Menlo Park, California-based Gupta Technologies Inc has launched SQLWindows 3.0, an enhanced version of the graphical application development tool for SQL databases. SQLWindows 3.0 includes new features that make it more object-oriented and easier for developers to use when creating high-performance, multi-user SQL applications with advanced graphical interfaces. The application design environment in SQLWindows consists of application design windows and the Outliner, each providing two different views of the various components of the application. This means that developers can perform most of their work graphically, in the Design Window. As the developer draws objects in the Design Window, the code for these objects appears in the Outliner. The new Tool Palette enables the developer to create application objects directly by selecting icons for any of the 18 SQLWindows application objects, including form windows, dialogue boxes, check boxes, and table windows. The Customiser is an object-specific pop-up design panel that enables programmers to assign attributes directly – such as fonts, colours and data types – to SQLWindows application objects without writing code or pulling down a menu. As the developer selects definitions, the code for those definitions automatically appears in the Outliner. Includable objects, another new feature of SQLWindows 3.0, facilitate large team development projects by enabling developers to create re-usable, shared, modular code. Includable objects give developers the ability to modularise and maintain libraries of SQL Access Language code and objects that can be shared by anyone on the project. For example, sections of the SQLWindows application outline can become includable objects, such as Internal Functions, External Functions, Global Declarations or Dialog Boxes. Includable objects are intelligent so that if programmer A changes an includable object and programmer B is using it simultaneously, programmer B’s application will recognise the change. The latest release, SQLWindows 3.0, costs $1,300 and will be available next month. Current users of SQLWindows 2.0 can upgrade to the new 3.0 version for $150. An SQLWindows Client-Server Starter Kit will also be available next month for $2,000, according to Gupta. This will include a five-user MS-DOS SQLBase Server, SQLWindows 3.0 and one copy of Quest. An SQLWindows Client-Server System for Oracle or Microsoft SQL Server is expected to be released in December – this will cost $2,500 and is expected to contain SQLWindows 3.0, a copy of Quest and five routers for either Oracle or Microsoft SQL Server.
