Professional Database Developers Aldex Software Ltd.
	Aldex Framework

Extra Functionality But At No Extra Cost! When we build you a new application it will include the Aldex Library ... a pre-developed collection of top quality software covering both standard and advanced functions... and all at no extra cost! Over the years we have created a huge range of software functions, routines and controls... and we have combined these together into various libraries which we supply with our applications; allowing us to include hundreds of tried and tested components with your application at no extra cost. The Aldex Framework consists of the relevant Aldex Libary together with the procedures and methodology that we use when creating your solution (see Our Development Process for more details on the latter). Some of the library components are standard ones that we use in virtually all of our systems. Items such as Error Logging (ie recording the who, what, where and when for each error that can be examined afterwards), Version Control (keeping track of which version of the software you are using and advising you if there is a newer version) and database backups. Other components are more specialised, some of which will be of use to you, some will not. For example all of our .NET / SQL Server applications include a standard component to connect the client software to the backend SQL Server database. If the primary server is not available when the application starts up then it automatically re-connects itself to a specified secondary server (a process called failover). Initially you may not have a second server so this function would be unused... but if you later decide to increase your overall system reliability by adding a failover server all you would need to do is to enter the name of the secondary server into a configuration table and the client failover support would be enabled automatically - that's all you would need to do on the client side! If you were using an alternative developer's application and had not specifically asked for this functionality then it is extemely unlikley that this would have been included. In the latter case in a failover situation you would probably have to visit each workstation and manually reconfigure each machine's settings to point to the new server, not a pleasant prospect in an emergency. Another example is automated version control combined with automated updates. We recently installed a system on 100 different laptops used by a roving sales force. When subsequent enhancements were made to the system our client was delighted to find that all the laptops could be updated to the latest version simply by copying the new version to a folder on their server. Our built-in version control (another library component) then automatically updated each laptop the next time it connected to the network. Unfortunately another application that they use (not written by us) still requires an individual visit to all 100 machines for each new version of that application! For a final example we have developed an auditing mechanism that can log all access to every page in an application; writing away the details of user name, date & time and form name for every form that is opened. This can either be used for security purposes or to gather statistics on which forms are the most, or least, used. If you don't want this functionality we just won't hook it up, but if you changed your mind in the future it could be activated very easily. Most of this functionality, even for the more basic issues such as error logging, is almost never included in a specification and consequently very few developers will include them. We work differently and include this type of functionality as a matter of course! We are constantly working to enhance and improve our libraries - and whenever we think of something new that may be useful to our clients we develop it, test it thoroughly then add it to our libraries. Some of the many areas covered include Error Logging, Version Control, Change Control/automated Updates, automated Failover, Installation routines, Backup processes, Fax/E-mail/SMS inetgration, Word/Excel integration, DTS Import & Export routines, Encryption, Security, Multi-column dropdown lists, Date Converters, Statistics routines, Curency convertors, Data Manipulation, Formatting Controls, Colour Controls, Saving a forms last position, Data validation, Spell checking (needs Word), Image processing, PDF export, Auditing, etc.

Copyright ©2004, Aldex Software Ltd.

Aldex Software Ltd.