NConstruct Builder and Database Model Changes
NConstruct v2.5 - Breaking Changes
New NConstruct version brings some significant improvements and new features.
They are related with higher productivity, easier customization and better user
experience. Major improvements are described in this document. For a complete list of new features, enhancements and resolved
issues, check What's new in NConstruct 2.5 document.
1. WCF Web Services Hosting in IIS
2. UI component settings
3. New ribbon-style single edit form (DevExpress components only)
4. Automatic custom forms generation
5. Full support for Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Dialect
1. WCF Web Services Hosting in IIS
NConstruct v2.5 introduces new configuration and communication option for Windows
desktop applications. In previous versions, you have to run NConstruct
application server on a server machine as Windows service process or by
executing server's executable (later is appropriate only for temporary or
testing purposes). In such case, NConstruct application server and Windows
clients communicates through tcp, http or icp channel. One dedicated port has to
be enabled for this type of communication which might represent a problem with
security policies in some cases.
To avoid this problems, we've supported new configuration option - usage of IIS
WCF web services. To use WCF web services you just have to tick "Use IIS WCF web
services" in the "Application settings" wizard's step.
There is a significant difference in handling generated solution. Before opening
generated solution with enabled WCF web services, please read an article NConstruct & WCF Web Services Hosting in IIS.
2. UI component settings
New NConstruct version enables customizing some major UI settings through
NConstruct Builder wizzard. Each change is immediately shown in a preview panel
so it is very simple to manage them. Accordingly, some new settings are
introduced in NConstruct Server and NConstruct Client and they could be changed
during the development of an application.
Login settings
There are three simple settings for customizing NConstruct built-in Winforms
login form:
- background image in the upper part of the form
- top title
- footer text
All settings are immediately previewed in the Preview panel on the righ side.
Selected picture is copied to client startup project as a "login.png" image and
can be changed. Top title text is copied to a "LoginSubTitle" key in a
"Localization.resx" file which is located in the client startup project's
"LocalResources" folder. Footer text is copied to a "LoginFooter" key in the
"Localization.resx" file.
Skin settings (only for DevExpress Winforms UI components)
Initial DevExpress skin can be set through NConstruct Builder wizard in the
"Skin (Dx)" tab. This setting will have effect only if you have installed latest
DevExpress Winforms UI controls and you select to use DevExpress UI controls in
the "Controls selection" step of NConstruct Builder.
All dummy controls in the preview panel changes accordingly to the skin selected
in the navigation panel. End users can override this settings through Appearance
combo-box in the final Windows application which is located in the status bar.
Palette settings (only for Krypton Toolkit Winforms UI components)
Initial Krypton pallete can be set through NConstruct Builder wizard in the
"Palette (Kr)" tab. This setting will have effect only if you have installed
latest Krypton Toolkit Winforms UI controls and you select to use Krypton
Toolkit UI controls in the "Controls selection" step of NConstruct Builder.
All dummy controls in the preview panel changes accordingly to the skin selected
in the navigation panel. End users can override this settings through Appearance
combo-box in the final Windows application which is located in the status bar.
Skin settings (only for DevExpress Winforms UI components)
There are two setting for Navigation Bar which can be set through the wizard:
- PaintStyleKind
- PaintStyleName
PaintStyleName overrides DevExpress skin setting. Both settings are applied on a
dummy Navigation Bar control in the preview panel on the right side.
Generic Entity Edit form
Generic entity form is used for displaying single record edit form. If an entity
has subsets (or related underlying tables in a database model) which are
displayed as data grids in a tab control, developer can choose between three
different layouts:
- Basic data on the first tab
- Basic data above tabs
- Basic data beside tabs
This is a default setting for all entites. You can customize
each entity's form representation layout in the "Object management" step by
clicking on each enttiy, selecting "Attributes" tab in the "Entity" group. Using
"Master-detail layout" radio button group you can change form's layout for each
entity.
You can also change these settings in generated solution by
changing "LayoutOrientationAttribute" attribute in each generated entity class.
There is another setting in this tab which is used only for DevExpress UI
components: "DevExpress Edit Form Type". You can choose between classic and
ribbon style. See also New ribbon-style single edit form
chapter for more details about ribbon-style form.
3. New ribbon-style single edit form (DevExpress components
only)
We've created a new ribbon-style single record edit form for DevExpress UI
components users. Ribbon-style form uses VGridControl for displaying basic data
on the single record edit form. This brings more customizing power for both
developers and end-users.
Here is a comparison between classic and ribbon-style form for the same record:
Classic form:
Ribbon-style form:
To use ribbon-style forms you just have to select "Ribbon Form" radio button in
the "Edit form" tab in the "Controls selection" NConstruct Builder wizard's
step:
You can switch between new type and classic layout in the generated application
with simple setting in client's app.config: "UseRibbonAndVerticalGrid".
4. Automatic custom forms generation
Up to v2.5, NConstruct supports only so caled
on-the-fly forms generation. This means there was no code for each form - all
forms (both table-style forms for DTOs as well as single record forms for entiy
editing) were generated in a run-time using two generic forms. There are enough
information in DTO and entity declaration for using this declarative approach.
But in some cases developers need to create complex form where information in
DTOs and entities are not enough.
In such case, you had to create a custom forms. This wasn't mission imposible in
previous versions but it wasn't an easy task, too. To avoid first step obstacles
we've added automatic custom forms generation. To create custom forms instead of
using generic ones, just click on a DTO in the "Objects management" wizard's
step and tick "Create custom table and single record edit forms" check-box.
5. Full support for Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Dialect
As NHibernate included Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Dialect, we've also added this
database type among others. It is displayed in the "Database type selection"
wizard's step.
Useful links
What's new in NConstruct 2.5
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