We are happy to announce that today Embarcadero has released a new update of its InterBase flagship database engine, InterBase 2020 Update 6. With this release, the company continues to improve the product’s quality and usability.
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IBConsole UX Further Improvements
This new release includes a new build of IBConsole, which continues the work done on IBConsole in InterBase 2020 Update 5, which provided support for HighDPI monitors, replaced the icons with new higher resolution ones, removed some of the user interface “clutter”, and much more.
IBConsole in InterBase 2020 Update 6 offers additional improvements in a number of areas of the tool. The main highlights include:
- IBConsole now features a Ribbon toolbar.
- There is a new option to export result datasets to different formats, like: HTML, XML, XLS, XLSX, PDF, and TXT
- HighDPI support has been extended to some secondary dialog boxes we skipped in the previous update
- In particular, we have redesigned Interactive SQL Window and made the following enhancements:
- Support for multiple workspaces on the Interactive SQL Window. Within an Interactive SQL session, you can now have multiple workspaces to help the user keep related queries in one editor
- The Object list with tables and columns has been modified to become a tree structure for easier navigation and selection for putting together queries faster and more intuitively.
- The Results tab to the right of SQL Workspace shows the result set for an executed query, with more real estate to browse, thanks to movable splitters. A user can look at the results, while also seeing the “Information” section below for additional execution details.
- The Information tab below contains consolidated Plan information, along with Statistics of executed queries.
- Significantly enhanced SQL History
- Improved syntax highlight configuration
An image of the new IBConsole UI showing the Interactive SQL Window. This is a Delphi applications based
on the VCL library and leveraging the Windows HighDPI support and styling of the VCL
General Quality Improvements
InterBase 2020 Update 6 also includes stability improvements developed to enhance customer experience and long term uninterrupted use. Relevant changes include:
- Improved database stability when executing server wide Performance Monitoring
- Added an automatic mechanism to disable memory-hungry features (like page prefetching and page pinning) in the database cache when the database is low on memory
- Increased performance of select stored procedures returning a large amount of data
- Stability improvements and fixes requested by customers via support
- The new release includes ODBC driver bug fixes, and the Windows installer has been updated with latest InterBase client libraries
Additional Licensing Options
It’s also worth noticing that over the last year, the company started offering additional licensing opportunities for the embedded version of InterBase:
- The embedded IBLite is now freely available not only to RAD Studio customers, but to any developer interested in it. See https://www.embarcadero.com/products/interbase/lite/free-download for more information
- The embedded IBToGo, with encryption support, changeviews, and additional features, is offered with a yearly subscription license for deployment in an unlimited number of copies with your apps. See https://blogs.embarcadero.com/embarcadero-introduces-a-brand-new-ibtogo-subscription-offer/ for more information
More Information on InterBase
InterBase is a powerful, zero-administration, small footprint database engine that can power your server and even run on your mobile devices as an embedded database. InterBase 2020 added a number of new features, including tablespaces support for InterBase server, new OS platform support for embedded versions, enhanced performance monitoring, SQL optimizations and more.
You can find more information on InterBase and the 2020 at the following links:
- The product page on the Embarcadero company website, https://www.embarcadero.com/products/interbase
- The product documentation site, https://docwiki.embarcadero.com/InterBase/2020/en/Main_Page
- The Update 6 Release Notes on DocWiki at https://docwiki.embarcadero.com/InterBase/2020/en/What%27s_New_in_InterBase_2020_Update_6
If you are an existing customer, the new release of the product is available on https://my.embarcadero.com (where you can download the patch kits or the complete installers for Update 6, for both Windows and Linux), otherwise you can download the InterBase Developer Edition at https://www.embarcadero.com/products/interbase/developer/free-download