Another major advantage of AVA 4.0 is the ability to use 64 bit processors to the full – processing instructions much faster gives you quicker results. When combined with the ability of the new software to access all of the installed RAM (did you know that you can purchase an extra 2GB for a hundred pounds or less?), this amounts to a hardware revolution. Putting it simply, disks are slow, memory is fast. A super-fast processor accessing large amounts of RAM seldom needs to access the hard disk so your application flies. AVA 4.0 can also handle much larger design files than its predecessors (no effective limit to file size). AVA 4.0 is also much quicker to launch.
So much for the underlying architecture of 4.0. What about specific new features?
There is certainly no shortage of these. Some of the most dramatic and useful to regular ‘power users’ of the AVA software are the ones which sound innocuous enough in print but blow you away as soon as you see the software in action. An example falling into this category would be what we are calling ‘extreme smooth scroll’. At the moment, when you move a large design around within the design window, there is a significant delay (even on the fastest machines) while the pixels refresh in blocks on the monitor. With AVA 4.0 the effect is as if you were moving a printed copy of the design across the window.
Another multiple and all pervading change to the software is the introduction of sheets. These are a new type of window, used, for example for the ‘Do you want to save these changes?” dialogue, which drop down within the design window and remain attached, and restricted to, that design instead of blocking the entire computer until they are dealt with. Now you can have as many ‘dirty’ documents as you like, with the freedom to review multiple changes before deciding which to save.