.gif) |
| Resources for Your Developer Toolbox |
ASP.NET User Interface Controls
.gif) Coalesys Inc. has released two Web server controls, WebMenu for ASP.NET and PanelBar for ASP.NET, for the rapid development of DHTML user interfaces. These components have been written in C# for managed code execution and support for the ASP.NET PostBack event model. A standalone visual modeling application is provided for each, and both products can integrate with the Visual Studio® .NET WebForm designer for drag and drop operation.
WebMenu for ASP.NET is used for creating DHTML hierarchical menus. It features a cross-browser design that includes behaviors such as automatic window edge detection, relative or absolute positioning, roll-over icons, client-side events, and a fully customizable appearance.
PanelBar for ASP.NET is used for creating a navigation control similar to that of an Outlook® Bar. It has both up-level and down-level rendering modes and features dynamic resizing abilities as well as a scrolling item list. In addition, the appearance of the control can be customized.
Middle-tier Data Objects
.gif) AlachiSoft has announced the availability of TierDeveloper 1.0, an object-to-relational mapping and code-generation tool that helps design, generate, and deploy middle-tier data objects for enterprise applications. To effectively use TierDeveloper, design your Web pages and your database, then map your Web pages to your tables and determine your SQL data flow. Feed this information to TierDevelop and you can generate middle-tier objects and a test Web application working against your database. Once you have captured all the structure and behavior of these data objects in TierDeveloper, you can generate code against any platform.
All editions of TierDeveloper use the same project structure and are able to read it. TierDeveloper includes support for Microsoft .NET, C#, Visual Basic .NET, C++, Visual Basic, BEA WebLogic 5.1 and 6.1, IBM WebSphere 4.0, iPlanet 6.0, and JBoss 3.0. Additionally, TierDeveloper supports Microsoft SQL Server™, Oracle, and DB2.
Protect Your Intellectual Property
WiseOwl has developed Demeanor, a .NET assembly obfuscator that protects your intellectual property by making it extremely difficult to reverse engineer. Unprotected .NET-based applications can be easily reverse-engineered via decompilation and inspection by decompiler products. Besides symbol name obfuscation, Demeanor also mangles the control flow of your program to defeat the best decompiler products. Demeanor removes unnecessary information, and scrambles, changes, and shortens required symbolic names for faster loading and downloading of .NET assemblies.
This command-line tool is optimized for batch build processes, and is highly configurable to suit your exact requirements. For example, you can allow all public types in an assembly to be excluded from obfuscation, or specify exactly which types Demeanor should obfuscate. You can even specify that a particular member be given a specified name. An optional report records all of the changes made.
FTP Objects for .NET
.gif) Dart Communications has announced PowerTCP FTP Objects for .NET, which supports customizable solutions with an FTP component that can be added to the Microsoft Visual Studio .NET Toolbox. Full support for the Microsoft pluggable protocol standard is also provided. The FTP component written in C# with 100 percent managed code maintains low resource consumption. Features include full support for object-oriented development through overloaded methods, control over resource disposal, remoting support, a visual editor that can test FTP functionality at design time, and Microsoft Help 2.0 integration with F1 support. The multithreaded design supports synchronous and asynchronous functionality, auto-restart, comprehensive proxy support, and exception handling consistent with the Microsoft .NET Framework.
Managed Components for .NET
IP*Works! Internet Toolkit for the Microsoft .NET Framework, a special version of IP*Works! written entirely in managed code, has just been released by /n software inc. (formerly DevWorks). This release includes more than 30 fully managed components for Internet development.
IP*Works! for Microsoft .NET contains programmable components such as interfaces to Internet Mail and Usenet News, as well as TCP/IP programming tools used to build generic clients and servers. All the components use asynchronous sockets, are small in size, and have no dependencies on external libraries, which makes them very easy to download, install, and ship. In addition, the interfaces of the IP*Works! components for Microsoft .NET have remained identical to the IP*Works! interfaces across platforms and IDEs.
ePayments for .NET Apps
.gif) RichSolutions Inc. has released RichPayments.NET, an ePayment Web service that supports Visual Studio® .NET applications. RichPayments.NET offers businesses the ability to integrate secure credit card, debit card, and check services into applications and services. The service is designed to be scalable, support standalone merchants, multilane retail outlets, online merchants operating their own Web sites, and large ISPs hosting multiple merchant sites.
Since the technology uses XML as the message encoding, it can be integrated with multiple operating systems and devices. The technology is an alternative to the standalone single-function bank terminals many businesses currently use to process payments, and provides a suite of ePayment Web services that can be integrated into electronic commerce environments or retail point-of-sale systems. RichSolutions has established relationships with banks and institutions that help process electronic payment transactions.
