Geoff,

> Hi Jason,
>
> [...]
>> IBO 5.x is going to address other things as well.
> [...]
>
> All here know that predicting times for software development
> is... not a perfect science. But I would like some sense, in
> very broad terms, of what you think may happen with IBO v5.
>
>
> If I was left to guess, from what you have said so far, I
> would say that - at best - it would be this time next year
> before we were looking at a beta of v5.

I was hoping for much sooner but that may end up being the case.

> The other thing that I would guess is that an upgrade to such
> a changed version of IBO is likely to take considerable work
> for end-developers to implement. (People have already noted
> the difficulties of simply moving IB_Query from the
> IB_Components unit.)

It will require work to make the shift, no doubt about that.

My intent is to maintain IBO 4.9 such that it will remain fully viable.
Thus, legacy applications will not be forced to make a transition.

Keeping two versions will allow me to make drastic changes if I see the need
for such.
I am going to approach it as if it were a brand new product.

> Taken together this (optimistic?) assessment would seem to
> put me at least 18 months away from a reasonable unicode
> upgrade to my Delphi applications.

IBO 4.9 will have unicode support far sooner than that.
You are more like in the legacy category.
This is what you should be looking at.
It may not be ideal in every respect but IBO 4.9 will support Unicode and
UTF_8.

> Is there any reason to think things could happen any more
> quickly than that?

IBO 4.9 should be much sooner than that to complete proper support for these
character sets.
I am hoping it will be merely a matter of weeks.

Regards,
Jason Wharton