MicroSabio Options & Modules

A-Shell includes a variety of modules, options and add-ons which extend A-Shell in various ways. These modules are purchased for additional cost over the basic charge for A-Shell itself. See the A-Shell Price List for details.

A-Shell Programmer’s Notepad (“APN”) is a modern IDE (integrated programming environment) for writing A-Shell BASIC programs. If you intend to do A-Shell programming, you need this module. See the APN page.

AXL (pronounced “axle”) is a spreadsheet function library for Windows and Linux, and is one of A-Shell’s most powerful and potentially useful tools. It is a full-blown spreadsheet function library that allows A-Shell/BASIC programmers to create, edit and read sophisticated and complex spreadsheets. Colors, fonts, formats, images, formulas, merged cells and multiple pages—most functions that can be done by a user can also be done in A-Shell/BASIC and used to create an Excel (or other) spreadsheet. It is MicroSabio’s hope that all A-Shell developer/resellers will take advantage of this great tool to produce the spreadsheets that are more widely used, distributed and accessible than standard old-style reports. More information on AXL is available in the A-Shell Reference here.

The A-Shell Terminal Emulator (“ATE”) provides the best possible A-Shell client environment for PC users connected to Linix host computers. Because ATE “knows” that A-Shell is running on the host, and A-Shell “knows” that ATE is running on the client, full-blown A-Shell graphics and other visual elements can be seamlessly displayed on the users’ screens. For a real-world answer to “Why should I use ATE?,” please see our ATE page, and also refer to the ATE Reference found the A-Shell documentation page.

PolyShell allows A-Shell/UNIX users to hot-key between multiple sessions of A-Shell on any supported terminal type. Not applicable to A-Shell/Windows.

ISAM-A is necessary for support of the d/ISAM (aka ISAMPLUS) file system.

A-Shell Telnet Service (“ATSD”) provides the means a way to run A-Shell/Windows via ordinary terminals or terminal emulators over Telnet connections. In other words it allows you to serve A-Shell/Windows connections on a NT or W2K or XP server in much the same way you would with A-Shell/UNIX or A-Shell/Linux on UNIX/Linux servers. Yet another way to look at it is as a text-based alternative to Windows Terminal Server and Citrix/Metaframe. For more information, see the A-Shell Telnet Service Guide, which you can retrieve from the A-Shell documentation page.

APEX allows reports to be displayed on the screen in various formats, and provides control of the printing environment. For more information, see the separate APEX page and Operations…APEX in the A-Shell Reference.

PDFX is A-Shell’s PDF generator, which allows the A-Shell programmer to generate PDF documents and perform various kinds of post-processing (email, display, etc.). For more information, see the Introduction in the PDFX Reference, which is available on the A-Shell documentation page.

The A-Shell Encrypted File System (EFS) supports AES encryption of files at the I/O layer below that used by A-Shell/BASIC programs. There are various ways to specify which files are to be encrypted, such as in the miame.ini by category or extension, and explicitly by an XCALL. But once encrypted, provided the decryption key has been registered, normal A-Shell/BASIC file I/O operations will automatically decrypt and re-encrypt the data on the fly as needed. Although A-Shell provides various cryptographic routines which operate on strings or individual files, if you have a lot of files to encrypt, EFS provides a more encompassing, more secure, and easier-to-implement solution. For more information see the documentation on EFS.SBR in the A-Shell Reference.

ASQL is A-Shell’s SQL module, which allows A-Shell/BASIC programs to query and update MySQL databases running under Windows and Linux. From A-Shell/Windows (only), ASQL also supports all ODBC-compliant databases, including Access and SQL Server.

Email Interface Module: EMAILX.SBX is a dynamically loadable XCALL subroutine module, along with some associated samples and utilities, which makes it easy to send email messages directly from within your BASIC programs. It includes support for HTML formatting and MIME attachments. The only requirement is the IP address of an SMTP server (either your own or one provided by your ISP) that will accept your connection at the time your program wants to send mail. Source code is provided, in case you feel the need to add your own customizations. For more information, see the EMAILX help file, which you can retrieve from the A-Shell documentation page. If you would like to purchase or evaluate this module, contact MicroSabio and we will email you the software.