APLX Version 4 release

MicroAPL announces the commercial release of APLX Version 4 for
Windows and MacOS. The 32-bit Windows version is available now from
our website, and the MacOS version will be available in the next few
days. Linux versions, and 64-bit versions, will be released in Q1
2008.

We would like to thank everyone who participated in the APLX Version 4
Public Beta, and for the many helpful suggestions and bug reports we
received. The beta test period is now closed, but we welcome any
further comments you may have. You can download free-of-charge
evaluation versions of APLX Version 4 from the MicroAPL website
http://www.microapl.co.uk/apl.

This is a quick summary of the features introduced in Version 4 (see
http://www.microapl.co.uk/apl/aplx_new_40.html for further details):

Major Language Enhancements

* Support for object-oriented programming with user-defined APL
classes.
* Support for object-oriented programming using external classes
written in the .Net languages (such as C# and Visual Basic), Java, and
Ruby, using natural dot-notation syntax.
* Extensible interface for other object-oriented languages such as C+
+ .
* A range of new System Functions and System Methods to use with
classes written in APL or in other languages.
* New system functions for import and export of data in a variety of
formats including CSV, TSV, HTML, SYLK, and Unicode 8-bit text.
* Regular-expression searching
* Structured-Control Error Handling
using :Try :CatchIf :CatchAll :EndTry
* Zilde (empty numeric vector) system constant

User-interface enhancements

* New QuickSym input method for entering APL symbols without a special
APL keyboard layout (see summary at http://www.microapl.co.uk/apl/aplx_quicksym.html)
* Powerful new general-array editor allows editing of almost any
simple, mixed or nested array, and of the properties of APL objects
* New class editor for writing user-defined APL classes
* Copy/Paste of arrays in various formats for exchange with Excel and
other applications
* Enhancements to Workspace Explorer and Edit windows to support class
methods and properties
* New workspace-search feature for rapid search or search-and-replace
of a string (or regular expression) in the workspace

Performance Enhancements

* Major speed-ups to most string searches
* Major speed-up to outer product using the Match primitive
* Many primitives enhanced for faster operation on large arrays

Richard Nabavi
MicroAPL Ltd