Virtual Panels style application looks like a front panel of an instrument with various kinds of indicators, graphics or alphanumerical displays, buttons. It is an imitation of data presentation and instrument control environment experimenter has got used to. Object-oriented approach seems to be very natural for such a task where well defined objects have to be performed by software means. And the use of this approach dramatically accelerates and simplifies writing of an application as well as Virtual Panels development itself.
Virtual Panels classes (as objects are called in C++) imitate various objects of instrument's panel. They are divided into two groups. The first group includes controlling objects - buttons and menus and we call them Controls. The second group we named simply Objects and it embraces objects that perform input-output - LEDs, alphanumerical Indicators, Graphs, Input Boxes (Virtual Panels style scanf()), alphanumerical displays (we call them Outboxes) and Boards (they can be used to imitate panels). Objects can be FIXED on the screen, PERM (that means permanent and they can be dragged) or POPUP (they appear on the screen when they are needed).