Viewpoints Update: v1.0.129.1

An updated version of Viewpoints has been made available on the Downloads section of the Gnomz Software website. This version contains the following enhancements/fixes:

• Implemented a fix to address some Package Load Failures
• Implemented a fix to the Entity Viewpoint to address a metamodel refresh issue

One of the more powerful code generation features available in Viewpoints is the ability to use tags defined within the models to alter the behavior of your custom created code generation templates. The Tag feature is accessible from any model element using the Properties Window, as shown below:

To add new tags you simply type them in the properties window (comma seperated) or select the ellipses to bring up the Tag Window. You can use the Tag Window to select from existing tags that have been utilized within your current set of models.

Once you have added tags to your model element you may then access them within your code generation templates during the transformation process. You can use the tag values to control which elements get passed to the code generation template during the transformation process, or you can also use the tag values to control the code generation behavior of your templates. Outlined below is a basic code generation template that has logic indicating when to generate a link for Entity Property values.

You can really add a lot of depth to your code generation templates using this approach, so be sure to try it out with your templates. Once you have mastered the ways of the tag, be sure to check out the Viewpoints Metadata features to add even more depth and logic to your code generation.

Happy coding!

An updated version of Viewpoints has been made available on the Downloads section of the Gnomz Software website. This version contains the following enhancements/fixes:

• Resolved an issue with 64bit installations not functioning properly under specific circumstances
• Updated the Viewpoints Metamodel with additional functionality for working with Entity relationships and inheritance
• Updated the ServiceIntegration sample solution with a couple enhancements and some documentations
• Enhanced the pluralization and singularization functionality withing the StringUtility class
• Updated the CSLA code generation templates with the following:
  • Added Precision and Scale to the decimal data type
  • Updated two-way association generated code
  • Updated an issue with multiple associations not generating correctly
  • Changed the way LINQ to SQL discriminators function in order to support multiple levels of inheritance

An updated version of Viewpoints has been made available on the Downloads section of the Gnomz Software website. This version contains the following enhancements/fixes:

• Resolved an issue where under certain circumstances Entity View Property selections would cause a Visual Studio crash

A new video has been made available to demonstrate the Viewpoints code generation features and functionality, including a walkthrough on basic code generation template creation. You can view the video from the Viewpoints Videos page of the Gnomz Software website.

An updated version of Viewpoints has been made available on the Downloads section of the Gnomz Software website. This version contains a bug fix that addresses specific circumstances where the Viewpoints MetaModel did not refresh properly when an updated model was saved or deleted.

A number of new features and enhancements are available in this release, including the addition of a 64bit version of Viewpoints. You can learn more about Viewpoints and download a 21 day trial edition of the product from the Gnomz Software website.

Outlined below are some of the key feature additions and enhancements available with the v1.0 RTM release:

• Addition of the Template Explorer, which can be used to navigate, select and edit available code generation templates. The Template Explorer also supports drag & drop functionality for droping templates onto a Transformation Viewpoint model.
• Addition of the Viewpoints options page (available in Visual Studio via Tools -> Options)  to capture user-defined code generation template search paths.
• Addition of element metadata, which can be used to describe your model elements and their data. Metadata can also be utilized during the code generation process to alter the transformation behavior.
• Implementation of tagging functionality on all modeling elements. The tagging functionality is also available for use when defining a query as part of a code generation transform.
• Addition of code generation output expression builders to help with output text replacement.
• Additional of various UI enhancements such as icons, menu options and element-click navigation.
• Updated template and model reference paths to be relative to support transportable solutions.
• Numerous performance enhancements and issue resolutions.

The new Viewpoints 1.0 Beta2 release is now available for Visual Studio .NET 2008. This release provides a number of new features and a number of core alterations. It is advised that you uninstall any previous Viewpoints installations before installing the new Beta2 release.

