1. Omnis Studio for Mac-Intel

Following the announcement of the availability of the Mac Intel system at MacWorld, we are intending to release an early beta version of Omnis Studio that will run on both current Mac systems and on Mac Intel ones. We intend that this will be available by the end of February 2006, and hope that interested customers will join the beta programme to test their applications in this new environment.

The Mac Intel functionality will be what we have available at the time of the beta release, and full details will be provided at that time. We will also be constrained by the availability or otherwise of external software, such as clientware and the new Graphs package.

Until we have a full release version of Omnis Studio for Mac Intel, we suggest that if you need to deploy current applications on a Mac Intel platform, you use the Rosetta emulation provided by Apple. The testing that we have done so far has not shown any issues in doing this, other than it is not possible to provide Java support.

2. Support for Web Services

Raining Data is proposing to offer an add-on product for Omnis Studio, allowing it to act as a client or a server for Web Services. A Beta version for Windows platforms only will be available in February. It will require Omnis Studio 4.1.5 (which will be in Beta at the same time).

Omnis Studio as a client for Web Services opens up a wealth of web based resources for the Omnis Developer.

 An Omnis Studio object class can be created in your library which will encapsulate the methods for a remote Web Service.
 Methods contained in an Omnis Studio Web Service Object can then be called in your own application just like normal object methods.
 The Web Service Object can be created using an Object Class Wizard in the Omnis Studio Library Browser using a WSDL file.
  The WSDL file can be a remote file (e.g. http://api.google.com/GoogleSearch.wsdl ) or a local file.
 An integrated Web Service Browser allows developers to search for available Web Services on both public and private UDDI registries using a variety of search criteria.
 Web Services located in the Web Service Browser can simply be dragged to your Omnis Studio library to create the Web Service object.

Omnis Studio as a server for Web Services allows you to implement your own Web Services using Omnis Studio.

  Each operation in an Omnis Studio Web Service corresponds to a method in a remote task
  Parameters and return values for the remote task methods can include aggregate types (lists and rows).
  The WSDL for a server Web Service is generated automatically
  The Studio Browser interface includes a browser for Web Services in open libraries. This includes an interface for testing the service operations.
  Requests to server Web Services can be logged to a data file.
 It uses the same communications mechanism as the Web Client, using some new Web Server plugins (CGI etc). In addition, Studio now has its own basic HTTP server, so requests can be sent directly to Omnis (this is also available for the ultra-thin client).
 Dragging a service from the Web Service browser, to a library, creates an Omnis Web Service client object for the server Web Service. You can then use this for Studio-Studio RPCs - each client object method has the same parameter types and return value as the remote task method in the Web Service.
  Functions are provide d for converting to and from UTC (Coordinated Local Time) and the local time zone.

3. Omnis Studio 4.1.5 (beta)

We expect that the Omnis Studio 4.1.5 beta will be available in February 2006. In addition to Mac Intel support, and Web Services for Win32, this version will have a number of small changes, bug fixes and enhancements.

Customers who are members of the ODPP are invited to register in advance for the beta program for  Mac Intel and/or the Windows Web Services product using the form at http://www.omnis.net/developer/beta.html .