1. (WINDOWS) Support for the A-Shell COM Interface is now included in the ashw32 executable. (COM is the Microsoft acronym for Component Object Model, which also happens to be practically synonymous with ActiveX.) The A-Shell COM Interface permits you to use the XCALL interface to call external modules written in other COM-enabled languages, such as Visual Basic, and also to automate A-Shell sessions from external modules written in such languages.)
To develop code using the COM interface, you'll need the A-Shell ActiveX SDK, which is now available on the Beta page of the MicroSabio Advanced Support Site (www.a-shell.net). Documentation is included with the release module, as well as separately on the same web page.
Licensing details: You can download the SDK and experiment with it without any special license or fee. However, the SDK does carry a nominal $400 fee, which is required before you will able to obtain runtime licenses or technical support for it. Runtime licenses will be available for a 5% surcharge on the A-Shell license fee. For demo purposes, you can use the XCALL interface to call modules you develop with the SDK, but without the runtime license option, your A-Shell session will revert to demo mode after any such XCALL.
2. The maximum ISAMPLUS record size has been expanded from 4096 to 8192. Note that you will need the updated ISMUTL.LIT, version 1.2(119), in order to build a file with a record size larger than 4096.
3. A bug with the -trace command line switch has been fixed; it was causing the session to abort immediately when it wasn't the first parameter on the command line. (The -trace switch essentially does the same thing as OPTIONS=DEBUG in the MIAME.INI file, except that it is useful for tracing low level operations that take place prior to the processing of the MIAME.INI file. It does, however, rapidly generate a huge ashell.log file, so its use should be limited to troubleshooting.)
4. (UNIX) New switch -hetcki causes a tcki (check for keyboard input without waiting) to be treated just like a wait for keyboard input when running after being disconnected. This is needed by programs like ASTAT which would otherwise never go into a keyboard wait and thus never receive the telnet disconnect error signal. (See discussion of this below under build 797.)
5. XCALL MIAMEX,103,OP,CLFLAGS now allows you to query (OP=0) or set (OP=1) the command line flags. See CLF'xxx in the updated ashell.bsi file for details on the flag values. This was added mainly to allow programs like ASTAT to set the -hetcki switch so that they will get a disconnect error when they check for input after the session has been disconnected.
6. SYSTAT.LIT 2.0(135) now shows "?" in the first position of the console device position (SYSTAT/C) for disconnected jobs that are still running.
7. ASTAT.LIT 2.2(129) also updated to indicate disconnected jobs like SYSTAT, and in addition, it now uses the MIAMEX,103 function to set the -hetcki flag (error on tcki after disconnect) so that it will not keep running indefinitely if disconnected.
