dbQwikSite Version 6 Released

All new major release of dbQwikSite website designer and code generator is now available for download.
This new release includes many enhancements with special emphasis on generating websites that offer richer user experiences.

IDE Enhancements:

Live Preview Highly integrated design and testing. See your pages live as you design them. Live preview embeds a browser into dbQwikSite, so you can see not only how your pages look, but how they work as well. Live preview also interprets all your custom code so features implemented in custom code and via plugins are visible. Test and design at the same time.

Build more Powerful Pages:

Active plug-ins Active plug-ins are a whole new type of plug-in for dbQwikSite. Technically speaking these plug-ins are intelligent “auto snippets”. What they do is offer little bits of functionality to add to your pages. Many of the V6 new features are, in fact, active plug-ins.

Multiple Categories Category filtering has been one of our most popular features allowing your visitors to get lists filtered by a category. Now, we’ve gone one better, multiple categories. Filter by category then sub-category, and sub-sub-category and so on, all with never leaving the data list page.

Group Actions on List Page Ever want to make a page where users can tick, tick, tick several items and perform an action against the selected items? Now you can. Use standard actions, such as delete, or update a field or write your own actions in developer edition. Supercharge your repetitive action tasks with Group Actions.

In-line Add/Update/Delete Want to let your users work with records of their list page without navigating in and out add/update pages? In-line delete has now two new friends, in-line add and in-line update. Add and update forms can now be presented as pop-up dialogs rather than separate pages, to make working off the list page easier than ever.

Unbound Forms Do you have the need to collect information from your site using HTML forms, but you really do not need to store it in a database? New Unbound forms let you design forms that email you the user input rather than storing in a database table. It’s a fast way to create simple web forms.

Email Added / Edited Records Do you need to know when a new record is added or updated in your database? Now you can have dbQwikSite forms automatically send you a copy of the updates that take place on your web site.

Capcha Stop those pesky hackers and robots from submitting your forms, add Captcha to your forms. Capcha is the system where graphics are displayed, containing letters to type in before a form can be submitted..

Autocomplete Create input controls that look up values from your database as you type, allowing users to find existing values without scrolling trough long drop down lists. Unlike drop down lists, auto complete allow users to enter their own values when the value they seek is not already in the database.

RTF Editor You can now turn any text box control into an advanced RTF editor. Users can create formatted text to be stored and displayed from your database.

Quick Search Add s simple search right to your data list pages. Visitors can pick a field and filter by a value without needing to go to the search page.

Multiple Value Search Need to search for a shirt that is either red or blue or black? V6 now offers the ability to search for multiple search values in a single database column.

PDF Print via Online services Do your visitors ask for PDF copies of the pages they see on your site? Now you can simply add a Print PDF button to any page which sends that page to a free PDF document creation service.


XML and JSON Services. Now you can turn any dbQwikSite data page into a web service serving either XML or JSON data streams. There’s nothing to do other than call your page with a special URL parameter: return=XML or return=JSON.

Build Pages with More Pizzazz:

Custom Form Layouts Full support for custom layouts of Add and Update pages. Create professional looking form designs placing input field prompts and input field controls where ever you want them, add in borders and any HTML formatting and your forms will impress.

HTML Zones let’s you add “stuff”Add HTML “stuff” into more places on your page. We’ve exposed the layout “quadrants” found in developer edition to all editions. Previously, you could customize page headers and footers, as HTML segments. Now you have the same functionality for 10 separate zones arranged around the dbQwikSite generated content in a North, East, South, and West fashion.


Conditional Formatting Ever think that you’d like to change the format of data on your page based on the value of that data. For example show negative numbers in red, or bold any string that starts with “New “. Conditional formatting lets you do just that. You can control all CSS attributes of a data field based on the value contained in that field

Google Charts Who doesn’t like looking at graphs to visual their data? Whether it’s monthly sales or average rainfall, graphs inherently make numerical data easier to understand. dbQwikSite now seamlessly integrates to Google’s free (conditions apply) web service for creating graphs. No coding required, just pick the columns to graph and dbQwikSite does the rest.

