Solutions :: Developers :: ToolWorx Tool Set

Most software sold today has been developed using the traditional approach of starting with a clean sheet of paper (or screen). A programmer or group of programmers uses various programming languages and/or databases to code end user applications based on design specifications. This method takes a lot of time to deliver and frequently results in specifications changing before the system is completed. This necessitates reprogramming, which takes even longer, which continues the cycle of spec changes and reprogramming.

ToolWorx provides customized, not custom, data collection solutions. This is because we deliver software using off-the-shelf components developed and maintained by us that serve as the foundation for all of our end user software systems. These software components are grouped together as a suite of products we call ToolWorx Bridge™. The primary components of ToolWorx Bridge™ are: TWComms™ (serial communications manager), TWConnect™ (PLC communications manager), TWServer™ (radio frequency terminal communications manager), TWView™ (data access manager), and TWMsgSrvr™ (database connectivity manager).

A diagram of how we build end user solutions is as follows:

All ToolWorx software is built using Microsoft's Component Object Model (COM) standards. The following is an overview of COM excerpted from Microsoft's web site:

"COM is the most widely used component software model in the world. It provides the richest set of integrated services, the widest choice of easy-to-use tools, and the largest set of available applications. In addition, it provides the only currently viable market for reusable, off-the-shelf, client and server components.

It's hard to overestimate the importance of the Component Object Model (COM) in the Microsoft environment. COM underlies a large majority of the new code developed for Windows® operating systems, whether created by Microsoft or by others.

Here are some of the facts about COM today:

• COM is in use on well over 150 million systems worldwide.
• COM consists of a well-defined, mature, stable, and freely available specification, as well as a reference implementation, which has been widely tested and adopted worldwide as a de-facto standard.
• COM provides the richest set of existing services for applications today, as well as the largest set of development tools available from a wide variety of vendors.
• COM is supported by the largest number of development tools available for any component or object model on the market.

The reason for the broad use of COM technologies is simple: for a tremendously wide range of problems, COM allows the creation of better software."

By following this standard for software development, ToolWorx software tools are guaranteed to be flexible enough to easily and quickly integrate with any other software system. There are many ERP systems on the market that have been developed with COM as well such as SAP, J.D. Edwards, and BAAN. Communicating data back and forth with systems like these is straightforward since the interfaces are already defined by the COM standard.

For systems that have not been developed using COM, ToolWorx uses other communications methods such as ODBC (Open Data Base Connectivity), screen mapping (typically used in terminal-based mainframe systems), and file transfer.

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