Software FX
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Software FX is a component vendor and one of the leaders in graph solutions. Their flagship product is Chart FX.
I was the primary architect and developer of an extension for ChartFX called ChartFX Gauges.
Quoting the site, Chart FX Gauges delivers a set of .NET components that allow developers to quickly and effectively integrate gauges into their client-server and web-based applications. With the addition of Gauges to the Chart FX family of products, developers can easily create digital dashboards with the productivity, consistency and reliability they’ve come to appreciate from other Software FX products.
The creation of the product was an interesting and creative exchange between the artist, the product manager, the technical writers, and the testing department. Anticipating the advent of XAML, the graphical elements composing a gauge (such as the needle, the border, the tickmarks) were dynamically loaded from SVG resources.
Integrating the components into Visual Studio (2003 and 2005) were quite a challenging task. We pushed the integration with the property grid to the edge by providing graphical property lists allowing to configure all the Gauges without the need for modal dialogs or separate designers.
I was also in charge of integrating of the components into various environments such as Reporting Services and PowerGadget, a graphical tool for PowerShell. I also provided technical assistance to the Java team in order to release a Java version of the Gauges.
In addition, I was in charge of the development of the COM designer. This windows-based tool allows the visual creation of charts and then the generation of the related ASP code. The application essentially works like an IDE for ASP projects and is based on the DotNetMagic library.
My first work at Software FX, however, was the development of a support tool which streamlined the productivity of the support department and enhanced the collaboration between customers and the support department.
I had the chance to have my company pay for my fee and my plane ticket to attend the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in 2005. The conference was packed with sessions and most of the top-notch Microsoft engineers such as Anders Hejlsberg were there.