Visual NHibernate

[Ricardo Peres]

Guys,

I have great news: after some talks with Gareth Hayter, of Slyce Software, he agreed to donate the Visual NHibernate (http://www.slyce.com/VisualNHibernate/) source code to the NHibernate community! IMO, it was a very generous gesture that should deserve all our appreciation.

Unfortunately for them, but fortunately for us, the product didn't make it commercially, so they retired it. It is a great product, nevertheless, and being open source offers exciting new possibilities.

We need to discuss if, and how, we can bring it closer to the rest of the NHibernate projects and a roadmap for future development. Of course, credit should always go to Slyce.

Thoughts?

RP

[Oskar Berggren]

For there to be any significant work done, I think an absolute requirement would be that someone step up and adopt it as maintainer.

What license?

/Oskar

--

---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "nhibernate-development" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to nhibernate-develo...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Ricardo Peres]

Oskar,

You mean, under what license it will be available? I do not know about the different open source licencing options, maybe others can help.

As for maintenance, I don't mind handling it, but I would expect also contributions from the other members, like yourself and Alex.

In my mind, the first thing would be to release it without the Slyce branding - of course, we should always include a reference to them, and give them credit.

RP

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to nhibernate-development+unsub...@googlegroups.com.

[Michael Möhle]

Thank you Ricardo and Gareth!

Very nice. Is there a chance to download it somewhere?

 

Michael

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to nhibernate-develo...@googlegroups.com.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

 

--

---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "nhibernate-development" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to nhibernate-develo...@googlegroups.com.

[Ricardo Peres]

Not yet... working on it!

@Oskar/@Alex: shall we setup a repository under GitHub/NHibernate for it?

RP

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to nhibernate-development+unsub...@googlegroups.com.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--

---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "nhibernate-development" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to nhibernate-development+unsub...@googlegroups.com.

[Ricardo Peres]

You can, however, download the product from their site.

RP

On Friday, November 21, 2014 11:41:15 AM UTC, mbd-team wrote:

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to nhibernate-development+unsub...@googlegroups.com.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--

---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "nhibernate-development" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to nhibernate-development+unsub...@googlegroups.com.

[Gunnar Liljas]

You need to check whether it uses any 3rd party components that are not redistributable. And even if they are redistributable, they may need extra licenses to allow development.

/G

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to nhibernate-develo...@googlegroups.com.

[Ricardo Peres]

Yes, of course. I will share all details soon.

RP

/G

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to nhibernate-development+unsubscri...@googlegroups.com.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--

---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "nhibernate-development" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to nhibernate-development+unsubscri...@googlegroups.com.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[eno...@gmail.com]

I get "The resource you are looking for has been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable."

for http://www.slyce.com/Downloads/Visual%20NHibernate%20Setup.exe on http://www.slyce.com/Downloads/

[Ricardo Peres]

I'll check with Gareth and will let you know.

RP

[Ricardo Peres]

The download link for Visual NHibernate is now working: http://www.slyce.com/Downloads/.

RP

[eno...@gmail.com]

Thanks, now I don't need to go through all the disks where I might have downloaded that installer years ago. ;)

[eno...@gmail.com]

I spoke too soon, the serial number (Free serial number: c9e52fda-12ca-4bee-825f-39f8312647a2) noted on the site doesn't work through the application dialog or via entering it directly on http://www.slyce.com/Support/?action=getTrial&trialNumber

[Klaus]

The link works, but the free serial number from http://www.slyce.com/VisualNHibernate/ seems to be invalid. I get a message "can't unlock". When i click on "visit website" and enter license number there i get the error "method not allowed". So for now i take a look at the tool with the trial version.

Regards
Klaus

[Klaus]

can't get the tool running. Neither the license key from http://www.slyce.com/VisualNHibernate/ works nor the trial can be activated.

Regards
Klaus

[Ricardo Peres]

I'll see what I can do.

RP

[Ricardo Peres]

You can now download a license file from http://www.slyce.com/VisualNHibernate/index.html, instead of using the serial.

RP

[Klaus Lüdenscheidt]

Thanks, it works now.

Regards
Klaus

[Klaus Lüdenscheidt]

Hi Ricardo,

since you announced that Visual NHibernate will become open source we have heard very litte about. I took a look at the tool and
could see that there is very much to do (beginning by the grisly UI and ending by missing support for the current NHibernate
version). As i think about to contribute (i always wanted to work at such a tool) i'd like to know how far the process is. Could
please give an update?

Regards
Klaus

[Ricardo Peres]

Hi,

Yes, my fault, I'm still in holiday mode...

