Netscape Announces Availability of JavaScript 1.5 in New Netscape 6 Browser.

Business Editors

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Ca.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 5, 2000

Free, Open Source, Embeddable Netscape JavaScript Engine 

Delivers Industry-Leading Standards Support

Netscape Communications, a subsidiary of America Online, Inc. (NYSE: AOL), today announced the availability of JavaScript 1.5, the latest version of its industry-leading scripting language. Netscape(R) 6 Preview Release 1, available for free public download today, features full support for JavaScript 1.5, allowing Web developers to create powerful new Web applications using JavaScript, the Web's most popular scripting language. By focusing on standards compliance and free, open source, cross-platform implementations, Netscape is once again making developers' lives easier by enabling them to use their existing skill across languages, platforms, and applications, on both the client and the server. With JavaScript 1.5, Netscape is the first vendor to deliver full support for the ECMA-262 edition 3 standard of JavaScript, and the only vendor to provide a free and open source implementation of JavaScript, which is available in both C and Java versions. These embeddable engines allow developers to easily and at no cost make their own applications scriptable using JavaScript.

JavaScript 1.5 makes it easier than ever for JavaScript developers to process numeric data and write financial, scientific, and mathematical applications. Now, developers can see as many or as few digits of a number as wanted rather than getting as many as 17 digits with no control. Using this makes most rounding anomalies go away. The easy-to-learn JavaScript language also now has powerful error handling features once found only in languages like C++ and Java. Any script errors can be caught as if they were exceptions thrown within the program. JavaScript 1.5 also provides full support for the leading regular expression syntax, Perl 5. Finally, JavaScript 1.5 dramatically increases the extensibility of the language and its objects through its new support for property setters and getters. Setters and getters for the first time make it possible to use JavaScript as an implementing language for fully-functional XPCOM components. This means that JavaScript can now be used to extend the core capabilities of Mozilla-based browsers such as Netscape 6.

Jim Hamerly, Vice President of the Client Product Division at Netscape, said: "Netscape has led the way in the definition, implementation, and enhancement of the JavaScript language, enabling developers to add JavaScript to their native and Java applications. By complying with standards to deliver JavaScript 1.5, Netscape is ready to offer a next-generation browser with by far the broadest and deepest support of Web standards. Netscape 6 will feature free, open source, and cross-platform standards support that Web developers have been calling for, including full support of HTML 4.0, CSS1, DOM1 and XML. JavaScript 1.5 will tie these web standards together and make them easily scriptable."

In addition, the availability of the free, open source, embeddable JavaScript engines from Netscape enables developers to use the familiar syntax of the Web's most popular scripting language to make their own products scriptable. JavaScript engines load, parse, and execute JavaScript code. Using the familiar JavaScript syntax reduces training costs and increases productivity for customers, who no longer need to study and master a proprietary scripting language syntax. Because they have a cross-platform architecture and are available as open source in both C and Java versions, the JavaScript engines can be used everywhere--all platforms, all applications, all devices.

When embedded in a product such as a browser or an authoring tool, they make it possible for customers to write JavaScript scripts that control that product. This makes the product more open and enables more productive use of it by customers. Netscape's development and testing of the JavaScript engines has been assisted and expedited by the external testing and code enhancements enabled by the mozilla.org open source development initiative.

Chris O'Brien, President and COO of Softcom, said: "The tight integration of Netscape's Java-based JavaScript 1.5 with Softcom's Java-based RealPlayer plug-in, RJ, enables Softcom to quickly produce dynamic interactive video applications for our media/entertainment, retail and professional education clients, helping us to synchronize the full interactivity of the Web and e-commerce with streaming video. For the enhanced Oscarcast we recently produced for E! Online during the Academy Awards, Softcom used RJ to embed Netscape's JavaScript 1.5 in the RealPlayer, successfully integrating interactive chat and Java games, along with streaming video, within the RealPlayer."

