Purpose and Main Features

Development environment is the integrated tool of Foresight Analytics Platform which includes all tools required to design, create, run, and debug custom applications.

Main features of development environment:

Development based on two programming languages: Fore orFore.NET.
Supporting IntelliSense that facilitates code input.
Running and debugging the application being developed.
Set of components to access and work with repository objects.
Applications development in command using version control system based on Team Foundation Server/Git.
Supporting resources to create multilingual applications.

To create application visual interface, the development environment provides a set of various components that can be conditionally divided into the following groups:

Standard Components. The .NET Framework basic components that executed general functions (various buttons, panels, menus and others).
Additional Components. Components that provide various possibilities on setting up visual interface and developed taking into account platform object specifics.
Data Access Components. Special components to access repository objects and to display their data.
Platform Components. Components styled to look like the Foresight Analytics Platform interface.

NOTE. . On developing Fore form it is also possible to use the components that are styled to look like the current version of Foresight Analytics Platform.

The components are implemented into variants: Fore and Fore.NET. To use any component, add it to the form and set up its properties in object inspector. For components that are used for data entry form, the support of right-to-left writing mode is implemented, that can be required, for example, in case of the Arabic.

To work in the Foresight Analytics Platform development environment, it must be installed using the distribution file Full or BIServer.

The Fore language implementation also provides a possibility to create a code that can use some functions of the development environment in user application. For details, see description of commands that are used to work with development environment objects.

Constraints

On developing application forms there are some constraints concerning possible hierarchy of components position inside components-containers. The constraint is linked to the system functions constraints of operating system that recursively send and process the messages in Windows for each nested component. In various Windows versions, the number of nested components in the hierarchy that can be overpassed and the system stops message sending, differs. In general case, it is not recommended to create hierarchy of components where the number of nested element levels is greater than six.

IMPORTANT. The development must be only performed on test repository version. To synchronize test and production repositories, use update manager.