MethodWorks consists of a set of tools to help developers perform accurate analysis to reduce coding errors and enhance productivity. The core of MethodWorks is its scripting tools, used to specify business functionality. The Script Editor lets developers create, link, and reuse scripts to capture and organize business logic. MethodWorks identifies potential objects as scripts are entered, and its specialized tools highlight common business modeling problems.

MethodWorks complements existing CASE/modeling tools. Third-party tools that provide repository management, diagramming, and code generation can enhance ParcPlace's toolset when used in conjunction with MethodWorks. The product complements existing notation and methods, including those of Booch, Rumbaugh, and Jacobson. MethodWorks helps developers discover objects using ParcPlace's Object Behavioral Analysis (OBA) method. MethodWorks is written in VisualWorks, ParcPlace's client and server development tool based on the ParcPlace Smalltalk object-oriented programming language. MethodWorks can be used alone or in combination with VisualWorks.

MethodWorks is shipping on Intel-based PCs under Windows 3.1 and Windows NT with a SunOS version planned for summer 1995. Windows systems are priced at $995, and UNIX-based systems are priced at $1,395. For more information contact ParcPlace Systems, Inc., 999 E. Arques Ave., Sunnyvale, CA 94086-4593, 800-759-7272 or +1-408-481-9090; FAX: +1-408-481-9095.

"DSOM, designed by IBM Corporation, is a technology that handles creation and destruction of 'remote' objects," said Bennett C. Watson, MetaWare's president.

Under DSOM, users of a remote object can syntactically pretend that they have a local object. This means that method calls can be written as if the object were local. Users are really operating on a DSOM-created local proxy of the remote object. A proxy is an instance of a class derived from the base class. Method calls on the proxy are redirected or "forwarded" to the remote object. Parameters are sent across the network to the remote object and return results are sent back. Users can compile C++ source code to directly create SOM-compatible binaries without having to write Interface Definition Language (IDL) descriptions of classes. The resulting SOM objects can interoperate with SOM objects written in other languages. The compiler can automatically generate IDL for C++ classes so that other SOM-supported languages that use IDL can interface with the classes.

The toolset is priced at $595 per license. For more information contact MetaWare Incorporated, 2161 Delaware Ave., Santa Cruz, CA 95060-5706, +1-408-429-6382; FAX: +1-408-429-9273.

Features and enhancements in version 4.1 include: an IMAGE object, allowing display of large bitmaps from native file formats; a FILE object, allowing portable read and write of binary files; CTL3D support for Windows; an improved and easier-to-use help display; support for dot-matrix printers in MS-DOS applications; easier-to-learn function names; improved performance; and improved stability. Zinc has continued and enhanced their MS-DOS support.

Zinc is licensed on a per developer, per platform basis. Current pricing for Zinc products includes: Zinc Engine, $499; DOS Key, $499; Microsoft Windows Key, $499; IBM OS/2 Key, $499; Apple Macintosh Key, $499; X/Motif Key (available for Solaris, SunOS, HPUX, AIX, OSF/1, SCO, X86, QNX, or DESQview/X), $1,499; Curses Key (AIX or SCO), $1,499; NEXTSTEP Key, $1,499; Unicode Key (Asian Language support), $4,999. Discounted platform bundles are available, with the Zinc Everywhere Bundle (all platform keys) priced at $7,499. For more information contact Zinc Software Incorporated, 405 S. 100 E., Pleasant Grove, UT 84062, +1-801-785-8900; FAX: +1-801-785-8996; BBS: +1-801-785-8997; Internet: info@zinc.com.; CompuServe: GO ZINC.

The binary tree collection provides a default sorting function that can be overridden by a user-defined comparitor. An additional class provides a disk-based binary tree collection, whose size isn't limited by the amount of available RAM. Rogue Wave's enhanced string class supports regular expressions, parsing, and provides copy on write. The library provides advanced date and time functions, supporting varied formats across time zones and countries. RWBitVec provides a bit vector with a length that can be set at run time. RWTimer provides a start/stop timer working in CPU-time for measuring durations.

Rogue Wave Tools for MFC will be available in source code in October 1995 for under $150. For more information contact Rogue Wave Software, Inc., 260 S.W. Madison, P.O. Box 2328, Corvallis, OR 97339; 800-487-3217 or +1-503-745-3010; FAX: +1-503-757-6650.

The cross-referencer produces a listing of symbols with usage and type information. Usage includes definition, declaration, assignment to, and address of. Type information includes prototypes for functions and templates. All symbols, including macros, types, templates, and members are eligible for inclusion in the cross-reference, subject to suppression options. Cross-reference and tree information may be dumped in an ASCII format. The symbol count limit has been increased from 64 K to 4 Meg.

