LATE NIGHT SOFTWARE LAUNCHES AFFRUS 1.0, A PERL EDITING AND DEBUGGING
ENVIRONMENT FOR THE MAC OS X
VICTORIA, British Columbia, Canada – March 11, 2004 – Late Night Software
Ltd. today announced the release of Affrus 1.0, a Mac OS X program for
editing, debugging, and running Perl scripts. Affrus 1.0 wraps Perl in a
standard, familiar, and intuitive user interface and offers the ideal center
for all Perl development needs of any complexity on Mac OS X.
Editing
The Affrus editor is tailored to the Perl language. It provides syntax
coloring, identifier indexing and a host of other editing tools to make Perl
development faster. Affrus integrates with Bare Bones Software’s BBEdit and
TextWranger for those who prefer to edit in these tools.
Complete editing features include:
* Single window editing/debugging UI design
* Find and replace
* Drag and drop
* Split-pane editing
* Unlimited undo/redo
* Table Of Contents popup menu
* Contextual Perl navigation menu
* locate handler/variable declarations
* lists in-scope variables
* display perldoc documentation for Perl commands and modules
* Check syntax with graphical error display
* View and change breakpoints as you edit
* Use BBEdit or TextWranger as an external text editor
* Run with one of a number of command line argument sets
* Pass files to @ARGV by dragging files from the Finder
* Debug new unsaved scripts and scripts with unsaved changes
* Optional line number display
* Optional line wrapping
* Optional Perl syntax highlighting
* Bracket, brace and structure balancing
* Shift selection right/left
* Comment/uncomment selection
* Tooltips showing expression values while debugging
* Current line and subroutine indicator
* Scripts palette provides access to a range of Perl boilerplate code
* Integration with Perltidy (perltidy.sourceforge.net)
* Variable declaration highlighting
* Multiple clipboards and Clipboards palette window
* Environment variable definition
* Supports multiple Perl configurations
Debugging
Affrus presents a full-featured graphical debugger tuned to the needs of
Perl programmers. The debugger features step-wise execution, breakpoints,
tracing and expression evaluation as well as stack frame tracing with full
access to locally scoped (my) variables. The debugger also displays all Perl
registers and variables from any Package.
Complete debugging features include:
* Single-step execution
* Step into and step out of handlers
* Trace execution
* Call stack display
* Display local variables
* Automatic display of all variables in scope
* Breakpoints
* Breakpoints window
* Expressions window
* Variable change highlighting
* Circular reference detection
* Variable values can be edited when debugging
* Debug scripts run from the Unix shell
* stdout/stderr console display
* Perl package display
* Displays all Perl special variables
* Displays variable and value memory location
* Displays value class names
* Variable/value change highlighting
Command Line Integration
Affrus provides a command line tool that allows all of Affrus’s debugging
capabilities to be invoked from Mac OS X’s command line. For instance, you
can pipe stdin to the command line tool to debug with live data. Other
features include Unix shell integration,
stdin redirection, and Environment variable redirection.
Affrus displays state (running, paused) in Affrus Dock icon and can control
script execution from Affrus Dock menu.
Affrus is AppleEvent scriptable (through a fully object oriented scripting
interface), as well as recordable and attachable, and has an expandable
scripts menu and palette.
Pricing and Availability
Affrus 1.0 is now available and retails for US$99 for electronic delivery
and US$109 (plus shipping) on CD-ROM. Affrus can be purchased by calling
toll-free 888.999.3210 or online at:
http://www.latenightsw.com/affrus
The demo is available at the same site.
System Requirements
Any Power Macintosh – G4 or G5 Processor recommended
Mac OS X 10.2 or later
Perl 5.6 or Perl 5.8
About Late Night Software Ltd.
Late Night Software Ltd., established in 1995, is a privately held company
that specializes in providing award-winning Macintosh scripting tools.
