What's New in the APL Tools Group
"Anyone who can write an APL function should be able to host it on the Web."
This is one of the goals of the APL Tools Group and to that end we are pleased to announce the availability of MiServer 2.0, Dyalog's APL-based, open source, web server. MiServer enables APL users to provide a web interface to their applications that can be accessed over the Internet or a local intranet. MiServer eases the learning curve of web development by providing a library of utility functions to make the generation of HTML and the handling of HTTP requests easier for the APLer.
"We've tried to implement interfaces that handle a number of common usage scenarios" states Brian Becker, APL Tools Group Manager, "yet still provide access to the underlying technologies for the power user." One example of this is MiServer's support for jQuery, a popular Javascript library. jQuery makes the manipulation of HTML documents far easier than native Javascript, and has a number of "widgets" to implement sophisticated user interactions. MiServer includes interfaces to many of those jQuery widgets to make their use more natural to the APL user. Also included in MiServer's jQuery support is very flexible event handling which enables the APL user to decide which interactions should remain within the browser and which should communicate back to the server. Support for data-driven web pages is provided through MiServer's interface to Dyalog's SQAPL library, a tool which provides access to any ODBC compliant data source like MySQL or Oracle.
MiServer is an open source project and is designed to be easily extended." says Brian. "MiServer's source code is freely available for the user to examine or modify. We hope the APL community will embrace MiServer and in turn make it better through feedback and by publishing the MiServer tools they develop."
MiServer can be used as more than just a simple web server; it can be integrated with an APL application to provide a web-based interface for a variety of purposes including remote administration and configuration. MiServer includes support for HTTP basic authentication, but because of its extensible nature, other forms of authentication and security can be added.
MiServer traces its roots back to the "WildServer", an APL-based object oriented web server developed by Stefano Lanzavecchia. Morten Kromberg then took the WildServer and transformed it into the "MildServer". In 2011, the APL Tools Group took over MildServer development and MiServer is the result of those efforts. "I think we've only scratched the surface of MiServer's potential and I look forward to seeing the direction that our users' needs point us in."
MiServer 2.0 is available for download at our website.
HTTP Compression is available in Conga, Dyalog's TCP communications tool. Among the updates included in Conga v2.2 is an interface which implements "deflate" compression, a popular data compression scheme supported by all major web browsers and servers. HTTP compression can dramatically reduce the amount of data sent over the network thereby improving throughput and bandwidth utilization. Conga v2.2 is released with Dyalog APL v13.1 but can be used with earlier versions of Dyalog APL.
New User Commands released with Dyalog APL v13.1
]ASSEMBLIES
Show all assemblies currently loaded into memory.
]CFCOMPARE file1 file2
This command compares two component files.
]DMX
This command will provide information on the latest APL error using ⎕DMX, the extended diagnostic message released in V13.1.
]EFA (Windows only)
This command will associate file extensions .DWS, .DYAPP and .DYALOG with a specific interpreter. This is useful when several versions of APL are installed on the same machine and you wish specify which version should open files with those extensions by default.