Google & Live Maps Add maps to your web sites, with ease. Give point of a field in your data that is an address or a longitude / Latitude pair and add the power of interactive maps to your page.

Improved CSS dbQwikSite is great at making pages, hundreds of them a minute, all following the same formatting. Now you can gain greater control over the look of your pages, with new, more granular classes. Make your generated pages a truer reflection of your personal creativity.

Item level CSS controlEvery page item now lets you assign your own inline CSS attributes on both the caption and the data values. Now you can make certain fields stand out, and other fade out. Any CSS attributes are available down to the finest level of your page design.

Scrollable Data Areas Do wide tables and lots of data rows ruin your page, making it run off your monitor? Now you can easily constrain your tables into scrollable data areas, helping preserve the appearance of the your page design.

Mashing it up with dbQwikSite

What is a Mashup? For me it conjures up images of a bunch of cooks, all mashing away at a pot of boiled potatoes. But in the world of web development it means piecing together discreet units of available web functionality into a single integrated application.

Wikipedia defines a mash up as:

Mashup (web application hybrid)
In technology, a mashup is a web application that combines data from more than one source into a single integrated tool; an example is the use of cartographic data from Google Maps to add location information to real-estate data, thereby creating a new and distinct web service that was not originally provided by either source.

Before I say anything more let me show you are screen shot of something I was playing with in dbQwikSite before I looked up the term in Wikipedia.

What you are looking at is a dbQwikSite page that I have in our Real Estate test project in which I added a Windows® Live Map. I had created, almost verbatim, the Wikipedia definition of a MashUp. The listing data is all in the dbQwikSite Real Estate database, but the Map is pulled in from Microsoft. After copying sample code from the Live Maps interactive SDK and fiddling with the custom code a bit, miracles of miracles I made a MashUp in about 15 minutes.

Well that’s not all, check this out. I made this over two months ago, when I was testing Developer Edition. This page uses Google Charts APIs to produce graphs of a data page generated by dbQwikSite.

Here’s another graph… ok, so it’s not a “true” MashUp by definitions. It is using Microsoft’s Siverlight 2 technology which is not a web service, but I didn’t have to know anything about coding graphs, just enough to call the JavaScripts and pass the right parameters. It’s just so pretty, I could not resist showing it off.

So today, it dawned on me, I was creating MashUps and I didn’t even know it. At first I said to myself “Naw, it can’t be that easy, MashUps are the realm of web gurus. I must be missing something.” So off to Wikipedia I went, to delve into the real meaning of MashUps. I stopped reading after I read the example I quoted earlier. “Wow! This is cool!” I thought to myself. There’s something big going on here, code generation plus MashUps what an awesome, powerful combination.

By themselves these web services like Google Charts and Windows Maps are interesting. But they only become valuable when placed within a meaningful context. Let’s face it you are much more interested in a map to the new house you are going to buy than just “a map”. And you are likely much more interested in a plot of your sales than a graph of data that is not yours.

What MashUp developers do is take all these nice “gadgets” and knit them into an application to enhance their applications. These guys are the guys writing the back end processing, digging data out of their databases and integrating these fantastic web services to enrich their web applications. But, wait a minute; dbQwikSite users know that they don’t have to code the back end. The code generator of dbQwikSite does that for you. So we just made the job of creating MashUp web sites magnitudes easier. Let dbQwikSite churn out the back end code and a basic interface then add a few lines of custom code to call web services and we are making MashUps in the blink of an eye.

While I still think that MashUp is a funny term, I do agree that the concept is valid and very powerful. Even more powerful is when you marry that technology to the dbQwikSite code generation technology to web services technology in MashUps. You can produce some pretty advanced websites at lighting speeds by “Mashing it Up” with dbQwikSite.

Rave Review from Bangkok Post

This Wednesday, then I opened my morning paper I was pleasantly surprised to find that Thailand's largest newspaper had done a review of dbQwikSite by their resident Web Design columnist. It's quite a positive review so I thought I would share it with you.
Read the full review here. (updated link Jun 9 2008)

Here are a few kudos from the article: (in the event that the above link gets "retired")

I do not normally get excited about a code generation tool but I have watched this local product evolve and it just keeps getting better.

