Iron Speed Designer works by translating a declarative description of your application (HTML pages containing code generation instructions) into a working N-tier application with well-partitioned service layers. To build and generate an application, you provide two primary “inputs” to Iron Speed Designer:
Your application’s web-based user interface pages. Your application’s user interface dictates what database-connected controls and other components will be included in your application and generated by Iron Speed Designer. You have complete control over your user interface design.
The underlying database tables upon which your application is built. Using Iron Speed Designer, the controls included in your application’s web pages are “bound” to the specific database tables and fields. Iron Speed Designer uses this control-to-database binding information to build your application. The generated controls are live and fully connected to the database, giving you an instantly functioning application.
From these basic inputs, Iron Speed Designer generates highly sophisticated, ready-to-run applications.
Iron Speed Designer accommodates highly iterative development. You may add user interface pages, databound controls, and database tables to your application in any order. And, you can build your application at any time to see the effect of your changes. Moreover, Iron Speed Designer is designed so that customizations you make to your application are preserved when you build an application. Thus, the application development t process is not “one way”. You can modify your application within or external to Iron Speed Designer in a very iterative manner.
The following diagram illustrates the application development process with Iron Speed Designer.
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The application development process in Iron Speed Designer. Using Iron Speed Designer, you create a set of HTML layout pages and identify a set of database tables. The databound controls, represented by code generation tags in the layout pages, are then bound to the underlying database tables using the Page Properties dialog in Iron Speed Designer. Finally, the application is generated using the layout pages, table definitions, and data bindings. |
Create layout pages. Using Iron Speed Designer, you add one or more HTML layout pages to your application’s project. The HTML layout pages define your application’s web-based user interface and contain code generation tags that define which databound controls you want on the various pages. These code generation tags drive the application generation process.
Bind components. Next, you bind the individual databound controls identified by the code generation tags in the layout pages to the underlying databases by specifying the databases, tables, and fields to be connected to each individual component. Iron Speed Designer uses this information to generate SQL queries and stored procedures for the underlying database access logic.
Generate code. Finally, with one button click, Iron Speed Designer generates your entire N-tier application, including all of the web-based user interface pages, the data validation code, the application’s SQL and stored procedures, and the database access code. The HTML layout pages are converted into ASPX pages and ASCX controls, and the databound controls are generated as a set of server-side code-behinds and extensible classes. Underpinning the databound controls are individual SQL statements and stored procedures.
Layout page files underpin every application built using Iron Speed Designer.
These topics describe what a layout page file is, how to modify it, and most importantly, how to add layout page files to your application.
Code Generation Tags in Layout Pages
Binding Components to the Database
A “Hello World” Example Using the Image Tag
