isCOBOL Evolve

Code coverage

Enterprise users can now enjoy features like Code coverage to help them produce better quality tests for COBOL applications. isCOBOL Code Coverage will measure the degree to which a program's source code is executed during test suite runs. A program with high code coverage, measured as a percentage, has had more of its source code executed during testing, which suggests it has a lower chance of containing undetected software bugs compared to a program with low code coverage.

Unit Test

Robustness is key to software success. isCOBOL Unit Test lets developers create automated test suites, which are designed to test that sections of code execute as intended. The more comprehensive the tests included in a suite are, the more stable the resulting application will be.

New and upgraded GUI controls

Make your applications look even better and more modern with isCOBOL. A new GUI control, the SCROLL-PANE, is a container that can host other controls. It will display scrollbars as needed to allow the user to pan the visible area.

A Tree-view can now display a hierarchical view with tabular data, using the TABLE-VIEW style that allows column definitions inside a tree view.

Grids have been upgraded by adding new properties to manage hidden rows as a result of filtering operations performed by users. A new SEARCH-PANEL property has been implemented to force the grid to show the search panel over the column headings.

The new NOTIFY-MOUSE style is now supported on all controls, and is used to fire the new events MSG-MOUSE-ENTER, MSG-MOUSE-EXIT, MSG-MOUSE-CLICKED, MSG-MOUSE-DBLCLICK. This allows developers to have finer control on the user interface and the management of mouse events, and provides more freedom in user interface design.

Compiler and debugger improvements

MOVE statements now support the new POSITIONAL clause, to ease moving static variables to dynamic variables and vice versa. Variables are dynamic when they contain items with X ANY LENGTH pictures, or OCCURS DYNAMIC arrays. The new POSITIONAL clause can be used to move items from a source variable to items on a target variable based on positional order instead of variable names.

The compiler now supports a shorthand syntax to invoke functions using the $ symbol in place of the “function” keyword. This simplifies the way to execute intrinsic functions and could also be useful for compatibility with other COBOLs.

isCOBOL Debbuger now makes it easier for multiple developers to debug applications running on the same Application Server, by starting applications in separate processes for each debugged application, allowing separation of processes so that debugging an application will not influence other applications that may be running in the same Application Server.

Upgraded EIS suite

isCOBOL EIS, Veryant’s solution to write web-enabled COBOL programs, is constantly updated to provide more comprehensive web solutions. In isCOBOL 2020R1, there are many updates to WebDirect and WebClient. Also, the HTTPClient class can now consume existing web services with PUT and DELETE requests.

WebDirect, Veryant’s technology that allows programs with screen sections to run in a web browser by converting them to HTML/CSS/Javascript equivalents, now allows grids to be navigated using the keyboard, and supports the ROW-CAPACITY property.

WebClient is Veryant’s solution for running desktop applications on a remote server and interacting with it through a web browser. With the upgraded 2020R1 release, the virtual keyboard can be activated more easily on mobile devices, and IME keyboards are now fully supported, extending support for languages such as Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

The HTTPClient class, which allows interaction with Web Services, now supports PUT and DELETE requests, in addition to the already available GET and POST requests.