.NET Development Components
.gif) Avanade Inc., a joint venture between Accenture and Microsoft, has announced the availability of Avanade Connected Architecture for Microsoft .NET (ACA for .NET), a set of components that extend the Microsoft Visual Studio .NET development environment. Built on the Microsoft .NET platform, ACA for .NET is designed to help developers expedite a company's migration to XML Web Services.
Key features of ACA for .NET include database portability, an event-driven application framework, event logging and error handling, and integrated security management. All the features of ACA for .NET are coordinated and integrated through the Application Designer tool. This tool allows the developer to graphically depict the application process model and then generate the code that defines the structure of the application.
Charting Components for .NET
Dundas Software has released Dundas Chart—ASP.NET Professional Edition, a fully managed, CLR-compliant charting component that takes advantage of Visual Studio's design-time support. The ASP.NET version of Dundas Chart for .NET incorporates support for all standard and many advanced chart types (such as stock charts, doughnuts, candlesticks, splines, bubbles, and steplines), drilldown functionality, full Visual Studio integrated help, a variety of different image formats, and samples and examples.
Graphics take advantage of GDI+ and the use of transparency, anti-aliasing, gradients, and other features. Axis features, such as automatic axis label sizing and positioning, make sure that the labels fit into place. Size and position can be set automatically or manually. Vertical and horizontal grid lines can be set as major or minor, with full control over grid colors. Data binding to a variety of data sources is available, including DataSet, DataView, DataReaders, XML, HTML, Arrays, and Collections.
.gif) Cape Clear Software Inc. has announced support for Microsoft Visual Studio .NET in its CapeConnect 3.5 Web Services platform. CapeConnect 3.5 also adds functionality, including support for database connectivity over SOAP, enhanced UDDI functionality, and additional support for complex legacy applications. CapeConnect allows developers to automatically expose existing Java, EJB, .NET, and CORBA components as Web Services without writing code. CapeConnect can connect a range of technologies (including CORBA, C++, COM, C#, Visual Basic, Perl, Java, and J2EE) using Web Services standards such as SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI.
CapeConnect 3.5 enables SQL databases to be exposed as Web Services, allowing the rapid prototyping of Web Services to access enterprise data.
Compact Software Installers
.gif) Indigo Rose Corporation is shipping Setup Factory 6.0, a Windows-based software development tool for creating compact software installers for deployment via CD-ROM, Internet, and LAN.
This new release features an integrated suite of drag and drop actions, improved variable handling, and control structures like IF, WHILE, and GOTO. Developers can now add sophisticated actions like HTTP downloads, CGI Web Form interaction and Registry editing to their installations using a fill-in-the-blanks approach. Setup Factory's Project Wizard assists developers by creating a working installation that can then be edited using the RAD environment. Setup Factory 6.0 also eliminates the need to manually determine runtime dependencies, with new dependency scanning utilities and integrated support for a variety of development systems including Visual Basic and Visual C++®.
Setup Factory 6.0 includes support for full-system modification including shortcut icon creation, registry editing, file manipulation, font and ActiveX® registration, ZIP file extraction, process and service control, and more. Additional features include high-speed data compression and CRC-32 integrity checking.
Send your New Stuff to Theresa at newstuff@microsoft.com
Coalesys Inc. P.O. Box 466, Northport, NY 11768, 631-269-6820, https://www.coalesys.com
AlachiSoft 35111-F Newark Boulevard, Suite 254, Newark, CA 94560, 510-324-3004 https://www.alachisoft.com
Wise Owl 1771 La Plaza Drive, San Marcos, CA 92069, 760-471-9833, https://www.wiseowl.com
Dart Communications 111 Dart Circle , Rome, NY 13441 , 315-339-8040, https://www.dart.com
/n software inc. P.O.Box 13821, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, 919-544-7770 https://www.nsoftware.com
RichSolutions Inc 20428 NE 66th Court, Redmond, WA 98053, 425-836-4251 https://www.richsolutions.com
Avanade Inc. 2211 Elliott Avenue, Seattle, WA 98121, 206-239-5600, https://www.avanade.com
Dundas Software 500—250 Ferrand Drive, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3C 3G8, 800-463-1492 https://www.dundas.com
Cape Clear Software Inc. 900 East Hamilton Avenue, Suite 100, Campbell, CA 95008, 866-227-3226 https://www.capeclear.com
Indigo Rose Corporation 123 Bannatyne Avenue, Suite 410, Winnipeg, MB, Canada R3B OR3 https://www.indigorose.comTheresa W. Carey is a freelance writer who lives in California. Her byline has appeared in Barron's and PC World.
From the May 2002 issue of MSDN Magazine
|
|
|
.gif)