One of the more significant changes is the removal of the Service Viewpoint model and the User Experience Viewpoint model. These models, while useful, have turned out to not be as functional as we'd like. As a result, we've decided to remove them from this version of Viewpoints while we restructure and redesign them to provide more functionality relevant to their specific domains. The replacement models, which will be unveiled at a later date, will provide richer modeling capabilities targeted at more specific domains.

While we've removed a couple of models, we've also beefed up the Entity Viewpoint model with a number of new features designed to provide a more efficient modeling experience for small and large teams. Here are a few of the key highlights:

• Addition of Entity Operations for modeling specialized operations that can be applied to an Entity. The Entity Operations allow you to model such concepts as fetching entity data based on specific conditions.
• Addition of Entity Views for modeling specialized view of entity data. The Entity Views can also be utilized as part of an Entity Operation to define how the resulting data from an operation should be structured.
• Addition of Entity Links, which allow for distributed models to be linked via entities. This feature allows you to have an entity participate in relationships on another modeling diagram without actually being copied, which is perfect for model reuse and distribution.

In addition, we have also made the following general enhancements and additions:

• Addition of the Transform All Templates option (Ctrl+Shift+T), which allows you to execute the Viewpoints transformation from anywhere within your solution.
• Numerous improvements have been made to the Viewpoints Meta-model system to improve its speed and efficiency. 
• Improved colorization and intellisense support within the Viewpoints Transform Template Designer. This feature will continue to be improved throughout the beta period with some excellent features that will make creating and editing Viewpoints Transform Templates as easy as working with ASP.NET. 
• Addition of CSLA v3.5 code generation templates using LINQ to SQL. These templates replace the previous general Entity Framework templates.
• Addition of the Gnomz.IssueTracker sample project that demonstrates modeling and code generation using CSLA v3.5 with LINQ to SQL.

Head on over to the forums and start posting your feature requests, or just chat about Viewpoints. We're also on the lookout for anyone who has used Viewpoints to create their application(s). We'd love to chat with you about a case-study or testimonial ... there might be a couple free licenses in it for you. ; )

The next Viewpoints beta release will have a number of significant changes that we believe will provide a more efficient modeling and code generation experience within Visual Studio, so I'd like to take a moment to tell you a bit about them. The next Viewpoints beta release is scheduled for November/December of this year.

The Viewpoints Explorer has been added to provide a single location where you can explore the items across all of the Viewpoints you have modeled. This feature will continue to get attention throughout the beta period to ensure that you are always able to quickly locate and navigate to your model items, no matter how large your project is.

One of the more significant changes is the removal of the Service Viewpoint model and the User Experience Viewpoint model. These models, while useful, have turned out to not be as functional as we'd like. As a result, we've decided to remove them from this version of Viewpoints while we restructure and redesign them to provide more functionality relevant to their specific domains. The replacement models, which will be unveiled at a later date, will provide richer modeling capabilities targeted at more specific domains.

While we've removed a couple of models, we've also beefed up the Entity Viewpoint model with a number of new features designed to provide a more efficient modeling experience for small and large teams. Here are a few of the key highlights:

• Addition of customizable Data Types, which can be used with entity properties.
• Addition of Entity Operations for modeling specialized operations that can be applied to an Entity. The Entity Operations allow you to model such concepts as fetching entity data based on specific conditions.
• Addition of Entity Views for modeling specialized view of entity data. The Entity Views can also be utilized as part of an Entity Operation to define how the resulting data from an operation should be structured.
• Addition of Entity Links, which allow for distributed models to be linked via entities. This feature allows you to have an entity participate in relationships on another modeling diagram without actually being copied, which is perfect for model reuse and distribution. In addition, this feature ties in with the Viewpoints Explorer by allowing you to drag Entity items from the Viewpoints Explorer onto your model to automatically create a link to that Entity.
• Addition of customizable Metadata, which can be applied to most modeling elements. This feature allows you to specify additional values that can be tracked with the modeling elements. The values can be specified in a name/value format, which allows you to provide rich, customizable descriptions for entities, properties, operations, views, etc.

