Blog: Posts from August, 2011

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.
  

New update delivers the first component of EASE (Enterprise Application Services Engine). Use Access Control Rules to implement sophisticated data segmentation in multi-tenant applications.

Here is the list of the latest enhancements:

• Access Control Rules are included in Premium and Unlimited edition.
  
• Data controller fields can now be marked as “hidden” under General section of field’s property page in Project Designer. Hidden fields are included in all data views but not visible to end users. This feature may be useful in implementing application-wide access control rules.
  
• Lookup fields with Items Style now support Copy property for multi-field copy. Read the access control rules tutorial to see an example.
   
• It is now possible to create a user account straight from a lookup field with Items Style of User Id Lookup or User Name Lookup. Only users authorized to access membership manager will be able to create new user accounts. See access control rules tutorial for an example.
   
• Component DataViewTextBox now correctly refers to the new Ajax Control Toolkit implementation of Auto Complete Behavior. See example at /blog/2010/03/custom-search-bar-with-auto-complete.html.
   
• Significant enhancements to the speed of code generation. Web App Generator creates code up to 40% faster. 
   
• Sandbox project in Web App Factory now has its own AssemblyInfo.* file to prevent MSBuild "fatal error" in the progress log.
   
• Controller.cs(vb) has been split in 4 files to improve the speed of code generation and simplify maintenance.