Is showap something new?  

showap is more of something from classic, it's not new it's been around for quite a while now, ap isn't really the thing for Ol' West as it's eating food and basing with guns. Not swords. Which of-course classic is.

It's more of like a health system. If you click on your profile, you'll see a number/50 this is your health. So, if you say you were 100ap. You'd look like this:
"SammyPs" (In a yellow golden font color/colour).

If your ap was to be 50? Which is a average, your still a-live health, let's just say 50 for ol' west is 25. As the maximum health limit is 50. It will look like this:
"SammyPs" (Smooth white font color/colour).

And of-course, if you're at 0, you would be on the ground.. well.. dead.

This all sums up to showap showing your health.  

It's not something new, basically it gives you a number and that number is the shade of color that your name is. It's not something you'd ever really have to use.  

AP is pretty much the color of your username in-game.
The only thing AP is used for right now is to show who are normal players, vips and admins.