Enhancing the HP e3000 User Interface

Windows-Based Development with Web, Windows and Terminal Deployment

Axiant 4GL, a core member of the PowerHouse family, provides a robust and highly productive

Windows-based integrated development environment (IDE) for building and maintaining

PowerHouse applications that, from a single source, can be deployed in a variety of flexible and

scalable Web-based, Windows client/server, or terminal-based server topologies.

Existing terminal-based PowerHouse applications (both data definitions and programs) are

easily imported into the Axiant IDE. Data dictionary definitions for IMAGE, KSAM, MPE and

relational data can then be maintained through Axiant’s easy-to-use graphical user interface, and

a new data dictionary can be built on your PowerHouse server with just the click of a button.

Axiant automatically creates an instantly usable Windows interface for imported PowerHouse

programs, while at the same time retaining all of the existing data access and business

processing logic. New programs are quickly created through Axiant’s built-in Wizards. The user

interface created for both new and existing programs is based upon style sheets and default

forms provided with Axiant, or that you have modified to implement your own corporate look-

and-feel. The user interface can be used as is, and is easily enhanced with traditional Windows-

style edit controls. Axiant’s powerful use of object-oriented inheritance means that changing the

look-and-feel of an entire application is done by simply modifying the property sheet of the

inherited styles. The imported application is then deployed back to the original PowerHouse

server, where the resulting PowerHouse program can be used simultaneously with both the

original terminal user interface and the new Windows user interface. This ensures a smooth

transition for your users, together with the simplicity and productivity for your developers that

comes from maintaining just one program regardless of the user interface being used.

Naturally, Axiant supports all of the new features introduced with PowerHouse 4GL 8.2 for the

creation of open HTML user interfaces ñ so that applications can also be deployed from Axiant

to the new PowerHouse Web environment for access by users through any standard Web

browser.

Through the use of object-oriented techniques such as inheritance and reuse, and the same

sophisticated default business processing models and flexible specification-based and

procedural overrides as the rest of the PowerHouse family, Axiant provides the most productive

visual IDE available today for building and maintaining data-driven business application for

deployment to the Web, Windows and traditional character-cell terminals.

For further information about the Cognos PowerHouse family of high-productivity development

tools for the HP e3000, please visit our web site at http://www.cognos.com/HP e3000 or contact

your local Cognos office.