NAME:

Open Interface Elements, Version 3.0

 

VENDOR:

Neuron Data

156 University Avenue,

Palo Alto, California 94301

(800) 876-4900 (inquiries)

(415) 321-4488 (voice)

 

SOFTWARE CONFIGURATION:

Open Interface is an emulated PIGUI with a C++ API (as of Open Interface Elements 3.0). The software also comes with a WYSIWYG GUI builder which includes a script language that can co-exist with C or C++. Their C++ approach no longer uses a wrappers approach! They include tons of extra widgets (which they call "Power Widgets") like business graphics (bar, pie, and line charts), images (all standard formats), a hypertext widget, and context-sensitive hypertext help. Other software in Open Interface includes international character support, portable drag-and-drop, multi-font support, full printer support, memory management, file I/O support as well as MS-Windows DDE support (the latter is, of course, non-portable).

 

OPTIONS:

"Nexpertobject" is an expert systems tool intended for GUI development. "C/S Elements" is a client/server for tying UI components to one of many supported relational databases. This allows the UI to control the database and changes in the database to be propagated back into the UI. "Smart Elements" is for integrating knowledge-based systems with Neuron's GUI stuff. This allows changes to objects in the knowledge based system to be propagated to the UI and vice versa. In addition, these are integrated with a scripting language which causes changes in both the knowledge base and the UI.

 

COMMENTS:

Open Interface is an emulated GUI, that attempts to superset the features from the various GUIs they support. Particularly if one looks at Neuron Data's optional products, one can see a leaning toward support of DBMS and expert systems. These guys claim to have 35% of the market share for PIGUI tools (including some heavyweights like IBM, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, and AT&T).

 

WHAT THE USERS SAY:

One user says, "[They've] Implemented all kinds of ideas such as being able to add items to scrolling lists using the += operator in C++ etc etc etc. Found some bugs, but support was brilliant, and new releases were always pushing the frontiers forward. All bug reports have met with speedy response. It is expensive, but worth it. Great for object-oriented development." Another user agrees, "The only one [PIGUI] I would recommend is Neuron Data's Open Interface.". However, one user cautions, "I [only] recommend doing development on a UNIX box or a Mac with this tool. The person using our [MS] windows copy has had some problems with ND corrupting its own data files and/or crashing windows." Another complaint I seem to be seeing concerns slow and poor technical support.