About OpenInsight

OpenInsight is a repository-based development environment that provides professional development teams the means to rapidly design, implement, evolve and scale high performance business applications with access to SQL Server, U2 and D3 databases from Rocket Software, QM from Ladybridge, and Revelation’s Native Tables. The net result is that developers can deliver applications to their customers and users that meet the needs of a dynamically changing business environment.

Repository-Based Environment
The OpenInsight repository provides a common area in which development teams can store and reuse application components, such as bitmaps, icons, menus, source code modules, and the like. In addition, it protects the integrity and eases the maintenance of the application by providing version control, automatic documentation of components, impact/net change analysis, and other management capabilities. In addition to providing these tight security features, the OpenInsight repository gives development teams freedom and flexibility. Some examples include:

• Check-in/check-out - lets developers work on a project at remote locations with no risk to overall application integrity. Long-term check-out lets users temporarily move components to other drives, devices, or workstations. Short-term check-out automatically locks an entity while it is being viewed or modified.
• Extensible architecture - lets project managers combine third-party development tools and libraries.
• Intuitive design - permits non-developers, such as icon designers and documentation writers, to use the repository.
• Automatic documentation - if a member leaves the project, the rest of the team will know the status of his or her work.

OpenInsight Native Tables
OpenInsight is delivered with the option of using its own native table format. OpenInsight’s unique table format is fully compatible with variable length MultiValue data management products. The OpenInsight native table environment is a dictionary-driven text-oriented database that delivers the ultimate in flexibility for prototyping, designing and even deploying applications. For the developer it provides dynamic schema evolution and rapid database modeling with recompilation, as well as unparalleled flexibility in maintaining deployed applications. For the application user it is ideal for text-intensive applications and integration of text and structured information.

Client/Server Workspace
OpenInsight’s DataSet Object is the key to unlocking client/server connectivity. The DataSet Object is implemented within the product’s new visual Client/Server Workspace - an environment in which developers create and manage database components using a collection of visual tools. These tools include a query window, a SQL script building assistant, database connection builder, and a DataSet Object definition tool. The database access and manipulation components are separated from other application components and, therefore, are reusable across multiple applications. The components built with these tools can be integrated with the core set of OpenInsight development tools, yielding a single application development environment for combining high performance access to relational, Notes and OpenInsight’s native tables.

HTML Publishing
OpenInsight enables developers to publish data in native tables to HTML. The new tools enable both static and dynamic HTML publishing capabilities. Static publishing means that data is simply published in HTML to the web; any updates require the user to make changes and then republish that data. Dynamic publishing means that OpenInsight creates HTML "on the fly" in response to a CGI request. In other words, the end-user provides the final content in static publishing; in dynamic publishing, on the other hand, the user simply provides parameters, and the application server, working with the web server, builds and provides the final content.

Data Warehousing
OpenInsight enables developers to warehouse native tables data in an ODBC, SQL Server, or Oracle database. This offers developers complete flexibility in managing native tables data, including running a favorite reporting tool or writing VB, among others. Initial warehousing is performed in a two-step process. In the first step, the developer uses the OpenInsight SQL Warehouse Wizard to build the table definitions and the warehousing procedures. In the second step, the OpenInsight SQL Warehouse Manager is used to schedule the warehousing process. The warehousing procedures are registered to the Warehousing Manager when they are created. Subsequent warehousing can be performed on an updates-only basis.

OpenInsight's BASIC+Scripting Language
OpenInsight’s scripting language, BASIC+, is an event-driven language which is compatible with BASIC dialects and which is explicitly designed for database management and application definition. It provides statements for assignment, flow of control, branching, looping and case selection. A powerful system editor and debugger is included to edit and test BASIC+ programs. Additionally, BASIC+ delivers:

• Runtime manipulation of user interface components
• Powerful string handling
• Dynamic and multi-dimensional array handling
• Database and OS file I/O
• OLE integration
• DLL calling capabilities

Arev32 for Advanced Revelation Developers
If you are an Advanced Revelation developer, OpenInsight enables you to:

• Create and run Advanced Revelation applications in a console application powered by OpenInsight eliminating the need for MS-DOS.
• Enable team development of applications using OpenInsight’s repository, including features such as check-in/check-out, version control, impact analysis, object browsing, and more
• Windows 7 compliant
• Add SQL Server, U2 and D3 data to your application
• Utilize OpenInsight's OIPI printer interface!

