DataWindow Designer is now provided as a set of plug-ins for Microsoft Visual Studio 2005. You can design DataWindow objects directly in Visual Studio instead of in the standalone DataWindow Designer. The standalone DataWindow Designer is also distributed with DataWindow .NET 2.5 for the convenience of customers who prefer to continue to use it.
The following modules are available as plug-ins:
DataWindow painter
Database painter
Query painter
DataWindow Project
The DataWindow Project type is a new Visual Studio project type that is integrated with the Visual Studio Solution Explorer.
To create a new DataWindow project, select File>New>Project in Visual Studio .NET and select DataWindow Projects from the list of project types. A project and a library to hold your DataWindow objects are created. To create a library with a different name, right-click the new project in the Solution Explorer and select Add New Library. If you have worked with DataWindow Designer before, you can also add existing libraries to your project. Make sure that you select Migrate from the project’s pop-up menu if the libraries were last used in a previous version of DataWindow .NET.
To create a new DataWindow object, right-click the library where you want to save the DataWindow object in the Solution Explorer and select Add New Entry.
In the Add New Entry dialog box, select DataWindow Object from the categories list, select a DataWindow style from the Templates list, provide a name for the DataWindow object, and click Add to start the DataWindow wizard.
In the DataWindow wizard, select a data source, then complete the rest of the wizard to create the DataWindow object.
To add a control to a DataWindow object, select it in the DataWindow Painter category in the Visual Studio toolbox and click where you want to place it in the DataWindow painter Design view.
The DataWindow Properties view has been rewritten to fit the Visual Studio look and feel. It displays in the Visual Studio Properties window. You can display properties alphabetically or by category. A brief description of each property displays at the bottom of the window if you select Description from the Properties window’s pop-up menu.
For complete information about using the DataWindow Designer plug-in, including how to create projects, DataWindow objects, and queries, add controls to DataWindow objects, set properties, and open different painters and views, see the DataWindow Designer User’s Guide.
