Advantage Systems

Code Modules

The code modules of the framework expose a wealth of functionality to your application eliminating the need to write every line of code from scratch. This approach permits the Advantage programmers to focus on the elements of the application specific to your business, including user interface design, database model and business rules. While allowing the XML Framework to handle common tasks such as initializing the application, displaying the menu system, login security, communication between the various layers along with a multitude of other functionality.

Since the XML framework is modular, only the code modules necessary for your application are compiled into your application. If you are planning on performing maintenance programming on your application this approach reduces the source code learning curve since you are only going to have to maintain code used by your application.

XML Implementation

What make the Advantage XML Framework different from other Frameworks is it's use of XML to govern how the Framework actually behaves. For example all the information necessary to display a list of customer information is obtained by the XML file related to customer information. If the user wants the customer information displayed in a specific order let's say, in most applications this would required recompiling the entire application. However with the Advantage XML Framework the user can either edit the information regarding the customer list in the Advantage XML SDK ("Software Development Kit") or the user can simply edit the XML directly using a standard text editor this eliminates recompiling the application.

The XML which drives the Framework can be consumed by both ASP.Net web forms and controls or by Visual FoxPro classes. This benefit will drastically decrease the costs associated with web-enabling your application.

N-Tier Architecture

The Advantage XML Framework is a a true N-Tier framework, that consists of the following layers:

	Presentation Layer
	Business Logic Layer
	Data Layer
The presentation layer provides the user interface by which data is entered into the application, this can include a desktop application, a web browser, data collection device or tablet pc.

The business logic layer contains all the programming necessary to govern if the data entered by the user can be written to the database. For example the business logic layer will ensure that a customer number is not duplicated or an minimum order amount is met before creating the purchasing order. When the information is valid the business logic layer will write the information to the database. If the information entered is not valid the business logic layer will throw an exception to the presentations layer so the presentation layer can request the user correct the information and then attempt to resave the record.

The business logic layer is also responsible for serving data to the presentation layer. This includes formatting and joining information together in a manner that makes sense to the user. After the business layer has assembled and formatted the information, it passes the data to the presentation layer to display the information to the user.

The data layer is responsible for housing or storing the information. The Advantage XML Framework currently is able to store information in either SQL Server or Visual FoxPro tables. Where it make sense, the data layer may also assembly the information. This technique is normally implemented for very large tables with 100's of thousands of records and the database itself resides on it's own computer.

Framework Benefits

Your custom software application will experience the following benefits by using a Framework:

Code Reusability - The means the programming that displays a list of information can be reused regardless of the information being displayed. In other words the same programming can display a list of employees or customers. Code reusability will decrease the amount of time necessary to build your application and less time equates to less cost.

Stability - Given the fact the same code is used over and over again in your application the application is much more stable due to the fact if the code works in one place it will work wherever it is used in the application.

Scalability - This give your application room to grow. If you have an application that utilizes FoxPro tables and the business requirements dictates the application needs to utilize SQL Server, with minimal programming cost the Framework can be adjusted to utilized SQL Server without having to rewrite the presentation layer and in most cases the business logic layer will not require programming modifications. If you are already utilizing SQL Server and are experiencing performance issues due to adding additional users and processing more information along with the application and database residing on one server, the database can be moved to it's own server. This will spread the load of the application across two computers and will increase the performance of the application without a major rewrite.

Report Writer - The Advantage XML Framework supports both the native Visual FoxPro report writer and Crystal reports.