After the download and installation, visit our OZONE web application page to see what it can do.
Read the OZONE story.
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Download the OZONE demo. (2.4 MB .zip) After the download and installation, visit our OZONE web application page to see what it can do. Read the OZONE story. |
The OZONE is the ultimate productivity tool. Make your own Windows applications for the desktop, or deploy them on the web without writing any computer code. Build the logic, connect the data, arrange the output and your job is done. You can add in 3rd party tools to extend the OZONE to encompass all major data types: Database backed web sites, local ODBC Databases, spread sheets, enriched text, graphs, charts, common dialogues and more into one integrated desktop system. OZONE -- the most versatile and the easiest multimedia and application builder!
Use OZONE to make Internet enabled applications. OZONE provides 100% assurace in placement of screen assets. Add our HTTP control to communicate with web servers around the world. OZONE acts like a "smart cookie" when communicating with web servers, so session management is easier. You can start a number of IE browsers as OCX's so when you switch from page to page you don't have to reload the same information over and over again. Send commands to ASP of CGI scripts to get data from your database backed web site and increase the efficiency of your server. OZONE does not rely on HTML, so the data comes out of the server without being clogged with HTML tags. This saves the server the time it takes to insert the tags, and it saves the OZONE client from having to parse them. That time savings alone can be up to 70% over other systems.
Use OZONE for enterprise computing. It solves the problem of code updates. OZONE will automatically load new scripts from a central server and will get them running without time consuming download installation issues found in distributing executable programs. This reduces the code update costs to $zero.
OZONE
OZONE -- the Rapid Application Development tool using: ActiveX components, 4 fully integrated work views, visual programming with no coding required to make fully functional Windows applications.
Use The OZONE for:
How:
Software development without programming:
Included Controls to:
More great features:
Search and replace, drag and drop, templates, full clipboard support, graphics
scaling, trace execution with the flowchart view at runtime, synchronize all views, MCI
device support, user selectable property detail, see properties at runtime, global
variables and system settings, fully configurable grid, automated sizing and
alignment, set and toggle output grid, run from line, run one line, set break points, user
selectable 300+ level undo and redo, user selectable autosave, configure the control
palette, optional sound support for controls and editing, file security with password, set
runtime window options: size - caption - system menu - and minimize button, printer
support...and more.
For even more information on OZONE click here.
System requirements:
Microsoft Windows 95, 98 or NT
PC with 386, 486 or better processor
16 meg of memory minimum
Optional: Sound card, CD-ROM drive.
Once Upon A Time
It started back when multimedia meant "slide show with sound," and interactive video meant a $500,000 budget for a laser disc project. VirtualVideo was born one week before Hyper Card in 1986, of an ICB board, and a Watson phone answering card. As it grew up it was a Targa-16 based software system supporting video disc players, touch screens, speech recognition, and more; all before Windows 2.0 was shipped. In those dark and pioneering days people would ask questions like "Does it do pictures of Banking? and Do you have a VCR in that PC, or what?"
Nevertheless we persevered and were pleased to see people using multimedia more and more. We saw people buying VirtualVideo and building companies around it; making careers in it. We saw it in supermarkets, on cable TV, in airports, in factories, at large and small training companies, just to name a few. We eventually found a publisher. Things really started to tick with bundle deals with Creative Labs and Cardinal Technologies, with retail sales through Comp USA, Babbages, Electronic Boutiques.
Even as our system was moving into the mainstream market, the world was moving to windows. We had stuck with our roots and kept our system in DOS. We found ourselves in a position of having the best buggy whip on the information super highway. We needed to go to Windows.
Jump Ahead in Time
- Now, instead of being asked, "Can it show pictures of banking?" when we are asked, "Can you show AVI files? Do you read JPEG? Can you graph a spread sheet? Does it run over the Web, and Is it ODBC compliant?" the answer is yes to all, and no to all because OZONE works with objects that do the work. We are providing an environment for those objects to be used easily and quickly. You may as well ask, "Can your stereo play Mozart?" Or "Do light bulbs work in the hall and the bedroom?" OZONE is the object zone: a quick way to make an application using only ActiveX controls: YOU WRITE NO CODE AT ALL. That's the beauty of it. The objects (ActiveX controls) show the images, work with ODBC databases, run spreadsheets, etc. Other powerful systems using objects have code based scripts like Basic that load the properties, that do the logic, that run the for-next loops. The OZONE does all this at the object level. The implementation is all drag and drop. This way you can really do visual programming.
Authoring System Basics
- Authoring systems are designed primarily for "non-programmers" who want to develop multimedia projects. The authoring software does this by handling the implementation details. The author tells the system what to do, and when to do it. These commands are typically held in a file called a script file. When the project is running, the "run time" (or playback) software reads the script and does what the script says to do.
Four Views are better than Two
- We knew we had to build a system that was easy to use right out of the box, so we looked at what the authors were using now. To us the whole charm of Windows is the common user interface. This reduces learning time and lets people get up and going as soon as possible. People do not like to spend a lot of time learning, so we wanted to give them familiar territory in which to work.