Rob Meinhardt, Vice President of Enterprise Marketing at AvantGo, said: "AvantGo allows individuals to browse the web using industry-leading handheld devices and Internet-enabled phones. Netscape's JavaScript engine provided an ideal starting point for us to create the first solution for a mobile device that puts JavaScript-enabled interactive forms, content and web applications in the palm of a user's hand. We appreciate the freedom Netscape's open source gives us to meet our enterprise customers' needs."

Netscape is a leading provider of software and services for businesses that want to transform the way they create and keep customers in the emerging Net Economy. A subsidiary of America Online, Inc., Netscape is based in Mountain View, California. Additional information on Netscape is available on the Internet at http://home.netscape.com, by sending email to [e-mail], or by calling corporate sales at 650/937-2555.

Netscape, Netscape Navigator and the Communicator logos are registered trademarks of Netscape in the United States and other countries. Other Netscape logos, product names, and service names are also trademarks of Netscape Communications, which may be registered in other countries. Other product and brand names are trademarks of their respective owners.

DEVELOPER TESTIMONIALS

"A large part of the success we have experienced with Macromedia Dreamweaver is due to its open API which gives our developers the ability to extend and customize the product through HTML and JavaScript," said Beth Davis, Senior Director of Product Management for Macromedia. "In Dreamweaver and now in Fireworks 3, we use the Netscape JavaScript engine as the means for writing extensions. This allows us to tap into the large JavaScript developer base and, in turn, allows them to use their existing skill set to develop Dreamweaver and Fireworks extensions very rapidly."

"To build Joy, our product for rapid development of MacOS X desktop applications and server-side scripting of web applications, we chose Netscape's JavaScript. The decision to base our product on an open source project not only gave us a running start as opposed to designing from the ground up, it also provides a continuing boost to our maintenance efforts, and it even gets us new features for free," said Rainer Staringer at AAA+ Software. Joy (http://www.aaa-plus.com/joy) is a RAD environment and general developer productivity tool for Apple's WebObjects and Cocoa platforms. Cocoa, originally developed by NeXT, is a key component of MacOS X, Apple's new OS. The underlying technology for both WebObjects and Cocoa is Objective-C.

"Netscape JavaScript 1.5 with Java implementation was a perfect solution for developing our MacroRecorder because it made our development process faster and better, and our customers get a more efficient, reliable, and standards based product as a result," said Rob Clark, Director of Product Development at Attachmate. Attachmate integrates Netscape's Java-based JavaScript 1.5 Interpreter into its 100%

Pure Java certified web-to-host thin clients, called e-Vantage Viewers. The Netscape Java-based JavaScript interpreter is used in a MacroRecorder feature that allows browser-based users to efficiently navigate host applications on mainframe and midrange systems.

"We thought it would require lots of work to add scripting capability to Bristow Hill Server Pages, but we were delighted to find that Netscape JavaScript 1.5 with Java implementation fit right in with only a couple of lines of initialization code and one line of code to export our standard objects by name. Also, we were pleased to find we could take embedded scripting and compile it down to Java classes which could be used directly for greater speed in production. Netscape's JavaScript engine is rock solid and standards compliant, and my only regret is that we didn't start using it sooner," said Don Anderson, President of Bristow Hill Software.

"The Open VRML Advancement League is using Netscape JavaScript 1.5 with C implementation to enable VRML behaviors in LibVRML97. By leveraging the open-source project, we could quickly provide a portable and well-tested solution for a major piece of functionality for a VRML browser. Rapid development progress is key to sustaining developer and user interest in our project, so the availability of Netscape's JavaScript engine is great," said Chris Morley of the Open VRML Advancement League.

"Technology Deployment International selected the Java-based Netscape JavaScript engine to incorporate into the workflow module of our eBusiness Management System (eBMS) allowing our customers to integrate business logic into any workstep of their application," said Dr. Kelvin Liu, VP eBMS Development, Technology Deployment International "It has been easy to embed, the support we received from the engineering team has been outstanding, and the performance of the JavaScript code is almost identical to the equivalent Java."