Developer(s) | Professional Software Associates |
---|---|
Written in | C++ |
Operating system | Cross-platform |
Type | Widget toolkit |
Website | www.psa.inc |
The Zinc Application Framework is an application framework, intended for the development of cross-platform software applications with graphical user interface (GUI), using a widget toolkit. [1] [2] Zinc targets both embedded (such as Wind River's VxWorks) and desktop platforms.
In 1990 Zinc Software released its first software development package Zinc Interface Library as a tool for Borland Turbo C++. [3] This package allowed creation of text and graphics based user interface, initially only for DOS applications and since the 2.0 release also for Windows programs. [4]
In 1994 Zinc Software introduced version 4.0 of its C++ tool under Zinc Application Framework name. Zinc aimed at cross-platform development of the user interface supporting DOS, Windows, Mac and Unix. [5]
With the release of the version 5 in 1997, Zinc Software changed pricing policy and distributed "Personal Version" of the Zinc Application Framework free of charge for non-commercial use [6] - including source code and limited only by lack of technical support and distribution rights. [7]
Zinc Software was acquired in 1998 by Wind River and continued to operate as a subsidiary. [8]
In 2004 Zinc Software was sold to Professional Software Associates (PSA). [9]
Qt is a widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces as well as cross-platform applications that run on various software and hardware platforms such as Linux, Windows, macOS, Android or embedded systems with little or no change in the underlying codebase while still being a native application with native capabilities and speed.
Windows Notepad is a simple text editor for Windows; it creates and edits plain text documents. First released in 1983 to commercialize the computer mouse in MS-DOS, Notepad has been part of every version of Windows ever since.
FreeGEM released in 1999 is a windowing system based on Digital Research's GEM which was first released in 1985. GEM stands for "Graphics Environment Manager".
In computer programming, an application framework consists of a software framework used by software developers to implement the standard structure of application software.
wxWidgets is a widget toolkit and tools library for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs) for cross-platform applications. wxWidgets enables a program's GUI code to compile and run on several computer platforms with minimal or no code changes. A wide choice of compilers and other tools to use with wxWidgets facilitates development of sophisticated applications. wxWidgets supports a comprehensive range of popular operating systems and graphical libraries, both proprietary and free, and is widely deployed in prominent organizations.
Delphi is a software product that uses the Delphi dialect of the Object Pascal programming language and provides an integrated development environment (IDE) for rapid application development of desktop, mobile, web, and console software, currently developed and maintained by Embarcadero Technologies.
NewWave is a discontinued object-oriented graphical desktop environment and office productivity tool for PCs running early versions of Microsoft Windows. It was developed by Hewlett-Packard and introduced commercially in 1988. It was used on the HP Vectras and other IBM compatible PCs running MS Windows.
Free Pascal Compiler (FPC) is a compiler for the closely related programming-language dialects Pascal and Object Pascal. It is free software released under the GNU General Public License, with exception clauses that allow static linking against its runtime libraries and packages for any purpose in combination with any other software license.
DataFlex is an object-oriented high-level programming language and a fourth generation visual tool 4GL for developing Windows, web and mobile software applications on one framework-based platform. It was introduced and developed by Data Access Corporation beginning in 1982.
Windows Forms (WinForms) is a free and open-source graphical (GUI) class library included as a part of Microsoft .NET, .NET Framework or Mono Framework, providing a platform to write client applications for desktop, laptop, and tablet PCs. While it is seen as a replacement for the earlier and more complex C++ based Microsoft Foundation Class Library, it does not offer a comparable paradigm and only acts as a platform for the user interface tier in a multi-tier solution.
StarTeam is a revision control system used in software development, especially when a project involves multiple teams in different locations. StarTeam is an SCM and SDLC software application, created by Starbase Corporation, which was acquired by Borland in January 2003 which was acquired by Micro Focus in July 2009. The application is client-server, backed by a relational database that retains all changes made to a project during its evolution as well as the project requirements, task assignments, threaded discussions and bug tracking. Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle database are supported database servers.
Merge is a software system which allows a user to run DOS/Windows 3.1 on SCO UNIX, in an 8086 virtual machine.
CommSuite 95 was a communications software suite of products launched by the Canadian software company Delrina in late 1995.
In computer interface design, a ribbon is a graphical control element in the form of a set of toolbars placed on several tabs. The typical structure of a ribbon includes large, tabbed toolbars, filled with graphical buttons and other graphical control elements, grouped by functionality. Such ribbons use tabs to expose different sets of controls, eliminating the need for numerous parallel toolbars. Contextual tabs are tabs that appear only when the user needs them. For instance, in a word processor, an image-related tab may appear when the user selects an image in a document, allowing the user to interact with that image.
Meeting Maker is a cross-platform personal calendar and group scheduling software application from PeopleCube. First released in 1991 for Macintosh by ON Technology, support for other platforms followed in 1993 with Meeting Maker XP. Alongside Windows and Mac, native clients were released for OS/2 and Solaris and later also for other platforms. Some support was introduced also for mobile platforms like Apple Newton, PalmPilot and Windows CE. Although powerful, its user interface - aiming at uniformity across multiple platforms - was criticized as weak and not supporting all features of target platforms.
Aldus PhotoStyler is a graphics software developed by the Taiwanese company Ulead. Released in June 1991 as the first 24 bit image editor for Windows it was bought the same year by the Aldus Prepress group. Its main competition was Adobe Photoshop. Version 2.0 introduced new user interface and improved color calibration. PhotoStyler SE - lacking some features of the version 2.0 - was bundled with scanners like HP ScanJet. The product disappeared from the Adobe product line after Adobe acquired Aldus in 1994.
Ashlar-Vellum, a dba of Ashlar Incorporated, is a developer of Computer-aided design (CAD) and 3D modeling software for both the Macintosh and Microsoft Windows platforms. Ashlar-Vellum's interface, designed in 1988 by Dr. Martin Newell and Dan Fitzpatrick, featured an automated Drafting Assistant that found useful points in the geometry and allowed the artist to quickly connect to locations like the "midpoint" or "tangent".
The Actor programming language was invented by Charles Duff of The Whitewater Group in 1988. It was an offshoot of some object-oriented extensions to the Forth language he had been working on.
Dr. Halo is a raster graphics editor developed by Media Cybernetics and released for computers running MS-DOS. It was among the first graphics editors available for MS-DOS with its initial release in 1984. Media Cybernetics boasted about three million users of Dr. Halo between 1984 and 1993.