You're never out of control(s) with Clarion.NET!
Hi gang!
It's been a few weeks since my last blog here. Suffice to say that I have been very busy testing and documenting both Clarion 7 and the Clarion.NET. Lately I've been busy documenting our Clarion.Net controls and those found in the .Net Framework, so I thought I'd share a few observations.
You may recall Bob Zaunere's blog titled: "Five Designers for 4 Platforms" If you missed it, you can click here:
Bob's Designers Blog
In the Clarion.Net product, there is a "WinForms" Designer for building Windows desktop applications, a "Web Forms" Designer for building web applications (ASP.NET), and a "Compact Framework" Designer that is used for creating Windows Mobile applications.
The Designers all work in a similar fashion regarding the population of controls. The Clarion 7 IDE has a Toolbox from which all controls available for the target structure are listed.
Let's start with the WinForms Designer.
The first thing you will notice is that we have .Net versions of the two most important controls that you can't live without; the LIST and ENTRY controls. There are other custom controls provided by Clarion, but I can't
overemphasize the significance of these two controls, the functionality they provide is unmatched by any standard .Net control!
The ENTRY control provides support for all of the Clarion picture tokens, and easy data binding to any data element.
Can you imagine life without the ENTRY? I know I can't.
The LIST control is just incredible. Expanding on the functionality in our Win32 LIST control, our Clarion.Net LIST control provides a ton of additional options that will bring the power of the Clarion LIST to the .NET world.
These two controls are the bread and butter of Clarion applications, and are truly indispensable.
The next thing you will notice is that you are no longer limited to just Clarion controls. In fact, all of the controls that are available in the .NET Framework are available in the Clarion IDE. As I was documenting the WinForms controls, I quickly counted 48 controls.
The documentation for each of these new controls is pretty good. One thing I really liked was the grouping by function. I won't list all of the controls here, as they are all documented in the Clarion Help, but here is a quick listing by functionality:
1 audio control
4 controls that execute commands
2 data binding and navigation controls
1 data display control
2 date setting controls
7 dialog box controls
1 graphics display control
1 graphics storage control
6 controls that allow grouping of other controls
4 information display (read-only) controls
2 menu controls
7 controls that allow selection from a list
3 text editing controls
2 user help controls
4 value setting controls
1 web page display control
In addition there are over 800 controls available from the official MS WinForms site, and you can make use of any of them.
Check them out here:
WinForms Control Gallery
Next, I turned my attention to the Web Forms Designer, and the list of default controls available. I counted 51 different controls! But this was the tip of the iceberg.
As you begin your first ASP.NET project with Clarion.NET, you will soon discover that you are now part of a massive group of developers who have contributed over 900 different controls. This can be viewed and downloaded from the Gallery of Controls found here.
Web Forms Control Gallery
My final documentation journey brought me to the Compact Framework Designer. Due to natural restrictions on Mobile Devices, there are only 9 standard controls, but the functions are there for graphics display, text display and editing, date selection, phone operations, and general program commands. With the proliferation of hand-held devices in the world today, I anticipate that this will be a welcome addition to many of you.
In summary, the tools that will be at your disposal in the Clarion.NET are deep. Putting on my developer hat, I am excited at the opportunities ahead doing programming in Clarion.NET.
As we get closer to our release date, we will be posting some cool examples that showcase many of these controls. Looking forward to sharing a lot more with all of you soon!