VistaDB 4.1 Build 16

Ok, VistaDB 4.1 has been released as Build 16.  We had posted a Build 15 last night for testing, but it was never intended to go live.  So we had to bump the build number today to the final build number of 16.

There are a number of changes to this release, this post is about release notes.  Upgrade paths will be in a separate post (in general login to your account and look at the Upgrades panel to see what your options are).

Release Notes

License system has been removed from the current codebase.  There is no need for licenses.licx files.  But the assembly has been bumped to 4.1 as a result of the change in the interfaces, you must rebind your application in most cases to use 4.1.

The .Net Provider name now reads "VistaDB 4 ADO.NET Provider for .Net".  This is to cover all VistaDB 4.x versions.  The binding is now 4.1.0.0, so make sure you update any provider factory versions in your applications.

Provider Name Change

The VistaDB Provider was named VistaDB.NET20 to indicate it was the .Net 2 version of the provider (back when we had a .Net 1.1 version).  But to better match the framework we have now changed it to System.Data.VistaDB. 

If you have strongly typed datasets you need to edit the xml using a text editor (the wizards do not allow this) to change the name in the Connections section from VistaDB.NET20 to System.Data.VistaDB.

Visual Studio 2010

Entire product is now built in Visual Studio 2010.  We still produce .Net 2 assemblies, but we are using VS 2010 as our main development IDE.

Obfuscation Change

We are no longer using the Obfuscation engine.  There were problems using the assembly under Mono, and with sporadic bugs in the product we could not get addressed by the vendor.  The obfuscation is no longer enabled by default.  We may use another one at some point in the future to compact the assembly, but for now it is full size.   This means slightly larger DLL and more RAM usage due to the namespaces.

Data Builder Changes

Data Builder is built against .Net 3.5 SP1 now because we have added LINQ query ability to the main form.  We have also removed the pulling of the RSS feed onto the main window (trying to remove all external dependencies in the code).

The load screen has changed to a list of the most recently used databases (double click to choose one).  You can change the number of recent item from the Tools | Options dialog.

LINQ Queries

There is a new item in the database tree view named LINQ.  These are for writing dynamic EF queries against your database.  Once you click the LINQ item you will see a new panel that shows a query partially constructed for you.  You must hit the Generate Model to build an EF model out of the current database.  Then you can write LINQ queries against it and run them in Data Builder. 

The idea here is to allow for rapid writing of LINQ queries against a database for quick tests.  You can write them in Visual Studio (to get intellisense) and then paste them in here as long as you name your data context object "context".

There is no intellisense support, but the resulting code can pretty much be copied and pasted into your C# code (there is no VB support, sorry).  The queries must be written against the temporary data context object named context.  If you use some other naming in your code then you must obviously update the name once you paste it into your code.

SQL Script Export

A lightweight SQL Script Export has been added to Data Builder to output schema to a SQL file.  It does not handle data, or stored procs, or anything else.  Just schema for the entire database.  It is not for use as an API, it is only for use internal to Data Builder.

Customer Experience Removed

The CEIP program has been removed.  It may be added back at a future date, but I wanted to make sure everything that talks externally is out of this version just in case.

Issues and Fixes

3891 - Data Builder Stored Proc list detail panel now shows the stored proc colorized rather than the black and white text box that was there previously.

3892 - Data Migration Wizard will migrate indexes and FK's with names containing [] symbols, but those are not valid.  We now rename them if they are present.  Any illegal character is replaced with an _.

3905 - Subquery with an aggregate function (like sum) would not auto convert to another type without a cast. This would result in a type unknown error when the projection is applied to the parent of the subquery.  In most cases we are now able to determine the target column type and auto convert the output.

3933 - Remove CLR Proc should ask about Force Unload - Attempting to unload a CLR Assembly that has references will fail until all references are removed.  You can force unload in DDA, but Data Builder never gives you this option.  Added to Data Builder if an unload fails, it will ask about force.  If force is used we recommend you pack the database after.

3934 - Attempting to remove a trigger results in an "UNKNOWN ERROR" dialog in Data Builder.  The trigger error was referencing an error code that had a typo in it, so it could not even load the error message and was failing.  Added correct error message, and the unload code works correctly now.

3942 - Data Builder did not correctly re-enable some of the menus after a pack operation, this has been fixed.  Some of the table menu items were enabled on initial launch when they should not have been, this has been fixed.

3940 - All samples were updated to not reference a licenses.licx file, and bind against the new version of the engine.

3936 - Saving a SQL Script that is readonly fails without an error.  Fixed to show the user the errors during saving of a script.

Summary

VistaDB 4.1 will likely be the last release from me.  It has been a fun trip, and hopefully the product can live on for many years at your company, and possibly with a new company as a product.