Active Query Builder News

August 07, 2006

Active Query Builder 1.6 released

We're glad to announce the new minor version of Active Query Builder. You can download the newest version from the download page.

What's new in the Active Query Builder version 1.6?

• Storing metadata information in XML file. ^*

  Storing and loading metadata information from an XML file makes loading metadata almost instant regardless of the number of objects being loaded. This also reduces the workload of the database server by making it unnecessary to request metadata from the server.

• Working in offline mode. ^*

  Now Active Query Builder supports working in offline mode, loading metadata information from a previously saved XML file. This is very convenient if the component is used to work with a remote database, for example in the ASP.NET environment. In many cases, direct connection to the database is undesirable or even impossible from the point of view of security or performance. In this case, the most convenient solution would be to work with Active Query Builder in offline mode.

  The XML file can be created using one of the following methods:

  • Programmatically: you should switch to Offline mode (i.e. set the OfflineMode property to true) and then load metadata to the Metadata Container using the LoadMetadataByMask and LoadMetadataByFilter methods. Then, you will be able to read the XML code using the XML property of the MetadataContainer object or use the SaveToXMLFile method.
  • Using the demo application available via the following link: http://www.activequerybuilder.com/files/aqb_demo.zip. When creating a new query, switch to the XML tab, press the Add button and follow the wizard’s instructions.
  • (VCL Edition Only) Alternatively, in design-time you can right-click on the component and select the "Preload Metadata Container" item. The Metadata Container editor will appear. Here you can view the content of the container, remove unnecessary items, as well as launch the metadata loading wizard by clicking the "Load…" button.

  To load metadata from the XML file, assign the string containing the XML code to the XML property of the MetadataContainer object, or, alternatively, use the LoadFromXMLFile method. If you want to avoid database requests at all, set the OfflineMode to True.

  Code example of saving metadata to XML file programmatically:

  QueryBuilder.OfflineMode := True;
  QueryBuilder.MetadataContainer.LoadMetadataByMask('%', '%', 'Northwind');
  QueryBuilder.MetadataContainer.LoadMetadataByMask('%', '%', 'Southwind');
  QueryBuilder.MetadataContainer.SaveToXMLFile('winds.xml');
  

  Code example of loading Metadata from XML file:

  QueryBuilder.OfflineMode := True;
  QueryBuilder.MetadataContainer.LoadFromXMLFile('winds.xml');
  

• Other minor bugfixes and improvements.

^* These features will be available in the Standard Edition of Active Query Builder only.

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