK Professionals.
Covering the essential administration and development language features
of the IBM UniVerse platform for those migrating from other MultiValue
database platforms.
mvDeveloper Personal Edition Update
An updated version of mvDeveloper Personal Edition Preview has been
posted for download.
NEWS - June 2007
mvDeveloper Personal Edition Preview
mvDeveloper is a lightweight Windows based editor for MultiValue
databases, principally aimed at the IBM U2 platforms. The editor
includes syntactic support for Basic and PROC, a dictionary editor, data
and value grid editor and many features to assist developers.
The Personal Edition is being offered as a free download. A preview
version is now available.
NEWS - May 2007
U2UG Learner Pack Announced
The U2UG Board are working to produce a Learner Pack for new Universe and UniData developers.
This is an exciting prospect and Brian is working on the first part of this: a guide to Writing your First UniVerse Application.
Availability will be announced shortly.
NEWS - April 2007
Brian takes up the U2UG Presidency for 2007The U2UG 2007 Board election results have been announced. The new board members are: Susan Joslyn, Ross Morrissey, David Jordan I look forward to working with them and the other board members as I take up my responsibilities as President of the U2 User Group. Laura Hirsh becomes the new Vice President.
NEWS - March 2007
mvScript 1.2 Now Available
mvScript Version 1.2 is now available for downloading. You can find the evaluation copy on the Downloads page.
NEWS - February 2007
mvPDF 1.5 Now Available
mvPDF version 1.5 is now available for downloading. You can find the evaluation copy on the Downloads page.
SpoolerPlus Distribution Agreement Signed
Brian Leach Consulting Limited is proud to announce an agreement to distribute SpoolerPlus™ from Sysmark Information Systems
Inc. in the UK.
SpoolerPlus™ add PICK-Spooler and REALITY Spooler commands to UniVerse and UniData, vastly
reducing the time and cost involved in system migrations.
Look out also for announcements on future integration between SpoolerPlus and mvPDF!
More information will be posted on this website later this month.
U2 User Group Website Goes Live
The new IBM International U2 User Group website, designed and hosted by Brian Leach, has gone live in time for the Board Elections for 2007.
The website is written using mvScript and is currently running on UniVerse Personal Edition.
We will be upgrading to a full UniVerse licence shortly, allowing the user group to showcase more UniVerse technologies.
New Spectrum Magazine Articles
Look out for Brian's latest article on Digital Signatures on the cover of this month's International Spectrum Magazine.
NEWS - January 2007
mvPDF on OpenQM...
mvPDF has been successfully migrated to the OpenQM platform from Ladybridge Systems and should be added to the full release in this first quarter of 2007.
Anyone interested in receiving more information on mvPDF for QM please contact info@brianleach.co.uk
... and jBASE
A trial migration is under way to jBASE 4.x.
This requires a new socket library since jBASE has no native socket interface
from BASIC. A new library, jSocks, has been developed for jBASE on Windows
to emulate the UniVerse and UniData BASIC socket interface.
Anyone running jBASE on UNIX who is interested in jSocks or mvPDF, please contact info@brianleach.co.uk
about migrating this to UNIX.
NEWS - December 2006
mvPDF Beta for D3 Platforms
mvPDF has been migrated to the Raining Data D3 platform. A beta will be posted on this site shortly. Anyone interested
in receiving more information on mvPDF for D3 please contact info@brianleach.co.uk
NEWS - November 2006
New Article Posted on Knowledge Base
New article How To Access U2 Data using ODBC and OleDB posted on the U2UG Knowlege Base. This provides
a complete primer for UniODBC and UniOleDB access. By Brian Leach.
mvPDF Adds Digital Signatures
Version 1.4 of mvPDF offers support for Adobe PDF Digital
Signatures.
Digital signatures combine message digests with public key certificates
to provide a verifiable means of ensuring the authority and authenticity
of a document. Digital signatures are increasingly recognized in
international law, and a response to legal requirements for tamper-proof
document archiving.
You can read more about mvPDF Digital Signatures
here.
mvDistributor Beta Version Released
mvDistributor adds document distribution and security to your MultiValue
application.
Originally created as a companion tool for mvPDF, mvDistributor supports
SMTP and FTP, synchronous and asynchronous operations, file management
and range of symmetric and public key encryptions for working with
documents and files.
mvDistributor features a simple-to-use BASIC API and a series of command
line tools to integrate email, FTP and document security into your
application.
mvInstaller Version 1.2 Released
mvInstaller 1.2 contains improved UI features in the Installation
Builder, improved version control, integration with the
mvStamp version stamping package and a
rewritten User Guide and Quick Start Guide.
International Spectrum Article - Customizing
ASP.NET Security
Read how you can customize the security model built into ASP.NET 2 to
integrate with your MultiValue application.
A new article by Brian Leach in the September/October 2006 edition of
International Spectrum
Magazine.