MONITOR has been especially designed and customized to work in a Windows environment. This provides users with a basic platform with an on-going development in the operating system of the future.
Operating System
MONITOR can be run in Windows XP or later versions on a separate computer or in a network. If you use MONITOR in a network, the database server should use Windows 2003 Server or a later version.
See also: System Requirement and Recommendations
SQL Database and Client/Server
When using a complete ERP system (Enterprise Resource Planning) such as MONITOR, the choice of database is of considerable importance. MONITOR follows the ODBC (Open DataBase Connectivity) standard, which provides great flexibility regarding data exchange with external programs.
Sybase SQL Anywhere 12 is the database version that is delivered with version 8.1 of MONITOR.
User Interface and Windows
MONITOR is created to use the MDI technology (Multiple Document Interface). Many Windows programs use the MDI standard. This technology allows more windows to be opened at the same time in a program. Even though MONITOR has incorporated the "multiple windows technology", the basic idea and design in MONITOR is that you should be able to do as much as possible for a particular procedure in one single window. For example, in the Preparation procedure, you can create parts, an operation list, and a unit list, all in the same window.
You can also create individual menus to suit your requirements. These menus are given special menu buttons for shortcuts to the selected procedures.
The procedures that are most frequently used can be set to AutoStart. In MONITOR, all procedures have access control, and a company-specific structure for this can easily be created by the system administrator.
The user manual can easily be loaded in electronic form on screen. You can select to run the Help function as a web based help (using the standard web browser), otherwise it will run locally as HTML Help (.chm) in Windows.
Development Environment
MONITOR is developed using Sybase PowerBuilder in combination with Microsoft Visual C++, Visual C# and .NET Framework. Sybase and Microsoft are widespread internationally regarding tools for application development according to the "Client/Server" technology.
By using an object-oriented design and the possibility of distributed data management, the software provides a very high level of hardware, operating system, and database utilization.