New Stuff

Resources for Your Developer Toolbox

Theresa W. Carey

Contents

.NET Digital Imaging Tools
Application Code Generator
Create and Support State Machines
Driver Development Toolkit
Database in Your Pocket
Presentation Layer Components
The Bookshelf

.NET Digital Imaging Tools

Pegasus Imaging Corporation recently released ImagXpress Professional 6.0 and ImagXpress Standard 6.0, digital imaging software development tools that are compatible with Microsoft® .NET. Both ImagXpress editions are now available as .NET managed controls. Developers may write a complete document or color imaging application using up to 1,000 properties and methods in .NET. The TwainPRO, PrintPRO, and CapturePRO controls contained in ImagXpress Professional now run as managed controls within a .NET environment as well. The company's Smartscan Xpress family of products that include barcode, ICR, OCR, OMR, and MICR technology have also been released as .NET managed controls.

Application Code Generator

Iron Speed Inc. has released Iron Speed Designer, an application generator that helps IT departments accelerate the development of Web applications and Web Services. Iron Speed can generate up to 80 percent of a Web application including complex features ranging from the Web-based UI to database management.

Given a data model and workflow information, Iron Speed automatically generates the Web-based user interface pages and UI code, workflow logic and SQL queries, and database access code. The generated application includes such features as session management, database connection pooling, and user access control, as well as enhanced UI functionality like search and navigation. The Icon Speed Designer creates Web-based UI code, including screens and data input pages. Advanced features include search, navigation, data validation, table pagination, dashboard pages, data import/export wizards, and reports with filtering and sorting.

The application infrastructure includes workflow logic and SQL queries, session management, database access code, user access control and authentication, security, caching, complex data types, e-mail notification, and audit trails.

Last, but not least, the database management capabilities include database schema, database connection pooling, record locking, and transaction management. Automatic data migration keeps the database synchronized with each maintenance release.

Create and Support State Machines

Desaware Inc. has announced the release of StateCoder 1.0, a .NET class framework solution for developers to create and support state machines using Visual Basic® .NET, C#, and other .NET-compatible languages. StateCoder also improves the reliability of applications, components, and services that make use of the multithreading and asynchronous features of .NET. State machines reflect a design pattern that can result in code improvements in certain types of applications including reduced costs, improved testability, and higher reliability. Typical uses for StateCoder include any multithreaded project, predictive ASP.NET projects, projects that manage asynchronous calls or background operations, projects that implement protocols or data format conversions.

Driver Development Toolkit

Jungo Software Technologies Inc. recently announced the availability of WinDriver and KernerlDriver 5.20. In this latest release, Jungo adds support for the Windows® Driver Model and provides plug-and-play and power management event handling for enabling both improved control of hardware devices and better integration with the operating system. Other new features include support for 64-bit data transfer on x86 platforms running 32-bit operating systems and an API for the PLX Technology Inc. PCI 9656 64-bit I/O Accelerator chip.

WinDriver and KernelDriver are designed to simplify the development of device drivers for USB, PCI, CompactPCI, ISA, ISAPnP, and EISA custom hardware. The tools feature graphical development environments, APIs, diagnostic and debug utilities and samples, and eliminate the need for both kernel and DDK knowledge. Drivers developed with WinDriver require installation of only one kernel module on target computers. WinDriver automates INF installation, eliminating the multiple steps involved in the user's exposure to the Found New Hardware wizard in Windows.

Database in Your Pocket

PhatWare Corporation has announced the availability of Pocket dbExplorer 2.0, a database management utility for Windows-powered mobile devices. Pocket dbExplorer is a system utility that allows users to browse, view, edit, and manage databases on Windows-powered Pocket PCs, handheld PCs, and palm-sized PCs. It allows you to back up and restore one or more databases and system registry settings to a file, which can be stored on the flash memory card or copied onto the desktop PC. Any database can be exported in comma- or tab-separated text files through Pocket dbExplorer.

