Integrated Code Expansion (ICE) Architecture

For 15 years Comtech Solutions has been in the business of creating and selling customizable Accounting and ERP software with full source code. This would allow a company to customize our past generation products to work the way they needed but there were two major problems with this approach. We found that after companies purchased the source code it took them weeks or months to fully understand it. Then once they made their changes and compiled a new version it was nearly impossible for them to upgrade to our current release. When we decided to write our 5th generation software program VisionCore, we spent months coming up with a way to solve these problems.

The VisionCore ICE architecture makes it easy for you to customize every aspect of VisionCore without source code and stay current with our latest releases. You can add your own forms or modify existing forms using Visual Studio 2005. This goes way beyond a traditional SDK or API. Using our ICE Developer Kit you will be able to keep all your customizations in projects separate from VisionCore making upgrading easy. ICE allows precise customization to VisionCore as if you had the source code without the need to spend countless hours understanding the source code.

For example, you could customize the Invoice form by adding new fields, controls or buttons. You could also remove fields your company does not use or move existing fields on any form. You can even override any code or properties used on any form. All of this can be done without source code. Your customized forms and code will run on top of the VisionCore code so you can take advantage of all new updates we release.

Using the ICE Developer Kit you will be able to customize everything in VisionCore and even add new functionality using the ICE Developer Kit. All customization work you do can be done using the ICE Developer Kit. This will keep all customizations separate from the core application making debugging the code much easier. With this approach you will be able to take advantage of all future updates to VisionCore and it will not affect your customization work.

Using the ICE Architecture you can replace the VisionCore main application with your own highly customized version or you can save your customizations as Plugins. Using the Plugin Manager you will be able to select from dozens of free plugins from Comtech Solutions, other developers or you can create your own. These plugins can range from entire new modules to smaller changes to certain forms.

VisionCore ships with a powerful Data Dictionary that can be used to add new fields and tables to a VisionCore company data file. We use this Data Dictionary internally when we need to add new fields or tables to VisionCore so you can be assured its flexible and reliable.

VisionCore includes a revolutionary BRL Core which eliminates repetitive tasks. It makes it extremely easy to connect a custom new form to VisionCore. This takes all the complexity out of writing and debugging this code yourself. Now you can add a new table or field using the Data Dictionary and use the BRL Core from any form to and add, edit, delete, save and navigate the data with only a few lines of code. This uses an n-Tier architecture with a disconnected data model and allows you to update your data over the Internet if you want. Not only is the combination of our Data Dictionary and BRL Core extremely powerful it’s also so easy to use a beginner in .NET could do it.

VisionCore Components can also be integrated into ASP.NET 2.0 applications with very little effort. Using ASP.NET 2.0 and our own BRL Core tied directly into VisionCore, we wrote a feature rich Support Center called BizCore Central (included with VisionCore). This is the same support center a customer would use to log in to download updates, post on our forums and view knowledgebase articles.

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