iRise is adding reusable components to its platform for visualizing applications before coding.
With iRise 8.5, the company is supporting iBlocs, which are reusable UI components and behaviors composed as widgets. Also featured is an iBloc API enabling fast development of iBlocs from thousands of free, pre-built components.
[ Visualization can bridge the gap between developers and users, according to InfoWorld's Eric Knorr. | Keep up on the latest application development news with the Developer World newsletter. ]
Addressing application requirements, iRise enables business analysts or project managers to quickly assemble a working simulation of a software project prior to coding, said Mitch Bishop, iRise chief marketing officer.
"The visualization becomes an exact guide for what to build," Bishop said. User experience professionals and product and project managers can use the technology to document requirements.
Partners and customers can build iBlocs via custom JavaScript code or by using existing code from a library like jQuery and putting a wrapper around it. iRise also is offering a site for accessing iBlocs, called iBloc Marketplace. Examples of iBlocs in the marketplace include such widgets as tree and pie charts, RSS feeds, and horizontal and vertical sliders.
Version 8.5 features a bidirectional Web services-based version of the company's iConnect API, for integrating iRise with downstream tools like HP Quality Center. Previously, iConnect used an XML-based export model, which required conversions.
An iRise business partner, Square One Solutions, is building a tool called Verametric, which tracks software project requirements and leverages iConnect.
"The [iRise] simulations help with the eventual development of the application because business users -- stakeholders -- can visualize the software that gets developed before it gets developed," said Chad Hahn, Square One co-founder.
With iRise, users get iRise Studio, an authoring environment for assembling visualizations, and Definition Center, which acts as a shared server for collaborating on projects.
This article, "iRise adds reusable components to app visualization," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the latest developments in business technology news and get a digest of the key stories each day in the InfoWorld Daily newsletter.
Read more about developer world in InfoWorld's Developer World Channel.