We are pleased to make our Official EntitySpaces Q3 Release available. Both the Developer and Source code are available for download to current customers and the Trial version is the official ES2009 Q3 production release as well. The version number is 2009.2.0928.0. We recommend you download ES2009 Q3 saving it to disk and then install via the Start menu’s “Run As …” command and run as “Admin”. This is necessary for Windows Vista and Windows 7.

NOTE: You must regenerate your “Generated” classes and your stored procedures, if using stored procedures.

The EntitySpaces 2009 Q3 release has some of the best support for Silverlight and WCF that any ORM has to offer. Our smart proxies are very powerful and make working with WCF services and Silverlight a breeze. See the PDF’s in our Silverlight and WCF demos. Also, our DynamicQuery API is much more powerful in this release. Here is a quick list of features, fixes, and enhancements that are in this release.

The release notes can be found in this PDF file. There are some breaking changes with our 0209 Production Release which is unusual for us, however, they are pretty minor.

• Sybase SQL Anywhere Support Including the Compact Framework
• Excellent Silverlight and WCF Support
• 64 bit runtime assemblies are included
• A New EntitySpaces.DynamicQuery Assembly which is Silverlight Compliant
• A New EntitySpaces Generic Concurrency Mechanism for all databases
• DynamicQuery - The Having Clause is Now Supported
• DynamicQuery - Full Expressions in OrderBy and GroupBy
• DynamicQuery - Daisy Chaining Syntax has been fixed
• DynamicQuery - Supports “Raw SQL” Everywhere
• DynamicQuery - Sub Operator Ordering Fix
• DynamicQuery - Order of Values More Flexible
• DynamicQuery – Serializable in XML (very tiny packets)
• DynamicQuery – Parse() method allows you to get the SQL without executing the statement
• Major Proxy Stub Enhancements (WCF/WebServices/Silverlight) and Compact XML Mode
• Enhanced UserData.xml file (support for multi dabase developers)
• Editing User Metadata Easier through the .NET Property Grid
• Connection Configuration Information Enhancements (no longer read only, catalog/schema added)
• VistaDB and Microsoft SQL CE Password Bug Fixes
• Microsoft SQL CE “TOP” syntax fixed
• There is now a Twitter toolbar button on the “Whats New” tab
• In the Settings “Other” tab you can control what double-click means for a template.
• In the Settings “Other” tab you can turn off the DateTime stamp in the header.
• Brand new Silverlight and WCF Demos
• We are now bound to VistaDB 3.4.1.84

Of course, there are many other internal changes not listed in the above list.

One thing we didn’t get completed is “path relative project files”. We know this is a very important feature however it turned out be be more complicated than we first thought. However, this will be a high priority for 2010. Also, the Trial version comes with the source code to our Sybase plugin for our code generation engine which will allow you to easily switch Sybase versions. The ES2009 Q3 Developer does not have the Sybase source in it, we will make it available via a separate download.

We will be doing a series of blog posts highlighting a lot of these new features so stay tuned.

From Mobile Devices to large scale enterprise solutions in need of serious transaction support, EntitySpaces can meet your needs. Whether you’re writing an ASP.NET application with Medium Trust requirements, a Silverlight/WCF application, a Mono application, or a Windows.Forms application, the EntitySpaces architecture is there for you. EntitySpaces is provider independent, which means that you can run the same binary code against any of the supported databases. EntitySpaces is available in both C# and VB.NET. EntitySpaces uses no reflection, no XML files, and sports a tiny foot print of less than 200k. Pound for pound, EntitySpaces is one tough, dependable .NET architecture.

EntitySpaces LLC
Persistence Layer and Business Objects for Microsoft .NET
http://www.entityspaces.net

We are very excited to announce our Sybase SQL Anywhere support available with this release. We currently support Sybase SQL Anywhere 11 (versions 11.0.0.1490 and 11.0.1.2044). Our assemblies are bound to the 11.0.1.2044 version. However, if you are using the older 11.0.0.1490 version see this post on our forums. Swapping your SQL Anywhere provider version only takes a minute or two. We ship two providers for Sybase, a regular EntitySpaces provider for Sybase network server/personal server, and one for the Compact Framework. Both of these are available in this alpha release. EntitySpaces (the application) is available in two modes; a Visual Studio Add-In which is available from the Visual Studio “Tools” menu and the “stand alone” application available from your EntitySpaces 2009 menu after installation.

