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The PixieEngine Application Framework |
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The PixieEngine Application Framework
PixieEngine - An Application Framework (API)
The objective of PixieEngine is to provide a general-purpose Application Framework (API) for building scalable and robust Web applications. The core of PixieEngine is a "container" for the actual Web application, bounded by two flexible control layers. One control layer interfaces to the Internet, and the other to the datastore. The PixieEngine API allows standard industry technologies and protocols such as TCP/IP, HTML 4.0, Extensible Markup Language (XML), COM and dotNET aware programming languages, to be used.
PixieEngine resources also include additional utilities to convert DataBasic programs to VB and to extract data from PICK environments.
The heart of PixieEngine is a methodology and template for deploying a sub-set of HTML 4.0 that will allow:
Persistent or non-persistent data connections.
Fully functional grids to be developed.
Field-by-field, on-the-fly, data validation to be applied.
Efficient one-page applications where only changed data is repainted on the screen.
A full array of event driven methods encased in a simple macro language.
View Diagram of PixieEngine Architecture
Is PixieEngine a programming tool ?
No, it is what is known as an "API", or a "framework", to program within. You need to supply a programming toolkit which is either "COM-aware", or any one of the "dotNET languages", or any Windows scripting language. We ourselves use VBSCRIPT, VB6 and VB.NET (VB7). Microsoft supply the dotNET language compilers "VB.NET" and "C-Sharp" for Windows 98 and above at no extra charge.
You need to pay for the "Visual Studio" editing and debugging toolkit but PixieEngine is well enough set up that you can get at least good test programs going for free by writing with a text editor or general programmer's editor like UltraEdit or SharpDevelop.
So what is PixieEngine?
The central object is PixieEngine.dll, which is a server container for your "server-role" application. Your app. takes the form of scripts, or a .dll which gets "parented", "nurtured" and "guided" by PixieEngine.dll.
Also included are libraries of "HTML blocks" and HTML-generating functions, as well as scripts to run the Webserver and client layers of a PixieEngine application. Most of these take the form of open-source code for you to include in your programming. The "how it works" is completely accessible to you at the lowest level and you have the choice of following our recipes or customising as you like.
PixieEngine can interact with most major industry standard data access technologies including: ODBC, Proprietary Relational Objects, ADO, DAO, COM, OLE/DB, as well as utilise a set of PixieEngines own database drivers.
The following products and services are unified in the PixieEngine API:
HTML 4.0 supported (PixieEngine methodology documentation provided)
XML supported
ASP Script templates provided
COM aware languages supported (e.g. VB6.0, Delphi, Java, c++)
dotNET aware languages supported (e.g. VB7.0, c#, COBOL, JScript)
Many database drivers provided, and others supported.
TCP/IP (Telnet socket) provided
HTML generating functions (provided)
HTML code library (provided)
PixieEngine provides an API which does not require a Web-server to be present during development, but which may be added when "going live". HTML front-end applications developed in the PixieEngine API style, deliver true field-by-field capabilities. Internet-users now have the look, feel, responsiveness and controlled flow of local desktop applications, via conventional browsers. Remote and local users get exactly the same via PixieEngine's own client software - PixieLink.
When running without a Web-server, client machines run the browser enhancement software "PixieLink", which is supplied as part of the package. PixieLink connects the browser facility directly to a PixieEngine server by either COM (local networks) or Telnet (remote connections including Internet) without the complications that a Web-server imposes.
PixieEngine "container" programs are usually programmed in VB6, but all COM aware or dotNET aware languages on Windows are supported. Any and all database engines accessible from the chosen programming language can be used with PixieEngine applications. All business logic must be kept in Active-X DLLs within the application container.
PixieEngine also comes with specialist data-provider drivers for the MV (PICK) family of engines (e.g. D3, Universe).
PixieEngine - Programming Solution.
The PixieEngine API provides a prepared infrastructure to give you a head start to effective Web programming.
- User Interface Principle: HTML version 4, making particular use of its dynamic self-rewriting capability driven by our supplied script libraries. We find the "innerHTML property" especially gives us amazing design versatility and power which we have packaged for you in the "PixieEngine" system.
- User Interface Delivery: HTML.4-capable web browsers via a webserver, or a more simple and direct link from PixieEngine to our supplied client "PixieLink". Your programming is the same for both cases, but the PixieLink option (a) makes debugging and testing easier and (b) means the your ONE programming effort can scale from 1-user desktop to many-user-internet deployment.
- Field-by-Field Operation: leaving behind the classical batch-form-submission model for HTML apps and running a more tightly linked conversation with your server-side program, which can act as the one-stop-shop master for how the user is managed and is written in a coding style which makes purpose and method clearly self-evident.
PixieEngine provides both a simple and direct, or traditional, methods of access to the Web application.
1) Desktop/Local/small scale operations/evolving terminal apps/debugging Web apps. Simple "2-tier" setup:
PixieEngine <----> PixieLink <----> User
2) Wide area/remote networking/large scale operations/general public as target. More complex "3-tier" setup:
PixieEngine <----> Web-Server <----> Web-Browser <----> User
Both options 1) and 2) may be operational together.
More Field-by-Field Web Apps FBF Explained Even Further
Using "remote scripting" and similar techniques which have emerged since 1999, PixieEngine implements any Web application as ONE page which rewrites itself rather than the traditional hopping around many pages. Thus one field change only causes that area of a page to change. This solves the common problem of too much user freedom to create havoc with the "Back button", as well as saving bandwidth by not needing repeated reloads of script libraries.
Microsoft's original implementation to support IE4 was a complicated collection of server script libraries with a Java Applet to include on the Web page to provide the communication channel. When IE5 was introduced, we discovered its built-in "XML Download Behavior" made a better communication channel with great simplification of server-side script, and even enabling the use of non-Microsoft servers. We note that Microsoft has recently done something similar by dropping the Java Applet and using "SOAP" instead. We have also implemented a version for Netscape 6/above using 3 x zero-size IFRAMES on a round-robin rotation system.
"Field-by-field" challenges met with PixieEngine:
Simplifying the technology for easier deployment, mainly to lose dependence on a Java Applet.
Solve the problem of how to implement on Netscape 6/above (Microsoft's RSPROXY applet worked on Netscape 4 but failed on 6/above)
Design a set of keywords (a simple macro language), and script the keyword handlers for a Server to call methods on a Web Page. (We can lay claim perhaps to inventing a "reverse-of-Web-Services" !)
Building a library of DHTML objects especially for GRID manipulation.
View Diagram of PixieEngine Architecture
Click below to learn about Active Server Pages (ASP) and VB scripts?
http://www.elated.com/tutorials/programming/asp/
Click below for public test drives of Field-by-Field applications: Online Demos
mail: sales@pixieware.com
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