BCD Adds New HTML and SQL Features to Pro Gen Plus

by Alex Woodie

Business Computer Design Int'l is aiming to accelerate the productivity of RPG programmers with a new release of ProGen Plus, its program generator and report writer for OS/400 servers. BCD has set an early April ship date for Pro Gen Plus Release 8, which has several new capabilities, such as generation of HTML reports and support for embedded SQL statements in ILE RPG programs.

BCD says experienced RPG programmers and newbies alike can develop applications with ProGen Plus because of its extensive use of pre-built templates and walk-through wizards, which let the developer focus on the application at hand, not on the syntax of the development language. It can be used to develop new green-screen RPG applications from scratch or to alter existing programs to suit their needs. In addition to generating compiled RPG III or RPG IV code, a series of add-on modules can be used to generate new database applications, Web-based Java clients, or Windows clients.

ProGen Plus features 15 types of pre-built programs that cover a range of common programming tasks, such as writing subfile inquiries or subfile maintenance programs, reports, CL programs, batch updates, order entries, and more. From these starting points, developers can customize their programs by adding validations, program calls, help text, and other entities, using either Source Edit Utility or BCD's "Action Editor" fourth-generation language (4GL) interface. More than 2,500 organizations around the world use ProGen Plus, according to BCD.

With ProGen Plus Release 8, BCD has added the capability to generate OS/400 reports in HTML. These HTML reports look exactly like their RPG equivalents, except they're easier to distribute. ProGen Plus 8.0 can be programmed to automatically place the HTML reports into the Integrated File System (IFS) for OS/400, where they can be accessed by users via FTP or distributed via e-mail.

The new SQL feature in ProGen Plus 8.0 will allow developers to embed SQL logic in their RPG III and RPG IV programs, making it easier to create totals, record counts, and dynamically view OS/400 data. Two SQL actions are supported with ProGen Plus 8.0--SQLEXEC and SQLQUERY--which, BCD says, greatly simplify tasks that were previously done manually.

BCD has made other enhancements to the program generator, including the addition of shortcuts in the 4GL editor, where cumbersome 10-character commands are no longer required. This release also includes the addition of a free-format action line to the RPG IV/ILE RPG program generator, which, BCD says, eliminates the need for developers to access program source code. Other additions include the capability to attach more than one validation module to a field, and support for longer ILE work field lengths in the ILE RPG module.

ProGen Plus 8.0 completed beta tests in early March and is scheduled for general availability in early April. Licenses are tier based and range in price from $5,000 to $12,500. The optional ILE RPG generator module ranges from $3,000 to $4,000. For more information, go to www.bcdsoftware.com.

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