How to Deploy a DevExtreme MultiChannel Application in Azure

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Not long ago I had to do a really simple project (Web and Mobile) -our focus is web in this article- that its only function was to modify some admin settings in our main application database. We had already an Odata Service running so it made sense to use a DevExtreme MultiChannel Application. As stated in the documentation, using the project template wizard you can create both a multi-channel solution and generate views for the entities from the specified OData service. So I was up and running in no time.

My issue started when I decided to deploy my web (desktop) channel to Azure. Looking for the answer I came across this ticket from DevExpress, it pointed me in the right direction but I still spent a decent amount of time until I finally made it work. A few days back someone in our facebook group had the same exactly question and then this article was born.
 
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XAF POS Teaser

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Article coming soon.

Some interesting points:

  • Barcode field gets auto-focus to account for scanning capability.
  • On Screen Keybooard gets triggered every time an editable field is focused.
  • Touch UI action automatically increase size of controls and distance between some of their elements.
  • The size and distance are increased according to the TouchScaleFactor value.
  • Font Size selection thanks to Llamachant Framework Modules.

Hope you guys like it. XAF out!

Xamarin.Forms DataPages and DevExpress OData Service

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If you have used DevExtreme Project Templates to create mobile apps you know how fast and easy you can get a simple solution working. With just passing the Url of your OData service on the wizard all the views for your entities are generated in a master- detail way. This is a great solution when you need to give access to some data to your users without having to create views, models, bindings, etc. It is all created for you, it is quick and more important, it works. But as a C# developer that is the end of my road. If I have to do any customization at all I then move to Xamarin where I feel more at home.

I was reading an article last week about Xamarin.Forms DataPages and my first thought was: Will it work with DevExpress Odata Service? Spoiler: Yes, It does. 

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XAF – ONLY UPPERCASE

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This will be another short post like Customs Fields at runtime for XAF. It is a really simple controller and sometimes I wonder when doing a post if the topic maybe it is too (for lack of a better word) simple, but I pat myself in the back because I truly believe that if it helps at least one person I am happy about it (It also helps me when I don’t remember what I did 6 months from now).

The task presented in this post was requested for one of our customers where for some reason they prefer all text inside their windows application exclusively in UPPERCASE.

Weirdly enough their requirement was not for labels, navigation items or actions (I believe they handled that trough localization). What they need was only input data.

As always I did a research trough the support tickets and got it working fairly quick.

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XAF Wizard Module by eXpandFramework

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This post it is just to give a great shout out to Apostolis Bekiaris. The wizard module from eXpandFramework is a beauty.

I won’t go trough the implementation because the only thing I did was taking the project from the source:

and running a Test Application on top of it. If you want to dig deeper you can see the whole solution here.

Now, let’s see how an end user will take advantage of it.

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Customs Fields at runtime for XAF

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This will be a really short post. When presented with a XAF challenge the first thing I do it is a quick search trough the support tickets to see if there is already an implementation that I can adapt to my needs. Most of the time I find something that I can use, but also most of the time I have to actually code it and run it to see if it is exactly what I need it.

If you are like me, you would love to have a visual before getting to deep and realizing I am on the wrong path. I also realize DevExpress receives tons of tickets daily so this is not feasible for them.

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A Gentle Introduction to XAF – My personal recipe

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As an advocate for XAF, XPO, Xamarin and Azure I am constantly reading articles, tutorials, youtube videos and anything I can get my hands on about those topics and a while back I read  a great article by Charlin Agramonte: Learning Xamarin Forms – The XamGirl personal recipe where she goes over her personal formula for learning Xamarin. I liked so much I even put it in my quick overview of XPO in Xamarin (expect part 2 and 3 coming soon) and got me thinking what a great way of jump start our learning process and having a lot of great content in a single place.

Well, this is my own formula for XAF development. 

Are you ready?

Let’s start!
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XPO and Xamarin 101. A Step by Step beginner’s guide. (Part 1)

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“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” – Martin Luther King

When I first started with XPO I could swear there was something magic involved in how it was handling my data. I had no idea what was going on, but I knew that if I derived my classes from XPObject  or BaseObject (if you use XAF), I automatically had my classes turned into tables in a database of my choosing, I had an autogenerated Built-in OID key,  Deferred Object Deletion, and Optimistic Locking. And honestly, that was all I care about. If I wanted to use a different database; it was as simple as changing my connection string.

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XPO ORM and Xamarin

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A quick overview of XPO in Xamarin.

With the current release of XPO v18.1, DevExpress has made XPO available free-of-charge. Xamarin has been open source and free for quite some time, and now with XPO for .NET Core / .NET Standard 2.0 finally out of Beta,  a world of possibilities and new exciting features/projects is opening to us.

Let’s review what exactly that means to us.

If you have used XPO in the past you know the great features it offers:

  • Transparent and Controllable Object Relational Mapping System
  • Bindable and Pageable Object Collections
  • Support for various DB engines (14 to be exact and you can always implement your own XPO connection provider)
  • Advanced Criteria System
  • And More…

Also, it is a mature product with great support that has been around for 15 years. Support is still a paid service but definitely worth it (ask around). Want to see how it compares to EF? Just take a quick look at this simple benchmark.

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