Remember this is a local Thai product that rivals the bigger US equivalents and is of course a lot less expensive

If you are looking for a deceptively inexpensive web site builder and don't want to pay someone to build one for you then I recommend that you try dbQwikSite.

If you are wondering: No I'm not on the board or payroll - this is just a great product.

Smart XSL Snippets: Mini Code Generators

Today we released dbQwikSite 5.3.0.3. By most counts, this is a simple maintenance release but hiding in the list of updates there appears one rather mundane looking item entitled “xsl snippet support”. Looks pretty small and simple on the surface, but this single new feature infers some pretty powerful implications. It means that you can make mini-code generators inside the dbQwikSite generation framework.

Let’s take a closer look at this feature. We call it XSL code snippets. What it means that in any of the 150-plus custom code insert points found in Developer Edition, you can write an XSL(T) template. But this is not a template transforming xml data to format HTML in the browser. These XSL templates work a code generation time and they work against the XML of your project. This is really cool, because it means that you can access all the design information stored in your project model to generate code snippets. It takes a bit of time to wrap your mind around the concept but once you do the implications are quite interesting.

Let’s step back a bit. Let’s say we are working with Developer edition, which in itself is very powerful. What we can do is add in new script code to enhance our generated pages. We can do all kinds of neat things by typing in “static” script syntax into insert points / events. Ok, so we can understand adding code snippets to our pages. But what about a “smart snippet”? One that can write the code snippet for you. One that can know about other pages in your project, one that can react to the design setting contained in your project model. That’s exactly what the XSL snippets offer. And when you think about it, that’s exactly what the dbQwikSite code generation engines does, translates your design setting to code. But what’s extra cool about the XSL snippets is that it is you who defines what is to be generated, rather than the code generation engine itself. Now, that’s pretty advanced flexibility, and you won’t find this type of power in any competing tool. If you are lucky you may get “events” and then only a handful at best. With dbQwikSite you get over 150 “events” and you get smart snippets that can actually generate code themselves.

So why would we ever write a smart snippet. There are a number of situations that make smart snippets indispensible. The first one that comes to mind is to be able to have code snippets that is “project aware”, for example you may want to create code that adds new page flows, but without the names of the other pages, you could not so this, smart snippets can gather information from the project XML. Another situation is to make a snippet that is settings aware, for example you want it to create code differently if the page is secured or not, or if the group has a shopping cart. These are examples where smart snippets can outperform their “static” counterparts. You can write snippets that are not project specific, they are generic and self adjusting between projects. Another example could be a multi-scripting language snippet. For example rather than writing two snippets, one in ASP and one PHP and maintaining, managing and distributing both snippets, you have only one smart snippet, that automatically detects the generation language and inserts the correct language syntax.

Granted, writing smart snippets may not be for everyone. You can get along quite well inserting ordinary “static” script code into your insert points. To write a smart snippet, you need an understanding of the project XML and XSL as well as the code that you want to generate. But if you are into these technologies, you may be interested in a few of the details of the mechanics of XSL smart snippets. To create a smart snippet, you do as you would for any other kind of code snippet. But instead of typing in script syntax you type in an XSL template, and check the box that says this is a XSL snippet. During code generation, your XSL is executed and the output is placed into the insert point that invokes the snippet. Your snippet is passed the entire DOM of project XML, as well as two parameters. The two parameters are the Page ID and the Item ID (when applicable), giving you the context of the call to your XSL. You can easily work your way through the DOM to access Groups, Pages and other project objects to produce the code syntax you need.

That’s it, one small item in a maintenance release, the gives you an extremely powerful capability, a capability that you won’t find elsewhere. And even if you are not up to writing your own smarts snippets others will write and share smart snippets and you can benefit. This is yet another way that we are providing ways for the user community to contribute to the development of dbQwikSite. With our first step about a year ago providing an XML project model, to support for user defined project reports, addition of a plug-in architecture, user definable payment processing page generation, code snippets and now smart snippets. You can look forward to dbQwikSite becoming more powerful and more flexible with every release.

