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!
What does Clarion.Net *really* offer over C# or put another way I might ask how
do you go about choosing which .Net language to develop in? If I were to compare two languages to decide
which one is better, the most important factor for me is the runtime libraries
delivered with the language. To be really productive with a language means
mastering the supporting libraries and classes, and that mastery is the result
of experience. Learning
the syntax of
any language is not much of a problem. But knowing the functions and
classes
that exist in the runtime library is more important then syntax because
that
knowledge can save you hours (or even days) of coding. And
having a runtime library suited for a specific task (creating
database applications) is equally important.
Now consider the .Net
libraries and classes. All .Net
languages use the same .Net Framework Class Library (FCL). For us developers this means whether you
develop in Clarion.Net, C# or VB.Net, when you display a window or a dialog box
you are getting a Winform created from the System.Windows.Forms.Form namespace
of the .NET framework class library (FCL).
And a Winform has the same methods, properties and events available
regardless of the language used to create it.
So
does it matter which language you choose for your .NET development? Yes, it definitely matters. Why? Because two different languages that both support the .NET framework are just
that, different. The important
difference is the runtime libraries. Clarion.Net
has full support for the .NET FCL, just as any first-class .NET language must, but
it also has the .NET version of the Clarion runtime library (RTL), which means
it has the familiar built-in data access methods, the Clarion database Drivers,
the View Engine, the Report engine, Queues, Groups, and everything else that defines Clarion.
So
what does Clarion.Net really offer over C# or VB.Net? Here’s my answer to that question.
1)
A Runtime library that you already know (and one that’s been designed for building
database applications).
Clarion
knowledge and experience transfer quite nicely to Clarion.Net. So much so, that even if you learned Clarion
back in the days of DOS, dropped out of development and just came back
recently, your knowledge of the Clarion RTL would make you immediately
comfortable and productive in the .Net world.
2) A language
designed for Database Applications
Clarion
was designed from day one to build business applications, the same can’t be
said about general purpose languages. And
using Clarion.Net you have complete flexibility to code it your way, using PROCEDURES
and ROUTINES, or completely Class-based code, or a mix of the two.
But I’d guess that at this
point many of you are raising your hand and shouting “wait you forgot the most
important thing!” And you’re right, because
I haven’t mentioned Clarion’s ace-in-the-hole, its legacy and trademark feature;
Code Generation.
Even if all other things are
equal, the productivity gains that the Application Generator and the Templates
deliver tip the scales heavily in favor of the Clarion language and IDE. Take a Clarion developer familiar with the
Win32 version of the RTL, add just a little
bit of new knowledge on the .Net changes in the RTL, and point at a spec for
any database application. The Clarion developer will complete the .Net application significantly
faster, and with much less custom code than any VB.Net or C# developer. And did I mention ongoing maintenance of the application? I'll leave that subject for another post.
One final comment, there are other
code gen products out there today, and still others coming that will do their very
best to mimic Clarion. But don't be fooled, twenty years
experience in Code Gen technology is not something you pickup at the local
grocer. If
you look at any of those
other products you’ll find they don’t support round-trip code
generation, you
generate and use it, or you re-generate and start making your changes
all over
again. And they also don’t integrate with a Data Dictionary. The Templates,
if they even exist, are a watered down imitation of what you’re
accustomed to. They don't have the concept of .App and .Dct files,
and
most important from where I sit, they don’t do the Clarion language!
What
do you think? You can post a comment
right here, or sound off over in the Clarion.Net forum.