JVIEWS

The Internet has had an enormous impact on the way applications are developed and deployed, especially with respect to the user interface. An application might require a "thin" client that can run in the browser, and rely on the server to process the data. Others applications might require a traditional "power" desktop client with full interaction capabilities. Many applications require both the thin and power clients, often aimed at different categories of end users. ILOG JViews is designed to help developers deploy their user interfaces to multiple types of clients.

If these user interfaces were simple "form-based" dialogs, developers could quickly assemble them with a Java GUI Builder or an HTML editor. Let us consider the following scenarios,

This goes clearly beyond what a form-based user interface can do and is precisely where ILOG JViews can help.

Advantages

•   Offers unparalleled functionality that no other solution can build •   Outstanding productivity lowers project risk and reduces maintenance headaches •   Provides dedicated features to help build displays for monitoring, supervision, planning, analysis, designing and diagramming •   Addresses a broad range of visualization challenges •   Architected for all problem sizes •   Allows host of features such as,       Personalized displays using a point-and-click editor   Ability to choose data-source parameters or select templates   Ability to load the output file into the application at runtime   Full control for developers, enabling rapid development of applications

The ILOG JViews Component suite

The ILOG Jviews component suite allows Java developers to create highly customized and visually rich Java User Interfaces that go far beyond standard Swing and HTML controls. With the ILOG JViews package, Web applications can include a broad range of new displays, including,

•   Workflow and process flow diagrams •   Any type of geographic map •   Network display diagrams •   Plant floor schematics •   Modeling and diagramming tools •   Custom editing tools, such as Workflow Modelers •   Gantt chart schedules •   X-Y plots, pie charts, and more

The ILOG JViews Component suite

These displays can be rendered as power clients--Java applications or applets--or from the server, as DHTML-based thin clients. When used as a power client, ILOG JViews sits on the client side and provides display speeds and interaction performance that are equivalent to native graphic components (for example, Windows). When used for DHTML clients, the ILOG JViews library generates images and JavaScript from the server, providing a rich user experience even in client environments where Java is not present.

The ILOG JViews Component Suite is divided into six logical parts. These modules are:

Graphics Framework

This is the core module on which all the other modules are built. The Graphics Framework is provided together with the Prototypes module (also called Business Graphics Objects), a facility for point-and-click creation of custom graphic symbols, and the new Application Framework, an API for rapidly assembling Document/View based applications.

Some of the features in the Graphics Framework are

Application Framework: A completely new facility for providing "standard" application functionality--such as toolbars, menus, and multiple documents--is added. This API also provides built-in support for the Document/View paradigm.

New Printing Framework: A vastly improved printing facility is introduced, providing support for preview, printing area selection, and page customization.

Enhanced SVG Support: New features are provided to improve the SVG thin-client experience, including a dynamic Overview Window (for navigating in the main view of the SVG client), a Layer Visibility manager, and a Tooltips manager.

Revamped Composer: Composer, the 2D graphics editor example, has been rewritten atop the Application Framework. This enables it to be easily extended and customized using the Application Framework API.

Graph Layout:

This module is used for automatically rearranging a diagram (also known as a "graph") in order to make it more readable. Common applications include: workflow diagrams, network topologies, UML diagrams, etc.

Maps:

A module that provides extensive cartographic functionality

Gantt Chart:

A chart module for displaying task and resource schedules.

Stylable Data Mapper (SDM):

A module that introduces the MVC architecture into standard ILOG JViews displays. It allows developers to build many ILOG JViews supervision and planning displays quickly, while maintaining full control over customizability. A specific version of SDM dedicated to building displays for Workflow applications is shipped with this package.

Charts:

This module provides a full range of charts, including scatter, line, bar, pie, and others, including interaction.