CapeSoft and ProDomus are pleased to announce that the ProDomus line of Clarion Accessory Tools has been successfully acquired by CapeSoft. The transition of all products into the CapeSoft stable will occur over the next few weeks.

As Phil enters semi-retirement this transfer means that existing users will have access to maintained builds and some support going forward. Phil will remain active on the support side for some time ensuring a smooth transition.

ProDomus has been making popular Clarion Accessories since the early days of Clarion for Windows, and has earned a reputation for both quality products and quality support and service. the flagship product, PD Translator Plus has long lead the way in application translation and is used by Clarion developers all over the world. It is fitting that as Phil heads towards a well-earned retirement his first consideration is for his existing customers and the developers that rely on his tools. Passing the baton on to CapeSoft ensures that their future is secure.

CapeSoft is already a premier Clarion Accessory supplier with over 40 accessories currently available. As an active participant in the community, and a reputation second to none, CapeSoft is the ideal home for the ProDomus products in the long term.

The current Builds for all ProDomus tools have been archived at www.capesoft.com/prodomus and these files are available to download for existing ProDomus product users. Sales have been suspended until each product can be reviewed.

This serves as a reminder that we will be dropping support for Clarion 6 at the end of this year. After that all the products will be available for download for C6 from the archive but we won't be making updates available
for Clarion 6.

A few people have asked me for the reasoning behind this decision, so I thought I'd share some of the thinking that has lead us to this point.

Unfortunately Clarion 6 has limitations that are holding back the development in some areas. While these limitations may not be obvious to the average C6 user, we have to do a lot of work behind the scenes to keep it that way. In some cases we're not able to implement things at all, in other cases there are conditional compiles in the code which make some functionality different in C6, and in some other cases we've had to
compromise on a design slightly just to make it work at all in C6.

It's also increasingly difficult to run Clarion 6, especially on new computers. If a 64 bit OS is installed then Clarion 6 requires either a Virtual Machine, or other similar approach to running it at all. This incurs
a lot of extra work for us and ultimately that work has to be paid for somehow.

Lastly, working in Clarion 6 to do testing, or build examples, is really ugly work - now having gotten used to the new IDE it's a big pain to go back to the old one. While we were exceptionally happy with C6 for many years, C9 is light-years ahead in terms of usability and it's really unproductive when we have to step back into Clarion 6, either for testing or for creating examples.

At this stage we feel it is unfair to penalize people who have moved forward (including ourselves in our commercial apps) for the sake of supporting the few people who aren't intending to upgrade. Clarion 6 is 10 years old now, and as with all things it's time to move on. Clarion 8, and better yet Clarion 9, are vastly superior to Clarion 6 in every way and make a more-than-adequate replacement.

Our recommendation at this point is to move to Clarion 9. In order to make this process smoother, and as painless as possible, I did a webinar on ClarionLive (#211) which you can get from http://www.clarionlive.com/. Since that time I've had to the opportunity to talk to many programmers (both
online, and in-the-flesh at devcon) who have either begun, or completed this process and all of them have been glad they did it.

A few people have asked me what new functionality they can expect in their programs when they upgrade. There are actually a lot of little things that your program will get and there are several nice cosmetic enhancements as well - making programs look a lot nicer overall - but in my opinion this is the least important factor to consider when upgrading. It's less important for two reasons, firstly because there is lots of new functionality being generated for programs all the time (by the 3rd party suppliers) for all versions of Clarion, and because this is the part of your program that you already have the most control over.

A more important aspect to consider is your own productivity and "enjoyment" of programming. If you are like me you probably spend a significant portion of your day using the Clarion IDE to get your job done. Using the best tool available for the job is not only personally satisfying, it makes good business sense. Every day you spend on Clarion 6 is time wasted, you are ultimately less productive, and ultimately that translates into lost
potential revenues.

Perhaps the most important aspect to consider is the business liability of relying on an old technology that is no longer supported. I've noticed a trend among older programmers to get left behind the curve a bit, and then unfortunately discover the cost of that when they wish to retire, or sell the business. Any prospective purchaser (or the source code, or business as a whole) will be rightly concerned if the product, or internal processes, are d

CIDC 2013 is the official Clarion Devcon and will take place in Orlando, Florida, USA from Wednesday September 25 to Friday September 27. Attended by all the major luminaries in the Clarion community, as well as developers and the CEO of SoftVelocity, it is the premium Clarion event of the year. This year looks to be especially packed with great sessions and useful information. I know John and Arnold are working hard to make sure that there is plenty of practical knowledge imparted at the event - things you can go home and use immediately to make your application better. There's Early Bird pricing until June 30, so start negotiating now (with the powers that be) to free yourself up for that week.

To make the week even more valuable I'll be running a NetTalk training class on Monday the 23rd and Tuesday the 24th. This is the first live training I've done on NetTalk in quite some time and it's likely to be a fair while before the next one, so if you have an opportunity to attend then it's not something you should lightly pass up. While this will include material from the training I did in 2010, NetTalk has grown in leaps and bounds, so the notes have been updated, and most of the material will be focused on things that have been added, or changed, since that time.

Registration for one or both events at: www.cidc2013.com

Making the move to any new platform is a huge undertaking, and not a little bit scary. If you are new to the web then this class affords you an opportunity to radically speed up your learning curve, and become productive a lot faster than you would if you had to work through the material by yourself. Yes, it will be an intensive two days, but at the end of it you will be well on your way to creating your own apps on the web.

For more experienced NetTalk users I will be focusing on the things in NetTalk you may not have seen before. I guarantee there are things you've missed along the way, and I've no doubt that you'll get numerous gems from this event. I'll also be speaking on more advanced topics and it'll be the ideal training for taking your apps to the next level.

Of course two days is too little time for the brain to hear, assimilate and remember, so we'll be providing a detailed training manual to go with the event. The event will also be recorded, and recordings will be made available for free to those that attend. For those that can't attend we'll be making both the notes, and videos available after the event - for a price. I know not everyone can get to Orlando and I want to make sure that this is as widely available as possible. Of course there's no substitute for being there though!

In co-operation with CIDC we've managed to create even more value for those that attend both events. While it is possible to register for just the conference, or just NetTalk, there is a significant discount if you attend both. By negotiating hard with the hotel we've managed to keep costs as low as we possible can, and the value for two days of training, notes, videos and lunch is unprecedented. If you're unable to make the trip, you can attend online.

Register now at: www.cidc2013.com

The time, money, and effort you take to invest in yourself now, will have a massive payoff in the long run. We hope to see you there.

Faswin, the Fixed Asset Management software, used primarily to calculate asset depreciation, has received a major overhaul, and Version 3 is now available.

Note: Special upgrade price, available to all existing Faswin 2 users, of $149 / (R3 409*) (Standard Edition) and $249 (R5 529*) (Enterprise Edition)

* Prices in South African Rands include 14% VAT.