Oskar or Alex: can you please set up a Jira project for VNH? We need that to start working on it.

I have thought of the following items:

- Branding (remove Slyce logos, while keeping a reference to them, as the original authors);

- Find replacements for the licensed libraries;

- Add optional support for NH 4, meaning, drop Iesi.Collections and use BCL;
- ...

Of course, all help is welcome! I think we can make a good thing out of it!

RP

[Alexander Zaytsev]

Ricardo, here you go https://nhibernate.jira.com/browse/VNH

--

---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "nhibernate-development" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to nhibernate-develo...@googlegroups.com.

[Ricardo Peres]

Thanks, Alex!

Guys who have tried VNH: please submit your issues there!

RP

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to nhibernate-development+unsub...@googlegroups.com.

[Ricardo Peres]

BTW, Alex, I can't seem to be able to create versions, components, etc... do I need more permissions?

RP

[Alexander Zaytsev]

Ricardo, you should be able now

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to nhibernate-develo...@googlegroups.com.

[Klaus]

Hi Ricardo,

i just created the very first two issues for VNH from which i think that they are the most important ones. Could you add add more entries in the "Component" combo box? The Issues belong more to the code generator as to the UI.

In my opinion the UI layout should become a complete rework to be more user friendly. This starts by the color theme and ends by the input screens (for example the mapping screen). I'm not sure about how granular is hould describe the issues. Should i add one issue "Rework mapping screen" and describe what should be done or should i add an issue for each detail (for example "syncronize highlighting of tree view and graphic in the Model view")?

I'm very interesting at the source code, because i may want to contribute. Do you have an idea how long it will last until the code is public?

Happy New Year
Klaus

[Klaus]

Hi Ricardo,

i just created the first JIRA issues. I have seen that there is only "UI" in the Component combobox. The issues i created belongs to the code generator so it would be nice if you could add some more components.

In my opinion the UI should become a complete rework to become more user friendly. But each one has it's own preference about look and feel of applications. I prefer a more wizard-like style with popup dialogs where the user is guided to the process. So i don't want to create UI related issues without a discussion about it.

Do you have an idea hwen the source code will be public available? I'm very interesting in it because i think about contributing.

Regards
Klaus

[Ricardo Peres]

Hi, Klaus!

Well, the code is ready, but it is in a private repository still because it has dependencies on third-parties that Slyce licensed at the time (ActiPro SyntaxEditor, DevComponents DotNetBar and DevArt Universal). In order for the code to be released as open source, these will need to be replaced with something else. Of course, it's a chicken and egg problem: if we don't release the code somewhere, nobody will try to find solutions. I'll certainly welcome your help as soon as we get this straight.

Oskar, Alex: what are your thoughts?

RP

[Ricardo Peres]

The required third parties are:

ActiPro SyntaxEditor (SyntaxEditor-Full-4.0.0290.zip)

DevComponents DotNetBar (DotNetBarSetup9506.msi)

DevArt Universal (dcUniversal340pro 3.40.310.exe)

Nullsoft Scriptable Install System (http://sourceforge.net/projects/nsis/files/NSIS%202/2.46/nsis-2.46-setup.exe/download)

RP

[Steve Bohlen]

I'd recommend that someone just strip the commercial dependencies (binaries) out of the source and release it to a public repo in a broken state.  Couldn't that short-circuit the chicken /egg issue and permit the community to participate in bootstrapping some replacements for the commercial dependencies...?

There's no rule that says "code in a repo must compile" ;)

-Steve B.

---

From: Ricardo Peres
Sent: ‎1/‎9/‎2015 12:33 PM

To: nhibernate-...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [nhibernate-development] Visual NHibernate

--

---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "nhibernate-development" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to nhibernate-develo...@googlegroups.com.

[Steve Bohlen]

Another option to consider: in a completely serendipitous aligning of fates, I just noticed that Syncfusion is now offering a "community edition" license to their full product suite (https://www.syncfusion.com/products/communitylicense).

Though "open source" doesn't seem to be mentioned explicitly, NHibernate certainly falls under the $1M revenue ceiling mentioned on that page :D

Possible that the UI control dependencies could be replaced by sim. functionality in Syncfusion controls (?). Heck, for all I know they might even have a syntax editor control too...!

Just a thought...clearly we could also search for OSS offerings to incorporate as well, but this might be an alternative worth at least exploring in re: a path of  lesser-resistance...

-Steve B.

---

From: Steve Bohlen
Sent: ‎1/‎9/‎2015 2:27 PM
To: nhibernate-...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: [nhibernate-development] Visual NHibernate

[Klaus Lüdenscheidt]

it's a good idea of Steven to publish the source code without the third party dependencies. I think the job to replace them is too big for a single person.

