faq Model

What is ?

is a powerful web-based Integrated Development Environment (IDE) used to create and host advanced web applications.

What does include?

includes three main components:

Error calling $list with parameters (product_components)
Could not find list definition product_components
.

There are lots of web development options out there, what makes so special?

Most existing systems fall into one of two camps:

Error calling $list with parameters (other_systems)
Could not find list definition other_systems
is sort of in the middle of these two extremes. This really gives web developers the best of both worlds. Most typical web pages can be built without coding however, when requirements call for very specialized components these can be easily built and integrated into the framework.

Why should I use it?

Writing code by hand is notoriously error-prone and time consuming. Reducing or eliminating the need for hand coding ensures that your applications will be far more robust and secure than typical web systems.

Most other advanced frameworks require a high degree of programming experience. With , designers with little or no programming knowledge can use the system. At the same time, skilled programmers will also be far more productive since all of the components in most systems can be generated.

Once your team becomes familiar with the way web applications are built and architected, they can easily maintain sites that they have never worked on before.

How is different from other generators?

Most systems that involve code generation treat generation as a one-time event to create some starting code that you can them maintain by hand. With , generated code is intended to be maintained within the IDE so to add capabilities to a generated component you update the specification used to create the code originally and then regenerate the code to support new requirements.

Is there anything special about the framework?

Yes, in addition to being extremely robust, the frameworks offers many advanced features not found in any other framework. These include.

  • Used to build extremely fast and efficient websites
  • Can build any type of site, not just static "brochure" sites
  • Sites are specified at a higher level abstraction (what to do, not how to do it)
  • Empowers junior developers and graphics designers to build complex websites that would normally be beyond their capabilities
  • Enables seasoned developers to build highly robust systems much faster than when using traditional code-heavy frameworks
  • One instance of the framework can host any number of websites
  • Development and testing is done in a separate sandbox environment
  • Strong support for multilingual websites
  • All components are built in one integrated environment
.

Can you tell me more about $functions?

$functions are mini generators that are called at runtime when rendering pages. They can be embedded within static content to simplify the rendering of complex HTML tags and to create dynamic content.

There are about 100 different functions to handle various requirements. A typical example is the &$36;list function which is used to render ordered and unordered lists. Rather than having to code all of the ul and li opening and closing tags you siimply use the list model to enter your list of items and save it under a list identifier. Then to embed the list you just add $list(list_id) to your content. In addition to simplifying the rendering, this also allows you to share the same list across multiple pages.

Another example of a $function is $if_mobile. This allows you to generate certain content only of you are running on a mobile device and other content if your page is rendered on a larger device.