Omnis Studio 4.3 will be released later this year, but if your are a member of the Omnis Developer Program you can try out the Beta version today - please contact your sales office if you haven't received information about this. The following is a summary of the most significant features included in Omnis Studio version 4.3.

Windows Vista
Studio 4.3 fully supports Windows Vista for development and Runtime versions, this includes support for Large fonts as well as the new Segoe font, and animated buttons.

PostgreSQL DAM
There is a new Omnis DAM that supports connections to the PostgreSQL database, an open source relational database system released under a BSD-style license, providing Omnis developers with yet another alternative to other database systems. More info: www.postgresql.org

Omnis VCS enhancements
The Omnis VCS now supports scheduled builds and provides support for library names in superclass names.

Linux enhancements
There has been a number of enhancements made to the Linux version of Omnis Studio mainly to improve printing, as well as improvements in font handling and other user interface elements.

Please contact your local sales office for further details about obtaining the Beta. Click here for more details about Omnis Studio 4.3 and the beta program.

If you are a regular visitor to our site, you may have noticed already that we have redesigned the Omnis web site - we hope you like the new design and that you can find things more easily. Together with the new layout, we have included a mini-site for French speakers, hosted at: www.omnis.net/fr. We'd like to hear what you think; please send your comments to webmaster@omnis.net.

Meanwhile, we have added some new dates to our continuing series of online seminars, or webinars. The webinars have proved to be very popular with people who are new to Omnis, as well as existing or long-term Omnis developers: we cater for them all! There is a webinar that introduces Omnis Studio to new users, as well as ones for showing specific features such as the Web Services component, and the Omnis for SAP Solutions product - and many of the webinars include live demos of Omnis, with live commentary and interactive chat for a Question & Answer session at the end.

The Omnis Webinars are free-of-charge, but we require you to signup beforehand. Click here to view the latest webinars.

We have recently added a couple of new Success stories to the Omnis web site. The first is regarding a very interesting Omnis application by an Amherst/USA based company called International Education and Training Corporation (IETC). They have used the so-called "Ultra-thin Client" technology in Omnis to create their FieldLink application which collects and analyses data for an African educational scholarship program. The Ambassadors Girls' Scholarship Program (AGSP), provides 30,000 scholarships per year to girls, in eleven countries in sub-Sahara West Africa.

The FieldLink application collects and analyses data from the scholarship program providers in order to monitor and evaluate the progress of the project. Using the Ultra-thin client access via a standard web browser allows for efficient access in the field, even with low bandwidth dial-up connections and old computers, typically found across Africa. The CIO for IETC is Jim Pistrang who is a long-term Omnis developer and very well-known in the Omnis community.

Girls account for 55% of the 40 million children in Africa who do not attend school because of economic hardship or other adverse circumstances. The scholarship program supported by the IETC application goes some way to redress this issue in Africa.

The other story we added recently is about ADJob, a complete management system for Ad Agencies developed by long-term Swedish Omnis developer ADJob Nordic AB. The majority of people in the creative industry, such as in advertising and design agencies, tend to use Macs for their creative work, but increasingly Windows desktops and Linux servers are being used, especially for business management. The ADJob product is well-known for its cross-platform capability, since it is written in Omnis, so is being adopted by an increasing number of creative agencies across Northern Europe.

"The main advantage of developing in Omnis Studio is that we only develop on one platform. The exact same code will run on both Mac OS X and Windows without any modifications," said Mats Olsson, MD of ADJob Nordic AB. "In addition, the Solo Omnis Developer Partner Program has made it possible for us to achieve a business plan that is long term, profitable and affordable for our target group. The quality of our own tech support is also enhanced by the backup of the German RD Support Team."

Click on the link to view the ADJob story or the IETC one, as well as several other new Omnis Success stories.

We have recently added a batch of new Tech notes to the Omnis web site. The Tech notes are available in the Support area of the web site and cover a whole range of technical subjects that will help in your Omnis development including programming techniques, web development, reporting and SQL database access.

You can read the new Omnis tech notes here. Meanwhile, if you have any tech tips you want to share with other Omnis developers, please send them to the webmaster and we'll publish them here in the Omnis News, and your company will get a mention.

• Save a report as PDF
• Avoiding calculations with NULL
• Adding version info to your application
• Dynamically Resizing Web Client Windows
• Asynchronous Programming in Omnis
• The Omnis Remote Studio Applet (rStudio)
• Using References
• Using .Net objects in Omnis Studio
• Programming without the Enter Data command
• Creating your own Omnis desktop
• Using $dataname in Subwindow fields