Using Syncfusion sounds like a good idea. I'm working with the suite for a long time in my commercial projects and made good experience with the controls. I just asked the sales team about open source projects. If i got an answer i will let you know.

I don't know what Controls of the DevArt Universal suite are used, but i believe there wil be an equivalent for each in Syncfusion. They even have a syntax editor. For the setup you can easily use a different solution. So this is no dependency for me.

Regards
Klaus

--

---
You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "nhibernate-development" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/nhibernate-development/RRjdjFjOmbs/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to nhibernate-develo...@googlegroups.com.

[Oskar Berggren]

2015-01-09 18:36 GMT+01:00 Ricardo Peres <rjp...@gmail.com>:
> The required third parties are:
>
> ActiPro SyntaxEditor (SyntaxEditor-Full-4.0.0290.zip)
> DevComponents DotNetBar (DotNetBarSetup9506.msi)
> DevArt Universal (dcUniversal340pro 3.40.310.exe)
> Nullsoft Scriptable Install System
> (http://sourceforge.net/projects/nsis/files/NSIS%202/2.46/nsis-2.46-setup.exe/download)
>

I think Monodevelop has an OSS syntaxeditor written in C#. Not sure
about license, might be MIT.

Is the install system to create the installer for VNH itself? Then
rewriting the installar in WIX might be the way to go.

/Oskar

[Alexander Zaytsev]

It is http://avalonedit.net/

--

---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "nhibernate-development" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to nhibernate-develo...@googlegroups.com.

[hacke...@gmail.com]

Waiting for the open sourcing!

I found some issues needs to fix!

Thanks,

Aska Li

在 2015年1月10日星期六 UTC+8上午1:33:24，Ricardo Peres写道：

[Klaus]

Hi Ricardo,

Nothing heard from VNH for a long time. What is the current state? If you need help dont hesitate to contact me. I have some free time at the moment to support your project.

Regards
Klaus

[Ricardo Peres]

Hi,

I apologize for the late reply.

The source code of VNH is already available at https://github.com/nhibernate/Visual-NHibernate.

The original code used a couple of comercial third-parties that we need to replace, and aren't available with the source code:

- DevArt for Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL access;

- DevComponents DotNetBar;

- ActiPro SyntaxEditor.

Please, come forward with your suggestions!

RP

[Klaus]

Hi Ricardo,

i took a first look at the code base.

I think, the first we need is a document which describes how the code can be compiled. If you want to build it via msbuild as documented in BuildProcess.docx you have to install the MSBuild community tasks and the build tasks from CruiseControl and NCover (The latter two maybe removed). I used the Combined ArcAngel Workbench solution as starting point and after copying the third party dll's you mentioned from my local VisualNHibernate installation to the 3d_party_libs folder i was able to compile the sources. I'm using Visual Studio 2013 and as i loaded the solution all projects where automatically upgrded to .NET Framework 4.0. I think this is the reason that i got around 500 errors from R#'s code analysis in the ShapeStyle.xaml file. Beneath that there are some other unresolved references regarding the DevArt components and some other issues, but id did not had the time to investigate it further.

The overall structure of the code seems to be ok (but i just took a glimpse at the entity model). But the UI will be much work. First, before i referenced the third party dll's R#'s code analysis showed me around 30.000 errors (mostly from the missing 3rd party code). Second, if you take a look at the code in the form classes you will see that there is much logic inside. The look and feel of the current UI is bad in my opinion and the effort to substitute the UI controls will be the same or even more as if you throw away the current UI and build a new one.

So my proposal is:

• extract the "business" code (extracting the database schema, code generation and so on) and reuse it as far as possible
  
• throw away the UI and build a new one

Regards
Klaus

[Ricardo Peres]

Hi, Klaus!

Thanks for your work! :-)

We need first to get it to compile. There are, as I see it, two kinds of missing dependencies:

- Database support (DevArt);

- GUI (ActiPro SyntaxEditor, DevComponents DotNetBar).

Don't you feel the GUI will be difficult to build from scratch? What about falling back to standard WPF controls, even if it looks uglier, or maybe whatever is available as open source?

RP

[Gunnar Liljas]

Just my five euro-cents, with the strong disclaimer that I'm just not in the target audience for VisualNHibernate and, of course, that what people chose to spend their time on is absolutely none of my business...

