Typically, database applications are essentially interactive, form-based programs that are enriched with program sections that are executed invisibly from time to time on the server, as well as with Web services or Web service calls, integrated printing, interfaces, and much more.

SCOPELAND is optimized for this type of application, regardless of whether it is a Web application, client/server application, or designed to run on mobile end devices.

SCOPELAND applications are ‘page-based’. In this context, a ‘page’ is an independent technical program unit. This can take the form of a screen mask, sub-form, single Web page, print output or interface, or a function running on the server that is not visualized (in the sense of an ‘invisible’ page). Each page is developed separately and is stored, released, and generated independently of all the other pages.

The ‘levels’ or ‘layers’ of a multi-layer application are to be seen as purely technical rather than logical. In order to allow the application to adapt more flexibly to subsequent content changes, each page is a logical unit in itself and is generated in one or another technical environment, depending on the target system and options that have been set, in addition to being split into useful technical levels such as client and server functions, where necessary.

Everything is based on simple, interactively entered statements, business rules, and UML or workflow actions and states. Using this data, SCOPELAND generates practical user interfaces that are, in principle, ready for use but that can be developed further and optimized interactively using a very intelligent Form Designer and drag-and-drop or mash-up mechanisms and then stored again as metadata. In this way, all the settings for each data object, from the ‘physical’ database properties or processing logic through to the display methods, are only stored centrally at one location, namely in the metadatabase. This is the key to the unique flexibility offered by SCOPELAND-based solutions: Anything can be changed at any time and at all levels without influencing other parts of the program.

This degree of flexibility even allows a resulting application to be changed as part of the agile development process – right before the eyes of the end user – which means that it can be better adapted to their actual needs.

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