One of the new features is the advanced database editor that allows you to view and modify any system or application database located in the standard object store on the mobile device. In addition, Pocket dbExplorer has passed Microsoft logo testing requirements and is now certified with the Microsoft Designed for Windows for Pocket PC logo.

Presentation Layer Components

Infragistics has announced the release of NetAdvantage Suite 2.0, a suite of presentation layer components, featuring components for Microsoft development environments: Visual Studio® .NET, the .NET Framework (ASP.NET), and Visual Studio 6.0. Version 2.0 includes the introduction of UltraWinToolbars and UltraWin-Editors, as well as version 2.0 of UltraWinGrid.

UltraWinToolbars enable developers to deliver the UI experience of Microsoft Office XP and Office 2000 with the power of .NET. Written in C#, UltraWinToolbars provides features such as flying and fading toolbars, customizable menus, and dockable forms like those in Visual Studio .NET. In UltraWinToolbars you'll find flexible container support, customizable merging of MDI child-form toolbars, tools and menus, and an integrated design-time utility. UltraWinToolbars also includes multiple built-in tool types such as Button, ComboBox, PopUpControlContainer, ControlContainer, MDIWindowsList, various Popup tools, and a Fontlist. You can also create personalized menus, menu animations, and shadows.

UltraWinEditors allows developers to create applications with numerous data entry options, including masked editors and Most Recently Used information. UltraWinEditors includes text, combo, FontName, DateTime, Currency, numeric, CheckEditor, ColorPicker, Option set, Calculator, Progress Bar, CalendarCombo, and a MaskedEdit Editor for Windows Forms controls. Users can employ NetAdvantage's Presentation Layer Framework's Appearance Object to apply colors, fonts, images, text alignment, and other characteristics. DropDown Events supporting a dropdown provide SelectionChanged, BeforeDropDown, and AfterCloseUp. You can also use spin buttons that allow better handling of incrementing or decrementing by the amount specified.

UltraWinGrid 2.0 delivers new features to the Windows Forms grid, including compressed CardView, compact GroupBy, in-cell drop-down editing, run-time row filtering, and summary rows. UltraWinGrid uses the Embeddable Editors from UltraWinEditors. These features give the hierarchical data grid an appearance that integrates with Office XP. Run-time row filtering is now possible per band, based on predefined or customized criteria.

The Bookshelf

Addison-Wesley has joined forces with Microsoft to create the Microsoft .NET Development Series, books for the .NET developer by the leaders and pioneers of the Microsoft .NET development team. The series was specifically designed to meet developers' needs for practical, real-world advice, complete with examples. The titles are written for developers at multiple levels, from Shawn Wildermuth's introductory tutorial, Pragmatic ADO.NET to Don Box's Essential .NET for the high-level developer. Another title in the series is Programming in the .NET Environment, by Damien Watkins, Mark Hammond, and Brad Abrams.

In Essential .NET, Don Box and his coauthors examine the .NET strategy and explain the glue of the .NET Framework: the common language runtime (CLR). The authors explain the essentials of C #, .NET, and the CLR. The book features practical detail, expert advice, and is designed to be the resource that advanced developers will reach for first with questions about the CLR and .NET.

Pragmatic ADO.NET guides the reader through ADO.NET from the top down, showing readers the hows and whys of using ADO.NET with many examples. It is intended to be an introduction to ADO.NET for developers with some knowledge of data access.

Programming in the .NET Environment shows you how to produce generic frameworks, libraries, classes, and tools to be used in the .NET Framework. It demonstrates how to use the right language to develop parts of a system and incorporate these parts at run time, regardless of language differences. The book concludes with a series of appendices from contributors who are active in the .NET community. Find out more about all the titles in the series by checking out https://www.awprofessional.com.

Send your New Stuff to Theresa at newstuff@microsoft.com.

Theresa W. Careyis a freelance writer who lives in California. Her byline has appeared in Barron's and PC World.