Stingray Software Announces Objective Toolkit PRO 1.0

Business Wire, Sept 8, 1997

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 8, 1997--

New Product Offers Architecture-level Frameworks That Extend MFC

Stingray Software announced Objective Toolkit PRO 1.0, an add-on to Objective Toolkit that provides professional level classes for the graphical user interface architect using MFC.

"In the Objective Toolkit standard edition, we focus on providing user interface widgets for MFC. Now, with the Pro edition we're offering new architectures that developers can use to dramatically decrease their development time and better organize their applications," said Scot Wingo, co-founder of Stingray Software. "Objective Toolkit PRO 1.0 provides easy to use solutions to some of the hardest problems facing Windows/MFC developers today."

Typical components of the standard edition of Objective Toolkit require 1 or 2 classes to implement, and Objective Toolkit PRO offers complete frameworks of 10 or more classes. Each component in Objective Toolkit PRO solves a much more serious problem, thus giving the developer dramatically increased time savings and the ability to include features otherwise too complex.

Features of Objective Toolkit PRO 1.0 include:

-- Docking Views - The Objective Toolkit standard release provides docking windows. Objective Toolkit Pro's docking views significantly extend this capability by allowing the developer to dock complete MFC "CViews" and frame windows. This new metaphor provides the end user with visual focus cues, automatically updates the view menus and implements complete dockability.

-- Layout Manager Framework - One of the largest problems facing Windows developers is window layout management and device 0independent positioning. Before Objective Toolkit Pro, developers have written thousands of lines of custom code to handle the resizing of dialogs and forms. Objective Toolkit Pro's layout manager addresses this challenge by providing a framework for implementing plug-in layout algorithms. The framework includes several sample layout algorithms (grid bag layout, relative, scaled, etc.), and also affords developers the flexibility to design custom layout managers based on needs (e.g., low resolution handling). The layout manager plugs seamlessly into your existing dialog, formview, controlbar, property page, or any other window and also allows the powerful capability of nesting layouts. The developer can integrate the layout manager into applications in a matter of minutes.

-- Model View Controller (MVC) Framework - Another major challenge facing many MFC developers is the lack of scalability in MFC's document/view architecture. Objective Toolkit Pro's MVC framework extends the document/view architecture making it easy to separate the "command handling", "view" and "document/model" information in your application. Stingray's MVC also makes it easier to create portable views that are application independent.

-- ActiveScript Hosting Engine - Objective Toolkit PRO includes an MFC-compatible ActiveScript engine that gives MFC applications complete access to Microsoft's ActiveScript technology and the ability to "host" scripts. The ActiveScript hosting engine also provides a mechanism for two-way interaction between MFC applications and ActiveScript. The end-result is that the developer can now add VBScript and JScript scripting to their applications in minutes instead of days.

-- Form Editing Engine - The Objective Toolkit Pro forms engine works in concert with the ActiveScript Hosting Engine to provide a complete scripting user interface. The forms engine gives the end user the ability to edit and interactively script MFC graphical user interfaces using a Visual Basic-like forms editing user interface. To add forms editing to an application, the developer simply adds a reference to a new view in their document template class.

-- Build Wizard - The Objective Toolkit PRO Build Wizard lets developers customize the Objective Toolkit PRO libraries to their needs. The developer chooses the features needed and the build wizard automatically generates a custom library and DLL based on the settings.

Objective Toolkit Pro, an add-on to Objective Toolkit 5.1, costs $495 in addition to Objective Toolkit 5.1 and ships with full source code and 60 days of technical support. Objective Toolkit PRO Subscriptions are available for $245, in addition to an Objective Toolkit 5.1 subscription, and include one full year of product updates and technical support.

Stingray Software, Inc., based in Research Triangle Park, N.C., develops, markets, and supports developer tools aimed at object- oriented programming environments. For more information, contact Stingray Software at 800-924-4223 or 919-461-0672, fax 919-461-9811 or email sales@stingsoft.com; or visit Stingray's Web site at http://www.stingsoft.com .

Objective Toolkit and Objective Toolkit PRO are trademarks of Stingray Software, Inc. Visual C++ is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the Untied States and other countries.