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SANTA CLARA, Calif.-Vendors are introducing offerings to help Java developers build better graphical user interfaces, enhance code quality and integrate with Microsoft technology.
At EclipseCon here March 17, Instantiations, which makes software quality and productivity solutions, announced an enhanced version of its CodePro Analytix Server, Eclipse Graphical Editing Framework support for the company’s WindowTester Pro products, and a new relationship with CodeGear to integrate Instantiations’ Swing Designer into JBuilder 2008.
CodePro Analytix Server delivers software analysis capabilities to developers through a server-based automation process that seamlessly integrates into common software build systems, said Instantiations CEO Mike Taylor. The new server edition automates Java code auditing, gathers metrics, performs code coverage analysis, and reports on JUnit test and other results for development teams. Development teams also can integrate the server edition into their nightly build systems using either Ant or Maven, and CodePro Analytix Server returns actionable results to both developers and managers automatically.
CodePro Analytix Server also provides development managers with a Web-based dashboard that is designed to allow them to see quality trends in their software quickly. Pricing starts at $6,395 for a configuration that supports a team of five and includes one copy of CodePro Analytix desktop edition for creating and editing the server-run analytics.
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Instantiations’ WindowTester Pro is a tool for automating the testing of Swing and Standard Widget Toolkit GUIs. WindowTester Pro Version 3.0 adds direct testing of GUIs based on GEF (Graphical Editing Framework). GEF is an open-source framework dedicated to providing a rich, consistent graphical editing environment for applications built using Eclipse technology. Pricing ranges from $499 to $799.
Instantiations also has teamed with development tools maker CodeGear to integrate Swing Designer, a member of the Instantiations WindowBuilder family, into JBuilder 2008. CodeGear will provide Swing Designer visual layout tools as an integrated feature of its popular JBuilder Java IDE (integrated development environment) when it becomes generally available in the first half of 2008.
CodeGear officials said they will fully integrate the Instantiations Swing Designer visual layout tools into CodeGear JBuilder, making it the first commercial Java IDE to include this technology.
“Combining the individual innovation from these two member companies into an integrated offering allows developers to make more productive use of the Eclipse platform, and is a perfect example of our vision in action,” said Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation.
JBuilder 2007 is an IDE built on the open-source Eclipse framework. Instantiations Swing Designer is designed exclusively for the Eclipse framework.
“We’re all familiar with the Java GUI solutions of late which are either feature-light, too fragile or inject proprietary footprints. Java GUI developers have been vocal about wanting a more advanced out-of-the-box GUI construction experience and feature set that is easy to use and fully source-code driven,” said Michael Swindell, CodeGear vice president of products and strategy. “We’ve integrated the Instantiations Swing Designer into JBuilder to meet these expectations.”
Also at EclipseCon, Teamprise, a division of SourceGear, announced the availability of Teamprise 3.0, its latest release of client applications providing Java and cross-platform development teams with full access to the ALM (application lifecycle management) features of Microsoft’s Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server.
The Teamprise client suite consists of three Java-based applications-a plug-in for the Eclipse IDE, a cross-platform Explorer-style GUI application and a command-line client. All three applications communicate directly with the Visual Studio Team Foundation Server and are cross-platform, running on operating systems such as Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X and Windows. New features added to the Teamprise 3.0 release include full integration with Team Build and support for Check-in Policies.
Teamprise also announced new pricing for the product. Previously, the Teamprise clients were only available as part of the bundled Client Suite, but beginning with 3.0, customers can now purchase individual clients based on their needs. For example, developers requiring only the Teamprise Plug-in for Eclipse can now purchase that client for only $199.