Web Developer Edition Now Available

dbQwikSite Developer Edition is now available for download. Developer Edition makes its debut as part of the release of 5.3. In a nutshell, Developer addition let’s you add your own custom code into your website projects. The concept is simple, but the ramifications are profound. It means that you can now extend and enhance your generated pages. Developer edition opens the door to a realm of possibilities.

I have been pushing for Developer Edition for almost a year now. I knew that I wanted it, I knew that it would be kewel (cool). What I didn’t know was exactly what it meant to web developers and web designers until I started testing it. It was like having my hands untied, or taking the rev limiter off your sports car. Now, I could do things that I had seen on other sites, but were beyond the capabilities of code generation.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the other editions of dbQwikSite, and every time I use them I am grateful that I don’t have to hand code thousands of lines of code. I always amazed what I can do in 10 minutes with this software. But, being the overachiever I am, I always want more! More features, more cool stuff, more flexibility. That’s exactly what I got with dbQwikSite Developer Edition. To date, I had to wait for the developers to have the time to code new features. I know from emails of our users that I am not the only one that wished that we could provide features faster. With Developer Edition, the game changed overnight. The only one that was holding back features was me, not the developers. I wanted graphs, I added graphs! I wanted conditional highlighting, I added conditional highlighting! I wanted a search on the data lists page, I added it! You get the idea, I am sure. It was instant gratification. It was the freedom to do much, much more without giving up all the “cushy” benefits of my beloved code generator.

Here is a copy of the promotional video I made to introduce Developer Edition.
The quality a bit blurry here, there is bigger one on the home page of dbQwikSite

If I have caught your interest, then you likely want to know more about what’s inside the new edition. Developer looks the same as other editions. What’s new is a “In-line code editor”. When you are working with a page, you click the “custom code” option in the popup menus. What you see is the generated source code. Inside the code, there are input boxes we call “insert points” in which you can type your own custom code. There are over 150 of these insert points at key places in the processing. Some are “events” like “after open dataset” and “on focus” of a control. Others do not related directly to an event, but more to places in code where you may want to add your own code, an example is “CSS Includes” it is not an event, but you may wish to include your own CSS files at this point in the source code. As you may have gathered, there are insert points for both client and server side scripting.

Besides the code editor, there are several reports designed specifically for web developer in mind edition such as the custom code report. You don’t need to hunt through each page looking for custom code in your project. Just run this handy report, and you’ll know exactly what custom code you have in your project. Another powerhouse feature is a complete custom code versioning mechanism built right into dbQwikSite. Every time you modify a custom code block, a new version is saved into your project. You can use the Version Management Interactive Report to view a complete history of your custom code blocks. What’s more, you can even “revert” back to previous versions if you discover you somehow messed things up along the way. Behind the scenes there have been some changes to the way pages are generated to allow better control of presentation by JavaScript. Ids are assigned to page elements; the contents of the page are now embedded in layout matrix of divs that let you insert content around generated elements. Variable name abstractions have been added to let you code using variable names that are readable and do not get changed when you do design changes.

If you want to give developer a try, you need the new executable program file. To get the most recent exe new users can download PE and existing users can run live update. All editions let you preview Developer’s entire user interface. If you want to test drive the code generation, just run in Full Trial mode. Upgrade pricing is available to all version 5 users. Details can be found on the web site.

Google Checkout++ new in dbQwikSite 5.2.3.0

Today we released dbQwikSite 5.2.3.0. This release concentrates on enhancing payment gateway support. There are two major payment gateway enhancement offered in this release. The first is the addition of support for Google Checkout and the second is the ability to add your own payment gateways to dbQwikSite.

Those who know Google Checkout, likely know that there are two flavors of checkout; a single charge checkout and a multi-item checkout. The good news is that dbQwikSite support both flavors. If you just want to bill the bottom line, then the single item checkout is what you want. If you want to have an itemized billing then the multi-item checkout is just the ticket.

