Hi everyone,

Perl Dev Kit 7.0 Beta is now available for download at:
   http://www.activestate.com/products/perl_dev_kit/beta.plex

Note that this build is of beta quality and not recommended for full daily
use. 


New in Perl Dev Kit 7.0 Beta 1
---------------------------------
Coverage and Hotspot Analyzer 
Analyze code coverage and hotspots in Perl programs and test suites. Test
different versions or revisions of a program and compare them visually, or
compare different test runs on the same code. 

Mac OS X Support
PerlApp, Filter Builder and the new Coverage and Hotspot Analyzer are now
available for Mac OS X. 

64-Bit Support
64-bit command line versions of PerlApp are available for Linux (x64),
Solaris (Sparc) and Windows (x64). 64-bit command line versions of PerlCtrl,
PerlSvc and PerlTray are also included in the Windows builds. 

Improved 32-Bit Support 
The GUI interface to PerlApp, Filter Builder, and the Coverage and Hotspot
Analyzer are available for Solaris 10 on Intel (x86) and AIX 5.x. The
command line version of PerlApp is available for HP-UX on Itanium. 

Visual Package Manager (VPM) 
VPM has been superseded by the native PPM4 GUI included in ActivePerl 819
and later. 


Known Issues
-------------
Installation of the Perl Dev Kit fails if attempted on a network mapped
drive. 

The installer does not prevent you from installing on top of another PDK
installation. Installing into a new directory is strongly recommended. 

The .NET Framework needs to be installed before the PDK, otherwise PerlNET
will not be installed. 


Licensing
----------
Perl Dev Kit 7.0 Beta 1 has a built-in license that will expire in six
weeks. We'll have a new build for you to play with before then. 

This beta release can be installed side-by-side with a PDK 6 release version
as long as it's installed in a separate directory. The installer does this
by default. 


We are keen to get feedback on all of the above, and any other issues
you may encounter.

Enjoy!

The PDK Team