BlueFinity International Unleashes mv.NET Version 3
An Interview with Database Trends 5 Minute Briefing
 

BlueFinity International, a member of the Mpower1 group of companies, has announced the general availability of the latest version of its extensive toolset designed for creating Microsoft .NET-based applications requiring access to MultiValue databases. This new release is the start of a series of releases aimed at introducing a range of additional application development productivity tools built upon the mv.NET foundation.

David Cooper, Senior Developer at BlueFinity, told 5 Minute Briefing that the emphasis of development effort within BlueFinity is going to be more on the provision of higher-grade development tools. "Of course, we will still pay close attention to feedback on the base functionality, but we are now at a point where the really exciting stuff can start being rolled out, which is going to be of huge benefit to the MultiValue developer community," he said.

Among the list of enhancements in the new release is Binding Objects support for Web applications (webBO). All of the advantages of mv.NET Binding Objects technologies have been extended to the development of browser-based applications with the introduction of full support for WebForms.

"The browser-based interface is the most popular type of UI at the moment," Cooper explained. Making the rapid application development (RAD) benefits of Binding Objects available to Web applications was driven largely by customer demand. "In fact, it is fair to say that the Web side of mv.NET will probably get more development attention over the back-half of this year than the rich-client side--although not all," he related.

The range of standard .NET controls supported by the Binding Objects data-binding framework has also been extended, for example, the new DataGridView control in Visual Studio 2005. A tool called mvComboBox has also been added to the Binding Objects suite and provides multi-columned, drop-down lists for fetch-on-demand population of drop-down content. The ability to integrate third-party custom controls into the data-binding framework is also now available.

In Version 3, Adapter Objects, the full ADO.NET-managed data provider, now features optional support for the use of SQL syntax within Select, Update, Insert and Delete command objects. This enhances the already SQL-like application and development reporting capabilities in Adapter Objects, which provides data retrieval and update capabilities to developers who prefer to use ADO.NET as their data access methodology.

With Adapter Objects, MultiValue data is dynamically normalized into ADO.NET datasets that can be used with standard .NET components, such as typed dataset generation and data-binding. Furthermore, Adapter Objects is fully integrated with the Visual Studio integrated development environment.

Remote connectivity via Web services has been introduced in the Core Objects component of Version 3 in the form of mv.NET's new "Gateway" feature. This allows VPN-less connections for remote users to be established via firewall-friendly HTTP-based Web services. And, in a move to further improve mv.NET's DataBASIC compatibility, Version 3 now has the ability for DataBASIC code to trigger actions within the Windows environment.

"We've always tried to ensure that where it is appropriate, the environment that we present to the MultiValue developer is as close to the traditional MV model as possible," Cooper commented. "This is still an important angle for us and will remain so."

mv.NET is currently available on D3, jBASE, mvBASE, Reality, Power95, QM, UniData, UniVerse, UniVision and others by request. For a full list of Version 3 enhancements or to find out how to request a free 30-day evaluation, go here.