Remain Buys MiWorkplace, Integrates It Into TD/OMS
March 10, 2021 Alex Woodie
In 2020, Remain Software quietly acquired MiWorkplace, a lightweight integrated development environment (IDE) for IBM i. Last month, the company announced that it has completed the integration of MiWorkplace into TD/OMS, its change management system for IBM i. It also rolled out new releases of TD/OMS, Remain API Studio, and Gravity.
MiWorkplace is a Java-based IDE out of Germany that’s been building a user base among the IBM i customer base for a few years. The software, which runs on Windows, Mac OS, and Linux, was developed primarily to provide a better coding experience for SEU users, not as a replacement for Rational Developer for i (RDi).
As an IDE for IBM i, MiW provides an integrated set of tools for writing programs on IBM i. It includes code editors for RPG, CL, and DDS, as well as a Remote Explorer for browsing QSYS and the IFS. It comes with pre-built templates and code snippets, supports remote search, as well as a local history. It integrates with the IBM i system debugger, supports the capability to invoke compilations, is available in German and English, and received a positive review from Jon Paris in a 2017 review in Four Hundred Guru.
Last month, Remain Software announced that it has completed an integration between MiW and TD/OMS. The company says that the MiW integration is now comparable to what RDi users have when it comes to integration with TD/OMS.
Among the new functions enabled are opening the MiW editor from TD/OMS; using the MiW compile results; putting items in the build queue when the developer hits the save button; opening the editor in browse mode when not in development; and resetting the library list based on the task at hand.
There are several new functions in MiW version 1.25.0 too. There’s a new flexible filtering system in the editor, as well as a new job view filter that allows the user to list jobs that run on behalf of a user. It’s also possible to filter on jobs in a specific subsystem, Remain tells us.
MiW users can now use the remote search function in the explorer context menu, according to Remain. The company has integrated no fewer than two flavors of the grep search engine to enable IFS search, including “old-style” QSH grep or the new QOpenSys/pkgs/bin/grep.
Remain has also added a new flexible filtering system into MiW that lets users define categorized filters for the QSYS and IFS file systems. Filter categories can be toggled on and off together, the company tells us. The job view has also been enhanced in MiW. Users can now do things like: filter criteria in the job filters; make filters available across all connections; automatically load a filter after it’s created; and add icons to the job view context.
Other assorted MiW enhancements include a toggle switch between IFS and QSYS objects; the ability to drag and drop libraries and library list widgets; the ability to add multiple libraries to an active connection; the ability to edit the library list by right clicking on the connection; and (perhaps the most important feature for aging developers) the ability to increase and decrease font sizes in the editor.
Integration with MiW is one of the new features in TD/OMS version 13.0.2, or Milestone 2, which builds on last fall’s debut of version 13. Among the new features is the capability to add remarks and comments to TD/OMS definitions, which builds on the capability to add comments to tasks and requests (which was already supported).
There’s a new downloads tab in the preferences view page, as well as the ability to customize the size of the conflicts column in the promote window. The company has added a new action for the user to change the attributes of a member. There’s also a new created to add and delete Apache HTTP server instances from the command line. There’s also a preferences page now for managing SSL certificates, among other enhancements.
Lastly, the company has released Remain API studio version 2.0.2. The company has bolstered the test functionality with the ability to edit a created method. The product also gives users the option to delete or keep a component and to add global responses and callbacks. Gravity version 6.0.2, meanwhile, is a minor release that resolves issues and gets the software ready for new enhancements.
