Informix Software Inc has launched a tools initiative designed to provide painless migration from character-based to graphical user interface-based applications for end-users and developers. Senior product manager Tony Lacy-Thompson explained that although graphical interfaces offer benefits in terms of consistency, easy-to-remember icons and mice for user-driven interaction, these benefits are of little use to those that only use one application, those only interested in data entry and those whose productivity will not be improved. This poses a problem for the software developer who will probably need to write applications for both graphical and character-based environments. On top of this, there is the added dilemma of deciding which graphical user interface to write for – Windows, Motif, Open Look, Apple Mac, Presentation Manager and so on. Informix is coming to the rescue of Informix developers by providing Informix 4GL/GX. The Informix 4GL generates pseudo code which currently runs on Informix RDS Rapid Development System for run-time character applications. The GX product provides the same function as RDS only for graphical applications and the developer doesn’t have to take source code and recompile. However, as GX is not a full object-oriented graphical language (something that Informix is still developing) it will not give applications pull-down menus or 100% mouse control in every field. It does, however, provide a graphical look and feel for applications. It is available today for Motif and will support Windows in October. Entry price for the product is between UKP2,000 and UKP3,000. Informix also launched what it is describing as graphical framework services that is its OpenCase/Toolbus product based on Softbench technology licensed from Hewlett-Packard Co, an encapsulator for Toolbus so that third-party vendors can encapsulate their tools to run with this software backplane and the Informix 4GL for Toolbus. Toolbus costs UKP2,000 per developer seat and the Informix 4GL for Toolbus costs UKP1,500. Informix has not forgotten the end user, and is working on what it terms the Storm project, which is a graphical query and reporting tool that will feature SuperViews and a Schema Builder. SuperViews enables the data processing department to provide end users with views of the database table that are already joined and adds information for the end user. Storm has its own data dictionary and leaves control over user access to the database with the DP manager. The Schema Builder will enable all parts of the database schema to be created or modified in a graphical environment.
