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This help system provides instructional information regarding the use of the Ratchet-X Desktop Integration Platform. If you are looking for marketing or pre-sales related information, please visit our public web site at www.ratchetsoft.com. For an overview of the Ratchet-X product, how it works and how it is used, we recommend you view the following three videos:
All discussion regarding the use of Ratchet-X assumes a high-level understanding of the Ratchet-X platform in terms of its underlying components and functions. Figure 1 below depicts the platform at a level appropriate for this purpose. |
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Figure 1 |
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The key to Ratchet-X’s success is its ability to integrate existing applications without requiring any changes to those applications. No access to source code or working with complicated APIs (application programming interfaces) is required. This “outside-in” integration is achieved via a platform component called the appspace. An appspace is an XML representation of the specific application screens you want to integrate with the other services and systems you use. Appspaces are created with a platform tool called the Appspace Editor (see Figure 2). The Appspace Editor allows you to select the applications screens and screen components (i.e. fields, labels, buttons, graphics, etc.), you want to make available for integration through Ratchet-X. When you’re done defining screens, you save the appspace and register the resulting XML file with the Ratchet-X Commander. Once the appspace is registered, the application screens contained within are then available to be integrated with other applications and services. Figure 2
Commander
Alert mode is the mode from you which you can do the following:
Commander’s alert mode is made available to you when Commander recognizes an application screen contained within a registered appspace. When Commander recognizes the application screen, Commander adds a “hot button” ( |
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Plug-in That’s it. If you understand the above description, you have a good enough understanding of the platform and are ready to start diving into the details. Where you go from here is up to you and the functions you plan on performing with regard to your Ratchet-X implementation. Who Are You? If you are an end user and do not plan on creating your own appspaces, you should review the documentation pertaining to the Ratchet-X Commander. If you plan on creating your own appspaces or will be creating appspaces on behalf of others, we recommend you follow up your review of Commander with an in-depth review of the documentation pertaining to Appspace Editor.
Finally, if you are a programmer and plan on creating your own plug-ins, you will need to understand in detail the documentation pertaining to Plug-ins & SDK.
As always, if you have any questions, feel free to:
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© Copyright 2008, RatchetSoft, LLC |
), to the application’s title bar. When you click on the hot button, you will be presented with all the functions Commander can perform on the data contained in the application screen. 
