Give customers control over their software

zApp provides the tools needed by your customers

As software developers, we need to listen to our customers. We collect feedback, organize customer focus groups, perform usability testing, and create customer surveys. But how many software packages provide a built-in mechanism allowing customers to modify the software to work exactly the way they need it to?

Your customers *do* want to customize your software, if there were only an easy way to do so. Imagine Microsoft Excel™ without the macro programming language. Not every user writes macros in Excel, but there is generally one advanced user in every office that customizes spreadsheets and creates macros for their specific application and shares them with their coworkers. But creating a modern user interface using Excel macros is difficult.

One of the reasons most software cannot be easily customized is that the development tools programmers are using do not provide an architecture or framework for customization.

Customers are capable of programming

More and more customers are learning web programming to handle their own needs. Community colleges are teaching courses in web site development, and in programming in PHP, JavaScript, or Visual Basic script. Customers are becoming more computer literate and some of your customers have now been using computers since they were children.

Many developers dismiss the idea of allowing end-users to customize their application thinking that the customer is not capable of such complex programming. However, like web development, customers can and will program if you give them programming tools they can understand. Currently, most modern programming languages used by developers are
far too complex for the average customer, with obscure syntax or advanced concepts such as classes and objects. Object-oriented programming is wonderful for programmers, but not for end-users.

Zugg Software has developed zApp, a system that can be used to create applications easily customized by end-users. Your customers need tools that are familiar, easy to use and understand. But these tools also need to provide the power necessary to accomplish what the customer needs. zApp provides all of this and covers all of the basic requirements needed for end-user development tools.

• Familiar Programming Languages
zApp uses any scripting language supported by Windows such as Visual Basic Script, JavaScript, PERL, Python, and PHP. These languages can be freely mixed within an application or within plugins written for your application by your customers.

• Use Web Programming Skills
zApp programs are written using XML, building upon the customers existing knowledge of web programming.

• Extensive Function Libraries
Libraries are provided for string manipulation, date and time calculations, network and web page access, XML processing, much more. This helps minimize the amount of customer coding required.

• Powerful Visual Components
A rich set of visual components are provided, allowing the customer to create a versatile and modern user interface. All components are tightly integrated, and provide features such as spell-checking, database access, and Theme (skin) support on all versions of Windows.

• Native Database Access
zApp supports a wide range of databases, from robust client/server systems such as MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, Sybase, DB2, PostgreSQL, and Interbase (Firebird), to simple local database access using SQLite or Microsoft ADO. Every visual control is zApp is data-aware, and controls such as the Grid and Tree support powerful data visualization.

• Protect Your Intellectual Property
zApp allows you to encrypt your application or plug-ins, protecting your intellectual property and business rules, while still allowing the customer to customize.

• Compatible With Existing Code
zApp is compatible with existing development tools such as Visual Studio, .NET, Delphi, or any other system capable of creating Windows COM objects or ActiveX components.

• Flexible Deployment
Applications written using zApp can be deployed as a single executable file that does not require the end-user to own zApp. Once your application is deployed, updates can be sent via small XML text files without redistributing the entire application.

• Low Cost
Users who wish to customize applications can purchase zApp for $30 U.S. Developers can purchase the full application deployment tool for an additional $30 U.S.

zApp provides the best of both worlds: high performance code from built-in components or existing development tools in the form of Windows COM objects and ActiveX controls paired with end-user customization and userinterface
creation via a simple and powerful scripting environment.

Mike Potter is the owner of Zugg Software and author of the popular zMUD program. He has been developing software for over 30 years and has been a member of the Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP) since 1996. He can be contacted at zugg@zuggsoft.com.

Learn more about zApp at: http://www.zuggsoft.com/zapp