Question on MVDB communities

[Joe G]

Hi all,

I've been trying to get VSCode working as an editor for one of my clients. They have a Universe database.  I know it's built into AccuTerm 8 but they don't currently want to upgrade to that version.

There are two extensions. One is just MVBasic. The other is Rocket MVBasic.  Does anyone know the story of those two? Did Rocket buy the other one?  Anyone know which one is better?

I've been looking for communities to ask. There are a lot of old ones that don't seem to have any current activity. This is the only one I've found that has anything in the last year. Are there any places more active?

Joe Goldthwaite

[Wols Lists]

On 05/07/2022 16:47, Joe G wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I've been trying to get VSCode working as an editor for one of my
> clients. They have a Universe database.  I know it's built into AccuTerm
> 8 but they don't currently want to upgrade to that version.

UniVerse (and I believe AccuTerm) are both now owned by Rocket.

>
> There are two extensions. One is just MVBasic. The other is Rocket
> MVBasic.  Does anyone know the story of those two? Did Rocket buy the
> other one?  Anyone know which one is better?

MVBasic is the generic term. Seeing as Rocket has bought up pretty much
all the Pick players now, Rocket MVBasic is (if they are named products)
simply a newer version of the other.

>
> I've been looking for communities to ask. There are a lot of old ones
> that don't seem to have any current activity. This is the only one I've
> found that has anything in the last year. Are there any places more active?
>

Most communities seem to have consolidated here. There's a whole bunch
of similar products under the MV umbrella (like a bunch of stuff under
the relational umbrella), but seeing as it's a fairly small niche and
many of us have feet in several products, it makes sense all to be in
the one place. Advice for one product tends to apply to others too...

Cheers,
Wol

[Osvaldo Djivelekian]

Hi Joe.

You could try the Linkar VS Code extension, from Kosday Solutions.

It's an excellent product! Not free, but has great features at a reasonable cost.

Regards.

Osvaldo

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[Dick Thiot]

Joe,

First, Accuterm 7 supports VSCode.  The version of the extension for Accuterm which is also the community developed version is called MV Basic which is authored by MV Basic.  There is also another version that is similar called MV# Developer Extension.  Both of these have similar features for Syntax Highlighting, Intellisense, Code Formatting, etc but MV Basic is being updated more frequently the MV# Basic Extension.  The MV# Basic Extension was originally authored by Grant Hart of Prosol Group in South Africa, the developer of MVsharp, one of the remaining "independent" database vendors in the market.  While this extension was developed to work specifically with MVsharp it can also work with other flavors of MultiValue including Universe.  There is also a Rocket developed extension that at this point in time is not as mature as the MV Basic extension.  MV Basic does not require Accuterm to work.  You can always open a folder of programs.  Some users open a folder directly on their database server while others will use tools to have local copies of source including Source Control.  This tends to work the best.

Lastly, as mentioned previously, there is the Linkar version that works with their connectivity product.  I might also comment that much of the later develop for the MV Basic extension has been done by two individuals who at the time worked for Zumasys.  I believe that both work now for Rocket but continue to provide support of the MV Basic extension.

I use the extension daily with multiple flavors of database and would be happy to answer other questions.

Good luck,

Dick Thiot

Maverick Systems

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mvdbms/CAF5GgthBtQWN%2BaxrOR93b992odWaQXUT7j8GU4VVVBUt3AtsZA%40mail.gmail.com.

[Joe G]

Wow!  I wasn't expecting any responses for a week or so!  I haven't been checking my email because of that.  Thank you all for your advise. It is appreciated!

It's been confusing because because MV Basic and Rocket MV Basic look very similar.  Thank you Dick and Wol for the clarifications. I didn't look at the Linkar version because I didn't know what Linkar meant. I'll take a look at it.

Of those three, I started with the Rocket version. When saw that it requires Java, I switched to the MV Basic one.  That one required Node.js. I installed that but couldn't figure out how to do some of the basic things like formatting the code. I switched back to Rocket and installed the Java 11.  It worked for a bit but now I'm getting a notification at the bottom saying "Failed to start Rocket MV BASIC extension." That could be because I installed Java 11 and not the current Java 17 or 18.  I don't know because I can't find any error messages anywhere. I just know it won't start.