OpenInsight for Web (O4W)
The OpenInsight for Web (O4W) Development Toolkit makes it possible for OpenInsight Developers with limited or no HTML/XML/JavaScript experience to develop feature rich web pages.
O4W is designed to work the way OpenInsight developers think, taking advantage of the skills and knowledge they already have. While users with more web development experience can
use O4W's advanced features, all developers can create modern web applications (using JavaScript, XHTML, and AJAX) through O4W's APIs.

OpenInsight Tool Set
OpenInsight provides a powerful, easy-to-use set of tools to instantly build forms, reports, menus, and database:

• Table Builder - The Table Builder is used to create and maintain OpenInsight data file attributes.
• Database Manager - The Database Manager is an administrative tool used for database, user, environmental and index management, as well as linear hash maintenance utilities and ASCII data file import.
• OpenInsight for U2 - With OpenInsight you can attach U2 (UniVerse and UniData) files as native tables.
• OpenInsight for D3 - With OpenInsight you can attach D3 files as native tables.
• OpenInsight for SQL - With this connector, SQL tables are now seen as native tables to all components of OpenInsight including forms, reports, popups and stored procedures.
• Form Designer - A point-and-click WYSIWYG screen painter provides rapid development of windows, forms, and menus that require no programming to access data, regardless of data location.
• Create Wizard - A wizard that lets developers design other wizards. It creates a multi-part OpenInsight form which, when executed, can prompt the user for input in order to perform a task or operation. The new wizard can then be modified in the Form Designer.
• BASIC+ Programming Language - This high-level 4GL is compatible with most BASIC dialects and was created solely for database management and application definition. It was made for the event-driven architecture of OpenInsight.
• System Editor and Debugger - Using a powerful MDI programmer’s editor, developers can create, modify, compile, and test BASIC+ programs. The online context-sensitive help facility lets developers copy and paste syntax examples directly into your program. The Debugger uses separate MDI windows for source, local and global variables, and the call stack. It also supports single-stepping, trace-around, and unconditional breakpoints that can be triggered by pass counts and modification of variables.
• Report Builder - The Report Builder allows developers and users to generate reports and lables populated by native data from a variety of sources. It is a fast and easy tool for creating presentation quality reports.
• Banded Report Writer - The Banded Report Writer offers an array of sophisticated, simple-to-use tools that allows users and developers alike to create stored and ad-hoc reports. Using our WYSIWYG layout form designer makes the creation of even the most complex reports a simple task.
• Popup Designer - Developers can use this feature to create pick lists for easy data selection by end users.
• Message Builder - With this feature, developers can visually create and design informational and error messages. Custom message styling, data validation, and full text formatting are included.
• QuickHelp Builder - Use this tools to visually create context-sensitive help for application users. It includes customizable location and size of help box, full font, color, and justification selections, and a scrolling text option.
• Character to OpenInsight (CTO) - The CTO interface is a green screen application that runs on a GUI engine, allowing you to run to run your existing MultiValue applications without major changes to your code or data.
• Arev32 - The Arev32 interface contained within OpenInsight 8.0 allows users and developers to run and create Advanced Revelation applications in a console application.
• OEngineServer - The OEngineServer is software that is responsible both for communicating with, and shutting down OpenInsight's OpenEngine. The OEngineServer also manages "caching" of OpenEngines, for efficient performance in non-persistent applications (e.g. web requests).
• NetOI - Using the NetOI .NET assembly, you can code entirely in Visual Studio and develop a Windows application that uses OpenInsight as its data source.
• RevDotNet - RevDotNet functionality is contained in a series of APIs that OpenInsight programmers can call to create and manipulate .NET classes.