Kanzi UI 3.9 beta 1

Kanzi UI is a complete solution for the design, development and deployment of 3D and 2D user interfaces on computers, mobile, and embedded devices. Kanzi solves the implementation and differentiation problems of graphical user interfaces and enables user interface designers and engineers to focus on their core competences.

Kanzi consists of these main components:

  • Kanzi Studio is a content creation tool. You can import to a Kanzi Studio project 2D and 3D content, create prototypes, work on composition, interaction, and interface design, and export the production binary files.

  • Kanzi Engine is a graphics and user interface execution environment for the binary files that you generate from a Kanzi Studio project. Kanzi Engine supports leading operating systems and hardware platforms out of the box. This allows engineers to focus on application development, rather than on optimization and integration.

Kanzi is technologically scalable from mobile and embedded devices to automotive applications. As a platform-independent solution, Kanzi offers easy portability and a rapid production cycle. A typical workflow for creating a user interface with Kanzi consists of:

  1. Creating visual content in third-party content creation tools.

  2. Importing the content to Kanzi Studio and creating the basic functionality of the user interface.

  3. Finalizing the user interface and attaching it to the application logic using the Kanzi Engine API or scripting.

To create user interfaces with Kanzi Studio it is recommended that you have 2D and 3D environment experience. To use Kanzi Engine to build application logic on top of these interfaces you need C++ programming experience.

Kanzi 3.9 beta 1 feature highlights

  • Data Trigger functionality.

    Use a Data Trigger to apply an action to either set a property value of a target node or activate an Activity node. A Data Trigger keeps that action applied for as long as the condition in that Data Trigger is met. When the condition in that Data Trigger is no longer met, Kanzi reverts the changes that it applied using that Data Trigger. See DataTrigger class in the Kanzi Engine API reference.

  • Navigation Manipulator component.

    Use the Navigation Manipulator to set the keyboard keys that the user can use to navigate to different directions in your application.

    See Using the Navigation Manipulator.

  • Kanzi Java API extensions.

    • Added these additional Kanzi features to the Kanzi Java API:

      • DataSource and DataObject, including support for defining new types

      • Action and Trigger, including support for defining new types

      • Texture

      • Image2D

      • ResourceManager ProtocolHandler, which allows implementing custom resource loading in Java

      See Kanzi Java API reference.

    • Added Java Kanzi Engine plugins and Kanzi Studio support.

      • Kanzi Java API now enables you to write Kanzi Engine plugins entirely in Java. Like their native counterpart, these plugins allow you to break down application code into reusable modules. Each plugin can carry extensions of Kanzi functionality, including new types and related metadata.

      • You can export a plugin and related classes into a JAR file, import it to a Kanzi Studio project and use with the Kanzi Studio Preview.

To see a full list of changes in Kanzi 3.9 beta 1, see Kanzi 3.9 beta 1 release notes.