Combining, Integrating Desktop Apps In New Ways

After capturing all of the elements, the design pane in Studio shows what it collected. By traversing the Object Explorer in Studio, users can easily find all of the objects collected during the interrogation.

By clicking on the Windows application interrogation, Microsoft Calc opens up. Capturing buttons and text fields took seconds. We just dragged and dropped the bull's eye icon over the elements and immediately they showed up in the Object Explorer. We clicked on the M+ button and the text field in Calc.

Like a macro recorder, combining the applications simulates whatever a user does if it had to use both applications. The next is to add a new automation process. This is done by selecting the solution in the Solutions Manager and clicking on the Add New automation.

After the main objects have been selected and activated using the properties in the Object Explorer, users can drag and drop the icons in the new automation pane. Here's where the logic of a new hybrid application takes shape. In the pane, users can create process flows by selecting the steps that link the two applications together.

To link objects together, simply drag and drop between starting and ending fields. Studio creates an arrow showing the flow of the objects between applications. Blue represents data paths between applications and yellow shows the execution path between properties.

Once the links are created, all a user has to do is run the application and voila! Google's Web site now works with Windows Calc. Clicking on the run button and Calc and IE open up (Google's the default site).

By clicking on the PI button, the number appears on the text field in Calc. By then clicking on the M+ button that was used in the process, PI's number passes to Google and a search button executes a search for that number.

Like a real compiler, OpenSpan's Studio supports stepping through code, break point, watches and even stack calls. After stepping through the two applications, the Test Center was in awe of the functionality of the tool. This development tool can be of tremendous help to those solution providers that are not developers or lack the resources and expertise integrating applications.