What's New IntraWeb 8.0

IntraWeb 8.0 introduces several new features. However, one step taken in this version is to re-work some of the core code to ultimately
add stability and increase performance. To this end, Atozed has been working hard on performing tests and improving the throughput of
applications, both in terms of bandwidth reduction, as well as simultaneous sessions. We have also laid the foundation for many new
features to come in 8.1 and later.

New features in 8.0 :

• Page References. Allows access to forms directly as if they were pages (similar to ASP.NET) and therefore provides
  easier integration with ASP.NET sites.
• Improved Session Timeout messages.
• New HTML 3.2 DBGrid component
• New and improved Standalone screen
• Tray Icon option. You can now have your Standalone applications run in the tray icon
• Speed improvements
• JavaScript improvements
• Reduction in HTML output
• IWMenu component for Visual Studio
• IWTreeView component for Visual Studio
• Testing Framework
• Script Recorder
• Improvements to TIWCalendar, allowing localization
• Improvements to TIWTabControl, allowing greater customization
• New OnChange event of TIWTabControl, permitting users to attach an event in response to a page change
• New Demos (GuessTest, MemoryManager)
• Code cleanup

Testing Framework

One of the biggest features of Intraweb 8.0 is the Testing Framework. It's uniqueness is that it focuses more on allowing you to test the logic of your
application. To this effect, in combination with DUnit, you can create from very simple to more complex tests and make sure that your applications
behaves correctly. An example ships with Intraweb, the GuessTest demo. Two simple functional tests are performed to make sure when a number
is entered, correct steps are taken.

This GuessTest demo comes with its own version of the well known Guess demo - it is not meant to be a regression test for the original Guess demo.
In a real world project you would of course just reference the units of the project to be tested - and not duplicate them, as we did for this demo here.

//This test checks if the requirement is met that a number from 1..100 should be //be successful. In theory this test should be run multiple times as we treat //the "business logic" of Guess as black box. We can not predict what random number //it will pickup. So we have to "hammer" on it to see if it fails somewhen. procedure TIWTestCase2.TestSuccess; var   i: integer; begin   with NewSession do try    with MainForm as TformMain do begin      i:=0;      repeat        inc(i);        editGuess.Text := IntToStr(i);        Submit(butnGuess);      until Terminated or (i = 100);      Check(Terminated,'Guess did not succeed on any number from 1..100.');    end;  finally    Free;  end; end;   //This test should fail with a probability of 80% as we only test numbers from //1..20. This is NOT a (valid) requirements test, its just to demonstrate how a //failed test will look like. procedure TIWTestCase2.TestPossibleFailure; var   i: integer; begin   with NewSession do try    with MainForm as TformMain do begin      i:=0;      repeat        inc(i);        editGuess.Text := IntToStr(i);        Submit(butnGuess);      until Terminated or (i = 20);      Check(Terminated,'Guess did not succeed on any number from 1..20.');    end;  finally    Free;  end; end;

Script Recorder

As you can see from the previous code, we have entered the code manually for the tests. For simple tests, this is easy, however it soon becomes cumbersome
for more complex testing. That is why IntraWeb 8.0 also has a script recorder that allows you to record your steps and then perform tests on them. This can be
done using functionality available in the Standalone server window.

Performance Improvements

IntraWeb has come a long way since it's origins. During each version, we have added more and more features and improved functionality. In some cases, these
improvements have had somewhat of a trade-off in speed. In 8.0 we have focused around these issues and have improved performance, in some cases by
up to 40%, and will continue to do so. Below are some charts on tests performed, before and after optimizations.

General

• String handling
  String handling has been reviewed and optimized a lot. Additionally, in Delphi 2006 IntraWeb takes advantage of Borland's optimized string functions
  and the new memory manager.   
• Rendering
  IntraWeb's rendering process relies on Streams which have been written to disk in previous versions. In 8.0 we have changed this to memory and this will
  cut down rendering time on a typical page up to about 75%. The following charts are showing the render time in [ms] per single page. For this test 336
  page requests have been made to get stable results. As you can see there are some random peaks, which are caused by system activity and other
  concurrent processes. The amazing point is that, when using MemoryStreams, these peaks are smaller than the fastest page requests with FileStreams. 
   
   
  Rendering using FileStreams, IntraWeb 7.2
  
  
  Rendering using MemoryStreams, IntraWeb 8.0
  
  Basically, the rendering time has been cut down by about 75%:
  
  

Partial Updates

Partial updates have also been optimized a lot. The amount of data which is going over the wire between to page request depends on the actual form and
the number forms that have been updated. Therefor we have tested 3 variants:

1. Optimistic: 1 control out of 20 is updated after the user presses the submit button
2. Conservative: 8 controls out of 20 are updated
3. Worst case: 9 controls out of 9 are updated.

The initial page request always transfers the full page- which is basically the same as not using Partial Updated (umAll). As you can see even the worst
case transfers much less data now.