When it comes to native payment gateway support, the list now includes: PayPal, Google Checkout, Authorize.net, World Pay, SecPay, and VCS. However that is only the beginning, now you can add your own payment gateway support to dbQwikSite. Under the covers, we have added a payment gateway plug-in architecture, which means that not only TheDevShop, but also you, can add new payment gateways without the need for programming. So, virtually any payment gateway can be supported by dbQwikSite.

Adding a new payment gateway involves defining XML and XSL files. There are basically 2 steps, define the user input needed during design this is done using an XML document, and define an XSL that transforms saved dbQwikSite model into a web script. To create payment gateways you likely need some proficiently in XML Style Sheets. The great part is that these gateway plug-ins not project specific, that means that they can be shared amongst users. There is no “compiling” or “updating” involved, just drop the XML/XSL in the right folder and “presto” a new payment gateway. If you do happen to delve into creating a payment gateway plug-in and want to share it, just send the files to support and we will add them to the plug-in download page. Other users, I am sure, will be most appreciative. Documentation on how to create payment gateway plug-ins can be found on the dbQwikSite download page http://www.dbqwiksite.com/download.html in the “Other Downloads” section.

On other news, many people are asking about Developer Edition. It is definitely still on the product road map. The release has been delayed as we decided to do some serious R & D into two areas: “proper” .net support and Web 2.0 support. As that effort winds down we turn our attention back to developer edition. We have just set up our first beta tester and we are starting to move forward on the development of Developer Edition. An later this year, you should see some great stuff as a result of our R & D being incorporated into the product.

2008 New Year Message from TheDevShop

2007 has come and gone, a good year all and all. We did a few interesting outsource projects and we managed to release major upgrades to all of the dbQwik Family products. dbQwikSite took second price in the national software industry awards. TheDevShop was named “Finalist” in Red Herring’s Asia’s Top 100 most promising privately help IT companies. We couldn’t have done it without our dedicated staff and our customers. As I bid farewell to 2007, I do so offering a “super-duper-mega-humongous” THANK YOU to employees of TheDevShop Ltd. and to our Customers who not only support us financially, but serve as a source of inspiration as well.

Now TheDevShop enters 2008, a bright new year with a bright new plans and dreams. What coming in 2008? Some may have noticed that TheDevShop planned releases of dbQwikSite for Q4 2007 did not materialize, and things got very quite in the marketing and communications. What happened is that we were given an opportunity to work on a large scale social networking, web 2.0, dot Net project. I saw a huge synergy in the project and the dbQwikSite product road map. So we put R&D on hold in exchange for some heavy duty hands on experience into the technologies that we want to incorporate into dbQwikSite and dbQwikEdit. While this resulted in the delay of dbQwikSite releases, it also means that we are well positioned now to incorporate all the knowledge gained in our latest project into the tool. The new result should be a new dbQwikSite in 2008 which will be a major leap forward into the world of web 2.0. dbQwikSite will be doing all the cool stuff in AJAX and .net producing Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) in the blink of an eye.

dbQwikEdit is also on the road map for some major changes in 2008, with stronger support for XML being our primary target. Look for a hybrid database / XML tool, marrying the two technologies. Expect to see XPath and XQuery support in 2008.

dbQwikReport is due for a reunion in 2008. dbQwikReport began as a spinoff of dbQwikSite to provide users with a simple way to create reports on web hosted databases using standard scripting technology. dbQwikReport has received a lot of interest from the community. There seems to be a real demand for a simple, light weight reporting solution for hosted databases. In 2008 we hope to migrate the reporting features of dbQwikReport back into the dbQwikSite framework. This should result in some major improvements in terms of user interface and flexibility.

2008 holds a lot of promise for our users, who will see the advent of the next generation of the dbQwik family of tools on your desktops. For us at TDS it is a very exciting and ambitious plan. We are committed to develop the best tools possible to support technology trends. And always in the spirit of “dbQwik” we will be packing high-tech knowhow into simple to use, affordable software.

