Will twaver flex bring about a revolution in telecom software development?

If you are a programmer in the telecom industry and you are familiar with twaver, the well-known topology graph tool, but if you think of a swing component package as soon as twaver is mentioned, you will no doubt be out. After more than a decade of development, twaver seems no longer a simple swing topology component. Over the years, twaver has successively launched Ajax + SVG web and GIS versions, now the flex version is available. What? Flex twaver? Small toys? Can it be an enterprise or even a telecom application? Take a look at twaver flex's amazing Online Demo. I believe you will have your own answer. Anyway, I firmly believe that flex technology will surely be used in the telecom industry-at least it is no longer just a vase or a toy.

 

A rough look at twaver Online Demo (http://servasoftware.com/demo/twaver_flex/twaver-flex-online-demo.html), a lot of functionality refreshing. The classic twaver PSTN is much more detailed than the swing version. The entire twaver flex has even shown more powerful aspects than twaver Java's swing version.

 

 

In addition, we have observed more interesting features in twaver flex.

 

New alert Rendering Method

I remember that when I first looked at micromuse's Netcool, I was very impressed with its alarm display method: An alarm-colored diamond base, which is both intuitive and beautiful. Now twaver flex also provides this new alarm rendering method, and there are also various shapes of "base" Options:

In addition, do you remember how the code tree is displayed if there is a compilation error when using eclipse? A dynamically generated warning small icon is superimposed on the tree icon, Which is concise and clear:

 

Twaver flex also provides similar results. This effect can be directly set through a parameter without complicated code:

In twaver flex, the rendering of alarms on the tree is not only about icon changes, but also more complex rendering methods are provided in the demo. For example, some additional information is added after the icon, for example, alarm information statistics. For example, in the demo, three critical (severe) alarms are generated on a switch port. A star icon and the number and level of alarms can be displayed at the rear of the tree icon. In addition, The Blur gradient rendering Effect of alarm propagation on the border of the switch is more delicate and vivid than that in twaver Java:

In addition, some new alarm forms, alarm statistics, and charts are provided. The alarms in twaver Flex are truly refreshing:

 

New Line bundling Method

Bundling is an interesting feature of twaver: You can double-click multiple links at the beginning and end to close and expand them. Twaver flex demo provides more features. In addition to the traditional double-click dynamic bundling and opening, you can also group bundling, bundle Shape Definition, bundle Agent dynamic definition, alarm proxy presentation, and so on.

The blue, red, and green lines have different shapes. They can be expanded and closed by double-clicking. Double-click any blue line and Green Line:

 

 

More Automatic Layout Algorithms

The Automatic Layout Algorithm is a part of my interest. It is indeed a sense of accomplishment to see the ever-changing shape of topology maps become magic. In the twaver flex demo, the automatic layout is smoother and clearer. In addition, the spring algorithm in the demo seems to be smoother and more texture-oriented than that in twaver Java.

The other is the network bus layout. In the previous twaver Java examples, we also saw the bus layout, but the bus layout in twaver Flex is more delicate (look at the three-dimensional effect of its bus ). In addition, the shape of the bus will be dynamically adjusted as the window size changes, which is quite interesting:

 

Vector graph support

In twaver flex, a demo is used to generate a vector map of the United States and some actual chart data. After carefully studying the code, we found that the vector graph format defined in XML is used and some node objects are dynamically generated using these formats. In this way, these nodes are not only map objects, but also some business networks and some business data. This function is certainly useful in telecommunication resource management and network management systems.

Another place where vector images can be used is node images. In addition to bitmaps, you can also use a simplified SVG format of flex to achieve stepless scaling of images. For example, after zooming the nodes in the demo in twaver flex, we can see that the vector graph format is actually used:

 

Device Grid

In the past, how to present various manufacturers, models, and types of telecommunications equipment was a big task when we were working on integrated telecommunication network management systems. If you use an artist, the workload is huge. If you use a simple square, the display effect is too simple. The mesh Rendering Method in twaver flex feels better. By gridding the device panel and defining the width and height occupied by each board, you can clearly and easily define the structure of the device, and the display effect is also good:

Of course, using the grid + image method will have better results:

 

More special effects

Of course, if there are no animation or other special effects, how can we reflect the advantages of Flex? For example, this topology map can definitely make the telecom network management software with an old face more vivid.

There are a lot of other animation effects. You can run the demo and check it for yourself.

 

Flowchart

Finally, we also found a flowchart Editor, which can be dragged out to export the XML format:

 

 

Some defects

After reading the twaver flex demo, I was shocked by its presentation capabilities, especially for the telecom industry. However, there is a little bit of defect: I did not see the integration of map functions such as Google maps or bing map. In addition, general components such as attribute tables and various complex tables are not rich and powerful enough. In addition, twaver Java provides integrated charts, which is not yet seen in twaver flex. However, considering that twaver Flex is only version 1.0, there is reason to believe that twaver FLEX will be able to enhance this in subsequent versions. However, for most telecom software developers or topology-oriented UI developers, twaver Flex is sufficient to meet various requirements of the vast majority of telecom systems, which is beyond doubt.

 

Summary

Seeing these new twaver flex features, I feel that flex is getting closer and closer to our telecom developers. I remember a year ago when I mentioned the prospect of flex's application in the telecom industry with my friends, many people sneer at it: How can the serious telecom industry consider this "Toy? Now, it seems that there are more and more developers with this attitude. Many telecom software companies no longer reject flex, and even many enterprises are using it in large quantities. In particular, it is a good thing to mix traditional web and flex applications more and more. If one day Flex is fully supported on mobile devices such as iPhone and Android, the concept of twaver flex, "handheld O & M", and "handheld monitoring" is no longer just a concept, it becomes a real killer application.

 

So Will twaver flex and a large number of excellent flex products bring about changes to traditional telecom software development, especially the UI part? In fact, telecom software has always been serious and rigorous. "Telecom-level" means higher requirements than "enterprise-level. Stability, efficiency, scalability... all have high requirements. Most of the network management systems, monitoring systems, and resource management systems are in the C/S structure. Despite the development and maturity of the Web, telecom applications based on the Web model have also begun to hide, especially for various business management systems, while the underlying network management systems are mostly C/S. Web technologies represented by Ajax, JS, and other technologies face the same challenges of flex, now web development has even become a mainstream technology (see the so-called popularity of SSH ). As a new UI technology, flex's processing capability in complex graphics is undoubtedly a powerful supplement to traditional Web applications. This also makes it possible to use the Web + flex hybrid approach for network management systems. However, to develop a fully-Flex telecommunications business system, there are still obvious disadvantages. One reason is that there is still a gap between flex in terms of general components and Web products that have been developed for many years (such as extjs). On the other hand, HTML is mature, simple, and easy to use, it is not comparable to flex. In the short term or even quite a long period of time, I am afraid all kinds of telecommunication systems are dominated by a mix of C/S, web or Web + flex. Although Flex is unlikely to become the mainstream in Web development of telecommunication systems in the future, it can definitely be a powerful supplement to traditional web systems. From this point, flex will bring a revolution to the Development of telecom software and a change to the UI development method.

 

So my conclusion is that twaver Flex is an excellent product. Bringing revolution to telecom software development? It is a bit big; however, I believe that it will bring about changes to the telecom software UI development or topology development.

 

Flex is coming, and it's coming. Whether it's for telecom applications or enterprise applications, we don't have to escape it or embrace it!