Tablet PC’s and the EZGUI advantage
I am looking forward to the release of Tablet PC’s with Windows 7. The real question is will software developers be able to create software that will run well on Tablet PC’s and make them an asset. Windows 7 already has one strike against it. The Windows operating system has progressively become more and more bloated as time has passed, requiring more and more powerful hardware to keep up. True Windows 7 is much better than Vista, but Vista was a worse case scenario, so that does not necessarily say much. It is interesting that there are so many Windows XP PC’s still in use today. At last count, there were more XP computers than Vista and 7 combined (likely this will change in the next year or so) at least based on the surveys I have seen.
For Tablet PC’s to become more than just a fad, they need to solve real world problems and to become useful for everyday practical situations beyond just surfing the web and for playing entertainment (games and movies). The IPad appears to be very successful right now, but I would ask the question , “How many businesses are using IPads for real world applications ?” and “How many businesses are writing their own inhouse software for the IPad ?”. I don’t know, but I would be curious to see any surveys that answer these questions.
Personally I think the Tablet PC could be an amazingly useful tool. But there is a problem. Tablet PC’s, similiar to Netbooks, likely will be built upon less powerful CPU’s (and other hardware). To be successful, the price for Tablets has to be low enough to make them worth the expense for common place use. I don’t consider $500 inexpensive. $500 can purchase a very decent desktop PC or Notebook, with a very nice sized screen, better hardware, 2 to 4 gig memory and a decently powered CPU. To produce a tablet PC, which should be half the price of a desktop, in my opinion, requires a much smaller screen, much less memory and far less drive space, plus a CPU which has half the horsepower of a desktop CPU. To get prices low enough (Windows 7 alone will add a good chunk to the price of the Tablet), a Tablet PC will be considerably less powerful than most inexpensive desktops and notebooks.
As a software developer who considered it important to build software which runs well on minimal hardware, I often was criticised by other developers because they would comment that the average PC has plenty of memory and a huge hard drive, so why develop my software for such minimal hardware ? It is because if software runs well on minimal hardware, then it will run very well on better hardware and it also allows end users to use the lesser powered computers for a longer period of time. Just think about this. How many times in the past did you purchase (or want to purchase) software only to find out that your current computer would not run it at all or at least would not run it well ? Frustrating isn’t it ! My wife learned to use CorelDraw Graphic Suite software and when she decided to purchase an upgrade, it was frustrating to find out that it would not run on Windows Millenium (which had served her well), so we were required to purchase an update to Windows XP, just so we could use the upgrade of CorelDraw. The PC was only a 667 mhz and while it ran well with Millenium, Windows XP (it did run) took a little more horsepower, so the PC became a little less powerful. I also added some memory to that PC so XP would run decently (upgraded from 256 meg to 384 meg). That computer is still in use today, even though it probably has close to ten years on it.
The problem that desktop computer users have, in that each new generation of software keeps requiring more powerful hardware, is compounded when it comes to Tablet PC’s. Look at NetBooks for example. NetBooks were the hot item for awhile and became very popular, but over time, when compared to what you can do on your desktop, Netbooks are losing ground (not as much consumer interest). Some Netbooks come with Intel Atom CPU’s in the 1 to 1.8 ghz range, so they barely run Windows 7 and they don’t have the horsepower of the bigger PC’s. Just the fact that Netbooks usually come with Windows 7 starter, rather than the normal Windows 7 may say something.
Now let’s step back for a moment and take an honest look at just the CPU’s we have today. How powerful are they really ? Very powerful and most programmers (and end users) fail to appreciate this. Why ? Because as the hardware improved, the programming languages used also grew (in size and bloat) and required more and more resources, so that one lost the benefits of the faster CPU’s and the greater amount of memory. But how powerful are todays CPU’s ? From my own perspective, they are “fast as lightning”, but they are abused.
Did you realize that a Windows 95 computer with say 64 meg ram and 100 mhz CPU, is more snappy and faster than todays Windows 7 computers with a 2 ghz CPU and 2 ghz ram ? Why do I say that ? Because the software written for Windows 95, was designed to have a much smaller footprint and it required much less memory. To the end user, Windows 95 would feel like it was a snappier computer (faster). Well there is a reason for this. For example on Windows 95, if you were to examine how many services the operating was running in the background, you would be shocked when you examined your latest Windows 7 computer to find that the number has grown significantly and I mean a lot. It seems that the developers of Windows feel that with all the bigger and better hardware, they can just keep bloating the operating system with all sorts of background stuff (services). And they aren’t always critical to the use of the PC. When my XP computer started slowing down, one day I started (after researching it first) shutting off service after service to try to speed it up. Guess what ? My PC was able to do everything it did before, but without those services running. Just to make things worse though, you may find that those updates you download for your operating system, may include a number of new services which will be automatically run when you PC boots up.
My point is that, as long as software developers feel they can “waste” PC resources, software will continue to get slower and slower and more bloated and sadly, while desktop PC’s may be able to tolerate this abuse, the new generation of Tablet PC’s will be more prone to having problems with this. Programmers have to change their attitude towards how they write software and how they use computer resources.
Now bring into this picture the software development tool EZGUI 4.0 Professional (and 5.0 Pro is in development). First, the PowerBasic programming language is one of the leanest and fastest (execution speed) programming languages I have ever seen. EZGUI was written in Powerbasic and to be used with PowerBasic, so it is lean and fast too. But there is more !