I've never been a big VSCode fan but I'm getting more comfortable with it. I'll keep trying to get it to work.

Thanks again!

[KOSDAY SOLUTIONS]

Hi Joe
as mentioned MVBASIC Linkar is another option, stable and working since a few years.
It is an extension that connects to most MV databases, including Universe.
The extension is a MIT Licence and only requires Linkar Suite to be installed, at a very affordable price ($62 + $19 per session. https://kosday.com/buy/) .

Thanks to Linkar Suite components, you can attack your database from a multitude of environments, .NET, Java, PHP, NodeJS, C, Ptyhon, REST API, ...

MVBASIC Linkar connects to Linkar Server to perform all CRUD operations with your programs, whether you have them in Universe Dynamic or Directory files.

Take a look at https://kosday.com/mv-basic-linkar-vscode/

If you have any doubt or clarification you can contact us at support @ kosday . com.

Angel

[Dick Thiot]

Joe,

I'm not sure how you are installing the extension but I think that you may be trying to install it as a developer rather than a user.  For the MV Basic version, you don't need to install extra frameworks like Node.js.  The extensions recommended previously are all standard VSCode extensions.  I have a number of extensions installed beyond MV Basic.  The ones that I use most frequently are Diff Tool, REST Client, and vscode-base64.  These are not needed to work with just MultiValue BASIC programs but I deal with tasks that involve other programming languages daily.

There is help available for VS Code and instructions for installing extensions is at https://code.visualstudio.com/learn/get-started/extensions.  These instructions apply to MV Basic and Linkar extensions.  I'm not sure about the Rocket extension.

Just remember, in VSCode F1 is used to access many features in VSCode.  There are often shortcuts as well.

Good luck,

Dick

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[Doug Averch]

There is another option that has been around for 18 years now. XLr8Editor for Universe/Unidata/D3/QM which runs on EclipseIDE using Java.

See this link for more information.

Regards,

Doug

www.u2logic.com/tools.html

[Dick Thiot]

There are lots of other editor options.  The OP specifically referenced VSCode.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mvdbms/4aca255e-d39c-424a-8fe9-7486b5e5dadfn%40googlegroups.com.

[Joe G]

There are!  I wish I had time to explore them.  I've used WED for many years for obvious reasons.  I came from the Pick/Universe world. We've hired a couple of developers that came from the Unidata side. They have some kind of IDE that lets them debug programs and view values by hovering the mouse over the variable.  They asked for help getting the server installed on our system but I don't know anything about it and don't have a clue as to how it works. It seem like someone said that our version of Universe was too old but it would be too disruptive to upgrade it at this point. The client has spent years not doing much in the way of maintenance or upgrades because they're moving everything to SAP.

[Joe G]

Hi Dick,

I did install node.js by mistake.  When I read the installation instructions I did see that it was a requirement if you wanted to contribute.  When I couldn't find the options for formatting I was scanning the install instructions again and just saw the node.js reference and thought that maybe that was missing and the extension wasn't working because of it.  My mistake.  I'm doing this stuff as a side project so I try not to spend much time on it. Trying to learn new things and go fast is not a good combination.

With the Rocket version it seems like Java is required. The only option on their settings screen was to enter the path to Java. Once I installed Java and entered the path a bunch of other useful looking options popped up.  Then the extension stopped working so that was a bust.

I think I'll give up on the Rocket.  I re-installed it but it still doesn't start. Since the notice only tells me it didn't start but not why I dug around to find the extension logs.  That gave me this gem;

[2022-07-07 10:14:54.791] [exthost] [info] ExtensionService#_doActivateExtension RocketSoftware.rocket-mvbasic, startup: false, activationEvent: 'workspaceContains:.rmv'

So, it looks like I have some issue with the "workspaceContains:.rmv" activation event. That really helps. 

Thank you for your help on this.  The F1 key is helpful.

Joe Goldthwaite

[geneb]

On Thu, 7 Jul 2022, Joe G wrote:

> point. The client has spent years not doing much in the way of maintenance
> or upgrades because they're moving everything to SAP.
>

Only another 10 years or so to go then? ;)

g.

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[Joe G]

Or 20. 😂

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[Will Johnson]

Clients "moving to SAP" are the best clients.

Life long work.