VCL.NET support for ECO... a light winks on
David Clegg
earlier today, when a thought dawned on me.
The only thing that really makes ECO a WinForms technology is its
support for .NET WinForms binding via the
Reference/Expression/CurrencyManagerHandle components, and the
EcoAutoForm stuff. The other underlying services and frameworks are not
really dependant on WinForms at all.
For the life of me, I can't see why it wouldn't be feasible to use
VCL.NET as your presentation framework, and still have full access to
the EcoSpace IPersistenceService, IUndoService, IDirtyListService,
IOCLService etc. The only thing you'd lose is the ability to have your
domain objects bound to your GUI, which isn't really a big deal to me
as I was in the habit of manually populating from my BO classes with my
last few development projects. Hang on...
<type, type, compile, mumble, type, compile>
OK, now I've quickly thrown together a prototype to test my theory. It
uses the assembly that my currently under construction WinForms and
ASP.NET ECO apps uses, and simply shows all instances of the Course
class from my model in a TListView. It does, however use a
PersistenceMapperClient to talk to my ECO server application, and this
all worked out of the box (as expected). I've uploaded it to
.attachements in case anyone is interested.
Its only a proof of concept thing, but seems to strengthen my belief
that there is no reason why ECO and VCL.NET are mutually exclusive. It
only has the code for the VCL.NET app, and includes the binaries for
the assembly containing my model, and for the ECO server (connection
hardcoded to tcp://localhost:8000/PocketCaddyServer). The ECO Server
has a PersistenceMapperBDP which is talking to an InterBase database
with the hardcoded path of POCKETCADDY.GDB (also included in the zip),
but I see no reason why PersistenceMapperXML couldn't be used in the
VCL.NET client for testing. I only chose to use my ECO server to
further re-inforce the whole proof of concept deal.
Am I missing something here? Is there any fundamental reason why my
cunning plan wouldn't work?
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David Clegg
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Peter Morris [Droopy eyes software]
> Am I missing something here? Is there any fundamental reason why my
> cunning plan wouldn't work?
Not really. I believe that the only incompatibilities with ECO + VCL.net
are
1) I have heard you cannot drop expression handles etc onto your forms
(haven't tried it myself)
2) Databinding
It would be possible to create a TDataset descendant that would allow you to
do the "databinding" in VCL.net, there was a dataset component in Bold.
--
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David Clegg
> Not really. I believe that the only incompatibilities with ECO +
> VCL.net are 1) I have heard you cannot drop expression handles etc
> onto your forms (haven't tried it myself) 2) Databinding
Yeah, thats what I figured. And my (admittedly basic) proof of concept
VCL.NET app seems to add weight to the feasibility.
Even with the code required to populate the GUI elements, I can still
see huge benefits from using ECO with VCL.NET. Perhaps I'll create a
VCL.NET front end as an alternative to my current WinForms one
(Hmm...gotta stop doing that. My todo list is starting to rival John
Kasters <g>)
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Jonas Hogstrom [Borland]
No, you are completely correct. There is nothing in Eco that prevents
you from using VCL as a presentation layer. All of the Assemblies other
than the Borland.Eco.Windows.Forms (and .web/.vcl) does not have any
dependencies on any gui architecture). The only thing that the
vcl-assembly contains is a VCL-based dequeuer (that hooks VCL OnIdle).
The Eco handles inherit from System.ComponentModel.Component, so they
can actually be created (in code) and added to a VCL form, but you can
not register the Eco DLLs as VCL components in the IDE (I'm not quite
sure why). Further more, there is nothing in the Eco handles that makes
them exposed as Datasets. There is a VCL class called TListConnector
that acts as a bridge between an IBindingList (winforms thing) and a
TDataSet. We have not done any tests with this component ourselves, but
it might prove useful.
Using Eco with VCL will require quite alot more work than using
winforms.
