Mountain View, California-based GuideWare Corp, founded just four months ago, has what it claims is the first object-oriented graphical user interface development environment for multi-hardware graphical applications. WinTran is said to simplify applications designed for Microsoft Windows and Motif, reducing development time. Applications manipulate named visual objects, such as text, lists, buttons, images and tables, rather than Windows. The approach is claimed to get around the normal ties to a specific windowing model. To manipulate one or more windows, most user interface development environments use or automatically generate thousands of lines of user interface code as dictated by the supplier’s windowing model library, says GuideWare co-founder and chief scientist Dr Sanil Mehta. The code then has to be merged with code implementing the application’s algorithms, database management and flow control. WinTran applications supposedly avoid this, using standard languages such as C, C++ or Pascal that take less time to write, are more reliable and easier to maintain. WinTran includes an Application Builder and Application Server, a run-time module that loads the interface descriptions, paints the display and receives and interpretes messages from the user interface or operating system and triggers execution of application code. A specific server is needed for each graphical environment supported. The initial version for Windows 3.0, currently in beta test, will cost $500 with no run-time royalties; it works using Microsoft’s Dynamic Link Library; an OSF/Motif version is set for next quarter.