The tree formatter provides various output formats to provide different code views. In addition to trees of function calls, C-Vision can produce trees of classes and show the relationships between them. Given an element of a class or function hierarchy, C-vision will produce the complete tree emanating in either or both directions. Numerous options for pruning "uninteresting" information are provided.

The C-Vision reformatter provides flexible indentation control, including independent repositioning of curly braces, nested preprocessor statements, case/default statements, and labels. It also provides independently adjustable spacing around each operator.

C-Vision runs under MS-DOS or OS/2. The cost to license C-Vision v4.0 is $239. Updates are available to current C-Vision users for $100. For more information contact Gimpel Software, 3207 Hogarth Lane, Collegeville, PA 19426; +1-610-584-4261; FAX: +1-610-584-4266.

Hewlett-Packard's STL has become the accepted ANSI standard. Systems<Toolkit> provides a migration path from older, proprietary class libraries. Systems<Toolkit> provides utilities, template containers and non-template containers that follow ANSI standards whenever possible. Systems<Toolkit> includes: STL<Toolkit>, utilities such as 64-bit time and date, time zone, fully templatized ANSI string with support for international strings; IPC classes such as sockets, pipes, message queues, shared memory, and I/O-multiplexing; thread classes, file, directory, path, process, signal, timer, environment, resource, events, filters, and handlers; a 400+ page users guide, complete with 400+ examples, full source, and no royalties.

Systems<Toolkit> will take the place of ObjectSystems in ObjectSpace's product line. The price is listed at $375. Users of ObjectSystems, the C++ framework for cross-platform UNIX systems development will be offered free upgrades to Systems<Toolkit>. For more information contact ObjectSpace, Inc., 14881 Quorum Dr., Suite 400, Dallas, TX 75240; +1-214-934-2496; FAX: +1-214-663-3959; E-mail: info@objectspace.com.

ObjectPro 2.0 includes a browser and encourages reuse of classes, methods, and libraries. ObjectPro 2.0 supports Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) so developers will be able to create applications, which embed OLE controls (OCX and VBX). Additionally, ObjectPro applications will be generic OLE containers so that other OLE applications may be embedded. ObjectPro v2.0 has the ability to generate C++ code, while strictly enforcing the object paradigm.

ObjectPro 2.0 is currently in customer test and is expected to be generally available in the third quarter of this year at a cost of $2,995 per unit (with volume discounts available). For more information contact Trinzic Corporation, 101 University Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94301; +1-617-891-6500.

ObjectManual generates "class" level documentation and handles both template and non-template classes. ObjectManual generates "class analysis" as a part of the documentation. User specific comments can be extracted from the C++ source file and made a part of the generated documentation. Regular expressions can be used to suppress documentation generation for specific classes. No source code changes are required. ObjectManual works at the source level and doesn't distinguish between compilers.

ObjectManual Release 1.0 is available for SPARC SunOS 4.1.X, SPARC Solaris 2.X, and x86 Solaris 2.4 architectures. Pricing varies by configuration. Single, multiple, and floating licenses are available. For more information contact ObjectSoftware Inc., 7825 McCallum Blvd., Ste. #1802, Dallas, TX 75252, +1-214-373-2021; FAX: +1-214-250-4925; E-mail: objsoft@netcom.com; URL:ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/ob/objsoft/ htmlinfo/Testing.html.

SftTree supports Windows 3.1, Win32s, Windows NT, and Windows 95 using the same API. The royalty-free 16- and 32-bit DLLs can be used with C and C++ (MFC and OWL classes are included), or other DLL-capable languages using the SendMessage API.

SftTree 1.0 is priced at $249 or $349 with DLL source code. For more information contact Softel vdm, 11 Michigan Ave., Wharton, NJ 07885, +1-201-366-9618; FAX: +1-201-366-3984.

StP/RevC includes robust parsing technology, which can parse multiple sets of source files. The reverse engineering process is not tied to any particular compiler, which eliminates the need for modifying existing sorce code to ensure correct processing. StP/RevC also provides an optional interface for static analysis of code through a cross-reference browsing utility and metrics reporter. StP/RevC can also be used in conjunction with the Software through Pictures Testing tool (StP/T).

StP/RevC is available for Sun SPARCs running SunOS or Solaris. Pricing for StP/RevC starts at $10,000. The optional package with the cross reference browser and metrics report generator is $750. For more information contact Interactive Development Environments, 595 Market St., 10th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105; 800-888-4331 or +1-415-543-0900; FAX: +1-415-543-0145.

