LLBLGen Pro v5.0 CTP 1 released!

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Otis avatar
Otis
LLBLGen Pro Team
Posts: 39589
Joined: 17-Aug-2003
# Posted on: 17-Mar-2015 13:52:04   

We've released LLBLGen Pro v5.0 CTP1! A CTP (Community Technical Preview) is a pre-beta release with the features we've implemented thus far to get extra feedback during development. It comes with its own time limited license which expires on June 1st, 2015.

There will be (a lot) more features added before we reach RTM, so don't be disappointed if your killer feature isn't on the list yet. We spent a lot of work on 'behind the scenes' code like a real time system and added a new UI.

We've enclosed a readme.docx with detailed descriptions of all the new features, especially about the headline feature, relational model data synchronization.

The runtime / templates haven't been changed that much so are compatible with v4.2 at this point. Please give it a spin and tell us what you think! Feedback can be posted in the specific forum for this CTP: http://www.llblgen.com/tinyforum/Threads.aspx?ForumID=56

How to get it? The CTP is available to v4 customers and can be found in the customer area under v4.2, Betas.

What's new

The following describes briefly the new features / changes in LLBLGen Pro v5.0 till now. More features will be added before RTM.

Designer

The following features are new / changes in v5

Small changes

  • The Error & Warnings list doesn't popup anymore when errors / warnings are detected. This is done to prevent it from popping up when the validation is run in parallel of user actions: it would steal focus away from what the user is doing.
  • When moving around an entity in the Model View, the connections are automatically re-routed around existing elements and no longer crossing over existing elements.
  • Logs for refresh are now also emitted to the ApplicationOutput.

Main new features

New, skinnable, modern UI The designer now comes with a new UI, which is skinnable and is based on DevExpress controls. While still Winforms, it looks / feels modern with flat design, new icons and color themes the user can choose from to meet their needs. With the new UI also come nice things like floating editors. A different theme/skin can be chosen from the Edit menu and is remembered the next time the designer is started.

New Relational Model Data Sync System In short: the Sync system. Sync replaces both database first related actions like refresh catalog and model first related actions like auto-map and adjust relational model data. It allows a sync source to be set for a schema which controls the source from where table related relational model data is obtained from: the database or the entity model. Stored procedures/views/tvfs are always obtained from the database. Everything is managed from a single tab, the Sync Relational Model Data tab, which is opened by clicking the sync button on the toolbar or menu item in the project menu.

A big benefit from the new system is that it will function even when the project contains errors: it's no longer necessary to correct project elements before a refresh. It also doesn't adjust relational model data on database synced schemas, so it's no longer required to export DDL SQL before code generation because the validation adjusted some fields based on a change.

Revamped Home tab The Home tab now shows active tiles the user can click to navigate through one of the scenarios (database first / model first and new / existing project). Which tiles are shown depends on what the user did last and the state of the designer. It's an easy way to get started with the designer and replaces the webpage based home tab which was static.

Better preferences dialog The preferences are now split up into 'Designer preferences' and 'New Project Defaults'. This fixes a big confusion with users where they changed a setting in preferences only to find out it didn't have any effect as the setting was only used when a new project was created.

Search in Project Explorer / Catalog Explorer Directly available in the Project Explorer and Catalog Explorer are the search boxes: type in any string and the nodes matching the string are kept, all other nodes are filtered out. This allows finding elements with ease. Removing the search replaces the tree as it was before the search.

Real time Validation The designer now validates a project in real time using the real time task system. Every change to the project triggers validation which is started after a short interval.

Frans Bouma | Lead developer LLBLGen Pro