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DeKlarit 4.0 is fully integrated with Visual Studio 2005. |
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The main design goals for DeKlarit 4.0 were to take advantage of the new features in Visual Studio 2005, the .NET Framework 2.0, and the Patterns and Practices Application Blocks. |
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| Enhanced Metadata |
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The power of a code generation tool is directly related to the quality of its metadata. The more information it knows about your domain problem, the more problems it can solve. |
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In each DeKlarit version, we find new ways to add more information to the DeKlarit model. |
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DeKlarit 4.0 lets you specify the layout (see Layout Editor) for every DeKlarit component, adding enormous flexibility and power to the generated client applications. This unique feature allows you to design a layout and reuse it in any client platform. You can also assign an image (see Images) to each DeKlarit component, which will be used in the client applications each time they are referenced, like a menu or a navigation link. |
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In addition to organizing your components in folders, now you can organize them in namespaces, which will make using the generated components, especially in large projects, much easier. |
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You can also view your conceptual DeKlarit model with the new Business Components Diagrams. |
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DeKlarit 4.0 includes a new Database Reverse Engineering Tool that is more powerful and flexible than the previous one, helping you to map most of the existing database schemas easily. |
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| Business Framework Code Generation |
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The DeKlarit-generated Business Framework is the core of your .NET application. All the improvements made to it have an immediate impact on your application's features, quality and performance. |
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Each new database engine supported increases your freedom to choose your platform and adds to your potential customer list the companies that have already decided what database to use. As DeKlarit does all the work of creating the schema, maintaining it, and generating specific SQL code for each one, it's quite easy to make your application work with a different database. DeKlarit 4.0 adds MySQL and DB/2 for iSeries to the list of supported database engines. |
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The .NET Framework 2.0 has new features for ADO.NET DataSets that are important for DeKlarit customers. Some of those features are always available (like improved DataSet performance), and others need to be turned on in the DataSet. DeKlarit improves the Visual Studio support for those features. |
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Most professional software applications require functionality like logging, caching, encryption, authorization, etc. Instead of creating our own implementation, DeKlarit leverages Enterprise Library 2.0, providing your applications with a proven, extensible, and high quality framework. |
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The power of the SQL code generated by DeKlarit has been greatly improved, especially for hierarchical Data Providers or Business Components. The current implementation always executes one SQL sentence for each level in the hierarchy even when you are using pagination. |
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| Business Framework Usability |
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DeKlarit 4.0 makes it easy to use the new runtime and design time data binding features in .NET 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005. |
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For ASP.NET applications, there is a DeKlaritDataSource (see DeKlarit ASP.NET DataSource) component that can be bound to any data-aware control, providing the whole power of the DeKlarit-generated DataAdapters without requiring any code. |
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For Windows Forms and Smart Devices applications, the new DataSources Add-in provides integration with the new Data Sources window in Visual Studio 2005, easing the process of creating data bound forms. |
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| Security |
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DeKlarit 4.0 includes redesigned security support by taking advantage of the new .NET Membership and Role APIs. DeKlarit includes Membership and Role providers for all the supported databases, and adds a PermissionProvider to manage permissions. |
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Users and roles can be maintained with any tool that supports the Membership and Roles API, including the ones built in ASP.NET. DeKlarit includes a Windows Forms administration tool that can be used from Visual Studio or integrated into the Windows Forms applications generated by DeKlarit (see Security Administration Tools). |
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All the client applications generated by DeKlarit use the Membership API to authenticate and the PermissionProvider to check for authorization permissions. |
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| Add-Ins Code Generation |
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Windows Forms |
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All code generation tools are faced with the challenge of finding a good way to integrate the code generated by the tool with the code the programmer needs to write. This problem was easily solved in the Business Framework layer; however, it's harder to tackle in the presentation layer, where the requirements for the UI can be very specific and it's quite impossible to express all the requirements in metadata. |
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To solve this problem, DeKlarit 4.0 generates Windows Forms applications using the Composite Application Block. This gives the DeKlarit user almost unlimited power to change the behavior of the generated application without modifying the generated code. Additionally, it is trivial to integrate several DeKlarit-generated applications in a single shell. |
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Additionally, the Windows Forms generator has been updated to support new features in .NET 2.0 like partial classes, flexible layouts, and the new Data Binding infrastructure. |
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When combined with the improved .NET Remoting add-in or the Web Services generator for WSE 3.0, it turns DeKlarit into a powerful tool for creating Smart Client connected applications. |
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ASP.NET |
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ASP.NET 2.0 has a significant number of improvements, and the DeKlarit Add-Ins take advantage of most of them: |
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ASP.NET Themes provide a way to easily change the appearance of a web application without modifying its code. DeKlarit takes advantage of them, and provides 3 default themes. |
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ASP.NET Master Pages provide a way to specify the structure of the site's page in only one place. All DeKlarit-generated forms are based on a master page, making it easy to customize the way they look. |
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ASP.NET Grids support paging with AJAX. By combining that feature with the new DeKlarit DataSources, we can easily enable that feature in every page with a minimum amount of code. |
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ASP.NET supports a new Membership and Role API, and provides a set of controls that integrate with it. As DeKlarit builds its security support on top of the API, the generated applications use all the ASP.NET security controls. | |
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Additionally, the generated forms have been redesigned to provide better functionality. |
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.NET Remoting |
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By using the .NET Remoting add-in you can make your applications run in multiple tiers, without modifying your client application code. |
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In DeKlarit 4.0, the .NET Remoting add-in has been simplified, and supports the new security features in .NET Framework 2.0. This means you can easily use Windows Security to authenticate to .NET Remoting services. |
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Web Services |
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By using the Web Services Enhancements 3.0 Add-in, you can make your applications run in multiple tiers, without modifying your client application code. |
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The new add-in supports authentication using the Membership API, Windows Authentication, or Kerberos. As WSE provides an easy way to customize the behavior of the services and clients without modifying the code, it's easy for you to use other features in the WSE stack. |
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| Miscellaneous |
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DeKlarit provides a way to automate the code generation process using MSBuild tasks. You can create projects, import/export components, set project properties, create databases, execute reorganizations, etc. |