The N-Tier Framework for Windows Forms is designed to put the developer in control with tools & APIs for the rapid development of database applications in c#.
NTier is designed to leverage developers' skills and familiarity with Visual Studio and Windows Forms to quickly build large business applications. NTier provides tools, frameworks, designers, extender providers and helpers to make database application development easy without replacing familiar tools completely or simply providing an inflexible code generator.
A key design principal is that each feature of NTier is decoupled from other NTier features and works with and not against the Visual Studio tools, APIs or form designers. The developer is free to use as few or as many features that are found to be useful.
A complete database application generation wizard is provided to help get started quickly.
Supports Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 and above.
Feature
- Data Binding - Easy to configure win forms UI <-> model data binding using extender provider
- Data Binding - Validation methods provide Error/Warn/Info property icons with extender provider
- Data Binding - Compile time checks for property names in designer
- Data Binding - Meta-data binding for max len, read only, dec pl, drop lists from the entity
- Data Binding - Localizable control labels data bound from a property attribute or .resx file
- Data Binding - DataGridView support for the above features
- Data Binding - TreeView control data binding support
- UI - Database application wizard to help get started quickly
- UI - Control extender framework, eliminating the need to inherit from WinForms / 3rd party controls
- UI - Actions provide design time configurable commands for buttons and menu items
- UI - Lookup control
- UI - Property / validation method navigation from control in designer
- UI - Automatic control naming based on data bound property name
- UI - Other Visual Studio design time enhancements for controls
- UI - Numerous .net framework APIs and helper methods
- Entity - A complete ORM framework that's easy to use
- Entity - ORM entity class editor in Visual Studio
- Entity - ORM POCO support
- Entity - ORM web services / WCF middleware support
- Entity - ORM custom type support for simple types
- Entity - ORM entity overrides for saving and saved events on client and in middleware
- Entity - ORM entity condition filter attributes for entity or collection
- Entity - ORM IL, CodeDom and compile time support for entity proxy
- Entity - 70 entity code verification checks integrated into the build
- Entity - Automatic in-memory synchronization of entity sets on load and save
- Entity - Meta-data attributes provide calculated max len, read only, dec pl, drop lists and validation
- Entity - Extensible validation API that integrates with the UI
- Entity - Basic linq to sql functionality
- Entity - Numerous .net framework APIs and helper methods
- Entity - Tools and APIs are compatible with Microsoft Entity Framework, if that is preferred
- Data - Microsoft Access and Sql Server support
- Data - ORM auto-incremented identity column support
- Data - ORM runtime sql code generation supporting lazy and eager retrieve
- Data - Data provider API can be used to support other database providers
- Data - Visual Studio database schema editor
- Data - Automatic database upgrader APIs that can be embedded into the application
- Data - Numerous .net framework APIs and helper methods
- Other - Basic email error reporting functionality