Code On Time: Web App Generator

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Web App Generator

Wednesday, August 24, 2011Print Subscribe

Printing of Pictures, Upload/Download, Bug Fixes

The latest release 5.0.0.70 of Code On Time has introduced the following improvements and bug fixes:

Only one BLOB handler is registered even if more than one reference exists in the project fields.
Clearing of a blob will now clear the special fields <FieldName>ContentType, <FieldName>Length, <FieldName>FileName.
If a picture field is defined in a grid / data sheet view then it will be fitted proportionally to the available space. If multiple picture fields are present then all columns will fit in the dimensions of the page. This applies to ASP.NET 4.0 web apps only.
Upload/Download mechanism has been enhanced to support externalized storage of binary content. It is now possible to declare a placeholder field in a data controller and respond to UploadFile and DownloadFile commands in business rule methods to store the binary content outside of the database.

We are expecting to publish the second part of Upload/Download tutorial later today.

Code On Time will be offering two standard upload modules that will store any content in the file system or in Windows Azure Storage. The goal is to offer out of the box solution that requires zero coding.
An enhancement has been added to the business object builder to prefix aliases in automatically produced SQL statements embedded in the data controllers to prevent naming conflicts that may occur if a table has a column with the same name. We have further refined the enhancement to narrow its impact on existing projects.
Logging of messages produced during code generation has been changed to further increase speed of the process.
The ability to customize labels has been restored. You can enter FieldName=Label Text pairs on the Business Logic Layer page under Text Label Construction section.
Correct filter details are presented if you apply a filter to a Boolean field.

Labels: Application Factory, Azure, BLOB, Release Notes, Reports, Web App Generator

Tuesday, August 23, 2011Print Subscribe

Enhanced Charts, Sample Databases

New release of Code On Time web app generator includes a collection of bug fixes and enhancements.

Chart support was enhanced to allow X axes with grouping for data fields of type Date and DateTime. For example, create an ASP.NET 4.0 project with the sample Northwind database and activate Project Designer. Find Orders data controller on All Controllers tab and create a new view of type Chart. Configure the data fields of the chart as shown in the picture.

Generate the sample app and activate the new view. You will see a chart of orders groups by quarter. You can now print the chart by clicking on print icon in the pager area of the chart view.

It is now possible to create a database straight from the web app generator database connection configuration string.

Sample databases are support for MS SQL Server. For example, you can create Northwind sample with just a few clicks.

User interface of the Project Wizard has been changed to present Business Logic Layer, Membership and Authentication, and Features pages as tabbed views.

URL Hashing is the new EASE feature available in Unlimited edition. The purpose of this feature is to encrypt any hyperlinks produced by Navigate action, Hyperlink Format String, and History. URL Hashing will also ensure that any attempts to specify URL parameters other than _link or ReturnUrl will result in Access Denied message. This allows to provide assurance that only authorized commands are passed to the application. The tutorial will be available shortly.

New projects will not be trying to treat table/view names with “_” in them as the source of grouping schema. This property can be enabled on Features page if needed. Most developers will not want this feature to be enabled.

Repeating patterns of words in labels of the baseline app are now detected. The code generator will reduce any patters with up to four words.

The issue with master detail navigation and switching between grid and form views has been resolved.

Multiple selection in grid views with a single primary key will affect Report and Actions items on the action bar. Only selected records are included in the output of reports and export actions if a multi-row selection is detected.

SQL Server’s hierarchyid and geography fields are now correctly processed. It is now possible to create an application from Adventure Works 2008 R2 without any errors.

The bug with "View Details" arrow in Project Designer views has been fixed.

Check Box List now fully supports context fields, which allows implementing cascading dependencies on many-to-many fields.

Memory management in the code generator has been improved to further increase the speed of code generation. The benefits will be visible in Premium and Unlimited editions on quad-core machines.

Hyperlink Format String with lookups is working correctly with NULL values when Relationship Explorer or URL Hashing is enabled.

Rendering of an automatic report from the view with multiple image fields will result in a correctly generated report.

Labels: Application Factory, Charts, EASE, Release Notes, Web App Generator

Friday, August 12, 2011Print Subscribe

Reporting Enhancements & Web App Publishing

Code On Time has released the new update that includes several enhancements and bug fixes.

Reporting in has been enhanced to print a form-layout if report is activated from a form views. Reports will now print Charts and images. Reports support explicit portrait and landscape orientation and multiple font sizes. You can create a permanent report template and have it customized in Visual Studio. We are working on a tutorial covering all of these topics.

All web apps now offer “publish” option on the start page of the code generator. Publishing results in a production of file set ready for deployment to your web server.

Form-style layout and support for images were included in ASP.NET 4.0 version only. We expect to bring reporting capabilities of ASP.NET 3.5 web apps in line with ASP.NET 4.0 when SharePoint Factory is released to production.

Version of the web application code generator is displayed in the status bar.
Navigation between records in a form view will result in correct printing and exporting of the current record only. Previously complete list of records was included in the export record set and printed reports if user navigating between records in a form view.
Code Generator now supports new expression stringFormatExpression.
Report template in ASP.NET 4.0 will produce a report for Chart views. This report will take in account any user defined filters.
Pattern escaping for SQL Server has been implemented. Quick Find and other search operations resulting in LIKE comparison will have the value escapted to allow finding symbols %, _, and [.
Read about it at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms179859.aspx.
Clearing of a user-defined filter in a view via "x" button in the filter description will only clear the filters from the fields that are not hidden. Previously this was causing incorrect behavior in Project Designer and some other instances.
Custom report templates are now supported. Select any view in a data controller (gridf1, editForm1) and indicate that you want to have a report template. Generate the project. You will find the report template in ~/Reports folder of your application (Web Site Factory) or in the class library (Web App Factory and Azure Factory). Click “develop” link next in the Actions column on the start page of the code generator and modify report template as needed. The report will be engaged whenever requested from the corresponding view.
Report template for grid /data sheet views automatically determines the page orientation. You can choose a specific page orientation if you edit Orientation property of a data controller view.
Report template now supports Font Size property. Select X-Small, Small, Medium, Large, or X-Large font size for a given data controller view.
Upgrading of the product edition will cause the project to be re-generated to reflect new features.
Web App Factory and Web Site Factory now support publishing. Select this option to produce a set of files ready for deployment to your server. You can publish an app on the start page of the project wizard.
"Small" and "toll" image thumbnails are fitted better in the image preview rectangle rendered for binary / image fields.
Modal forms now support annotations. If you select a modal form then you will notice a clip icon next to form navigation buttons (up and down arrows).
Annotations are now supported with Windows Authentication.
“Print” icon is now displayed in modal views next to form navigation buttons if any “ReportAs…” is available.
Resizing of modal views with tabbed categories has been improved. Switching of tabs will allow the tab content to take the maximum available size and scroll if the content does not fit on 4/5 of the page height.
VB.NET "Handles" clause in code-behind class methods is produced only for for master, aspx, or ascx pages to remove the conflict with certain name patterns in business rule methods.
Context field values are now included in "Details" page link when a user click on the arrow next to lookup fields.
Test Bench preview will start the preview with URL parameters that allows saving of the data in form views.

Labels: Deployment, Release Notes, Reports, Web App Generator