• The Four Hundred
  • Subscribe
  • Media Kit
  • Contributors
  • About Us
  • Contact
Menu
  • The Four Hundred
  • Subscribe
  • Media Kit
  • Contributors
  • About Us
  • Contact
  • mrc Goes Fully Graphical with Development Tool Interface

    November 3, 2009 Alex Woodie

    Users of mrc‘s m-Power application development tool will find the product much easier to use as the result of a comprehensive overhaul of the user interface, the company reports. The company has replaced text-based menus with new graphical elements that should make navigating the product much more intuitive and productive.

    m-Power is a Web application development tool that is used to generate J2EE-based Web portals, e-commerce sites, executive dashboards, business intelligence systems, and other applications that run on System i, Windows, Linux, and other servers. The tool utilizes a model-based development approach that takes advantage of programmers’ existing knowledge of their databases, thereby eliminating the need to learn new languages and syntaxes.

    And with the recent update to m-Power’s interface, developers can accomplish most tasks with a mouse, and don’t need to be keyboard whizzes or experts at navigating text-based menus, either. “Anyone that can click a mouse can now develop Web applications with m-Power,” says Brian Crowley, mrc’s director of development.

    The biggest change may be the addition of a navigation bar to the interface. The navigation bar allows the user to move freely throughout the entire m-Power product, without going back to text-based menus, mrc says. There is a “bread crumb trail” in the navigation bar that lets a user go back to previous screens, while a drop-down menu provides handy access to any development option from any screen.

    Web applications can be developed with nary a line of code written, nor a text-based menu viewed, as the result of the massive graphical overhaul mrc just completed with the m-Power development tool.

    In its overhaul, mrc deleted all text-based menus in m-Power, and replaced them with graphical icons and drop down menus, which it says are easier to comprehend. The change is expected to make the product much easier and more intuitive to use.

    For example, to access certain development options, users previously had to return to the main menu. In the new release, development options can be accessed from any screen via the new drop-down menus.

    The ease-of-use factor was also increased as a result of the new “application hub” (or application menu) feature in m-Power. The application hub functions as the control center for the application build process and helps the user view and organize the specifications needed to build an application, as well as optional specs, operations, and the selected template, mrc says.

    “Basically, we rounded up everything the m-Power user would need in the build process and put it all in the application hub,” says mrc marketing director Steve Hansen.

    The reaction of m-Power experts to the new release has been “overwhelmingly positive,” Hansen says. “They feel the graphical interface is much more intuitive and easy to understand,” he says via e-mail. “In the past, they would have to read through all the text-based options, but now they easily associate the images in the new interface with their functions.”

    The m-Power update was not associated with any particular release number, owing to mrc’s preference for trickling out updates and enhancement on a nearly continual basis. The company offers several licensing and subscription options for its software, with straight licensing starting at about $10,000. For more information, trial downloads, and demos, visit www.mrc-productivity.com.

    RELATED STORIES

    Bring Your IT Ideas to Life, mrc Says

    Tick, Tock: mrc Unveils ’24-Hour Challenge’

    File Upload Feature Added to mrc’s m-Power

    mrc Goes Web 2.0 with m-Power



                         Post this story to del.icio.us
                   Post this story to Digg
        Post this story to Slashdot

    Share this:

    • Reddit
    • Facebook
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
    • Email

    Tags:

    Sponsored by
    ARCAD Software

    [Webinar] Creating test data, easily and quickly!

    June 22 at 12 p.m. EST

    Software testing needs realistic, consistent data available on demand, where and when needed. However, providing testers with a copy of the entire production database is costly both in time and disk space.

    In this webinar, we’ll demonstrate how to:

    • Easily create coherent test datasets, small enough for rapid test cycles, but large enough to accurately reflect the variety of production data
    • Anonymize the datasets to protect any PII
    • Inject into test environments in a snap

    Join us on this webinar with Alan Ashley, solution architect, and learn how to subset your data.

    Register now!

    Share this:

    • Reddit
    • Facebook
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
    • Email

    Sponsored Links

    looksoftware:  Get your FREE copy of the hottest product of the year!
    Computer Keyes:  KeyesOverlay rapidly converts standard *SCS printer files into PDF documents
    Manta Technologies:  Your complete source for IBM i training

    IT Jungle Store Top Book Picks

    Easy Steps to Internet Programming for AS/400, iSeries, and System i: List Price, $49.95
    The iSeries Express Web Implementer's Guide: List Price, $49.95
    The System i RPG & RPG IV Tutorial and Lab Exercises: List Price, $59.95
    The System i Pocket RPG & RPG IV Guide: List Price, $69.95
    The iSeries Pocket Database Guide: List Price, $59.00
    The iSeries Pocket SQL Guide: List Price, $59.00
    The iSeries Pocket Query Guide: List Price, $49.00
    The iSeries Pocket WebFacing Primer: List Price, $39.00
    Migrating to WebSphere Express for iSeries: List Price, $49.00
    Getting Started With WebSphere Development Studio Client for iSeries: List Price, $89.00
    Getting Started with WebSphere Express for iSeries: List Price, $49.00
    Can the AS/400 Survive IBM?: List Price, $49.00
    Chip Wars: List Price, $29.95

    SAP Profits Despite Sales Slump and Weak Economy Enhancing CGIDEV2

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Volume 9, Number 40 -- November 3, 2009
THIS ISSUE SPONSORED BY:

looksoftware
PowerTech
VAULT400
Linoma Software
East Coast Computer

Table of Contents

  • Open Text to Support new Windows 7 Features in Host Emulators
  • Halcyon Delivers ERP-Specific Monitoring in Systems Operations Suite 3.0
  • Healy Launches iPDF Server to Ease Spool File Distribution
  • mrc Goes Fully Graphical with Development Tool Interface
  • Inovis Boosts Productivity for Green-Screen Customers
  • Gresham Sells ETL Software and IP to Tributary Systems
  • Attunity Delivers New Data Replication Agent for DB2/400
  • Oracle Delivers New Functionality with JDE EnterpriseOne Update
  • Bunn-O-Matic Brews Up Intuitive BI with WebFOCUS
  • Carpet Maker Finds a Comfy Spot with S2K 5.0

Content archive

  • The Four Hundred
  • Four Hundred Stuff
  • Four Hundred Guru

Recent Posts

  • IBM i Delivers Sizable Benefits, Forrester Consulting Reports
  • SBOMs Will Come to IBM i, Eventually
  • IBM i Backup Provider Storagepipe Snapped Up By Thrive
  • Four Hundred Monitor, June 7
  • IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 25, Number 23
  • Power10 Boosts NVM-Express Flash Performance
  • Fortra Completes Postmortem Of GoAnywhere Vulnerability
  • Guru: Binding Directory Entries
  • How Does Your Infrastructure Spending Stack Up To The World?
  • IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 25, Number 22

Subscribe

To get news from IT Jungle sent to your inbox every week, subscribe to our newsletter.

Pages

  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Contributors
  • Four Hundred Monitor
  • IBM i PTF Guide
  • Media Kit
  • Subscribe

Search

Copyright © 2023 IT Jungle