A number of updates have been made to the Viewpoints transformation system in order to ensure a fast and efficient code generation experience. In addition, we’ve put extra focus on ensuring that you can easily manage your library of customized Viewpoints Transform Templates. Here are a few of the key highlights:

• Numerous improvements have been made to the Viewpoints Meta-model system to improve its speed and efficiency.
• Modification of the Viewpoints Meta-model Query Engine so that it supports multiple rich-featured conditions. You can now perform complex queries to target your transformation to specific results.
• Modification of the Viewpoints Transform Template management system so that templates on the file system and templates in your Visual Studio solution can be viewed and managed together. This has also resulted in the addition of a Viewpoints Transform Template metadata system for describing information about your code generation template, such as its name, description, template set, and what Viewpoints Meta-model types is performs actions against.
• Improved colorization and intellisense support within the Viewpoints Transform Template Designer. This feature will continue to be improved throughout the beta period with some excellent features that will make creating and editing Viewpoints Transform Templates as easy as working with ASP.NET.
• Addition of the Transform All Templates option (Ctrl+Shift+T), which allows you to execute the Viewpoints transformation from anywhere within your solution.

In addition to all of the feature additions and enhancements, the next Viewpoints beta release will also provide code generation Transform Templates for generating CSLA code libraries (including LINQ and SQL). A Viewpoints CSLA Visual Studio Solution template will also be provided, which will allow you to start generating code immediately upon solution creation.

The upcoming Viewpoints release will provide some new Transform Templates for generating CSLA .NET business objects and LINQ to SQL DBML files. We're also trying to put the finishing touches on some new ASP.NET MVC code generation Transform Templates as well, so if all goes well they'll be included in the next release.

If you have any thoughts about what you'd like to see from these Transform Templates, or have some ideas on some other Transform Templates you would like to see, head over to the forums and post your ideas.

A new Viewpoints 1.0 Beta release is available for Visual Studio .NET 2008. This constitutes the first release for the Visual Studio .NET 2008 platform. We will discontinuing development on the Visual Studio .NET 2005 version that was available earlier in the year, so start your upgrades!

This release contains a number of new features:

• Entity Link elements have been added to allow you to extend Entities across Entity Viewpoint models. Simply drag the Entity Link onto your design surface and point it to a source Entity. This will allow you to build relationships to the Entity as though it was on your design surface. Don't worry ... the Viewpoints Meta-model will make it look like the same Entity come code generation time.
• Viewpoints Transform Templates now have a visual designer with intellisense and color-coded syntax highlighting!
• A whole bunch of basic Viewpoints Transform Templates have been included and are available via the Transform Manager.
• A sample project has been provided, which is available from the Viewpoints installation directory (normally C:\Program Files\Gnomz Software\Viewpoints 1.0\Samples).
• Help with the Viewpoints Meta-model has finally arrived. You can access the help documentation online on the Gnomz Software website at http://www.gnomzsoftware.com/support/viewpoints/help1.0/ It will be available as integrated Visual Studio help very shortly.

In addition to the new features, the following items are in development and slated for an upcoming release:

• Data Types: You'll be able to create your own custom data types, which can be used with Entity Properties.
• Metadata: In addition to the already available Tagging functionality, metadata key/value pairs will be available for each element type. This will allow you to provide more granular information about the elements you are creating. The metadata will also be available during transformation for you to utilize in your code generation Transform Templates.
• SharePoint Transform Templates: You'll be able to generate SharePoint Feature XML code for content types and fields with the next release.

Head on over to the forums and start posting your feature requests, or just chat about Viewpoints. We're also on the lookout for anyone who has used Viewpoints to create their application(s). We'd love to chat with you about a case-study or testimonial ... there might be a couple free licenses in it for you. ; )