Be sure to subscribe to this blog to be informed of the latest developments from TheDevShop.

dbQwikSite 5.2.1.7 –Paves the way to a New Edition

This week we released dbQwikSite 5.2.1.7 this is a maintenance release with a few bug fixes and minor enhancements. Hardly worth writing about, except for the reason behind the release which is far more exciting news. We released this edition because it contains fixes that we wanted to get to the user community, before dbQwikSite undergoes a major change to the code generation engine. This change will introduce new, powerful of functionality for web designers and web developers.


What’s it all about? You’ll get a hint if you upgrade to version 5.2.1.7. In some of the property dialogs, version 5.2.1.7. In some of the property dialogs, you’ll see a new option tab “Custom Events.” This is the essence to an all new “Developer’s Edition”. The Developer’s Edition adds the ability to incorporate your own custom code into your projects. It will offer both “client-side” and “server-side” script support. This means that you can add your own JavaScript to run the browser or add ASP(.net) or PHP code that will execute on the server. We introduce “events” and “insertion points” in this edition. You can add your own code at any of these points to change or enhance generated pages.


If you are a designer, you likely have seen, or used, JavaScript to do such things as create rollover effects, validate form fields, and highlight errors or other dynamic HTML effects. With Developer Edition, you can use provided JavaScript functions or incorporate your own scripts that you write or download from script sites. Web developers familiar with ASP(.net) and PHP can insert their own code “snippets” to change processing on the server side. For example you could change the security authorization or perform server-side validation or calculations. Having the ability to add your code to dbQwikSite code opens the door to creating even more advanced, highly customized applications. Unlike editing the generated code which is overwritten if you regenerate a page, embedded code is preserved between code generations.


Stay tuned to this blog from more breaking news about dbQwikSite Developer Edition and other news about dbQwik products.

dbQwikSite 5.2.1 Released: Single Language Editions get X-Gen

Today we released dbQwikSite 5.2.1 adds X-Gen technology for easier local testing with single scripting language editions. Single scripting language editions include: Personal Edition (PE), Publisher (Pub), and Express Edition (XE). X-Gen allows users to design and test using one scripting language and then deploy to another scripting language.

We now include a limited X-Gen capability in the single language editions. The special edition generates local scripts that run under the dbQwik Web Server allowing you to test locally without installing support for your purchased language on your PC. Prior to this release, if you bought a PHP generation option, you can only generate PHP. In this case you would have had to install PHP support on your PC before you could test locally. With this release the X-Gen engine has been enhanced to generate code compatible with the included dbQwik Web Server. You can transparently test on your PC no matter which language you have subscribed to for deployment. X-Gen will make testing with single script editions a whole lot easier.

Also in this release you will find a new, single dialog to hide and show pages. Previous editions had separate dialogs, to show and hide pages in the explorer. I for one, welcome this change, a small but helpful tweak the program interface.

Other improvements have been added in this and lesser releases. There is better internal image handling while working on projects; this should result in slightly better performance. We still have more to do on image management, with the objective of improving the program performance while designing. There have been a few minor releases under the 5.2.0.x that address a wide variety of issues in the designer and in code generation. So if you are a multi-scripting language user there are plenty of small fixes for you too.

This is a free upgrade to all version 5 users. It is available via the Live Update menu option found in the Help menu.

dbQwikReport 1.3 Vista Ready

Today we release dbQwikReport version 1.3. It is a both an important release, and a boring release. It is important in that, it is now compatible with windows Vista, and boring in that there no great new features for me to write about.

Anyone already using Windows Vista, or planning a move to Vista, can rest assured that their investment in dbQwik products is a sound one. dbQwikSite, dbQwikReport and dbQwikEdit all will run on your Vista machine. Only one left to migrate: dbQwikSync Pro and you should expect that one shortly.

