The ORM Foundation

I've posted a file release of the June 2007 CTP to address a setup issue that stopped the New Fact Editor from showing. As noted in the 'June 2007 CTP' post thread, you should now get both old and new Fact Editor windows.

The only other significant change is that the Verbalization Window and Generated Report now respect the current ModelErrorDisplay filter for secondary validation errors. Primary errors (those shown in bold that block verbalization) are not ignored because continuing in blissful ignore or Primary verbalization errors will crash the verbalization routines. For example, a FactType must have a reading before it can verbalize.

Please be sure to uninstall the original 2007-06CTP release (just the 'Neumont ORM Architect for Visual Studio' product, not the PLiX and Framework pieces) before installing this drop.

-Matt

Hi Matt,

DL'd the "a" form, and loaded that up (after removing the June 2007 NORMA, as instructed).  That went fine.  I brought up VS with an ORM document I had created earlier.  Once I selected a FactType predicate on the graphic model, the new Fact Editor displayed.  I found I could also select the old Fact Editor tab, but would have to reselect the predicate for it to come up in the alternate Fact Editor window.  As I'm pretty sure you'll have only one FE in future releases, this isn't a problem.  For now it's a bit of a hassle to switch back and forth, but if this is just for the evaluation part of the development of the tool, that's fine.

Beside the icon added to the new FE tab, and the changed punctuation (syntax), and colors, is there anything else on the client side that we should be looking at as being different from the old FE?  Is it that the new display better matches the text entry during the creation of a new fact?  One feature that I don't see, but would be handy, is having an Object Type selected in the model form the first object in a new fact in the FE window - so if you had [Car(VIN) has Color()] displayed in the usual manor in the model, if you then select the Car object on the graphic model, Car would be at the beginning of a new fact line in the FE - as in, [Car has GrossWeight()].  Adding this as a context menu option would be good too.

If there are any new shortcuts, as in () after entering an Object Type to indicate a Value Type, please pass them along.  If you are going to hold of on these until a metamodel is set, that's Ok too.

BTW, for the "a" release, after removing the June NORMA, using the Neumont ORM Architect.msi worked fine - no need to use the others installation options for this upgrade.  BRN..

The main new shortcut is A has/is of B is supported for entering binary reverse readings along with the forward reading. Also, after Ctrl-Enter, you'll see the A listed back on its own, ready to accept another FactType. Operations such as changing arity on a selected FactType should be much smoother, and preservation of existing constraints should also work much better than it did before (unless the arity changes, in which case constraints are tossed). The colors are still bound to the old Fact Editor, which should be easily changed when the old one is removed.

Note that both the old and new fact editors support IntelliSense lists for ObjectType names. Just type Ctrl-Enter to complete or Ctrl-J to bring up the list (Normal IntelliSense commands if you're used to coding in Visual Studio).

One known bug:
[a] has [b]
will create object types named a and b, but this will list back as a has b (the [] should surround any ObjectType names that do not start with a capital letter).

-Matt

Hi Matt,

Thanks.  Odds are I wouldn't have noticed these features without your notes.  BRN..