Skogvall Computing is a small software company, specializing in database design and Delphi to provide the user interface. We had worked for some time with a large manufacturing company. In order to do future business with that company, we would have to provide Web based solutions. Due to security regulations, only web-based Intranet solutions would be allowed in the future. Other software companies had completed several projects in the past for that company using PHP. We had very limited knowledge of web design, and would not have attempted it, had it not been for IntraWeb. The application dealt with the documentation needed during the repair of equipment.
Implementation
The implementation was extremely easy. The documents needed to be organized in a tree structure, like in Windows. The data needed be read from a database. As we had had very good results in previous projects using Firebird / Interbase, it was chosen also for this project. We initially tried to use a treeview, but found that it did not meet our needs. Instead, the tree was built using nested tables, one for the rows and one for each row. The Controls property of each cell made it very easy to get the look and functionality of the tree as we needed.
This was also the first web project for the developer involved. Previous experience with Windows based application development was extensive. The transition from the Windows based application development to a Web-based one was extremely smooth and easy to do with IntraWeb. IntraWeb did not require retraining of the developer. Indeed developing the IntraWeb application was very similar to building a normal application, and made it possible to use available experience in Windows development during the development of the Web Application.
Impact
IntraWeb allowed us to complete the project much faster than we had expected. This will give us an edge on future projects. Also, although there was some rather complex handling of the data on the server, the resulting application was very responsive. The manufacturing company was very happy, and we have since been able to complete more projects for that company using IntraWeb.
Technology
Other tools evaluated: PHP
Number of developers: 1
Time to develop and test: 2 weeks