VAST Platform 2026 (All Versions) Readme
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Contents
-Welcome to the VAST Platform
-What's New in VAST?
-News, Technical Tips, and Product Updates
-Distributed Files
-Installation
-Migration Guide
-Corrections and Enhancements (15.0.0)
-Disclaimer
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Welcome to the VAST Platform
Design it. Build it. Deploy it.
Create object-oriented software that’s stable, easy to maintain, and deploys smoothly — all from the same comprehensive development environment.
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What's New in VAST?
New features, enhancements, and highlights from this release
Language & Runtime
-Virtual machine improvements across all platforms
Development Tools
-Multi-method breakpoint management
-Pragma formatting support in refactoring browser
-Case sensitivity search result enhancements
User Interface & Visuals
-Updated support for HiDPI
Communications & Networking
-HTTP server connection improvements
Web Technologies
-New JSON Web Token (JWT) and JOSE framework
-New OAuth2.0 and OpenID Connect client
-Seaside 3.6.0 and Grease 1.19.1
-New Parasol automated web browser testing
Databases
-New comprehensive Redis client
-ODBC Unicode support in Linux
-Memory management corrections for database cursors
-Updated SQL parsing
Version Control
-Enhancements to Tonel tools
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News, Technical Tips, and Product Updates
Go to 'instantiations.com' and follow us on social media for the latest information about the VAST Platform and Instantiations.
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Distributed Files
Product Installer
The product installer installs the Client and Manager components of the VAST product as well as a development IDE setup tool. The Client component contains the VAST development IDE. The Manager component contains the VAST library (source code repository) file and the EMSRV code used to access the repository file in a team environment.
Documentation Archive
Uncompress the documentation archive to get a local copy of the VAST documentation onto your workstation.
VAST Runtime
This is the runtime support needed for deploying Smalltalk applications developed using VAST. There is no formal install program for the VAST Runtime. You simply unpack the runtime files and add your packaged VAST application into the resulting directory structure. You must download and unpack the correct VAST Runtime package for your operating system. The files needed to include at runtime are listed in Redistributable Runtime Files. (https://www.instantiations.com/vast-support/documentation/FAQ/#page/FAQ/va02016.html#)
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Installation
Windows
Run the downloaded VAST Platform Product Installer for your platform. Complete installation instructions, such as how to set up EMSRV, can be found in the Installation Guide. The Installation Guide can be read online at (https://www.instantiations.com/vast-support/documentation/) within the main VAST Documentation link, or locally after you unpack the VAST Platform Documentation Archive.
If you are doing a Custom install, to install the Manager on a different machine than the Client(s), we recommend you install the Manager first. Once you have installed the Manager and the Client, refer to the Installation Guide for further instructions on how to use the Environments tool to configure your environment so you can launch VAST. If you are using the headless installer to install the Manager alone, make sure the directory into which you want to install the manager has been created before starting the headless install. Refer to the Installation Guide for further instructions.
Linux
Uncompress the downloaded VAST Product Installer for your platform. Choose whether you would like to install the full standalone product, or just the client or manager configuration. Before running the Product installer, change directory to where vainstall is.
Standalone
Run the Product Installer by executing sudo ./vainstall standalone in a terminal. sudo ./vainstall also installs standalone.
Manager
Run the Product Installer by executing sudo ./vainstall manager in a terminal.
Client
Run the Product Installer by executing sudo ./vainstall client in a terminal.
Complete installation instructions, such as how to set up EMSRV, can be found in the Installation Guide. The Installation Guide can be read online at (https://www.instantiations.com/vast-support/documentation/) within the main VAST Documentation link, or locally after you unpack the VAST Platform Documentation Archive. If you are doing a Custom install, to install the Manager on a different machine than the Client(s), we recommend you install the Manager first.
Note: There are special steps for installing on Linux which are documented in the Installation Guide.
Once you have installed the Manager and the Client, refer to the Installation Guide for further instructions on how to use the Environments tool
to configure your environment so you can launch VAST.
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Migration Guide
If you have a version of VAST already installed, please refer to the Migration Guide for important information before using this version of VAST.
