StateWORKS Newsletter 1/04
Topics:
1. Welcome
In the first newsletter of 2004 I am glad to announce our revised web site and new components in the StateWORKS Studio: the TCP/IP Client library and the Standard Executor. We found that StateWORKS Studio might have caused some problems for less experienced users when viewing the examples in the Editor. We have, we hope, improved this and encourage you to try the newest version of StateWORKS Studio.
Regards
F. Wagner
2. TCP/IP client
Most of applications have some kind of a Graphical User Interface (GUI). As the StateWORKS run-time system is a TCP/IP server we can write programs (TCP/IP clients) which communicate with a StateWORKS run-time system.
Writing simple TCP/IP clients is not a very demanding job but if we want (in addition to getting and setting data in the server) to receive events from "advised" server objects the problem becomes more complex. Another difficulty is the format of messages exchanged between communicating devices. To simplify the job we have prepared a library which contains several functions needed for developing a TCP/IP client. A technical note HowToWriteGUI.pdf describes the library. The GUI_CPP.exe program is included in the new version of StateWORKS Studio Version 5.1.
The library has been developed and tested with the MS Visual Studio .NET. Of course we can provide variants for other software development platforms.
3. Standard Executor
We have introduced a Standard Executor which is a pure run-time system without any specific input/output interface. Adding your own input/output and user interfaces (developed using the new TCP/IP client library) you get a full control system. It may be a solution for your application. The Standard Executor is provided at no extra cost and it is included in the new StateWORKS Studio Version 5.1.
4. StateWORKS Studio 5.1
StateWORKS Studio Version 5.1 package includes now the above described TCP/IP client library and the Standard Executor. A user can build run-time systems using the Standard Executor by developing the input/output interface tailored to his hardware. The procedure is similar to writing the GUI interface. In the next weeks we will provide a technical note with an example demonstrating this possibility. Of course, a user may still use the RTDB and self-developed IO-Units to build an application: this remains the principal method of building StateWORKS run-time systems.
We improved also a lot of details in the StateWORKS Studio, Version 5.1. To mention only one: the start after installation is now much more robust. So, if you have encountered any difficulty viewing our project examples with StateWORKS Studio downloaded some time ago I encourage you to try the newest version. You can use the previous installation key license file.
5. Website
Our web site has been rebuilt. We believe that its new appearance transmits our message more clearly. We hope that you will like it. We are looking forward to your feed-back.