Our Sybase support in this initial release is already very rich. We support Sybase autoincrement columns, timestamps for concurrency, and both dynamic and stored procedures modes for updating your Sybase housed data. There is a new template included with this release that will generate your Sybase CRUD stored procedures if you want to use stored procedures for your CRUD operations. This isn’t required however, EntitySpaces can run with or without stored procedures. This is our first release with Sybase support so please let us know via the forums how the Sybase support is working for you. We’ve done a pretty good job of testing and will fix any bugs reported on our forums.

We already have a customer who is going to be writing a Silverlight application using EntitySpaces 2009 and Sybase, very cool stuff. Customers can find this release under our Products –> Downloads menu. The source code for customers who purchased source code should be published later on this evening and be available by Monday morning at the latest. UPDATE – 2009-08-07: We have posted a Trial version of this Alpha on our Trial Download page.

This Alpha Release only includes EntitySpaces providers for SQL Server and Sybase. The EntitySpaces 2009 Q3 enhancements will be rolled into the other providers and be available with the upcoming Beta Release. Our current Production Release (with all providers) is EntitySpaces 2009.1.0209.0. It is available to Customers on the Products Downloads page, and as a Trial version on the Trial Download page. For current customers wishing to try the EntitySpaces provider for Sybase, or want to get a jump start on the Q3 enhancements for SQL Server, be sure to read the installation instructions and release notes for the Alpha.

New EntitySpaces Users

Also, be sure and register on our forums. We have created two new areas specifically for our Sybase providers. If the issue you are having is specific to one of our Sybase providers, such as the incorrect SQL being generated (which isn’t very likely), post a note in the proper Sybase forum. Of course, all other “How do I ?” questions you can ask in the proper area on our forums.

Finally, on your EntitySpaces 2009 menu after installation you will see Windows.Forms, ASP.NET, and Silverlight programming samples that will compile right out of the box. They are set to run against the Microsoft SQL Northwind database. Even if that is not the database you are running they are great samples to look at. The ASP.NET samples also use our esDataSource control. So if you are looking for example code be sure and check the sample applications found in your EntitySpaces 2009 program menu entry.

Other Features

There are some other very nice features in this alpha release. Our proxies now support something we call “Compact XML” and can be used whenever you are using both our Client side and Server Side proxies together and avoiding the middle man (that is the Visual Studio Generated proxies as we do in our Silverlight demo). We have updated our online Silverlight example and it is now using our Compact XML mode. As a side note, Silverlight supports something called Binary XML serialization out of the box with only a config file change required.

There is also a new feature in the Settings Tab that lets you control what happens on a double click a template in the Template tab. You can either have the double click launch the template for editing, or for execution, or for execution with the last known settings. The EntitySpaces Universal Concurrency checking mechanism IS NOT in this release, but it will be in our upcoming beta.

Our next step is going to be to rapidly upgrade the rest of our data providers, implement our “EntitySpaces Universal Concurrency” feature for database independent concurrency handling, make our project files path relative, and squeeze in more features from our Q3 Wish List forum. Things are going to move very rapidly. After next weeks team meeting we should be able to publish the target release our first beta, including what features will be included, and finally, publish the RTW date for the official release of  EntitySpaces 2009 Q3.

From Mobile Devices to large scale enterprise solutions in need of serious transaction support, EntitySpaces can meet your needs. Whether you’re writing an ASP.NET application with Medium Trust requirements, a Silverlight application, a Mono application, or a Windows.Forms application, the EntitySpaces architecture is there for you. EntitySpaces is provider independent, which means that you can run the same binary code against any of the supported databases. EntitySpaces is available in both C# and VB.NET. EntitySpaces uses no reflection, no XML files, and sports a tiny foot print of less than 200k. Pound for pound, EntitySpaces is one tough, dependable .NET architecture.