The Migration Guide can be read online at (https://www.instantiations.com/vast-support/documentation/) as HTML or pdf format. It can also be read locally if you installed local documentation.
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Corrections and Enhancements (15.0.0)
Case Title
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64084 [Web Technologies] Implement Javascript Signing and Encryption Framework
64168 [Web Technologies] Implement RFC-7519 - JSON Web Token (JWT)
73378 [Web Technologies] WebView2: provide a parameter block that is executed when the WebView2 is initialized
73487 [Web Technologies] Port Seaside's Parasol automated testing to VAST
73981 [Web Technologies] OAuth2.0 Authorization Framework
74053 [Core Libraries] Non-resumable exceptions in Async tasks should not be resumed because it triggers default exception handling (e.g. a debugger)
74057 [Development Tools] Feature loading progress dialog takes too much space
74059 [Web Technologies] OpenID Connect Core & Discovery
74062 [Development Tools] Immediate Dependent Configuration Maps excludes line-ups with config expressions that evaluate to false
74091 [Communications & Networking] SstSocketTransport>>#findReadyConnection may close an open connection that currently has no data to read
74115 [Development Tools] Multiselection support for breakpoint and tracepoint definition
74118 [Development Tools] Visual help lines in Hierarchy Browser
74124 [Development Tools] The StsPowerTools method #refreshMethodSelectors should only be called after loading code
74148 [Communications & Networking] SstHttpUrl>>absoluteURI now includes userinfo part of url, SstHttpUrl>>printString does not
74150 [Databases] Update sqlite and add file properties to sqlite3.dll & sqlite3.exe
74165 [Development Tools] StsImageManager should be able to read in a pixmap from a file
74173 [Core Libraries] Update RBParser to parse and format primitive pragmas
74212 [Databases] Fix regression when storing DateAndTime into TIMESTAMP WITH TIMEZONE in Oracle
74256 [Core Libraries] Correct maximum number of breakpoints supported
74257 [Core Libraries] Allow super call with superfluous brackets
74262 [Databases] Implement Redis Binding for VAST Platform
74266 [Databases] Add #abtAsDefaultOracleDateAndTime to AbtTimestamp, Date and Time classes
74267 [Development Tools] Copy operation in Configuration Map Browser should only be enabled if one map was selected
74268 [Communications & Networking] Fix race condition in MQTT unsubscribe
74270 [Communications & Networking] Fix assertion in SstMqttClientExample >> doExamplePublishSubscribeNativeSocket:
74275 [Web Technologies] Seaside 3.6.0 and Grease 1.19.1
74276 [Version Control] Support git versioning in Tonel in detached HEAD mode
74279 [Language & Runtime] [ACO Threads] Apply more correct request for an ACO thread to quit
74280 [Development Tools] Workspace for Sts inspector on Unicode component
74282 [Deployment] #debugPrintString can produce a UnicodeString and EsDumper>>#addAssociationKeys: may fail (e.g. during packaging)
74292 [User Interface & Visuals] Drag and Drop doesn't work with multiple monitors when any has scaling factor bigger than 100% in Windows
74293 [Language & Runtime] [Unicode] Invalid utf-8 sequence len for code points greater than U+7FFF while converting an array of numbers to UnicodeString
74297 [Communications & Networking] Support for creating multipart/form-data in SST framework
74313 [Core Libraries] Fix UnicodeWriteStream>>#nextPut: when combination occurs
74315 [Web Technologies] Incorrect parsing of session id from cookie in SstWAS40SessionManager>>#cookieFromRequestHeaderString: (regression in 13.0)
74318 [Databases] Remove memory leaks in AbtCursor and subclasses in statement preparation.
