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Overview:

Sapphire/Web was built on a Standards Based Open Platform

Sapphire/Web is a powerful Visual Action Builder designed specifically for creating applications running on the World Wide Web. The tool creates applications that use HTML (HyperText Mark-up Language) as the cross-platform user interface language, and runs Informix, Oracle, and Sybase databases, as well as legacy application code. Sapphire/Web has a powerful visual programming paradigm that drastically reduces the coding effort normally associated with developing applications.

Sapphire/Web not only works with your favorite authoring tool, but also works with any of the leading HTTP servers using the CGI 1.1 protocol, including the secure Netscape and Spry servers.

Sapphire/Web is not another 4GL that will lock you into proprietary code, but is based on the same open technology as db-UIM/X from Bluestone. This means that developers have full access to the power of Informix, Oracle, and Sybase and since Sapphire/Web does not put a layer in between the developer and the native database libraries. Code generated is pure C or C++, giving developers full portability, as well as the power of a compiled, high-performance language.

Sapphire/Web has also been designed to work with the most common object types used today, including any Function Call, any Executable, or any File. This means, for example, that developers have full access to any previously written function. Or they can bind their HTML user interface to an operating system level command, like a directory listing, or direct the output of a file to an HTML screen by simply dragging and dropping. With the conditional processing allowed by Sapphire/Web, you can set up variables depending on your application state, thus creating real parametric user interfaces.

Web Technology

Sapphire/Web uses the technology made popular by the World Wide Web by automatically generating CGI (Common Gateway Interface) programs that work with any HTTP server and any HTML Browser. This means that applications are available immediately across the entire World Wide Web, or across your internal network.

WWW Plus Other Applications

Organizations can develop mission-critical internal applications for deployment with Sapphire/Web. This provides many benefits over other 4GLs and application development tools:

Sapphire/Web is a tool to develop applications based on an HTML interface. The tool is an open, cross-platform solution for generating code to be compiled and linked into an executable binary file.

Sapphire/Web is advantageous because it speeds up the process of creating Common Gateway Interface (CGI) scripts to handle HTML Form submissions. The CGI scripts will process arguments submitted from a Form Element of an HTML Document. The arguments are used as an input to an object which can produce output (e.g. database objects), and the output is used to generate an HTML Document.

Object Relationship

An intuitive Graphical User Interface (GUI) is provided so a minimum of code needs to be written manually. However, the ability to add code will not be hindered or discouraged. Several hooks are provided to enable code to be added directly into the tool, then link to external source code, object code, and libraries.

The Sapphire/Web application speeds the creation of CGI scripts. The CGI script processes requests from an HTML Form, passing the arguments to the database. The resulting data is passed through the CGI interface to the pre-designed HTML template, providing a Web, or internal document.


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