Version 4.0 provides the following enhancements: improved performance due to changes in memory management, database access, and class interfaces; support for Binary Large Objects (BLOBs); support for C++ exceptions; new SCRecord and SCRecordFactory Classes developed as abstractions of the database records, which allow interfacing to RDBMS without writing SQL statements; and built-in quality assurance with the integration of Purify, a tool for identifying run-time errors and memory leaks.

Versions for UNIX-based ORACLE and SYBASE environments begin volume production in July 1995. A single-user license for a UNIX system is priced at $899. MITI's plans call for an SQL*C++ DLL for Microsoft Windows environment later this year, and DB2 and INFORMIX support in 1996. For more information contact MITI, 2895 Temple Ave., Long Beach, CA 90806, 800-366-6484 or +1-310-424-4399; FAX: +1-310-424-9385; Internet: sqrgroup@miti.com.

PrintWorks uses a Windows Dynamic Link Library (DOCMAN.DLL) written in C++ to process the documents. DOCMAN.DLL also contains a graphics library. PrintWorks creates output by drawing rather than using graphics controls or executing a form print. PrintWorks creates a scalable metafile to represent each page.

PrintWorks is priced at $149. For more information contact Bytech Business Systems, Inc., 5C Medical Park Dr., Pomona, NY 10970, +1-914-354-8666; FAX: +1-914- 354-5433; CompuServe: 74577,1032.

ORDBMS 2.0 features include the following: the ability to make C/C++ objects persistent with caching, robust rollback and crash recovery, query capability, database compaction, b-tree and hash indexes, and enhanced performance; a small footprint, which can run on small configurations such as notebook machines; support for standards, including ODMG-93 C++ language bindings, ANSI SQL-92 standards, and ODBC 2.0; and interoperability is provided between both relational and object database models. A row in a SQL table can be accessed and manipulated by a C++ program and, conversely, instances of a C++ class can be queried by a SQL select statement as though they were rows in a SQL table.

ORDBMS Standard Edition 2.0 is available for Window 3.1, Window NT (32-bit), and Solaris. Macintosh and Power Mac versions are planned for later in 1995. For more information contact Omniscience Object Technology, Inc., 3080 Olcott St., Suite 100C, Santa Clara, CA 95054, +1-408-562-0799; FAX: +1-408-562-0757.

JOEY runs on Windows NT and Windows 95. The JOEY Toolkit will ship with Interactive Graphics in Windows, a Crisis in Perspective book published by Springer-Verlag in the summer of 1995. The JOEY Development Environment, a more extensible version of JOEY licensed for commercial applications is priced at $250. For more information contact Crisis in Perspective, 1306 N.W. Hoyt St., Suite 409, Portland, OR 97209, +1-503-227-7826; FAX: +1-503-223-4453.

Several new plots have been added to the GraphiC library including plume plots and waterfall plots. New legend features allow users to create vertical or horizontal colorscale legends easily. The labels can be rotated at any angle. Random point 3-D and contour features provide greater flexibility in displaying random point data.

Windows, DOS, and OS/2 versions of demos and example programs are accessible on CompuServe in the GraphicsC Vendors Forum, "GO SCIEND" Library Section 13. For more information contact Scientific Endeavors Corporation, 508 N. Kentucky St., Kingston, TN 37763; +1-615-376-4146; FAX: +1-615-376-1517.

For more information contact AIB Software Corporation, Herndon Corporate Center, 115 Herndon Pkwy., Herndon, VA 22070, +1-703-787-7700; FAX: +1-703-787-7720; E-mail: info@aib.com.

GRAF/DRIVE PLUS is primarily a vector graphics product rather than an image dump utility. For vector devices like plotters and PostScript, it outputs vector commands. For laser, ink jet, and dot matrix printers it is a raster image processor (RIP), which converts vector objects such as circles, lines, and graphics text to printer resolution bitmaps. GRAF/DRIVE PLUS can scale and dither and print PCX, TIF, GIF, BMP, and Targa files, and do screen dumps.

GRAF/DRIVE Plus is priced at $149 for a personal use license and $299 for a developer's license (with royalty-free distribution). For more information contact FLEMING SOFTWARE, P.O. Box 569, Oakton, VA 22124, +1-703-591-6451; FAX: +1-703-273-7756.

The development kit is priced at $599.95. Evaluation copies are available. For more information contact VeriFone, Inc., 3 Lagoon Dr., Redwood City, CA 94065-1561, 800-545-5557 or +1-415-591-6500; FAX: +1-415-598-5504.

The GLC COMMUNICATIONS LIBRARY for Windows is priced at $160. For more information contact Global-LINK Communications, 8101 Lazy Ln, Austin, TX 78757, +1-512-453-4602; BBS: +1-512-454-8752.