NAME:

Zinc, V4.0

 

VENDOR:

ZINC Software Incorporated

405 South 100 East 2nd Floor

Pleasant Grove, UT 84062

(800) 638 8665 (inquires)

(801) 785-8900 (voice)

(801) 785-8996 (fax)

(801) 785-8997 (bbs)

Email: tech@zinc.com

WWW: http://www.zinc.com/

 

SOFTWARE CONFIGURATION:

This is a full C++ class library that comes with the Zinc Designer (a WYSIWYG GUI builder). Their classes include a rather nice error system, geometry management, print support, VROOM support (for Borland heads), index tabs, status bars, sliders, spinners, some graphic capabilities, and a portable, if rudimentary, help system. Also included is the source for the library (and for the Designer!). In addition to the usual GUI stuff, Zinc also provides international character support (they have a Unicode version for extra bux) and some container classes. The software comes with 4 manuals. These include 2 reference manuals, a getting started manual, and a document covering their designer.

 

OPTIONS:

They'll provide Unicode at extra cost (price, unspecified). Additionally, they provide a video training series (this gives lots of Zinc internals detail, but not a lot of relief for the novice programmer) for $499. COMMENTS: Zinc's direction seems to be the international market along with support for the marketeers-do-the-GUI-while-programmers-do-the-code crowd. That said, they promise that they'll not forget about the applications and scientific programmers as they grow. To use their product to its fullest, you have to use their GUI builder (the only way you can get icons on all platforms, for example, is through the Designer). Zinc has made big changes to their Designer (their GUI builder) targeted, it seems, to provide a comfortable GUI design environment for non-programmers. The updates include easing the addition of user-defined widgets to the designer, parallelizing the main-design-screen/image-editor/help-editor, and replacing flag names with more user-friendly english descriptions. They have completely rewritten their manuals (and the crowd goes wild...) to reduce the learning curve associated with this product. Zinc was founded in 1990.

 

FUTURE PLANS:

The utilization of the native help system and improved graphics support.

 

WHAT THE USERS SAY:

Users praise the look and feel under DOS. Many complain about the lack of intuitive feel of the API. Personally, I think that the API is pretty good but the documentation does a really poor job of explaining it.

 

REVIEWER'S IMPRESSIONS:

Once you get used to the paradigm, it *is* pretty straight-forward to program. Their improved documentation is a big help and shows off some of Zinc's more powerful features. In addition, the software is becoming more robust with each release.