I was anxious to install the new version of the iMotion EdgeWare platform since Wednesday when it came via Federal Express. My installation was delayed, because of some competing priorities, but mostly, because I wanted to setup a machine without interfering with my current work that I could use to test my .NET Framework 2.0 components.
I was dually warned by our GlobeRanger representative and support contact that 5.1 has not been certified with the .NET Framework 2.0. However, I'm at the beginning of a development cycle, and I just cannot see using the .NET Framework 1.1 only to convert it later. I suspect that by the time I'm done with my project that the platform will be certified with .NET Framework 2.0; and hopefully my testing will expedite that.
I ended up cleaning up my main test machine. I removed Visual Studio 2005 Professional and the ten thousand things it installed. (I played with it before installing the Team Edition for Developers on my development machine.) And then I installed the .NET Framework 2.0, because there were problems installing 5.0.4 with .NET Framework 2.0 being installed and I wanted to see if it was still a problem.
It turns out it wasn't a problem. The platform installed flawlessly and it used the same license key that I already had. The program menu hierarchy changed slightly from 5.0. Now, GlobeRanger is the top level followed by a level for the platform. It appears as though the service manager is gone. I'm quite disappointed about that, because I had grown accustomed to using it to control the services and work flows during testing.
My first stop in my look at the applications was the Event Workflow Editor. I really didn't expect many changes here, and I wasn't disappointed. The only difference I noticed was the addition of the “Active Document” stencil in the toolbox that has a list of all event controls you have defined on the open work flow. The good thing is that the Event Workflow Editor now seems to remember the window size and position. The bad thing is that the issue of the missing label when scrolling is still there. This issue occurs when you have an event control below the viewable space. In these cases the scroll bar doesn't scroll far enough to bring the label into view.
The Edge Management Console appears to be where most of the visual changes occurred. Although, the changes aren't readily apparent. The one thing that struck me right away was the prompts to “download server packages”. I'm really not sure what that means, but it appears that it's downloading only the necessary support files, because the EMC can be setup on a computer not running the iMotion services.
It was nice to see that a lot of the dialogs just seem a little more standardized and cohesive. My only complaint here was with the Hardware Settings Profile wizard. The step where you specify the profile values doesn't contain the explanatory information it used to. I think this was done to improve the consistency between different reader adapters, but I think something could still be done to provide a little information. The two images below illustrate the 5.0 and 5.1 versions of the wizard for the included reader emulator.
The consumption settings have more options including tag filters and the ability to specify what tags are supported for the specific reader adapter. The included reader emulator only supports class1 gen 2 tags apparently. But, probably the coolest edition is the RF Control options which I think will be what you need to ensure a duty cycle which is enforced in Europe. I need to look into this more to determine if that is the case though.
The items in the group services tab have completely changed. Gone are the hard to follow inbound and outbound reader groups and in are the reader command group and tag acquisition group for example. The ALE specification editor is now easier to follow and an option is included for a continuous event cycle. In the previous version you had to specify a repeat period and a duration interval that matched up in order to reproduce a continuous event cycle. I guess you still could.
My last stop is the reader emulator. Visually this application didn't change much. The main change here besides the edition of gen 2 constructs is that you can specify an image for the emulation items instead of the canned image. I see this the most useful when you want to show a box instead of just a plain old tag.
My final stop was Visual Studio 2003 which is still the development environment of choice for the platform. I just took a cursory look at the templates and it looks like everything is the same.
The iMotion EdgeWare platform is a very solid framework for developing work flow applications that are RFID-centric. I've enjoyed working with the platform for the last year, and I'm excited to start delving into some of the new API improvements such as for creating my own reader adapters. (I haven't seen anything that hints to this being included, but I've been told it's there.)