isCOBOL Evolve

COBOL development + Java deployment = simplified software distribution and accelerated innovation

New features in the newest release of isCOBOL Evolve.

isCOBOL Evolve 2019 Release 1 is now available

Veryant is pleased to announce the latest release of isCOBOL™ Evolve, isCOBOL Evolve 2019 R1.

The newest isCOBOL Evolve is now compatible with Java 11, introduces a responsive layout management, refines the EIS feature and improves the IDE.

Download the isCOBOL Evolve 2019 Release 1 Overview

Release highlights

  • Oracle Java 11 and OpenJDK 11 support
  • IDE enhancements and COBOL WOW support
  • Responsive layout manager
  • Upgraded EIS
  • isCOBOL compiler and additional enhancements

Oracle and OpenJDK Java 11 support

isCOBOL 2019 R1 now supports Oracle Java 11 and OpenJDK 11, the latest releases of Java available, bringing isCOBOL up to date with the Java ecosystem.
The isCOBOL updater tool, isUPDATER, has been expanded in response to Oracle’s decision to drop support for Java Web Start, and now simplifies the startup of isCOBOL Thin Client applications.

IDE enhancements and COBOL WOW support

The isCOBOL 2019 R1 IDE is now built on the latest Eclipse 2018-09. This release is the first quarterly Eclipse Simultaneous Release of Eclipse 4.9 that provides full support of Oracle JDK 11 and OpenJDK 11.

The isCOBOL 2019 R1 IDE can now import existing COBOL-WOW projects, providing screen designers and code editors to ease maintenance and development. When imported in the IDE, developers have access to Eclipse's advanced editor and tools.

All of COBOL-WOW GUI widgets are supported and written in Java for 100% portability across environments, with an updated and modern look.

Once your code is in the isCOBOL Evolve environment the possibilities are endless, from object-oriented COBOL programming to all the benefits of working within the Java ecosystem.

Responsive layout manager

Responsive design is an approach to develop user interfaces that render well on a variety of devices with different window and screen sizes. The viewer proximity is also considered as part of the viewing context. Content, design, and performance are factored across all devices to ensure usability and satisfaction.

Starting with isCOBOL 2019R1 screen sections can now be responsive, allowing the controls to be resized, moved or hidden based on the window’s horizontal size when running in stand-alone, Thin Client and webClient environments.

GUIs can adapt to multiple devices, screen sizes, and screen resolutions, allowing the user to resize an application window or rotate a screen, a required behavior in the era of mobile devices and mobile-first development.

Responsive breakpoints can be customized to better handle any kind of device, and GUI elements can be hidden or shown based on window size and screen resolution.

Upgraded EIS

The isCOBOL EIS Service Bridge features, that allows automatic generation of SOAP and REST Web Services from legacy COBOL programs, now allows user code to be inserted inside the automatically generated code.
This allows custom behaviour to be injected in the Service Bridge programs, to accomplish tasks such as parsing security tokens, authenicating requests, insert logging and auditing features.
Boolean data types are now supported in the request and response JSON or XML data streams.

isCOBOL compiler and additional enhancements

Starting from isCOBOL 2019R1, OOP syntax has been enhanced to support the ANSI SO/IEC 1989:2014’s INTERFACE-ID paragraph.
As an extension from ANSI SO/IEC 1989:2014, the isCOBOL 2019R1 Compiler also provides optional DEFAULT methods and auto-boxing of Java primitive data types.
The isCOBOL framework has been tuned for improved performance and better stability.


Additional details on these and additional features and advances in isCOBOL 2019 R1 can be found in the isCOBOL Evolve 2019 Release 1 Overview


Learn more
View the isCOBOL Evolve Datasheet
Learn more about the newest isCOBOL Evolve Release
Contact Veryant to arrange a complimentary code analysis or learn more about isCOBOL