Re: Cross-platform development using Power Objects 2.0

On Tue, 10 Jun 1997 14:45:00 GMT, emmanuel_at_Cherniak.ON.CA (Emmanuel Bensimon) wrote:
> According to reviews and Press Releases, it's possible to develop an
> application on a Windows machine Oracle's Power Objects 2.0 and then to move
> the code over to a Mac without any problems.
>
> Has anyone undertaken a project in which this was done? If so, how much work
> was actually involved in 'tweaking' the code created on the PC, before the
> application could be generated and run on the Mac?
>
> Any comments on the overall qwuality and effectiveness of Power Objects?
>
> Thanks,
> Emmanuel
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> Emmanuel Bensimon emmanuel_at_Cherniak.ON.CA
> Cherniak Software Development Corporation +1 905.771.7011
> 400-10 Commerce Valley Dr E Fax: +1 905.771.6288
> Thornhill, ON Canada L3T 7N7 http://www.cherniak.on.ca

I have been using both client/server packages for Mac and PC for about a year.

In my experience I have found that the Mac platform is about 60% as efficient and functional as the PC platform. However, most of the CORE functionality is there on both, and what were annoying bugs on one or the other platform have now somewhat are fixed or broke on both at the same time.

What is the biggest problem for me is asthetics. The Mac font sets and screensize resolutions usually cause the GUI to take on enough of a signifigant appearance that I need to manually adjust the two. Little things like buttons and shadowed boxes on the Mac change the appearance as they are w/rounded corners and grey shadows (square and black on PC) are just cosmetics that you cannot get around. So, porting a whole form will usually have to get a facelift in my case.

My porting process usually begins with development on the Mac. As I said, the Mac has much fewer bells & whistles than its counterpart (e.g. Crystal Reports (one that actually works), ActiveX, ODBC, OracleLite, OLE). I build my app to run as fast as possible, and without any ugly screen burps. If it will work satisfactorily on the Mac, then it will most likely work as fast if not faster on the PC. Generally the form load and display functions work faster on the PC. I don't know whether to attribute it to better video cards or memory management on the PC, but it's not the data fetch part, its updating the screen.

If you are using any bitmaps for form backrounds or buttons, it's best to make sure they're in 256 color and NON-COMPRESSED .BMP format. It's much easier to get them into the PC than Mac I think.  

Other than that, you'll soon find out what quirks are present in the dev tool on one versus the other.

Hope this helps

Larry Frazier                               vp19211_at_msgate.emis.hac.com
LJF & Associates                            (619) 543-4063

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