Use this page to quickly see how an application evolves when using BLD. Our "BLD Explorer Application" will allow
exploring the tables of the NorthWind database, and editing its contents.
Each Show the Application button provides both the application and notes to describe the changes.
It also has a button to view the source code.
Initial application
After installing BLD's files,
creating the classes required for your Business Logic Layer,
and adding initialization code,
this application comes to life.
It uses Page Template files,
which provide a generic interface for the list, detail, edit, and insert modes of any table.
Adding Business Rules to your Business Logic Layer
We've gone through the Entity classes,
adding DataAnnotation attributes
to describe all kinds of business rules. The user interface files have not been edited, yet the user interface
has changed dramatically.
Changing the layout of the user interface
We've used several techniques inside of our Web Forms to change their layout and style sheets.
In some cases, we've switched to using custom Page Templates with free-form layout of the page.
Modifying the user interface through Field Templates
We've changed the appearance of various
Field Templates
by using the BLDCustomizer control,
Field Template Properties,
and
Field Template Behaviors.
There have been no actual edits to Field Template files.
Adding widgets: filters, sorting, paging, and buttons
We've added Widgets. They
provide the decorations around the data oriented user interface that let the user change
its appearance and invoke commands. They include filters, sorting, paging, and buttons.
Because we've been using Page Templates,
we've been seeing filter and Widget user interfaces
all along. Our modifications have been to tweak those Widgets.