VistaMax

 A Visual Integrated Development Environment with Novel Features

All application components are contained in a visual, graphically editable “Application Sheet”

The “Application Sheet” provides a visual representation of all components of the application: views, dialogs, menus, GUI and non-GUI components, user defined classes, and Event Links. All may be selected from a palette and dropped into the Application Sheet.

A complete end-to-end development environment

An application is designed graphically in the Application Sheet, by dragging and dropping objects from a palette. VistaMax generates the necessary C++ or Java code and build files in the format suitable for the platform. The user may accept the generated C++ code and / or add their own code. The application may then be built to run on the SDK’s Emulator or a Target Device.

Localization with a novel locale “preview” function

The application’s text elements are tightly coupled to the “Localization” spreadsheet. The Localization spreadsheet, which contains the translations, may be edited separately, exported, imported from other applications, or from from industry standard spreadsheet formats.

A “Preview” function enables all components in the application sheet to display text in any of the supported languages. At a glance, the user can see all the views, menus, dialogs, etc  displayed in the selected language.

MMI simulation

The Application Sheet contains all the application's screens or views, and thus provides the ideal tool for the simulation of MMI. The user can see all the screens together, edit their contents, change the text, preview the screens in the supported languages, print them, and through the use of the “Event Links” can sequence through them when deployed to the Emulator to Device. Most important of all, these are not “static” screens but screens with full code behind them.

Graphical-based “Event Links”

Event Links provide event-driven transitions between the application components. They provide the basis for the design of the “Business Logic” or the “dynamic” behavior for the application components that otherwise remain “static” or independent of each other.

Shared Application Development

An application normally has one Application Sheet – how many views, dialogs, menus, user designed Classes, GUI and non-GUI components a user can fit in a single Application Sheet is determined by PC’s power and memory, and is thus practically unlimited. However, application development can be shared between developers and VistaMax facilitates this by allowing for one primary and as many secondary Application Sheets as needed.