NAME:

StarView 2.1

 

VENDOR:

Star Division

2180 Sand Hill Road, Suite 320

Menlo Park, CA 94025

(800) 888-8527 (inquiries)

(415) 233-0142 (fax)

Email: svinfo@stardiv.de

 

SOFTWARE CONFIGURATION:

This is a full C++ class library that comes with their DesignEditor which creates resource files. Some of the classes include SplitBar (a splittable scrollbar like a spreadsheet uses), tool boxes, status bars, file dialogs, and MS-Windows bitmap support via file stream IO. Other features/portability capabilities include international language support (being a German company selling software in the states, this makes a lot of sense) but not multi-byte character sets, full printer support (including page preview), endian-aware classes, platform-independent file specification, and drag&drop support. This product also comes with several general-purpose C++ classes including Strings and a very complete complement of container classes (e.g., Queues, Lists, and Tables). These classes are included in a Microsoft Windows DLL for reduced memory usage.

 

COMMENTS:

These guys are using their own code (originally written in C++, I might add) to put together a multi-platform word processor. Their word processor guys keep their PIGUI guys informed of any incompatibilities. One really neat thing is that they've ported Microsoft's help to other platforms. They have special (though non-portable) Microsoft Windows OLE and DDE classes.

 

FUTURE PLANS:

OS/2 & NT in beta. They are working on OLE 2.0 classes as well.

 

WHAT THE USERS SAY:

Most of the reports that I've seen on StarView have been extremely favorable with emphasis on their intuitive API. Ian Upright (Ian_Upright@mindlink.bc.ca), for example, says "If you're doing [PIGUI] development, I think you'd be insane to not check out StarView as an option. [...] The entire design of the library is very intelligent and VERY well thought out. [...] It also has system dependent hooks available. Such as the ability to trap [MS] windows messages of a HWND." Other users second this, "Their features for creating graphics and using output devices is marvelous." and "The class library is excellent. It's complete. [...] It's intuitive." User support is their biggest problem. Even though they have two support people and their primary support guy is really helpful, this is still a major issue. "They've got one good tech support guy, Andreas [they've added another]. You may not be able to call and get an immediate answer, as they're not always in." Says another user, "The real disappointment with StarView has been their customer support. We've known times where they didn't return our calls for weeks. They've consistently been late with releases and shipments, and have made promises on the phone that were not kept."

 

REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:

The software is new, and it seemed to me to be a bit rough around the edges. I had a review copy, but never got the software to work with Microsoft Windows 3.0 (this is when MS-Windows 3.1 was the most recent version). The support people tried extremely hard to help me, but I had to move on to other things without being able to get it to work.