3rd December 2024 The parsing of the Runtime and Compiler command files now allows for embedded Environment Variables within the file names. There have also been corrections to the EslEdit navigation processing and the A327064 local application to support the use of the Emulate functions, when operating a 64 bit Emulator package.
4th March 2024 Additional meta data is stored within the Windows Executable Binary (i.e. .WEB) when compiled with the "-debug" option set. This additional information allows the ESL runtime to handle requests from the QuikStep debugger to view and amend parameters and local variables in-use by the currently active subroutine.
1st November 2023 The CICS access library "ESLCICS" has been re-introduced, as this facility is still available via IBM's CICS Transaction Gateway. It provides support for applications designed to use the CICS Universal Client.
9th May 2023 This release provides a source code compatible facility to access the 64bit version of 3270 Terminal Emulation products.
5th September 2022 This release reinstates the custom EHLLAPI function, which can be used to reliably obtain the Emulator Window Handle.
4th April 2022 This release includes a significant enhancement to the SQL Wizard Development Tool, which now has the option to generate applications using the Batch Array processing statements.
1st November 2021 This release includes minor tweaks to the Development Tools, which were too late to be included in 21.10. This release of ESL has also been regression tested against Windows 11.
7th June 2021 This release includes minor improvements to the User interface, which is evident in the Development Tools "About Boxes". There are other minor fixes to the Development Tools and supplied samples. There are a couple of enhancements for Clients that use EBCDIC files and those who passed structures with fixed sized string to external routines.
9th December 2020 This additional release includes many minor improvements to the Development Tools and peripheral processes.
30th June 2020
13th January 2020 As Microsoft have now dropped support for Windows 7 and Visual Studio 10, we have moved our development and support environments to Windows 10 and Visual studio 2019.
17th September 2019 There are a few bug fixes and enhancements to the way ESL handles icons and images.
7th May 2019 There are a few bug fixes but the main change has been to migrate to secure C runtime and system APIs.
2nd April 2019 There are a number of bug fixes and we have improved our handling of windows activation and focus. A number of improvements have been made to EslEdit.
7th December 2018 This release has been mainly concerned with upgrading language and APIs to conform to Visual Studio 2017 with secure APIs.
We will continue to support Visual Studio 10 until ESL release 20.10 and will then switch to Visual Studio 2017.
13th April 2018 This release introduces ESL Inter-Process Communication (Esl IPC) which allows ESL programs to communciate with C# or VB.net programs giving simple but robust access to Microsoft Office projects.
We have included a couple of samples to get you started. The release also includes enhancements and bug fixes for Layout Editor, EslEdit and other programs.
26th January 2018
16th June 2017
13th October 2016 This includes performance improvements for the ODBC version of the SQL Local App.
Enhancements to EslEdit and the addition of a new sample: "EslArt" along with other bug fixes.
21st June 2016 This includes an ODBC version of the SQL Local Application Executable allows any ODBC compliant DBMS to be accessed from ESL and enhancements to EslEdit.
30th November 2015 EslEdit has been enhanced and helps developers to write ESL programs even more quickly. Additionally, a new remote communication library "socket" has been added.
This can be used instead of "serial", which removes the need for additional hardware or a third-party virtual serial port package.
30th June 2015
12th November 2014 We have added some more tracing/logging options and have revised the calling conventions to optimise the support for COBOL libraries.
4th June 2014
2nd October 2013
15th April 2013 As Microsoft is dropping support for Visual Studio 6 (VS6) we have introduced a version of ESL built using VS10 and by default we will supply the version built using this.
If your ESL Application uses any of your own dynamic link libraries (.dlls) that access any ESL functions in ESLLIB, then these libraries must be re-linked to ensure that the correct calling conventions are used.
We will continue to support ESL built using VS6 as long as we have a demand for it and both versions will be kept in step wherever possible.
Where there are platform differences, such as later versions of system calls, we will use the newer versions in VS10 and the older version in VS6.
Release 12.20
25th October 2012 This release has been tested against a pre-release version of Windows 8.
If you intend to use the full-screen mode offered by ESL then you will appreciate that this is also the first release of ESL that fully supports “Popup Menus”.
This is significant as the dropdown menus are unavailable when using full-screen mode.
26th June 2012 In addition to a number of fixes and improvements, we've added some documentation in the release notes for OSUTIL under the "General Information" section and we now have an ESL language Quick Reference Guide.
