Build Automator Blog

I just wanted to re-post the link to the Webinar recording at Clarion Live that was recorded in June 2009. It is still very valid and an excellent introduction to Build Automator. You can view the webinar recording at
http://www.clarionlive.com/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=18&Itemid=57

If you want to save the recording, right click on the link above and select "Save target" or "Save Link As" in your browser's popup menu and save the wmv video file. The file size is about 284MB. If you click on the link above the content is streamed to your viwer.

Arnor Baldvinsson

We have just released a new build. This is the ninth and LAST beta build we are releasing for version 2.0, which will be out in about two weeks. Just documentation and some minor polishing is needed and if any issues are found in this beta they will be fixed as soon as possible.

You can download the new build from http://www.buildautomator.com/downloads.php

Note that you must have a valid Maintenance Plan to be able to install this build. This build is NOT available via the web update so you must download the full install. You do not need to uninstall previous version and your data will be preserved completely.

If you are currently using version 1.5 or the early 1.6 beta versions, I strongly suggest that you try this build.

Since version 1.5 we have added over 100 new features and fixes. See version history for more information

The fix list for Beta 7, 8 and 9 follows:

Fixes for Beta 7

• Redundant debug information was being sent to the log file from E_Search_and_Replace_in_Textfiles. Fixed.
• Clarion errors in log viewer were not color coded as errors. Fixed.
• Copying and pasting action items sometimes fails. Can no longer be reproduced despite numerous efforts. Will tackle it if it comes up again, but I'm calling it fixed.
• Main window sometimes appears outside of the visible area of the monitor(s). Fixed.

Fixes for Beta 8

• Copy Multiple Files action does not expand variables correctly. Fixed.
• Log File viewer had a one byte out of bounds memory problem. Fixed.

Fixes for Beta 9

June 10, 2011

• MS-Build action modified for more flexibility.
• MS-Build action can now handle both Clarion 7 and Clarion 8.

June 11, 2011

• MS-Build action can now handle code generation in Clarion 8. Note that this is only enabled for Clarion 8 if a solution is selected. If a Clarion project file (*.cwproj) is selected, then it is available for Clarion 7 also, but this will not work in the Clarion 7.0 - Clarion 7.2 builds.
• Added Copy, Paste and Duplicate to the pop up menu on the Action Items list.
• Implemented a Duplicate option for the Action Items list. It can be activated by using the popup menu or by using Ctrl-D.
• Implemented Alt-Enter on Action Items list to open the Action Items Properties window.
• Hotkeys are now visible on popup menu on the Action Items list.

June 12, 2011

• Added Windows 7 compatibility to "Generate XP/Vista/Win7 Manifests" action.
• Added option to exclude dependency to "Generate XP/Vista/Win7 Manifests" action.
• Implemented Ctrl-E on Action Items list to execute the selected action item(s).

Fixing the Copy/paste issue was huge. I have it verified fixed now! It was a rare and completely random problem that cropped up when pasting items into the action item list. After a lot of debugging I was able to isolate it and realized there was a vulnerability that had the potential of failing - it should never have failed, but some circumstances obviously made it fail. Essentially what happened was that in projects with multiple project items the last one would sometimes be act as it was selected even though it was not. I was able to put a Message() in the code to alert me if the mismatch happened and 3 months after I fixed it, the message popped up for the first time. I use Build Automator almost every day, so this shows how random and difficult to trace this problem was! When the message popped up and I saw that the selected project item was indicating the last, when in fact the first one was selected, and the pasting worked I knew I had caught that bug and fixed it

Please let me know as soon as possible if you run into any problem with this build! Note that you must have a valid Maintenance plan to be able to install it.

We have made another example project available for download. This is a project that we use to build one of our developer third party products. It shows, among other things, how to call Help and Manual (H&M) to build PDF and CHM files from a H&M project and update text variables in the H&M project.

This also shows how we update source files with version information and write out Clarion version resource files (.version files) that can then be added to the Clarion project.

Just download the installer and run it and it will add the project to the "Build Automator | Examples" item in the Windows Start menu. Read more about it on our Example Download page.

Arnor Baldvinsson

One of the things that originally prompted me get the idea for the Build Automator was the need to update a collection of class files and template files to accurately reflect the copyright and version number of each file as well as the release date. These files are part of Clarion toolkit that we call the Icetips Utilities that we released last year and we are working on right now.

This process was tedious even though I could use my editor to do a mass search/replace in files. Sometimes I would simply forget this step which added to support issues when customers reported problems in version X when they actually had version Y - because the source files said, incorrectly, that it was version X.

As I'm working on that same collection of classes that prompted my idea for the Build Automator, I remember that particular process so I decided to add an action to do a search and replace on text files. This action is now fully functional and is extremely fast. I let it do two search and replace operations on a folder with over 40 files in it and it took 0.89 seconds to complete on a moderate machine. It can be used on individual files or by using wildcards.

You can of course use variables in the string to search for and in the replacement string. This makes it easy to put in for example todays date formatted nice and neat by using the Set Variable action and set it to an evaluation expression. Use "Format(Today(),@d18)" as the expression, without the double quotes, to get todays formatted as "August 19, 2008" in standard windows long format.

This new action will be included in our September release and now I can get back to work on my class files

-- Arnor Baldvinsson

We have made build 1.50.1212 available for download. You can use the "Help | Check for updates" in the main menu to download the update.

In addition to what I talked about in the last entry we fixed two minor things this morning: The picklist did not scroll horizontally and checking or unchecking the "Show Splash Screen at startup" did not work on the splash screen itself - it did work on the options window.

As always we appreciate the feedback we get from you and please let us know on our forum if you have any problems, comments or ideas

Our next release will be around September 15.

-- Arnor Baldvinsson