Panther Tool Suite is an extensible cross-platform collection of development tools targeted at development of 2-tier and n-tier client/server and component-based database-oriented applications. It works with all major databases and several major middleware systems. Applications developed with Panther can be deployed in character mode, GUI and WEB environments. The suite employs development methodology similar to rapid application development.
The toolset includes a complete integrated development environment designed to facilitate team development allowing personnel of different skill sets, from business analysts to database analysts to application programmers (both from C and Java "world") to user interface designers to participate in the software development process.
Panther's repository-based visual development framework includes automatic inheritance across all application components and object property sheets. Where procedural programming is necessary, it can be done in C, Java and JPL, a user-friendly 4GL scripting language. Client forms are generally built concurrently and in the same environment with server-side components. Panther Database Interface and Transaction Manager automatically prepare business components to interact with database handling details, such as:
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- automated SQL generation using a visual metaphor, including cross-table relationships, master-detail-subdetail screens, lookups etc,
- automated result set mapping,
- data mapping between the component interface and the database,
- integration with database metadata allowing SQL queries to be written once and deployed across multiple relational databases,
- generating optimized updates,
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while still allowing programmers to tailor database-oriented behavior on several levels, from Transactiom Manager model to manual SQL.
There are several editions of Panther, each one supporting different middleware:
- Panther for IBM WebSphere
- Panther, COM/MTS Edition
- Panther, Tuxedo Edition
Applications are portable between editions, databases, operating systems and deployment environments (TUI, GUI, Web) without rebuilding.
There is an open source version of the tool, POSSL.