Visual Programming Language Grabs Onto Microsoft Technology Product Focus
It’s not an uncommon situation. One of your company’s remote facilities is having problems testing the newest widget. There seems to be something wrong with the test program. The test engineer in the off-site plant frantically calls you at the home office for help. As most engineers in this predicament know, debugging test programs over the phone is not very efficient or expedient, to say the least.
If the test program was developed using the latest release of HP VEE visual programming language, your debugging task should be easier. HP VEE 5.0 incorporates a number of features that make the test-program development and debug process faster and simpler.
One of the features incorporates an intranet capability so information can be monitored by others on the network. With its built-in web server, engineers in many locations can monitor an HP VEE program using their web browsers, such as Internet Explorer. Being able to view test programs remotely can help speed up the code debugging process.
Other features that HP VEE 5.0 supports include ActiveX Controls and ActiveX Automation. ActiveX is a marketing name for a set of technologies and services based on the Component Object Model (COM), a foundation for software component reuse developed by Microsoft. ActiveX enables software components written in different languages to work together in a networked environment.
ActiveX Controls are compiled software components that encapsulate a set of user interface functions. These controls can be embedded in web pages for use over the internet or combined to create client/server applications for corporate intranets. Specifically, an ActiveX Control is a stand-alone functional software component with a user interface that plugs into any software application.
HP VEE 5.0 can load and operate any ActiveX Control. This means you can add bar-code readers, file encryption and compression, data bases, scientific functions, high-speed graphics, and a variety of user-interface objects to HP VEE.
ActiveX Automation allows you to control applications through other programs. It provides the capability to program ActiveX-compliant applications such as Microsoft Access, Excel, and Word. For example, with ActiveX Automation, you can transfer data between HP VEE 5.0 and an Excel spreadsheet or a Word document for inclusion in a report.
HP VEE 5.0 also supports the IEEE 1394 high-speed bus. It provides clipboard support for bitmap images of HP VEE objects, a binary run-time file format for security and reduction of hard-disk storage usage, and new graphing options.
Pricing for HP VEE 5.0 for Windows 95 and NT is $1,395 and $2,595 for HP-UX. Upgrades for earlier versions of HP VEE also are available. Hewlett-Packard, (800) 452-4844, ext. 5778.
Copyright 1998 Nelson Publishing Inc.