EntitySpaces LLC
Persistence Layer and Business Objects for Microsoft .NET
http://www.entityspaces.net

We have our Sybase SQL Anywhere implementation working quite well now. We are releasing a new alpha on August 3rd that will come with a new provider for Sybase SQL Anywhere including a Compact Framework provider as well for Sybase mobile development. We have been developing and testing with SQL Anywhere version 11. Everything is working great including autoincrement keys, concurrency checking, and so on. We haven't tested our stored procedures yet but should have that work completed by August 3rd. Remember Sybase fans, EntitySpaces runs under Mono as well.

Having never really used Sybase before we must say it really is a very full featured database and they have worked with us very well. We basically have a red phone we can pick up and get right to technical support, fantastic! Sybase really seems to be focused on customer service more so than most companies we’ve worked with, maybe that’s part of why Sybase has announced terrific earnings for Q2 of this year, who else can say that? We will be taking a look at supporting their Ultra Light version as well. Sybase is a very serious contender in the database world, you will be hearing more from us on this subject in the future. If you don’t know much about Sybase click on some of the links in this post, we think you will be impressed.

This should be our last Alpha version. Soon we will be upgrading all our providers to support the new features we've implemented (with some still yet to be added). We will then provide a beta release that will be made available to the general public as a trial version as we head down the home stretch for EntitySpaces 2009 Q3.

From Mobile Devices to large scale enterprise solutions in need of serious transaction support, EntitySpaces can meet your needs. Whether you’re writing an ASP.NET application with Medium Trust requirements, a Silverlight application, a Mono application, or a Windows.Forms application, the EntitySpaces architecture is there for you. EntitySpaces is provider independent, which means that you can run the same binary code against any of the supported databases. EntitySpaces is available in both C# and VB.NET. EntitySpaces uses no reflection, no XML files, and sports a tiny foot print of less than 200k. Pound for pound, EntitySpaces is one tough, dependable .NET architecture.

EntitySpaces LLC
Persistence Layer and Business Objects for Microsoft .NET
http://www.entityspaces.net

EntitySpaces is pleased to announce support for the Sybase SQL Anywhere Database Management System. Our plan is to support iAnywhere for both high end server applications as well as on the Compact Framework for mobile applications which will further strengthen EntitySpaces' mobile abilities (we already support Microsoft SQL CE and VistaDB for mobile applications). If there is demand we will consider supporting the Sybase SQL Anywhere UltraLite version as well.

SQL Anywhere provides data management and exchange technologies designed for database-powered applications that operate in frontline environments without onsite IT support. It offers enterprise-caliber features in a database that is easily embedded and widely deployed in server, desktop, remote office and mobile applications. Sybase iAnywhere has been named number one in the worldwide mobile device management enterprise software market for the seventh consecutive year.

The image above shows EntitySpaces 2009 walking the SQL Anywhere Demo Database metadata. We have already generated a full EntitySpaces set of classes complete with our hierarchical object model against the Sybase demo database and have created an EntitySpaces.SybaseSqlAnywhereProvider.dll DataProvider that can successfully query Sybase using our DynamicQuery API. For instance, we are able to execute queries like this just fine.

EmployeesCollection coll = new EmployeesCollection();
coll.Query.Select(coll.Query.DepartmentID, coll.Query.City);
coll.Query.Where(coll.Query.City.Like("%F%"));
coll.Query.Load();

Of course, our Sybase support will have to fully pass our massive NUnit test suite before being released which won't actually happen until our ES2009 Q2 release. But we have made enough progress now that we can safely announce our support for Sybase. We would also like to thank the folks at Sybase for working with us and making themselves available to us. We are extremely impressed by their support and dedication to customer satisfaction, something rarely seen today from large companies, so a big thumbs up to the folks at Sybase.

From Mobile Devices to large scale enterprise solutions in need of serious transaction support, EntitySpaces can meet your needs. Whether you’re writing an ASP.NET application with Medium Trust requirements, a Mono application, or a Windows.Forms application, the EntitySpaces architecture is there for you. EntitySpaces is provider independent, which means that you can run the same binary code against any of the supported databases. EntitySpaces is available in both C# and VB.NET. EntitySpaces uses no reflection, no XML files, and sports a tiny foot print of less than 200k. Pound for pound, EntitySpaces is one tough, dependable .NET architecture.

EntitySpaces LLC
Persistence Layer and Business Objects for Microsoft .NET
http://www.entityspaces.net