Development Tools

Developement Tools

The original versions of EFFICIENCY were developed for DOS and UNIX based systems. From 1996 on, EFFICIENCY has been developed using Power Builder technology and specially developed powerful and complex frame work tools. The standard client server architecture is used for local and wide area networks; various WEB enabling tools of Power Builder and Microsoft are used for WEB and Browser options.

EFFICIENCY is database independent; however at this stage Sybase, Microsoft and Oracle SQL databases are supported. For small to mid range applications EFFICIENCY is supplied with Sybase Anywhere Adaptive server for its exceptional functionality and the cost benefits. Efficiency can access to any other ODBC compliant database for its information retrieval and update architecture.

The most up-to-date technologies and development tools such as OLE, OCX, COM, ActiveX, Java and C++ are extensively used wherever necessary and beneficial to the overall system performance.

EFFICIENCY in essence is a powerful front-end to a complex database system. The database that contains all the information that Efficiency manipulates, sits either on a server or cluster of servers or on a local PC. The connection between the User and the database is the PC Client or Internet Client which is made up of various graphical user interfaces which appear to the user as many windows, menus, drop down boxes all very standard windows and browser components.

The internal structure of EFFICIENCY uses customised objects if exists in place of the standard objects. These features enable us to upgrade EFFICIENCY easily and comfortably with the knowledge that the customised or user developed objects will never be overwritten and the core objects of EFFICIENCY are always in the system intact.

Amongst the many objects that make up the EFFICIENCY client, the most powerful and unusual feature of Power Builder is datawindows. A datawindow is the data entry and data display object that link EFFICIENCY to the database with a great sophistication. In almost all cases what the user interacts with the screens on the windows or browser are the components on the datawindows such as labels, field names, data entry boxes etc.

Datawindow objects can be created dynamically, swapped over to another one during run time, or to a different user or add unlimited amount of functions to the object at field levels.

The EFFICIENCY Development Kit is provided for the advanced users to be able to change the screen appearances and enhance the functionality of the standard datawindows by your IT professionals as required for the users or groups of users.

Development Kit

EFFICIENCY framework is an intelligent layer between the core Power Builder and the final product. Therefore the majority of frameworks contribution goes to the interaction between the databases and the datawindows.

Development Kit is a tool that allows your IT staff to expand the power, functionality and the flexibility of the core EFFICIENCY product to new platforms where there is almost no limit what to achieve without using any programming knowledge.

What can be done with the Development Kit?

There are 8 main areas in EFFICIENCY where the Development Kit is used:

1. Maintain datawindows for the general windows and browser
	Appearances of the screens
	Appearances of the fields including adding and removing the fields
	Creating on screen functions
	Modifying and creating the drop down datawindows and list boxes
2. Modify or create Printing Forms
3. Maintain EFFICIENCY Report Engine
	Maintain Report Query and Output datawindows
4. Turn of/off the Audit function at the field levels.
5. Module Expansion
6. Module Transactions
	Create New Transaction Query, Listing and Data Entry datawindows
	Transaction Pick List Maintenance
7. Drilldown
	Link Drilldown objects at field levels
	Create Drilldown display datawindows
	Create Drilldown print data objects
8. Run External Program
	Attach external programs to datawindow fields