Even among PowerBasic programmers, I see the trend to write code which targets the latest and best hardware. While PowerBasic produces lean and fast applications, when you start targeting the higher end PC’s with the API code you use, you still can end up with software that may not run well on limited hardware, like Tablet PC’s. EZGUI is different though for a very important reason. How I develop it and the core concepts of how it was designed are different than most software developers and even different than many PowerBasic programmers. When other third party developers of tools for PowerBasic were all writing their software on Windows XP systems with say 2 ghz CPU’s, I was developing EZGUI on a 500 mhz Windows 95 PC. Now when probably most third party developers for tools for PowerBasic are writing their software on a Windows 7 PC and targeting Windows 7, I am writing EZGUI 5.0 (the next generation) on a seven year old Windows XP PC (2.5 ghz), which used to have only 256 meg ram, but I upgraded it a year or so ago to only 784 meg ram. I do have a Windows Vista computer which is newer and a more recent 64 bit Windows 7 computer, so I can test my software on them, but I develop all my software right now on Windows XP. And guess what ? I’ll even test it on my trusty old Windows 95 PC’s (500 mhz one and even a 100 mhz laptop). Why ?
Because I have always felt it important to write software for the lowest denominator, because this allows those who use my software to write software which won’t turn all of their customers computers obsolete. Now EZGUI can take advantage of newer features in the operating system, when available, but it does so dynamically so the core runtimes can still run even on Windows 95. You can target the latest operating systems if you prefer. What I have learned how to do, is to squeeze as much out of the operating system as I possibly can, while using API’s from the least denominator of the operating systems if possible. Just to compare the difference of how much I have gotten out of the operating system, while still maintaining a GUI engine with an amazingly small footprint, which will work on even on legacy versions of Windows, let’s compare the core runtime DLL of EZGUI 4.0 Pro, to what you get with a Visual Basic application using VB 5.0 Pro (and this is not the latest dot.net stuff).
Now let’s say you want to write an application which uses a number of the common dialogs (ie. Open/Save file, Colors, Fonts, Printer), a number of the more commonly used common controls (ie. Listview, Treeview, TrackBar, Tab, Toolbar,Updown, etc.) and the RichEdit control (ie. 2.0 version).
With Visual Basic 5.0 Pro your application would require the following runtimes:
msvbvm50.dll – 1324 KB
comdlg32.ocx – 150 KB
comctl32.ocx – 595 KB
comct232.ocx – 161 KB
mscomct2.ocx – 633 KB
richtx32.ocx – 208 KB
Your application would require 3071 KB of runtime DLL’s/OCX’s.
Now compared this to EZGUI 4.0 Pro which can handle all of the above, with its 515 KB runtime DLL which is about 1/5th the size. But the EZGUI runtime has more than what you get in the above. It has an ownerdraw engine to customize controls, a customdraw engine, a subclassing engine, a thread engine, a graphics engine, a print engine. Yet it still has more! In that same runtime DLL it has four custom controls built in (Canvas, HotSpot/Shape, Files Listbox and Properties Listbox controls). But not done yet! In that same runtime DLL it also has a proprietary 2D (software based) Sprite engine (built into the Canvas control) which can move/show/hide and animate (frames) 2D sprites. It can even alphablend and anti-alias the sprites. Not done yet! In that same runtime DLL it has a Visual Drag and Drop engine built in which allows you to drag and size controls visually. If you want drag handles too, you just add a tiny 18 KB DLL (drag handle control) and you also get drag handles for your drag and drop stuff. And there are many, many more features beyond this and all with a runtime with a small footprint which makes even a VB app look large. Now compare this to the latest programming languages such as the dot.net stuff which are huge in comparison.
To make things even better EZGUI itself was written in Powerbasic and you build applications using it with PowerBasic, so you get very fast speed and the EXE’s you compile (which will utilize the EZGUI runtime) will be so tiny you will be amazed. So how did I create such a powerful development tool which can do all of this, but still require absolutely minimal system resources ? PowerBasic is part of it, but the rest has been the design philisophy of EZGUI. I wrote it using the least denominator so it will run well even on older operating systems and PC’s with minimal hardware.
EZGUI is an excellent development tool for writing applications which can run on any Windows 7 (Intel/AMD CPU)based tablet PC, no matter how minimal the hardware is. EZGUI apps will take so little space, they will need little in drive space storage, little in memory and they run fast even on the lowly Atom CPU running at 1 ghz. Remember I have done testing of EZGUI, even on a Windows 95 PC with a 500 mhz CPU, so a 1 ghz CPU is fast from my viewpoint. I doubt many software development tools today are designed with the same concept as EZGUI, trying the make the most out of the least in computer hardware and operating systems.
If you have a company which wants to develop software that will “fly” on even the lowliest Tablet PC with Windows 7 on it, then seriously consider what EZGUI 4.0 Pro (and PowerBasic with it) offers you. Also one nice thing about EZGUI, is that since it does a lot of the work for you, you can even use the inexpensive Powerbasic Classic compiler which currently is selling for only $49. You don’t need the higher level PowerBasic 9.0 compiler which costs close to $200. If you have never used PowerBasic before, rather than purchase the $200 compiler, you can purchase (while EZGUI is on sale) both EZGUI ($159 on sale) and the Classic PowerBasic compiler ($49 on sale) for a total $208.
Now I should note that the 5th generation of EZGUI is in development (but will be awhile before it is released). If you think EZGUI 4.0 is powerful, wait until you see 5.0! Just as a sneek preview, EZGUI 5.0 will include a 3D GLCanvas control (based on OpenGL) so you can even do 3D animation. The new feature set in EZGUI 5.0 is very extensive and will surprise you.
I may be biased of course, since I developed EZGUI, but personally I think EZGUI 4.0 is (and also 5.0) one of the most powerful development tools for building applications for the next generation of Tablet PC’s running Windows 7. If you want an edge in developing software for Tablet PC’s running the real Windows 7 (not the ARM version I hear may be coming soon) consider EZGUI Professional.