OpenAccess ORM Q3 2011: OpenAccessLinqDataSource

We have added some exciting new features to the upcoming release of Telerik OpenAccess ORM, offering new capabilities and further optimizing your development process. We can’t really wait to show you the details about what we have been working on during the last several months.

We will start with introducing the long awaited OpenAccessLinqDataSource component. Many of you have already requested a component to provide similar functionality for data binding to OpenAccess models such as LinqDataSource for LINQ to SQL models, so naturally the idea was moved forward to implementation.

Our component, called OpenAccessLinqDataSource, targets those of you who use RAD development principles. It can be configured entirely through the designer in Visual Studio, and it bridges the gap between your ASP.NET Presentation Layer and OpenAccess ORM Domain Model without you having to write a single line of code.

Let’s take a quick tour at what you can do with OpenAccessLinqDataSource:

• The Configure Data Source wizard will help you to setup the component in no time

• Easily select the Open Access Context to be used from a list of all available Contexts, as well as the source Domain Class for the binding.

• Configure your LINQ statement for retrieving data by going through the data selection tabs:

Of course, the parameters for your data filtering do not have to be static at all – by changing the Source of the condition they can be automatically bound to a QueryString, another control’s value, a Cookie, etc.

As you configure the data selection, at the bottom of the wizard you can check how the auto-generated LINQ statement would look like.

•     We have provided an Expression Editor allowing you to customize your queries after the data selection definition:

Here the default “&&” operator between the statements is changed to “||” to better match the requirements.

• Automated Insert, Update and Delete operations

Once enabled, these functionalities will provide your target data control with automated CUD operations.

I hope this quick overview gives you some interesting insight for the one of the new features to be released in Q3 2011. Stay tuned for more Q3 OpenAccess ORM features!