11th October 2011 We've made a number of significant improvements to Esl Edit.
We'd like to think that this would be your preferred development tool for ESL programs so please do let us know if you think it is missing functionality in any way.
22nd June 2011
2nd February 2011 The simple text editor that was previous released has been considerably enhanced to create a multi-window development environment.
This new tool, Esl Edit parses your source code, providing direct access to:
oAction routines
oSubroutines
oIncluded files and
oFunctions
Esl Edit also parses error logs, and locate the reported error by loading the associated application source code.
Together with the enhanced editing facilities, the Programmer can invoke the common Esl Development tools:
oCompiler
oLayout Editor
oQuikStep Debugger and
oThe Esl Runtime
Esl Edit has been written in the Esl Language using only the libraries and modules that are available to all Developers. We encourage you to contact the Help Desk, to suggest possible enhancements and to obtain the latest pre-release versions of ESL Edit to trial.
29th June 2010
24th November 2009 This release includes some new development tools and have extended the OSUtil and FileIO functions.
Please do let us know if you would like any additional features.
Release 9.11
1st September 2009 Following a question from a Client regarding support for the 64bit Operating Systems, we are pleased to announce that ESL has been fully regression tested on Windows Server 2008 64bit.
We are pleased to confirm that there are no problems and we will provide full support for this platform.
We are currently testing on XP 64bit and the pre-release version of Windows 7 64bit.
Please contact the ESL Help Desk if your company is planning to migrate your ESL applications to any of the other Windows 64bit platforms.
Release 9.10 11th March 2009 In response to a request from some of our users, we have performed a full regression test of ESL on Windows Server 2003.
We are pleased to confirm there are no problems and we will provide full support for this platform.
28th July 2008 In addition to fixing a few errors we have upgraded the DB2 support to 9.5.
Server 2008 seems to perform quite well so we anticpate a number of our customers switching to this before long.
3rd December 2007 This release contains functionally equivalent to 7.02 but in addition to the version built using Visual Studio 6 is now available as a version built using Visual Studio 8.
We will continue to support ESL using Visual Studio 6 as long as we have a demand for it.
Wherever possible, both versions will be kept in step.
14th August 2007 We have finished testing ESL 7.02 for Windows Vista.
We had to make a few changes to parameter files and registry entries, but we think that it is now stable.
12th March 2007
Release 5.60
9th October 2006
2nd June 2006
23rd October 2005
14th February 2005 The features of this release include a number of fixes and enhancements to ESLPR and ESLWeb.
The local application ESLPR now supports:
oFixed and variable pitched fonts
oMultiple copies through select printer dialog
oEmbedded spaces in file and printer names without need for quotes
oTop and left margins
oOptional form feed at end of passthrough printing
oLine feed without carriage return to support OS/2 style print file
Following discussions with interested ESL developers, we have continued to develop the ESLWEB facilities, which allows ESL applications to communicate with WEB Servers using the IP protocol. The new features are:
oSupport for secure socket layer via the HTTPS protocol.
oNew function, "HTTPPostWithHdr" to allow customize headers to be sent.
4th October 2004 The features of this release include native ESL support for mouse wheel support and access to EBCDIC files.
5th April 2004 The features of this release include native ESL support for;Enhanced graphics handling including jpegs & gifs
oFTP uploads & downloads
oMAPI support to provide email with attachments
14th October 2003
5th July 2003
21st October 2002
18th October 2002 ESL Syndetic acquired the rights to the ESL software from TC Group with effect from 1st October 2002.
ESL Syndetic has been formed by the team that have supported ESL since 1999.
We are now completely focused on supporting and developing ESL and we will endeavour to further improve both the product and the support that we provide to our customers.
29th August 2002
4th April 2002
8th January 2002
12th December 2000
5th September 2000
1999 TC Group acquired ESL from Ardent Software and created an ESL business within the group.
1998 TC Group took over the role of supporting ESL following the acquisition of VMark’s product range by Ardent Software.
1994 The extensive range of product offerings was united under the family name: the ESL Technology Family.
1994 ‘Easel Corporation’ was acquired by VMark software, which continued to improve and develop ESL, culminating in the release of ESL 5, a 32 bit version of the Windows product.
1993 The re-named ‘Easel Corporation’ launched the Windows and Presentation Manager versions of their EASEL package.
Interactive Images introduced a major breakthrough in Graphical User Interface (GUI) technology: the event-driven EASEL application development language.
