Amazing Brass Engine Licensing
Looking to register
your copy of Brass and remove the restrictions? Click here!
This page is information for individuals and companies
wanting to learn more about licensing the Brass Engine, or to contract
the Brass developers to develop specific plugins and software.
All commercial services are provided through a VAT
registered limited company, legally registered in the United Kingdom.
Engine Information
The complete Brass engine is comprised of 3 separate
systems:
- The Brass Plugin Engine - use Brass in your product
- The Shiny Virtual Machine - add extension interfaces to your
software
- The Shiny Compiler - base your plugin system on our compiler
Also available for licensing or purchase are:
- The Brass User Interface - use our custom-developed controls
- Plugin Development Service - we'll code it for you
Each of these components is available for licensing. More information
about each component and its uses is below.
The Brass Plugin Engine
This system is the mechanism by which all plugins operate. The
Plugin Engine is responsible for loading and managing all plugins,
both compiled DLLs and Shiny Language SSEs (see below). If you want
to distribute a single product to your target audience, this is
the option for you.
Licensing the Plugin Engine can considerably accelerate your development
cycle. By using the Brass Plugin Engine in your product, you can
concentrate on developing the actual product functionality without
worrying about the underlying application framework.
We can deliver a trimmed version of Brass that integrates with
and only loads your product. This special version of Brass can be
completely rebranded so that its origins are hidden, and the product
appears to be completely developed by your company. It can also
include the revolutionary 100% Configuration System engine that
allows you to visually customize and restyle a plugin simply by
clicking and dragging.
As your licensed version will be based on the existing Brass codebase
it will benefit both from regular updates to Brass itself, as well
as the strong copy protection and registration systems contained
within Brass.
Some example uses for licensing the Plugin Engine:
- An information panel or notifier: Many companies now provide
update notification software to their customers. These notifiers
display company and product information, and assist with downloading
and installing the latest updates.
- An application enhancer: The Outlooker
plugin is an application enhancer. It can display information
contained within Microsoft Outlook in a stylized and customizable
format. Any application can benefit from this enhancement; if
your application displays and stores data, the Plugin Engine
can be used to present it in a stylish, small and versatile
panel on your customers' systems.
- A service that interacts with the desktop: The Mime
plugin is an example of a service plugin. It modifies Windows
at a core system level to enable any application to receive
mouse gestures. Its interface is hidden until a gesture is made,
at which point it pops to front to make its presence known.
Any monitoring or system service can benefit from this enhancement.
The Shiny Virtual Machine
The Shiny Virtual Machine loads and executes Shiny executables
created with the Shiny Compiler (below). By licensing the Shiny
Virtual Machine, users of your software will be able to create their
own enhancements and extensions to your software to customize it
exactly to their preferences.
Providing an interface for users to develop software for your application
is a sound business decision. At no extra liability to your developers
you can cultivate a community of enthusiasts who will develop and
enhance your product. Your developers simply select the functions
in your software that will be accessible, then link them to the
Virtual Machine for immediate results.
The Shiny Compiler
The Shiny language is a custom language, developed from scratch,
specifically designed for rapid and simple plugin development. The
Shiny Compiler takes source code written in the Shiny language and
compiles it to high-speed bytecode. This is in contrast to many
other plugin engines, which simply use slow scripting engines for
their plugins.
As a complete language and compiler, the Shiny system serves as
an ideal basis for your own language and virtual machine. By licensing
the Shiny Compiler you will receive the source code to a tried and
tested language compiler and virtual machine. The Shiny language
is ideally suited to plugin systems, game scripting systems and
application enhancements.
Developing a compiler and virtual machine is an exceptionally difficult
and time consuming task; by licensing the Shiny language you can
short-circuit the development process with a supported and maintained
system. As well as the compiler you will be able to take advantage
of the SSEdit Integrated Development Environment which sports syntax
highlighting, autocompletion, code folding, context help and many
more impressive features. If required, the Shiny compiler can also
drop into an existing development environment.
The Brass User Interface
Referred to by the shorthand of "BUI", the Brass User
Interface is comprised of all the standard controls found on modern
operating systems - scrollbars, edit boxes, list controls, buttons,
multi-line edit boxes and more.
Windows provides all of these controls as part of the "common
control set", however there is a serious limitation to these
common controls. Because of the manner in which they work, they
can only be used in standard Windows applications.
BUI controls are custom developed from scratch using basic drawing
systems. This means they can be rapidly ported to any situation
that requires a user interface but cannot use the Windows common
controls, such as DirectX games, OpenGL graphics applications, non-Windows
UI toolkits, or applications using layered windows. In addition
the BUI controls can be rapidly ported to any other platform that
can reasonably support drawing user interfaces, including Linux,
consoles such as the XBox, and handhelds such as the PSP.
Developing user interface controls that work in an intuitive manner
is extremely time consuming and complex. By licensing the BUI controls
you can immediately drop customizable, skinnable controls into your
application.
In addition, if you license the BUI controls with the Shiny Compiler,
you will be able to implement user interface skinning with little
additional work.
Plugin Development Service
The Brass team understands that many organizations may want to
take advantage of the power of Amazing Brass, but without the complexity
of licensing and developing their own solution.
To address this requirement we can develop any plugin to your specifications.
You will have access to professional developers and system engineers
who will help you define your solution and create the exact result
you desire. Simply explain what you need, agree a final specification,
sit back and relax! We'll do the hard work for you...
To find out more about any of these services please email us at
 .
We'll be happy to discuss your requirements in detail.
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