(Original creator: HenkVanDerVeer)
Uniface 10 is all about the new environment for developing Uniface applications. To underline that, we have given it a new name: the Uniface Integrated Development Environment, or Uniface IDE.
For thirty odd years, we have referred to our development environment as ‘the IDF’. What does the term IDF stand for? How is IDE different from IDF? Is the difference relevant at all? Here in the Lab, we use the terms IDF and IDE to make the following distinction:
- IDE is the development environment for Uniface 10
- IDF is the development environment for all Uniface 9 versions.
The IDE in Uniface 10 has its own new executable, called ide.exe. You can find it in the common/bin folder. This new IDE uses a new assignment file, named ide.asn. This file is in the uniface/adm folder.
So, some things have changed, others have not. The logical path to the database that stores the repository is still called $IDF in Uniface 10.
IDE and IDF are totally different applications with their own characteristics and a very different user interface. Added to that: the repository has been changed substantially to cater for new functionality in the IDE. So, it’s important for us to distinguish between IDE and IDF. The Uniface 10.2 IDE is largely composed of a completely new set of editors. Editors for components, modeled entities and projects, to name a few. And yes, the IDE still contains a subset of editors that also exist in the IDF - you will find these under ‘More Editors’ in the IDE’s top menu. Over time, the old style editors will be replaced by new style editors, i.e. IDE style editors
Where does the term IDF come from?
Way back, in the late eighties and early nineties of the previous century, the days of Uniface versions 4 and 5, the Uniface development tool was called Information engineering & Design Facility, IDF for short. Here’s a screenshot of the IDF start screen, taken from the Uniface 5.2 manual (and notice that other terminology has changed over time!)
Uniface 5.2 Manual
The name idf was also used for the executable that started the development tool: idf.exe on Windows and VMS, or just idf on Unix. To use the development tool on Unix in those days, you would typically use the environment variable $idf that was defined by the install scripts. And to keep things simple, a predefined logical database path $IDF is used by Uniface to this very day to define where the repository is stored.
In later versions the term Information engineering & Design Facility disappeared. We introduced the term UDE, short for Uniface Development Environment. The terms UDE and Uniface Development Environment were used all over the place in the documentation, but I don’t recall ever having seen the term UDE in the tool itself. The executable that started the UDE was still named idf.exe – we’re talking Windows only in the meantime – and the assignment file for the UDE was still named idf.asn.
Enter the $UDE function in the Uniface Proc language in Uniface 9. A function that helps the developer define custom actions on repository data, including compiling, exporting, importing, and converting. On disk, you will find a file called ude.exe. This executable is not used to start the Uniface Development environment, but is used by the $UDE function. There is no ude.asn file for the ude.exe.
And for completeness sake: for a short period in the Uniface 9 lifetime we used the term Uniface Application Platform Suite, or APS. The APS is the workbench that integrates Uniface application development with the BPM product Uniface Flow. Note that as of Uniface 9.7, Uniface Flow is no longer delivered.
Summary
Uniface IDE vs IDF
Confused? Naah, not anymore, I hope ….