Cuesystem – Programming tools

Programming tools

Easy programming thanks to our smart CVC software

Overview

Cue Visual Composer (CVC) is an All-In-One software for control application programming. CVC is innovative mainly due to its unique concept. Touch panels and controllers are programmed in the same way, which makes it possible to use touch panels as fully functional control units. One universal programming language XPL² allows programming graphical objects, touch panel layouts, device drivers, and other parts of the control application. Effective programming is achieved by visual programming approach with drag and drop, advanced editing technique IntelliSense, export, and import of ready-to-use pieces of program and more. Application language localization and Unicode character support are inherent parts of CVC, so it does not require any programming effort. Any part of source code can be secured by a password to protect the author’s intellectual property and also can be licensed to specific hardware. The control application runs on CUE touch panels, controllers, Apple iOS devices, Android devices, and Microsoft Windows computers.

XPL2 programming language

Cue Visual Composer thus becomes an open platform for a large group of application programmers and makes an important contribution to the development of modern graphical user interfaces. The XPL² programming language itself is tailored to the needs of control systems used to integrate various technologies. It includes a complete set of powerful commands that enable system integrators to achieve effective, robust, and easily maintainable code.

Pre-programmed building blocks

Pre-programmed Building Blocks dramatically increase productivity in the preparation of control applications using Cue Visual Composer.
Currently, CVC offers the following types:

Graphic Collection is a set of ready-to-use graphic objects which allows preparing touch panel graphical interface
Device Driver is a part of XPL² code that communicates with the controlled device
Applet is a part of the program that performs a specific task and runs within the context of a larger program, for example, Sunrise/Sunset Timer, Simple Scheduler
Widget is a small, fully functional application that can be inserted into a Cue Visual Composer project.

Graphic objects

Graphic objects are programmed at the level of standard XPL² language which includes graphical API (Application Programming Interface). When designing the touch panel graphic layout, application programmers, therefore do not depend on a fixed set of objects delivered by the software manufacturer but are free to create their own, often very sophisticated objects or whole functional blocks. Runtime’s Resize-On-Demand technology for graphic resources dramatically simplifies the creation of graphical objects. It is not necessary to prepare special graphics for different objects sizes.
Runtime’s High Color Enhancer improves the subjective perception of color depth. On touch panels, with 16-bit color depth, the application graphics look as if they had
24-bit color depth.
Software installation includes Cue Symbol Font with more than 130 symbols covering the needs of most control applications. The symbol set is grouped into Transport, Arrows & Movements, AV / TV Control, Indicators, etc.
Software installation includes more than 140 black / white icons (bitmaps) covering the most frequently used symbols and pictures.

Simulation and Debug

CVC and all runtimes for Microsoft Windows based computers can utilize multi-core processors. CVC offers many various ways how to debug and test applications, which significantly shortens the development cycle. The whole project can be simulated anytime on a computer or tested on real hardware units using their control ports.
For every unit in the project, this debug mode can be set individually and both simulation and real unit testing can be combined. CVC displays debug messages from simulated units and from real units too.

Firmware

Firmware update On-The-Fly is implemented for all CUE touch panels and controllers. All firmware is part of CVC installation. If CVC recognizes an older firmware version, it automatically updates firmware before debugging or final project uploading.