About the Development Center
This section describes the use and characteristics of the Development Center (DC). It does not attempt to introduce the reader to Zim. It describes the features, concepts and usage of DC and provides detailed reference information, including
| Application Design | Describes how DC can be used to generate complete applications. |
| Object Dictionary | Introduces the Zim developer to the maintenance of object definitions using DC. |
| Zim Object Manager (ZOM) | Describes the basic concepts and components of the Zim Object Management (ZOM) services. This section discusses how the components can be used to manipulate and analyze the objects in your applications and support team development projects. |
| Development Tools | Describes specific tools that aid in the porting of object dictionary definitions and preparing an application for remote access by means of the Zim ODBC drivers. |
| Application Framework | Describes the organization, purpose and use of the framework. Additional sections within Using the Framework and Programming Styles provide examples of programming with the Application Framework and contrast examples of programming without it. |
| Reference Guide | Contains an overview that describes the organization of the Reference Guide and provides some general information pertinent to many of the commands and objects documented there. This section contains specific reference material on various DC commands and objects. |
Zim Development Center is an integrated development environment for Zim that provides a set of tools and services to assist in developing, analyzing, maintaining, and deploying applications.
Zim and the Development Center encourage the use of iterative or spiral development in which a prototype of the final application is developed rapidly and then refined through successive versions (usually with feedback from the end users) to become the final system. The main tasks in application development with Zim are object creation and management, program development, and testing. In support of these tasks, the Development Center provides a complete set of facilities to support rapid prototyping, object management, program design and development, and testing and debugging. Moreover, all these facilities can be active at the same time making iterative development the natural and most effective approach.
Development Tools and Services
The tools and services provided by the Development Center are offered through a windowed user interface. These tools and services can be used to design and edit complete Zim applications as well as the Zim objects that make up applications, to assist in managing multi-person development projects, to aid in migrating applications to new computer systems, and to administer the security aspects of your database. Development tools and services are used primarily during the development of applications.
The Application Framework (AF)
The Application Framework is a collection of Zim objects and programs that provide facilities common to all Zim applications. By using the Framework, you can construct applications more quickly and more accurately. The Application Framework is used by the Development Center tools and by applications generated by DC. Application programs you construct yourself (i.e. not generated by DC) can also use some or all of the facilities of the Application Framework.