I think that the value of a tool like VisualNHibernate is limited. The current trend is moving away from visual tools like this, focusing instead on "Code First" etc. This can be seen in Entity Framework et. al. and perhaps the demise of VNH is also an indication. Of course the tool itself doesn't hurt NHibernate. Unless, that is, if it takes valuable resources away from the core project. Among others, Ricardo's core contributions are extremely valuable, and from my limited viewpoint I wouldn't like them to have to compete with VNH. Then again, I may be wrong. Maybe VNH is an energy booster and a tool that will increase the adoption of NH.

In my most humble opinion....

/G

--

---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "nhibernate-development" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to nhibernate-develo...@googlegroups.com.

[Steve Bohlen]

Just a thought, but often commercial companies will consider contributing/donating licenses for their for-fee products in exchange for (somewhat) prominent mention (e.g., on the project website, in the HELP-->ABOUT dialog box of the app, in release notes) of their contribution/support of the project.

In this case, there is absolutely ZERO chance of them making a sale to the NHibernate project, so they aren't really surrendering a revenue opportunity by considering this in our case.

Has anyone considered approaching these vendors and asking whether they might consider contributing licenses to us  in exchange for notoriety/publicity of some kind?

Just a thought that might be worth considering to expedite being able to make other progress with VNH....

-Steve B.

---

From: Ricardo Peres
Sent: ‎4/‎24/‎2015 8:27 AM

To: nhibernate-...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [nhibernate-development] Visual NHibernate

--

---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "nhibernate-development" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to nhibernate-develo...@googlegroups.com.

[Klaus]

i understand your point of view. If you design a new solution from scratch you can use modern approaches like code first, But in the real world you sometimes have some limitations. For example, you have to use an existing database or the customer you are working for has a special team for all database affairs and doesn't allow developers to manipulate the database. In those cases you have to maintain config files which is a pain to do manually. Of course you can use template tools (like T4 for example), but then you have to write and maintain the templates for yourself. If you have a tool, which has all the knowledge of how to generate a configuration efficiently inside it is a high value for the user. He can concentrate on the business logic and don't have to spend much time with the annoying plumbing code for database access.

Regards
Klaus.

[Klaus]

Hi Ricardo,

of course it would not be easy to build a new UI from scratch. But if you take a look at the UI classes you will see that most of them are Windows Forms and not WPF Forms. And these forms are implemented in the old fashioned way (everything is implemented in the form itself, no controller or view model). Even if you want to use standard WPF controls you have to reimplement the forms.

In my opinion the usability of the current version is not the best. With reimplementing from scratch there is a great chance to enhance usability. And for me there is no need to reimplement everything which is present in the current version. The graphic representation for example is not a must have. Concentrating on the main task, which is maintaining a mapping, it could be done in a reasonable time.

Steve's thoughts about asking the vendors to contribute licenses is a good idea. It doesn't cost anything to ask. In this case there is no need to make any changes on the UI for the initial release (but  the usability should be improved anyway later on).

I think the database components are not a big thing. All vendors offer free .NET components for their databases. A problem may be that there are some restrictions regarding Open Source software (Oracle is such a case for example). I was not involved in open source projects until now, so my knowledge about licensing is restricted, but if you don't distribute the driver with your product so that the user have to download them there should be no license problems. Or is this too naive?

Regards
Klaus

[Klaus]

Hi Ricardo,

today i spent some time with the code and finally managed it to compile the code without errors. Starting point was the Combined ArchAngel.Workbench.sln. To get everything compiled i copied the missing ActiPro and DotNetBar dlls from my VNH installation. Then i installed the DevArt Universal Free components and added the necessary references to the projects. I had to change the CoreLab.UniDirect references in the ArchAngel.Providers.Database project to DevArt.Data.Universal and i had to add additional projects from source tree. The resulting executable will not run because of the missing ActiPro Syntax-Editor license.

I did everything on a clone of the repository. So if you want i can push my changes.

Regards
Klaus

[Ricardo Peres]

Hi, Klaus!

Great! Can you submit a pull request?

I think it is a good idea to ask for free licenses, whenever we need them. I can take care of that.

RP

[Klaus]

Hi Ricardo,

took me a while to create the request. Had to fork the repository first an could not o it at work because of a firewall issue. But now it's online.

Yesterday i spent some time with the source. I installed a trial of the current Actipro Syntax Editor and tried to keep it running. Doing this i realized that it will be a hard work to replace the control. Even the current version of the syntax editor has some breaking changes. I've seen that the control is used on many different places in the source and it's not easy to understand how it is used. For example on one form inspected there where three instances used, one visible and two hidden and as there are nearly no comments i don't understand why they have done it this way. Replacing this control by another one will be a full time job for a couple of weeks.

I think you should concentrate on getting free liecense first to get the tool up running quickly.

Regards
Klaus