We studied the users' reaction to a number of the most popular authoring system interfaces. However, instead of choosing one, we decided to use four. Four different interfaces would make our system easy for experienced users to migrate to, and would make our system acceptable to new users because it would have an interface that would meet their expectations. The multiple view approach also would let authors use the strengths of all without being penalized by the limitations of each. The multiple perspectives would make it more natural to work a wide variety of projects. Use the Output View to create screens. Use the Time Line View when you want a timed show. Use the Flowchart View when you need to build the logic. Use the Spread Sheet View for fast editing. These four interfaces would be views onto the same script. Each one may be used to create and edit a project without the others, but changes in one would be reflected in the others. This way the script, which is central to multimedia creation would always be central in our system.
What can you do with it?
- Now that we knew how people are going to use OZONE we needed to determine a basic feature set that could be shipped with the first version. Our initial thinking was to create a program that would be compatible with the script files of the DOS software. It quickly became obvious that it had taken years to develop that tool set and with the current pace of development among our rivals we could not afford that luxury of time.
We needed a way to work smarter, to take advantage of standards, and leap frog the competition. We looked for a set of tools on the market that could work in OZONE. We knew that people always have a pet need and want your system to satisfy it, so the system had to be extensible. We did not want to make a huge system that would be "all things to all people" because that does not work. Our users want the ability to build and customize their system to meet their unique needs. Of course this pointed to the direction of objects that worked according to some standard; that could be installed and removed easily; that could be built by competent programmers. Better yet why not use an existing object standard.
We decided to use the ActiveX object type. Unlike the objects for other authoring systems there were already over 100 ActiveX objects, called custom controls, on the market. The advantages were immediate. We rapidly built a few controls and we had a basic feature set for demonstrations. We also added some of the controls from our Visual Basic programs, and downloaded a few from CompuServe. The selection of controls on the market is growing. The number of 1.0 controls that work with C++ and therefore OZONE is also growing. It looks as if ActiveX is going to be another software standard for some time. To answer the first question: You can do with it what your add-in tools do. Some will see OZONE as a multimedia system, others a data base front end, still others...who knows.
Examples:
- Using a viewer, button, and common dialogue controls we build a 3 line script that lets you view any file on your hard drive.
- Using a slider, a spread sheet, and a chart we build an interactive model with a graph that changes as you set values with the slider -- all in less than 15 lines.
- Using a Macromedia Flash control, couple of buttons, and a list box we can make a catalogue of our favorite Flash movies on the web.
- Using a picture control, a Autodesk animation control and a wav player we reproduced a Jurassic Park screen saver, all in 10 lines.
How do you do it?
- First you open a view. Then you choose a control from the control palette. You can see a control palette in each of the illustrations. You drag and drop the control into the view. This inserts the control into the script. If you open another view now you will see that control there. That control will do what you tell it, and you tell it what to do by setting the properties. Double click on the control and see the property list. Make your entries to set the file name, the border, caption, etc. That's it. Add more controls, set their properties, and there is your project.
A New Class of Software - The Flat Model
- The OZONE is a new class of software because it is a flat model object oriented development system that provides 4 simultaneous views of your work. Other object oriented software systems have an underlying level of code that operates the objects. This underlying level of code sets properties, holds variables, and had control structures like if-then, and for-next. In The OZONE all that activity is done on the object level. There is an if-then object, a for-next object, a case object to control program flow, etc. The variables are held directly in the properties or in data structures that are accessible through the properties. The setting of properties is also done at the object level. An object can get a value from a different object, or set the value in an other object. By keeping this all on the object level it is possible to represent the project as a flowchart, or any of the other views we provide.
The Property Browser
- All the settings for the objects are available from any view via the Property Browser. The Properties are the settings that describe the work for the object. For example height, width, and file name are all properties. The Property Browser allows the developer to look at and modify the properties. Most of the objects we use allow the developer to use dialogue boxes to set the values that go into the properties. We have made an environment within which objects do all the work, in the way you want. All you have to do is make the design, and OZONE does the rest.
Object orientation means flexibility, and easy enhancements.
The central issue in software used to be: What can I use it for? This was because before object oriented systems, when software came with a set of features that were provided by the developer. These features would do the work of the system, for example, add numbers, format paragraphs, print forms, play audio, etc. Now with The OZONE people can have an environment that suits their project and working style, and that has just the features that person wants. These features might be included with OZONE, or one might buy them, or build them.
Welcome to the Future
- When you use The OZONE you are in the future of computing. Component software using objects, is popular and growing because reusable objects allow developers to have a "Plug and Play" standard that only existed in the hardware arena before. The OZONE adds truly visual interfaces to working with these objects. Now Experiences developers can work faster, and less experienced developers can make projects that had been out of their reach. We will all see the growth of this approach, and you can see it first in The OZONE.
Copyright (C) 2002 V_Graph Inc.
