#native_company# #native_desc#
#native_cta#

CommNav Gives Back to Open Source Community

By Kecia Platt
on October 18, 2003

CommNav Gives Back to Open Source Community – Releases Web Interface Development Toolkit

Mechanicsburg, PA -CommNav, Inc. is proud to announce the release of its next generation web interface development toolkit into the Open Source community. CommNav will release version 0.9.0 of the PHP Widget Toolkit, under the Lesser GNU Public License (LGPL). “Throughout the development of our Web-based solutions, CommNav has used many products provided by the Open Source community. The PHP Widget Toolkit gives the Open Source community a chance to benefit from our efforts,” stated Andrew Libby, CommNav’s Chief Technologist.

“Much thought was given to which license to use. The LGPL gives others the right to use the package in a flexible manner but keeps changes to the package free and open,” added Libby. PHP Widget Toolkit, or Pidget as it is often called, was inspired by the Qt application development toolkit. Allowing developers to write applications in a familiar way, Pidget provides an object- oriented interface as well as a template layer for each widget. Luke Ehresman, a developer at CommNav said, “The main idea with Pidget is to allow for a clean separation of display and application code in web-based applications. This abstraction makes it easier for graphic designers to create consistant user interfaces, and it also frees up developers from having to worry about GUI details.” The template layer provides the ability to change the look and feel of applications without requiring changes to application code, or the Pidget Application Program Interface (API).

PHP 5 is the language for the PHP Widget Toolkit. According to CommNav software developer David ‘Spartacus’ Whittington, ” PHP 5 was chosen because of the expressiveness and flexibility of the object model in Zend Engine 2″. PHP 5 has some very nice object-oriented programming features that were lacking in PHP 4.

To download the PHP Widget Toolkit visit http://www.pidget.org/.

About CommNav, Inc.

CommNav, Inc. provides contemporary desktop management tools for both the enterprise and service provider markets. Focusing on innovative and cost effective technologies, CommNav has developed a series of products that enable their customers to extend their businesses in a secure and flexible manner. CommNav has several web-based application management solutions including Navigator, Presentation Navigator, Systems Navigator, Puppeteer and the Smart Hub. The company is headquartered in Mechanicsburg, PA and has personnel stationed in Atlanta, GA; Oklahoma City, OK; Boston, MA; Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, PA.

For More Information:

Please contact Andy Libby at CommNav, 717.506.1112 x271 or via E-mail, [email protected].
For more information on CommNav’s web-based business solutions: http://www.commnav.com