I'm a bit confused about how to use the grid loader projects in conjunction with an existing website. The goal is to have the admin grid functionality within the existing website.

First question: Should I use the copy of the Grid Loader project supplied with the templates or should I make a copy and work with that (assuming that I'll be using the templates for multiple projects).

Next: How do I use the generated controls in my current website. Am I looking to reference a dll from the GridLoader project in my current site or am I just supposed to use the gridloader project to administer the data?

 As you can see, I'm more than just a bit confused about what kind of end result to expect. Any clarity on the subject would be awesome. Thank you.

For your first question I think its really equitable whichever option you choose. There should be minimal changes required to customize the stock templates to be used with your existing asp.net 2.0 app. For your second question, it is related to the first. We provide an aspx page that loads all the generated user controls. Just look at the code for that page, and it should be easy to see what you would need to do in your own aspx page to accomplish the loading of the user controls. We provide a shell in the gridloader project to handle stand alone CRUD for your generated objects/user controls. If you want to integrate this into an existing application. You should just look at our supplied gridloader project. It should really take minimal effort to change to fit your app. Hope that helps.

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Regards,

Scott Schecter
EntitySpaces | My Site

Thanks for your repy Scott. Unfortunately, I'm not much farther along than before. Here's what I've done to date.

Installed MyGeneration

Installed ES

Installed Admin Templates

Generated controls for one table to the GeneratedUserControls folder in the VB GridLoader project  (a total of two controls were created) -- Used template EntitySpaces_VB_WebAdmin.csgen

Open the GridLoader solution 

Converted GeneratedUserControls to WAP

set index aspx as startup page

Run the project

The result is a page with a link in the upper left hand corner corresponding to the table the templates were built for. There is nothing else on the page and when I click the link it goes nowhere. I'm assuming this has something to do with the template generation process but I've run gone through it several times making sure I had completed all the tabs and the result is the same.

Next, issue is, I'm working with an asp.net 2.0 website with an App_Code folder. Assuming that I'll eventually get these templates to work for the GridLoader solution, what do I need to do to get them working my development website? Can I generate the controls directly to the website and let them live with all the other user controls? Am I looking for a DLL to reference? -- Just a few more questions in my befuddled mind.
 

 

 

I'm a little unsure of if you are trying to use a WAP site or a WSP site based upon your above comments. If you are Look at the url for the link you see and see where it is pointing to it might be helpful. All our index.aspx does is load the usercontrol from the GeneratedUserControls folder. The whole class is 84 lines long. Just get our basic WAP Gridloader project working, then tackle porting to your existing app. Hope that helps...

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Regards,

Scott Schecter
EntitySpaces | My Site

The url of the link is http://localhost:1972/Index.aspx?pagename=Category -- Category is the name of the table I'm working with.

 I'm totally with you on getting the GridLoader project working first. Not sure how to accomplish that though. I haven't tried porting anything at this point.
 

I don't see anything immediately wrong with that url that would prevent your user controls from loading. I'll try and whip you up a tiny sample app with northwind to illustrate proper setup. However you are going to have to bare with me for a few days. I am in the process of moving from PA to GA currently, so as you imagine I don't have a lot of time, however I am supposed to be in my new apartment on Friday, so I will try my best to get something for you over the weekend if not sooner. We know it works fine, so its just a matter of setup, but at this point I think its easier for me to create a demo than attempt to debug your setup. Thanks for your patience.

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Regards,

Scott Schecter
EntitySpaces | My Site

Many thanks, I've got plenty of other projects to keep me busy in the meantime. Thank you for your help.

Here is a very basic sample I threw together. You will need to drop your es assemblies in /bin and update the web.config es connection entry to point to your Northwind instance. I generated all the business objects for Northwind, but only generated the admin grid for Categories for demonstration purposes. This is using EntitySpaces v2007.1.1210.0. I hope this helps...

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Regards,

Scott Schecter
EntitySpaces | My Site

Thank you Scott, I'll give it a look this weekend.

I just tried using the Grid Loader Project for the first time today (instead of the normal process of MyGeneration pages into my app project) and I was a little confused.  When I created a sample user control and built the project, I got 85 compile errors as it was looking for my Custom and Generated classes.  I read over the PDF documentation on that and I think what's missing is the instructions to generate the classes into this project.

I've been building the classes into the website project I'm building so I was a little confused, but that's nothing new for me.  

My question is, I'm usually building many applications for my clients, with different namespaces, is there a benefit to using the GridLoader project over the generating ASPX pages into my existing application?

Thanks,

King Wilder

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King Wilder
http://www.kingwilder.com

We made them user controls to attempt to make them more modular in nature. Which manner of loading best suits your project is entirely up to your discression. We simply supply the GridLoaders as a very basic implementation of loading the generated user controls.

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Regards,

Scott Schecter
EntitySpaces | My Site

I understand.  This is great, it gives me other options.

I've been usually building simple ES ASPX Template pages and including them into an Admin Console for my clients to update different parts of their website and it's been working perfectly.  I know you say it's not for public facing uses, but many times I'm on such a deadline that, with a few clicks, I have the admin pages needed and I'm done!

The GridLoader project is a nice extra to have.

Thanks.

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King Wilder
http://www.kingwilder.com