I'm delighted to introduce another confirmed speaker for the Revolution Live conference. Trevor DeVore has been a notable member of the Revolution community for some considerable time, and will be speaking on one of his areas of expertise. You should leave his sessions with a real working knowledge of using databases from Revolution, with special reference to using SQLite.

About the speaker:

Trevor was first exposed to e-learning in high school when he created his first Authorware lesson about making pizza. A few years later, he used Authorware again to develop a series of training CD-ROMS about laser printer repair. Soon after he added Flash and Director to his tool set. While working on training and promotional desktop programs, Trevor started to tinker with PHP and SQL databases. The ability to generate interfaces from data was an exciting prospect and he devoted himself almost entirely to web applications and interactive media delivery solutions such as Flash and Interactive QuickTime.

In 2002, Trevor began working on an interactive history project, Virtual Historian, which combined his love of interactive media and data driven interfaces. The project design, however, was not conducive to a web browser. This led Trevor to Revolution, a rapid application development framework for Mac, Windows and Linux. It allowed development of true desktop applications and didn't require compiling code, a time-consuming task.

The following year, Trevor was asked by the ultrasound division of GE Medical to produce training software for some 3D-4D machines being used in the marketplace. Trevor partnered with his brother, Greg, and they began studying the training challenges embedded in the technology market. In order to be successful, the training had to be fast to develop and easy to update. After determining that none of the current e-learning tools offered the right workflow, they decided to devise their own solution using Revolution. Thus the Blue Mango Learning System was created. The result was effective training software delivered to clients in weeks rather than months.

In 2005, Trevor and Greg sought to expand the Blue Mango Learning System from an internal tool into a commercial product. ScreenSteps, a simple application to improve workflow around a common problem, is that progression. Now in its second iteration, ScreenSteps streamlines the creation of step-by-step tutorials, thus making it possible for anyone to teach quickly and easily.

About the sessions

The goal of both these sessions is to address application and real world issues relating to using Revolution with databases.

Building Applications with SQLite

SQLite is becoming the standard format for single-user desktop applications that use SQL databases as their file format. It is fast, reliable and brings the power of relational databases to applications. In this session we will explore techniques for incorporating a SQL database into your Revolution applications, visualizing the data from the database and incorporating undo/redo of database operations. We will also discuss techniques that can improve performance.

• Designing your database library.
• Visualizing data using menus, fields and groups.
• Implementing undo/redo.
• Improving performance through the use of transactions.

Building Applications for Multi-User Databases

Revolution is the perfect development environment for creating desktop front ends to multi-user databases such as MySQL and Valentina. Developers can quickly create applications that streamline data management within company networks. This session will look at issues that arise when designing these multi-user database applications such as editing database records, visualizing data coming over a network and undo/redo.

• Taking the network into account.
• Editing records in a multi-user environment.
• Techniques for visualizing data.
• Undo/redo considerations.

Additionally, Trevor will head up a Kitchen session on databases, where developers can get a more in-depth and hands on look at some of the issues surrounding using Revolution as a database front end.