How it Works

CodeCharge Studio incorporates the features that enable developers to quickly build web applications. These include builders that create pages and forms, and data-aware components and controls that can be placed on a page.

CodeCharge Studio web-enables your databases by providing the foundation for information exchange between databases and web browsers. A powerful Application Builder is also provided to get you started. The builder automatically uses your database's structure to automatically create a set of web pages that use the database as the back-end.

The following steps demonstrate how to create a basic application using the Application Builder:

1. Start CodeCharge Studio.
2. Create a new project.
3. Name the project and select Application Builder.
4. Specify project settings such as the programming language and path to the web server.
5. Specify the database connection type and establish a database connection. (Alternatively, you can select one of the sample databases: Intranet or Internet.)
6. Configure site authentication by specifying the database table and columns that contain user login and password information as well as security groups and roles.
7. Select the database tables based upon which the web application will be created.
8. Specify the type of web page to be created for each of the previously selected database tables. Specify if you want to create Search, Grid, and Record maintenance pages for each table.
9. Specify a style to be applied to the site. The style defines the basic layout and appearance of different elements within a page.
10. The Application Builder will automatically create a project with sets of pages that make up the web application. You can then publish the pages to the server and test them.
11. If you wish, you can make further modifications to the created application by using the integrated development environment (IDE).

CodeCharge Studio does not create or assist in the creation of databases. There are many other tools that already perform that function. For example, you can easily create a database using Microsoft Access for Windows and even export it to MySQL for use on Linux. CodeCharge Studio does come with two sample databases and several web applications that use the included databases. They are perfect as a starting point for creating simple web applications.

CodeCharge Studio runs exclusively on the Windows platform. The web applications that it generates are platform-independent and can run on any system (i.e., Windows, Mac, Linux and others) as long as the system has a suitable server. Windows IIS server can execute ASP scripts while many Linux servers are pre-configured to run PHP scripts. The programs generated by CodeCharge Studio do not require any custom components to be installed and can run on virtually any applicable web server. It is recommended, and sometimes required, that the latest scripting engine be installed (e.g., ASP3 or PHP4/5). The specific requirements are listed in the "System Requirements" section.

When you work with CodeCharge Studio you can usually connect to a remote database residing on your server. In some cases, (e.g., when working with Microsoft® Access®) you may need to have a copy of the database stored locally on your desktop since remote connection may not be possible. Each project within CodeCharge Studio can have two distinct connection types. One connection type is the design-time connection, used during the development process, and the other is the server-side connection, used by the generated pages after they have been deployed. If you use the MySQL database you will use the MyODBC driver to establish the design-time connection via ODBC, but the generated programs will usually connect to the database with native PHP database connectivity library.

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