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Surround Technologies Announces New Accelerator Version 3.0

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Press Release: Download (PDF 795KB)

 

Bloomfield, NJ – September 13, 2011 – Surround Technologies announces the general availability of Version 3.0 of its Accelerator™ for .NET software development platform, a premier productivity solution for the development and use of .NET applications in multiple environments and on various platforms including IBM i.

The Accelerator for .NET is a base set of functionality, core structured architecture and wizard-driven code generation which opens the full power of .NET for developers. Accelerator Development Solutions empowers software developers to efficiently build enterprise quality software specific to business needs. Accelerator enables software development to be faster, better and allow you to deliver more functionality than is ordinarily possible.


Accelerator for .NET, Version 3.0

Accelerator for .NET V3.0 includes several new features:

    Stage II support for HTML5 and Mobile Devices
    New Accelerator PowerGrid for expanded grid capabilities
    Generate simple PDF documents using Razor templates and Framework ViewModel entities
    Generate and send emails based on Razor templates and Framework ViewModel entities
    Active Directory Integration has moved from Stage I to Stage II: Authenticate and query against Active Directory for user profile details
    Various integration and transformation options
    Facility for emailing a screen capture to facilitate support teams
    Expanded SQL support for collection within collection capabilities and for multi table joins in the Data Access Layer

HTML5 and Mobility

Accelerator 3.0 has Stage II support and a Stage III roadmap for HTML5 and Mobile devices. HTML5 was first incorporated in Accelerator for Stage I support for mobile devices, enabled by Accelerator’s Services Oriented Architecture. Accelerator’s SOA in combination with the MVVM patterns enables ultra-thin, ultra-rich capabilities that allow customers to transition to new user interfaces easily. The use of Accelerator patterns for business object and services enable multi-tier and multi-cloud deployments.

Both strategies, HTML5 and Mobility, use the ASP.NET MVC3 Framework. Multiple clients are supported including tablets, phones, and desktop browsers, with considerations for each. In Stage II support Accelerator generates the patterns and assemblies for a developer to complete the user interface. There are a number of projects currently in development using HTML5. Stage III support is anticipated in early 2012.


Accelerator PowerGrid

The new Accelerator PowerGrid enables flexible and powerful grid capabilities, incorporating the ability to work with multiple items (objects) at the same time similar to spreadsheet capabilities. Among the features of Accelerator PowerGrid are:

    Grid support for data binding and Services Oriented Architecture
    Enhanced edit capabilities and cell at a time update to the database
    Copy and paste back and forth between an Excel spreadsheet the Accelerator PowerGrid
    Copy and paste features from rows or columns within the grid
    Auto creation of new grid row entries based on copied features of other rows
    Dynamic column freezing
    Cell and row highlighting
    Many grid display and organization capabilities
    Loading options for desired scrolling and data manipulation needs

 
PDF Document Generator

PDF documents can be generated by passing one or more ViewModel entities or entity collections into a Razor template. The Razor engine comes from Microsoft’s new ASP.NET MVC3 Framework for web development, but it can be used outside of MVC3 as well. Razor templates can be stored in the application’s deployment directory or within the database, and can generate either text or html layouts that are then converted to PDF documents.

Email Generator

We’ve provided a simplified wrapper around Microsoft’s SmtpClient class which enables the Accelerator Framework to send email messages through your organizations SMTP server, using minimal configuration and a few lines of code. We’ve also extended Microsoft’s MailMessage class to allow formatting of emails by passing one or more ViewModel entities or entity collections into a Razor template. Emails can be anything from simple text to complex html-based layouts, and can include embedded links, images and attachments. Also a lightweight scheduling framework incorporates and enables native .NET capabilities and Windows Task Scheduler (generally available on every Windows server and PC) to allow you to build a scheduling system to fit your needs. The code pattern can use multiple schedule threads, and use rules and content to drive conditions of a schedule such as email campaigns.

Active Directory Integration

A new Accelerator class provides the ability to configure integration with an Active Directory server. This allows Active Directory to be used for Framework validation or for secondary validation of non-Framework user accounts. Also supported is the ability to query Active Directory for any information stored in user profiles, such as email addresses and telephone numbers.

Other Integration

Additional integration options have Stage II support including: added options for XML/XSL transformation to support multiple trading partners; various options for direct LANSA communication from Windows servers or Windows clients; expanded Stage III automation of SQL support in the Data Access Layer to provide further productivity for complex DataBase transactions.

Accelerator Functionality – Automation Stages

Accelerator has three stages of automation for supported functionality:

Stage III (Generation Framework) is the most advanced stage, it means that either the Accelerator wizards generate code or there is some automation framework to support the functionality. For example MVVM support of WPF and Silverlight are Stage III. Accelerator generates a complete end-to-end multitasking, modular application with RESTful services, error checking, and reusable business objects.

Stage II (Pattern/Methods) support means that patterns have been established and are supported in some type of framework and/or code examples. Stage II features are often on the path to having further automaton support in Stage III. Stage I (Proof/Model) support means that there is proof that the architecture supports it, and there is a working prototype using the functionality.

For more information and other features, contact Surround.

 

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