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Implementation of WIMOVACWimovac has been written using Microsoft Visual Basic (v.3.0/4.0/5.0), an event driven, pseudo-object orientated and visual programming language which provided the user interface design components necessary for our specification. Visual Basic is designed to run within Microsoft WindowsÔ systems on IBM-PC compatible computers, using Intel 80486Ó or higher processors. Although Visual Basic has similarities to earlier versions of BASIC, such as Microsoft Quickbasic 4.5 or the Microsoft BASIC Professional Development Kit 7.0 in its use of variables, constants and intrinsic functions, Visual Basic adds a higher degree of modularity and code structure as well as introducing a number software tools, called custom controls, for the rapid development of Windows programs. Visual Basic gives most of the flexibility and discipline of other structured languages, such as PASCAL, C and C++, but allows the rapid development and prototyping of visual control elements. It is these visual control elements which are essential to providing non-computer expert access to the models in wimovac. In its native form Visual Basic is an interpreted language which makes program development and testing a faster process than with traditional compiled languages. For distribution purposes to end users the interpreted source code (pseudo-p code) can be simply compiled to form a stand alone executable program (wimovac.exe) compatible with the Windows environment and which may be run from the Windows desktop or program manager in the usual manner. A number of commercial custom controls are available for Visual Basic which extend standard functionality by providing simplified access to complex facilities such as graphing, spreadsheet style data handling and customised user interface components. Wimovac makes use of a number of these controls to extend automatic graphing, printing, clipboard and data handling facilities to the user. In addition wimovac makes use of Windows object linking and embedding technology (OLE) for the transfer of simulation results directly from wimovac modules to other Windows based applications for sophisticated analysis, manipulation and printing using dedicated packages. The graphical interface components available in Visual Basic offer the ease of use of mathematical modelling packages such as MathCad or MathLab whilst retaining the full flexibility of a programming language. A detailed explanation of the system requirements for both the run time and the development environment of wimovac are given in the appendix V. To meet the criteria of openness and accessibility prescribed for wimovac the executable program, help data and parameter files that are required by a typical run time environment may be installed automatically from floppy disk or CD-ROM using a Windows based installation routine custom written for wimovac. This program automatically checks the capacity of the host computer, creates the required directories, copies the files, modifies the Windows registry settings on the host and adds an icon to the Windows desktop. A modified version of the installation program is also available as a network compatible self executing/extracting compressed file on the Internet (Appendix IV). |
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