http://www.devexpress.com/Products/NET/eXpressApp/

Next generation application framework that builds on DevEx's existing technology incorporates. It's beta 2. It uses WinFX stuff like WWF. It look interesting enough, but I haven't determined whether or not it relies on it's own persistence tool - XPO. I hope not.

Thought that you might be interested.

Jeff

I can tell you....this is really quite high-tech stuff. Look at their demo-project...everything is dynamically created (forms, reports...). They tend to deliver a complete framework with all necessary elements for building and supporting enterprise applications like workflow, communication, updating, maintenance, etc...

I tried CTP1, and it appeared to me a vehicle to sell their controls. If you want your app to be how they think it should be, you're fine. Though I got the feeling that if you want your app to be different, it's not that useful.

It has the same drawbacks as a lot of these 'click this button to get your app generated for you' kind of systems: it pushes you to use a complete application setup while that might not fit your needs.

IMHO application development should work the other way around: you first think of what you have to develop, functionality wise, then decide how you want to do that, and use general purpose code to build the layers of the app, and then you can decide if you want a tool to generate parts for you, like a datalayer, like some crud screens etc.

Though I'm sure some users might find it useful, however if you want to put these kind of frameworks (it's not a framework, but they call it that, so let's keep calling it a framework) to work for you as YOU want, you need some serious MDA/MDD tooling as well. They don't have that.

Sure it's an additional product to sell their existing products, but their "framework" looks like a nice start to quickly build simple solutions. Specially their LayoutControl gives end-users much more influence over the looks-and-feel of something they have to work with and that's pretty OK for my customers, but I agree that such a solution will never fulfill all your needs and whishes.

Perhaps it's more about extending the .NET Framework with generic higher-level components (like WWF, Tasks, Contacts, Notes, app- and DB updating, etc..) for integration with your existing apps, just like a set of controls that bring you generic functionality which, of course, can be tuned to some extend.

I think such "module frameworks" can give developers a boosted startup and shortens time-to-market.

grtz, Danny

Frans how far are the GUI Templates .... (silly me!)

adrianporger wrote:

Frans how far are the GUI Templates .... (silly me!)

Not far away (but not done, as not all more important work is done ).