Introduction
Welcome to the OpenInsight Presentation Server Reference Manual, which provides a comprehensive reference to the capabilities offered by the Presentation Server. It is not intended to be a guide to developing OpenInsight applications, although the appendices do cover several programming topics that developers may find useful when dealing with specific tasks.
What is the Presentation Server?
The OpenInsight Presentation Server is a core part of the OpenInsight Development suite. It hosts the Revelation Engine (RevEngine) virtual machine and provides Basic+ programs with an object based interface to create and manipulate Windows Desktop (aka. Win32) Applications. As well as providing the capability to create your own applications, the Presentation Server also provides the actual OpenInsight development environment itself, which comprises the IDE and most of its associated tools.
Presentation Server components
In addition to the stored procedures described later in this manual the Presentation Server is also comprised of the Windows executable files listed below:
| File | Purpose |
|---|---|
| OInsight.exe | This is the core Presentation Server executable. It hosts the RevEngine virtual machine to provide access to Basic+ programs. |
| RevVSM.dll | Provides visual style rendering services to windows and controls hosted by the Presentation Server. |
| RevGrid.dll | Provides grid-based controls to the Presentation Server, such as the EDITTABLE and PROPERTYGRID controls. |
Of course, these are in addition to those required by RevEngine itself, which are documented elsewhere.
Conventions
This section describes the conventions adopted throughout this manual.
Abbreviations
Several abbreviations are used throughout this manual. here is a list of those commonly used:
| Abbreviation | Meaning |
|---|---|
| DWM | Desktop Window Manager |
| GUI | Graphical User Interface |
| IDE | Integrated Development Environment |
| PS | Presentation Server |
| OI | OpenInsight |
| OS | Operating System |
| UDP | User-Defined Property |
| UI | User Interface |
TRUE$ and FALSE$
Many entries in this document describe the contents of properties and variables using the terms "TRUE$" and "FALSE$" when referring to Boolean values. These terms are actually equated constants from a Stored Procedure Insert record called LOGICAL and have the value "1" and "0" respectively.
Equ TRUE$ To 1 Equ FALSE$ To 0
NULL$
This term is simply used to represent an empty (null) string.
Forms and windows
In this document, the terms "form" and "window" are used interchangeably to mean an OpenInsight WINDOW object type. A form is basically a visual surface that is populated with other "child" controls to build a user-interface for your application. These can be "top-level" standalone forms that are run on the Desktop, Dialog Boxes, or an MDI child forms.
Please see the documentation for the WINDOW object type for more information.