Helix is a family of software development tools allowing the rapid development, deployment and management of applications for individuals and groups of users across both local and wide area networks.

Helix RADE (Rapid Application Development Environment) is a powerful, visual tool for programming relational databases and generating applications that use those databases. This visual nature makes creating complex solutions fast and intuitive.

Originally created for the Macintosh in 1983, Helix is currently embarked on a program to bring its unique development methodology to the OS X, Linux and Windows platforms.

Helix RADE (Rapid Application Development Environment) features an intuitive graphical interface for speed and ease of use.

Helix RADE is one tool that does the critical work usually done by a variety of separate tools. With Helix one can design and implement an application from start to finish, creating any necessary database components, building the user interface, and putting it to work in a variety of network configurations. Years of field experience have proven beyond any conceivable doubt that given the same set of specifications, the work can be done better and faster, and therefore less expensively, in Helix than with any other tool or combination of tools. The resulting applications are fast, powerful, and flexible.

Helix Client/Server is used to enable all the users in a workgroup to access collections created with RADE simultaneously and manipulate the data inside. Unlike file sharing, users may access all the same files at the same time with the only exception being that two or more users may not change the same record in a file at the same time (record locking).

Comprised of Helix Server and Helix Client, this product allows any Helix Collection that is set up to operate in User Mode to run on a variety of network configurations.

The software is sold according to the number of users simultaneously accessing an application. While Helix Client/Server can be operated without a dedicated server (i.e., computer), it is strongly recommended that one is used for optimal performance.

Helix Engine allows you to use databases created with Helix RADE in a single user mode, without requiring you to purchase a full copy of Helix RADE.

Helix is a family of software development tools allowing the rapid development, deployment and management of applications for individuals and groups of users across both local and wide area networks.

Originally created for the Macintosh in 1983, Helix is currently embarked on a program to bring its unique development methodology to the OS X, Linux and Windows platforms.

The Helix Developer Toolkit is comprised of the Helix Collection Converter and the Helix Engine. The Helix Collection Converter creates demonstration applications with or without expiration dates, and can completely "lock down" an application so that it is impossible for anyone except the designer to access its structure. The Helix Engine may be distributed to demonstrate an application to someone who does not own Helix RADE or a Helix Client/Server Toolkit.

Helix users with multiple single-user applications in place may use the Helix Engine as an economic alternative to having more than one copy of Helix RADE

Helix Maintenance Manager fully automates the backup and maintenance of your Helix collecitons.

HMM lets you create ‘Maintenance Plans’ for your collections, each having its own schedule and process. An activity log tells you when your tests were run, what was found, what actions were taken, and whether or not the result was successful.

HMM comes with the ability to run both built-in and externally-supplied scripts. One particularly useful feature is the ability of Helix Maintenance Manager to send you an email message with the maintenace results. Got a pager? With the addition of a simply AppleScript, HMM can give you the good news (or bad news) in plenty of time to avoid a catastrophe!

Learn more about Helix Maintenance Manager on its own web pages.

The Helix Maintenance Utilities are included with each of the packages described above. They are provided to help you, the owner, designer, creator or manager of a Helix application, perform the vital tasks of assuring data and structural integrity crucial to any successful backup scheme.

Helix Utility is used to check applications for "data damage." Applications that can be created with Helix involve more active disk I/O (input/output) than most other types of applications, resulting in greater disk fragmentation. Sometimes, these applications can become damaged in a way that results in data (indexes, records, etc.) corruption. Helix Utility repairs most of the data problems a Helix user is likely to encounter.

Update Collection is used to check applications for "structural damage." (Structure is the fields, relations, forms, etc. that define the database.) Update Collection is also used to prepare an older Helix database to run with a newer version of Helix.