/Jonas
Craig Stuntz [TeamB]
> 2) Databinding
>
> It would be possible to create a TDataset descendant that would allow
> you to do the "databinding" in VCL.net, there was a dataset component
> in Bold.
Or custom controls like Bold had.
Or just wait for Avalon.
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David Clegg
> Or custom controls like Bold had.
>
> Or just wait for Avalon.
Like I stated in my original post, having an unbound GUI doesn't bother
this little black duck in the slightest. I was more concerned with
proving my assertion that ECO and VCL.NET can play nicely together.
WinForms makes it easier, but VCL.NET can still get you there in the
end. My current ECO WinForms GUI is nearly finished, so I won't bother
re-writing it at this stage, although I might create a VCL.NET variant
just to show it can be done, and with the hopes that other ECO users
may benefit.
It may also go some way to showing the "what use is VCL.NET? I want a
native .NET solution" crowd that VCL.NET is just as much a first class
.NET citizen as WinForms is.
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David Clegg
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Holger Flick
> Yeah, thats what I figured. And my (admittedly basic) proof of concept
> VCL.NET app seems to add weight to the feasibility.
Hi David,
how did you get the ECOSpace.pas-file into your VCL.NET app? Did you
just add an EcoSpace? Furthermore, do the toolbar items on the bottom
appear by themselves?
Hope you will write a data pump from ExpressionHandle to some sort of
VCL.NET datasource :-)
Regards,
Holger
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David Clegg
> how did you get the ECOSpace.pas-file into your VCL.NET app?
File|New|Other|Delphi for .NET Projects|New ECO Files|EcoSpace :-)
> Furthermore, do the toolbar items on the bottom
> appear by themselves?
They're all present and accounted for. What you have to remember is
that the EcoSpace isn't dependant on WinForms in any way and is just a
standard .NET class, which VCL.NET applications have no problems
consuming.
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John Kaster (Borland)
> My todo list is starting to rival John Kasters <g>
You DON'T wish!
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John Kaster (Borland)
> Using Eco with VCL will require quite alot more work than using
> winforms.
With current implementations, at least ;)
David Clegg
> You DON'T wish!
Indeed <g>
The ECO VCL.NET articles 90% finished, BTW. Should be able to submit it
tonight or tomorrow.
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Peter Morris [Droopy eyes software]
John Kaster (Borland)
> The ECO VCL.NET articles 90% finished, BTW. Should be able to submit
> it tonight or tomorrow.
Excellent.
David Clegg
>
> I look forward to reading it!
Don't expect any radical ECO insights. For example, the model I use in
my article consists of 1 class with 4 attributes :-)
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Peter Morris [Droopy eyes software]
combination with ECO, so it will be interesting :-)
David Clegg
> That's okay, I have never bothered looking at VCL .net, let alone in
> combination with ECO, so it will be interesting :-)
Put it this way. If you know ECO, and you know VCL, its not rocket
science <g>
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Tao Lei
"David Clegg" <dcl...@gmail.com> wrote news:xn0e5bimy...@newsgroups.borland.com...
David Clegg
> If VCL.net support Eco, then I can use Eco with IntraWeb, that sounds
> great.
There is no data binding support, but there is no reason why ECO and
VCL.NET can't be used together. Keep an eye out for a BDN article
demonstrating how easy it is. Its 90% written, and I hope to submit it
for publishing this weekend.
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Tao Lei
"David Clegg" <dcl...@gmail.com> wrote news:xn0e5bmot...@newsgroups.borland.com...
Jesper Hogstrom [Borland]
"Jonas Hogstrom [Borland]" <jonas.h...@borland.com.guesswhattoremove>
wrote in message news:42e0...@newsgroups.borland.com...
> The Eco handles inherit from System.ComponentModel.Component, so they
> can actually be created (in code) and added to a VCL form, but you can
> not register the Eco DLLs as VCL components in the IDE (I'm not quite
> sure why).
VCL components need to be compiled with a specific attribute iirc. The ECO
components are not.
--Jesper