We have released our EntitySpaces 2009 Alpha internally to our customers and if all goes well within a week or so we will publish a trial version on our download page for everyone to try. You can install ES2009 side by side with (but not over the top of) ES2008 without conflict. The ES2009 Alpha is really a trial version that is hard coded to expire on Jan 15th, 2009, however we will have a beta version out before it expires. There are no limitations however in the features. You will find it to be very convenient never having to leave Microsoft Visual Studio when you need to generate your EntitySpaces architecture. Our ES2009 AddIn for Visual Studio is compatible with both VS2005 and VS2008. You will also find a stand alone version of ES2009 on your Start menu after installation for those who are not using Visual Studio. Everything in the ES2009 AddIn for Visual Studio is also available in the stand alone version. EntitySpaces 2009 no longer relies on MyGeneration or CodeSmith for it's code generation. We now have our own
code generation engine. Bringing everything in-house has drastically removed the complexities involved in downloading EntitySpaces and getting your first application up and running. Once you do that, we know you'll be hooked.
The "What's New" tab will keep you in touch with what is happening in the EntitySpaces community. You can even get to our forums, blog, documentation site, and home page from the "What's New" tab. You can click the "Embed" button and use the hosted browser within our AddIn itself and avoid lauching browsers. Give it a try, it's pretty cool. Of course, you will want to play around and figure out just how you want to dock your ES2009 AddIn depending how you intend to use it. It's nice to doc the AddIn in the center pane and then embed our documentation site on the "What's New" tab so you can use our documentation site within Visual Studio.
We have improved our metadata providers for SqlCe and VistaDB. You should now be able to connect to any version of SqlCe without the need to recompile our metadata provider. See the instructions on the "Settings Tab" for how to indicate what version of SqlCe you want to use. Our VistaDB metadata provider now works with the latest version of VistaDB as well. Our VistaDB metadata provider is compiled against VistaDB version '3.4.3.69'. If you need to run against a different version you will find the solution file for it in the C:\Program Files\EntitySpaces 2009\CodeGeneration\EntitySpaces.MetadataEngine.VistaDB folder. Merely open it up, compile it, and then copy the EntitySpaces.MetadataEngine.VistaDB.dll assembly into your C:\Program Files\EntitySpaces 2009\CodeGeneration\Bin folder.
There hasn't been much work done on the actual EntitySpaces architecture since our November release of ES2008. However, we did upgrade our PostgreSQL provider (EntitySpaces.Npgsql2Provider.dll) to use the lastest Npgsql version, '2.0.1.0'. We would like to give a shout out to the Npgsql team for all of their efforts.
There are some things missing from the alpha that will make it into our beta version. There is currently no support to automatically add the generated files to your solution, however, that is coming. Of course, you can generate the files directly into your solution's folders using the output path on the "Settings Tab". Also, there is no project support yet that would allow to record template execution for later playback, this is coming soon as well. Finally, the template stack is not yet implemented.
Overall, we are very pleased with the quality of the Alpha release. It is very stable as in the EntitySpaces tradition. You should be able to generate your architecture and compile it just fine. We are very interested to hear how the installation works for you. We have tested on both Windows XP and Windows Vista and we hope everything runs smoothly for you as well. Be sure and let us know what can make ES2009 better, any missing features? suggestions? We want hear from you. We have created a special section within our forums for reporting and commenting on the ES2009 Alpha release. Please make all of your posts in this new forum so there is no confusion with our ES2008 posts. So chime in on our Special ES2009 Forum and let us know how your install went and your initial thoughts.
This year is going to be your year. We have taken the first step in making your 2009 the most productive year ever. After the initial release of ES2009 will will focus on the EntitySpaces Architecture itself. We will review our TRAC system for outstanding issues and will put out all call for fixes that you need or features that are important to you.
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