74322 [Databases] Modify AbtDatabaseConnectionSpec to support ODBC DSN-less connection strings
74323 [Databases] Remove cursor handle leak in GlorpCursoredStream when subselect fails
74325 [Databases] Modify VADatabaseAccessor serverName and databaseName to support DSN-less connection strings in ODBC
74326 [Web Technologies] SstHttpCookie support for secure and httpOnly boolean flags
74330 [Deployment] Add REDIS library entry into [PlatformLibrary Name Mappings] section of abt.ini files
74331 [User Interface & Visuals] CgPNGEncoder >> encode: outputStream should actually write into outputStream
74340 [Additional Libraries] NeoJSONWriter fails when the first Unicode character to write to the output has a composed scalar
74341 [User Interface & Visuals] WindowBuilder: CwText >> largeText: attribute has wrong default
74342 [Web Technologies] HTTP server should not attempt a reconnect with client for closed connections (possible locking up workers)
74351 [Core Libraries] EsIndexedDictionary>>isDictionary should return true
74357 [User Interface & Visuals] CwToolBar item icons no longer shift left when redrawn
74361 [Additional Libraries] GreaseVASTCoreApp shouldn't prereq AbtCfsAdditionsApp but CommonFileSystem instead
74363 [Additional Libraries] Fix RegEx error on negated single-character classes
74364 [Databases] Incorrect parsing of >= and IS NULL handling in AbtQuerySpec
74365 [Databases] Add ${ and $} as SQL letters
74366 [Databases] Handle characters in Stream>>#abrNextSQLIdentifier
74367 [Databases] Incorrect parsing of != when binding nil as values
74371 [Language & Runtime] [Unicode] Undefined behaviour for checking UnicodeString bytes for ASCII if the string has slice
74373 [Version Control] Sort Tonel Strings using a deterministic algorithm
74374 [User Interface & Visuals] CwTable should accept up and down arrow keys to change selection
74378 [Web Technologies] Seaside's WAFileLibrary>>addFile* methods should read UTF8 encoding from files with a text mimetype (and not platform codepage)
74388 [Version Control] When sorting Tonel methods, methods with pragmas must be ordered first
74390 [Development Tools] Merge "VA Assist Pro Tools" and "Prompter" string sensitive search settings
74392 [User Interface & Visuals] AbtCwTableColumn heading attribute should be a string
74433 [Communications & Networking] Base64Coder support for UnicodeString
74447 [Development Tools] Scrolling code with Scintilla disabled does not update properly
74453 [Development Tools] Method’s source loses its syntax coloring when toggling word wrapping with Scintilla disabled
74459 [Databases] Fix AbtOdbcDatabaseManager platform functions creation in Linux
74469 [Communications & Networking] SstCron: possible walkback on shutDown of SstCron
74491 [Documentation] Documentation: even up uneven square brackets
74498 [Core Libraries] [Windows] Do not combine VAST window icons all in the same taskbar folder
74499 [Core Libraries] LC_MONETARY parsing for repeated number group on Unix
74524 [Core Libraries] DailyRollingFileAppender experiences EBUSY (SHARING VIOLATION) when rolling over on Windows
74530 [Databases] Add Unicode support to ODBC connections in Linux
74532 [Deployment] Some VM Registry classes should never be excluded from packaging
74547 [Version Control] Fix change detection for method privacy in TonelReaderMethodDefinition
74549 [Core Libraries] sstwww.ic (ServerSmalltalk HTTP) has a packaging rule referencing SstCosName which is not part of that feature
74555 [User Interface & Visuals] Allow to change a row in the AbtCwTable
74556 [User Interface & Visuals] AbtCwTable should restore an edited cell to its previous value if the edited value is invalid
74558 [Language & Runtime] [OsProcess framework] Incorrect saving/restoring of Smalltalk object
74559 [Databases] Oracle CLOB/BLOB fields should not be used in WHERE statements
74563 [Development Tools] Config Map Browser: opening of the context menu can be very slow for maps with many dependencies and in a a large library
74564 [User Interface & Visuals] Allow to change a row in the CwTable
74571 [Language & Runtime] [VM] [PIC] [AArch64] ESCacheSlot::startAddress sometimes points to a wrong method
74578 [Core Libraries] Fix race condition in EsStreams subscribe
74579 [Web Technologies] Seaside request profiler tool
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Disclaimer
THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. INSTANTIATIONS DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND MERCHANTABILITY WITH RESPECT TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT. BY FURNISHING THIS DOCUMENT, INSTANTIATIONS GRANTS NO LICENSES TO ANY PATENTS OR COPYRIGHTS.
(C) Copyright Instantiations Inc. 2005, 2026. All rights reserved.
