UTILITIES
InstallAnywhere Enterprise Edition
Zero G Software
 Trent Wheeler, Program Manager |
Powerful and easy to use, InstallAnywhere 5.0 makes creating installers a pleasure. Zero G’s software creates installers for your application for almost any platform, including Windows, Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X and a myriad of Unix platforms. Installers can be configured for distribution by CD or over the Web, or both. Even better, this flexibility is controlled with one install script.
InstallAnywhere is exceptionally easy to use. You create the install script using a graphical interface, adding the files and directories to be installed and specifying any special actions required. InstallAnywhere handles platform-specific details such as creating environment variables and shortcuts, and registering and installing platform-dependent libraries such as DLLs.
On Windows, InstallAnywhere reads and writes the registry as required; on Linux, RPM integration simplifies package management. For Java applications, LaunchAnywhere Java application launchers create a one-click executable file to start your application with the VM of your choice.
You can brand and customize the installation process with your own logo and installation steps with registration and licensing choices presented to the user during the graphical installation process. InstallAnywhere comes with pretranslated installer panels in 29 languages—a great benefit if you’re distributing your product internationally. Or you can create an installer that runs in console or silent mode—convenient for server-side deployment.
—Guy Scharf
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DevPartner Studio Professional Edition
Compuware continues the steady evolution of this long-time developer’s
friend. DevPartner 7.0’s design enables you to track and trace the
behavior of a failed transaction—such as a 500 error—from
the browser to the server to the database and back to the browser across
multiple processes. This edition also supports Visual Studio .NET, including
C#, Visual Basic .NET and ASP .NET, as well as tight integration into
the Visual Studio .NET IDE, adding to DevPartner’s already full
capabilities of performance analysis, code coverage analysis, detection
of incorrect API usage and detection of inefficient code. You say you’re
not a pure .NET developer? No problem—DevPartner works its magic
in mixed environments, too. 1997 Jolt Award winner. —Roland Racko |
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RoboHelp X3
If you think enough of your users to provide them with good online help—no
matter what platform you’re programming to—RoboHelp X3 (Version
.11) should be on your short list of tools, if not a list of one. It creates
WinHelp, HTML Help, WebHelp, JavaHelp, Oracle Help and printed documentation—all
from the same source files. That source, by the way, can be Microsoft
Word documents, Framemaker, HTML, existing help files or help projects
for other tools. For Windows help formats, precooked specialized templates
are provided for common programs and tools like Excel, Visual C++ and
Delphi; Microsoft Word is the native editor. If you’re doing Web
applications, RoboHelp HTML is included, a stand-alone tool to create
cross-platform, server-based HTML help—and to analyze usage patterns
after you’ve deployed it. —Rick Wayne |
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Anthill
Agile processes such as XP emphasize frequent builds and communication
within the development group, along with early introduction of testing
into the lifecycle. Organizations committed to version control systems
such as CVS, SourceSafe, ClearCase, but lacking integration with build
facilities, will find that Anthill 1.5 offers a way to get control of
the build process, including recovery and reproduction of any previous
build. An Anthill-controlled build can not only check out code and build
it, but also run unit tests and calculate source code metrics. Team members
can access build results, as well as ancillary documentation, at an Anthill-updated
project website. —Warren Keuffel
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