There is one significant enhancement in dbQwikReport 1.3. It is a bug fix, of sorts. Actually the bug is with Microsoft ADO, it simply will not handle MySQL Timestamp data types. So, our fix is that we catch the error, and we allow you to continue designing, but without any data in your preview. When you deploy to PHP/MySQL all your data will appear. There are a couple important things to note here. It is far better to use DateTime data types in MySQL if you want your tables to be accessible by any tools that are based on MS ADO, technology (like the dbQwik Products and ASP). The resulting data storage is the same. Users of dbQwikSite should note that we have not fixed this issue yet in dbQwikSite… so best to avoid Timestamps in MySQL all together.

dbQwikReport 1.3 is a free upgrade available via live update. You access live update from the help menu of the program.

While we are on the topic of technical “stuff” and version numbers there is an important tidbit I have to share with you. I was using dbQwikEdit on my laptop lately. I could not believe how unstable it was; no matter what I did it seemed to go wrong. After firmly scolding all the developers with harsh words about quality and the likes, I was asked the question:
“What database?”
“MySQL, and we are supposed to support it! Nothing new here folks!” I retorted.
“What version of myODBC are you using?”
“I just updated maybe a couple weeks ago, 3.51.14.0” was my reply as my confidence began to fade.
“Can you try 3.51.15.0?”

I returned to my desk, and about 2 minutes, later I was both humbled and happy. It was like dbQwikEdit had magically transformed from a “clunker” to a “cool tool”. I learned two things: 1) go easy on the staff and 2) make sure that my ODBC drivers are stable. I share this with you in case anyone out there is using myODBC 3.51.14.0. and thinking: hey, the TheDevShop software doesn’t work at all. Please, please upgrade your myODBC to 3.51.15! It will make a major difference and bring serenity to your query building.

dbQwikSite 5.2 New Cheaper Editions

Today we launch dbQwikSite new entry level editions. Now there are editions to suit all budgets. The new members to the dbQwik™ Family are: dbQwikSite Publisher Edition, and dbQwikSite Express. As the name suggests Publisher creates display pages, but no on-line forms, it is perfect for those who only need to publish pages on the web, and do not need on-line data entry. Express, is a single scripting language edition of Pro, designed for those who do not need to generate to multiple target platforms. We also bid farewell to two current license levels, PE+ and Project Licenses which are superseded by the new editions. Pro and Ecom remain essentially the same. PE and Full Trial get some major changes.

What about the price you ask? Cheap, cheap, cheap, is the answer. But before I tell the price I want to warn you, there are new and different limitations so do read the following paragraphs or check the feature comparison page before you rush out to buy. I am sure that no one will be unhappy with their purchase, but I wouldn’t want your purchase to be a surprise either. Prices in USD are: PE and Full Trial are FREE, Publisher $39.95, Express $99.95, Pro remains $149.95 and Ecom remains $179.95.

What you need to know about the new edition restrictions. Where major areas where editions differ is in script language support and generation capacity. The lower cost editions are all single scripting language, you must choose between, PHP, ASP and ASP.net. There are limits to project size as well, actually the projects size itself is not limited but code generation stops once you hit your project page limit.

There are some tweaks to the free versions. PE now does much more,than before, but the code generation speed is throttled, initially fast, but slowing as the installation ages. A special note to PE users is that you now have to “Activate” your preferred scripting language on-line. The activation process requires no personal information although there is a voluntary user registration to gain support privileges. Full Trial plays new tricks, you can generate everything for any platform, for a full 7 days, but the output pages have “scrambled” vowels, making your page read strangely. You may find an “Idit” button on your page rather than an “Edit” button.

Release 5.2 also includes a number of functional updates. We have added support for auto-increment fields in the universal table editor. The deploy wizard has been “Opened up” to offer a greater selection of target platform database combinations in addition to the recommended ones. We now allow generation of PHP with native MySQL connection on windows platforms, in addition to Linux. The shopping cart pages have gone through some QA to address some of the outstanding issues with these pages. We have also updated the activation and license manager, to better manage multi-license sites. This change will require users using live update to re-activate their software, which is a painless task, all your current information is pre-populated, so it is just a click of a button.

Today we rolled out the web site updates. Live updates will take another few days to get live update on-line. Current version 5 users should find the live update on-line by June 5^th 2007.