This topic is locked

Best practices / lessons learned

2/29/2016 9:08:49 AM
IronSpeed to ASPRunner.NET transition
Pete K author

What advice would you give to someone who is experienced with Iron Speed / ASP forms but unfamiliar with ASPRunner.net and MVC / Razor, etc.?
The first thing that struck me was the fact that I need to me more careful in planning application flow, as we no longer have the luxury of creating multiple pages to edit, add, and view any table. In other words, there can only be one of each type of page for each table. But there is an easy workaround: simply base your pages on custom views, which are a breeze to create. I have discovered that having multiple views of the same table helps in many ways, from customizing permissions to determining which fields go on the page. And the cool part is you don't have to get bogged down in code -- you can do most of this in a declarative manner, just by checking boxes in the GUI.
Here's another thing that makes using custom views worth the effort. Unlike in ISD, adding ad-hoc field controls to a page in ASPR is not possible (without coding). But it's an easy task to add fields to your custom view, such as a URL to display or a calculated field, or fields from other joined tables. Then you have easy access to those fields in the GUI -- no coding required.
Now you might be thinking that it's going to be a headache if you need three different pages with only slight differences, referencing the same underlying table. What if you want to make extensive layout changes to all three (moving fields around, for instance). ASPR has you covered. There's a quick and easy one-click way to copy the layout of one page to another -- just hit the "copy page to" button and you're done! I would have killed for this in ISD.
For these reasons and others, I have adopted the practice of basing all of my pages in custom views.

jadachDevClub member 2/29/2016

Nice job getting this forum! I hope others participate.
ASPRunner.Net is very different that ISD, but gives you the same results.
I have been using ASPR for a while now and have rebuilt some pretty complex ISD projects using it.
I highly recommend taking one of your more simple ISD projects and go for it. Trust me, when you think you are at a dead end, you will soon learn there is a way. We all got so used to the ISD UI, things got really easy and fast for us. The same applies for ASPR. You just need to give it time.
I found my biggest change was the way I approached security in a Windows environment. In ISD, I would use Windows Authentication along with database roles. That combo does not exist in ASPR. In ASPR, for Windows environments, I use AD security groups to serve as role groups. It works perfectly.
I am eager to engage folks on this forum. There are so many smart people who use ISD and their knowledge of application development may help influence Xlinesoft's road map.

Pete K author 2/29/2016

Thanks for the comments, Jerry. I'm glad you're here. You've given me the confidence to go full-in with ASPR.net.

T
tnation 3/1/2016

Thanks to Xlinesoft and Pete for this forum with a focus on making the transition from IS.
After using IS for 5+ years, I have begun that transition to ASPR. ASPR has some additional out of the box features that I like.

The search options are really extensive, the font and colors can easily be changed across the application on the "styles "page, ability to restore revisions of each screen on the editor page, and quickly rearranging field order on the "totals' page by moving them up and down in a list are just a few.
It seems if I think I can't do something I did before it's just that I haven't found it yet. The manual is helpful in locating the "place" to set the properties. Just like IS it takes some time to know the ins and outs of a new application.
Still trying to get my bearings on how to add custom code like is done in the Section 1 of the code behind of IS. The manual has some excellent samples of code to use but I'm not sure yet where they go.
Pete, Your practice of basing all pages in custom views is good to know.

Jerry, your advice on starting with a simple project and advancing from there is helpful.
Looking forward to suggestions from others who are also making the transition.

Pete K author 3/2/2016

Good to have you with us, Terri. Please feel free to share your experiences as you progress.

E
Editor 3/6/2016

I guess I am another "refugee" from ISD and now using among other things ASPRunner.NET and pretty pleased with the product and support. I do have a couple of issues and wonder if anyone has come up against the same things. The Register page works well for desktop browser but not mobile. In mobile view it seems to be read only. Hoping a fix comes soon.
One cool feature I found is the ability to filter on multiple items using check boxes. However, I have seen disappearing labels after the labels initially showed up seem to disappear.

A
AlanT 3/8/2016

Hi. Nice to have a new home here. I only get maybe 20% of my time doing WEB development (was Ironspeed, now asprunner.net).

Most of my time is doing win32 or dotnet server programs on the backend.

So I might not be very active, but glad to be here.

Cheers,

Alan

jadachDevClub member 3/8/2016

Glad to see you here! The AspRunner.net forum needs more people. We have a long way to catch up to the php folks:)