We are pleased to announce the new development tool that will complement Rapid Application Development capabilities available in Code On Time web application generator. The new tool will allow business users and developers to maintain all design aspects of Code On Time web applications with Microsoft Excel 2010.
Code On Time Tools for Excel complement the designer built in the code generator. A custom ribbon tab will be available in Microsoft Excel if the COT Tools for Excel is installed on the computer. Ribbon controls will allow selecting projects and populating Excel worksheets with data controllers, pages, fields, views, and other objects that constitute a Code On Time web application. Users will be able to manipulate this information and have the changes incorporated in the project design. The ribbon will also offer control to initiate the code generation and preview the results.
The new tools build on the strength of Designer Spreadsheet (/Documents/UGP3-Using_Excel_to_Build_ASP.NET_AJAX_Apps.pdf. The spreadsheet has been phased out in the latest release of Code On Time. The original implementation has been limited due to technological approach that we have chosen.
Code On Time Tools for Excel will behave as an equal partner to Project Designer available in the code generator. Project changes done in Excel will be recorded in the change log and cache snapshot of the project.
The tools will be released in February / March of 2012.