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Data Access 2015.2 624 Version Visual Designer

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Brian asked on 24 Jun 2015, 11:39 PM

Why the heck would you remove the Visual Designer in Visual Studio?!!!?!??? That is crazy, as it is one of the main reasons I've used OpenAccess since it a paid product in DevCraft Complete. I don't want a code only ORM -- that is like the bad old days of nHibernate. Please fix this ASAP. I still don't like that the ORM was made free, by the way, I want ongoing, active development that is first class. You seem to have done that, which is great, but this latest move seems to indicate otherwise.

I'm also not happy with the fact that I had to install four NuGet to find the assemblies, which I only seem to be able to install in my main WPF gui project automatically. I have a COTS/Telerik/OpenAccess folder in my solution, which is shared by several projects. I put my ORMs in dedicated ORM projects that the WPF or ASP.NET projects reference. I followed the steps on how to use the ORM without installing it to solve most of my issues. I'm able to compile everything, but the WPF projects say they can't find the embedded .rlinq file in the ORM assmbly, so it breaks all of my apps.

I uses the OpenAccessNuGet.targets file as my OpenAccess.targets file, as I did not see it anywhere else (this is also a problem). I have the following in my ropertyGroup:

<OpenAccessPath Condition="'$(OpenAccessPath)'==''">$(SolutionDir)COTS\Telerik\OpenAccess\</OpenAccessPath>

<EnhancerAssembly Condition="'$(EnhancerAssembly)'==''">$(OpenAccessPath)enhancer.exe</EnhancerAssembly>

Very frustrated, very long time Telerik customer. Please help!

40 Answers, 1 is accepted

answered on 29 Jun 2015, 08:24 AM

Hello Brian,

Thank you for your honest feedback about our recent move to stop development of Telerik Data Access integration with Visual Studio.
I understand your frustration. The fact that we are no longer shipping our Visual Designer does not mean that you are forced to stop using Q1 2015 (or any earlier) version of Telerik Data Access that contains all the tools that you are used to.
We will continue to deliver Q1 2015 package to existing clients when they request it (or you can actually download it from Your Account page in our site) and we will be offering help and guidance through either our support system or the community forums.
Moving away from Visual Studio integration will allow us to focus our attention to the runtime of the product and some other projects and we believe these are the right things to invest our time and effort into.
In general you have two options:

continue using Q1 2015 version with RLINQ models without any additional effort
migrate to code-only mapping and NuGet packages

Our recommendation for projects that are pass their active development phase is to use the first option, while projects that are just starting or in active development should be migrated to code-only mapping.
Of course you are the one that should make the choice according to your specific situation.

Getting back to your problem at hand - OpenAccessNuGet.targets is optimized to work with Fluent models by default. You need to enable enhancing of RLINQ models there before you can use it. You have to set UseXmlMapping build variable to true. You have two options to do that:

Add <UseXmlMapping>true</UseXmlMapping> to your model project file like this:

1.

2.<PropertyGroup>

3. <UseXmlMapping>true</UseXmlMapping>

4.</PropertyGroup>

Please add the code snippet above after between the last configuration-related PropertyGroup and the first ItemGroup.
Change OpenAccessNuGet.targets to set proper default value for UseXmlMapping:

1.<UseXmlMapping Condition="'$(UseXmlMapping)'==''">true</UseXmlMapping>

While the second approach may seem easier to implement, bear in mind that the next time you update your NuGet targets file it will be replaces and you will have to redo the fix.

If you need any further assistance updating your project, please let us know.

Regards,
Viktor Zhivkov
Telerik

Check out the latest announcement about Telerik Data Access vNext as a powerful framework able to solve core development problems.

answered on 09 Jul 2015, 03:55 PM

For the past several years, and three companies, I have pushed for Telerik Products. I always loved working with your WPF components and WinForms components. To be honest though, the past few years I switched over to Asp.Net MVC and your ORM. Your Kendo stuff is ok, I have found better alternatives that are free. But coupled with your ORM designer and Kendo, it was a combination that no other company could even compete with. You destroyed that relationship now with this new release, I will not be renewing. I feel EF is now my goto, which I write with disgust. I seriously just created and a massive dashboard system for my company, and used your product for everything. Now, what your telling me is that I am beat and my RLINQ files are future screwed and I should have went with someone else to begin with. Or, I can sacrifice security and use an old and outdated version for everything. Are you guys taking tips straight from Microsoft now on screwing over your customers? I just renewed for another year too, could have saved the $700.

answered on 12 Jul 2015, 01:22 AM

I have to second everyone above. The design first of Data Access is all we use. The vast majority of developers I personally know that use this tool also use design first. this is going to force our team to look at switching to entity framework. It's sad because I have preached for a long time about how better your tool is compared to entity framework but without the integration it falls way down on my list. I will likely be canceling my subscription too now that I don't use any of your control frameworks as we have moved to mvc. The support for ORM and occasional use of reporting is the only reason I have kept my devcraft license active.

its sad to see such a great product get handicapped like this.

answered on 14 Jul 2015, 02:11 PM

People actually use and depend on this stuff you know.

So very disappointed. Full of hope and promise, I made the dangerous switch from EF to DataAccess about a year ago. Plenty of development and testing went into it thinking I would have a superior product in the end. Now I'm facing the reverse project and the humiliating task of trying to explain why.

This move really does not show much in the way of commitment.

Short term this gives me another issue, I just got a new laptop and let my DevCraft license lapse. I just realized I need to find 2015.1.225.1 to have the Visual Designer in VS. Only 2015.2 is available from my account page. How do I go about getting 2015.1 release? At this point I don't know if I want or need to renew my license.

answered on 15 Jul 2015, 04:41 PM

[quote]wasted a day figuring out what the heck was wrong[/quote]
I did too!

No notice. No announcement. Just depreciate a Great Tool quietly and nobody will notice.

My 2 managers have the opinion that we should not use 3rd party ad-ons because they could disappear. It took me a long time to convince them that Telerik was different. They caved in. I can not tell them this happened because they will say "I told you so" and NO you cannot renew your subscription. I now have many days of work to secretly move my DB access code to DevArt.

It took 9 years for Telerik to piss me off and they did it in a way that so so disrespectful and bizarre that I am in shock!

answered on 27 Jul 2015, 06:38 PM

I too find this change very disappointing. I do all my database development via SSMS, not via code. I went to all the work of converting my projects from EF to DA because DA was more intuitive and I was already using other Telerik tools. Now I'll probably convert them back to EF. Overall I have been very pleased with Telerik's tools and first-rate support, but I agree with others that this was a mistake. A change like this should have been put out to the users for feedback prior to the final decision, rather than just dropped on us with "our way is better, but you can still use the old version if you want to."

answered on 28 Jul 2015, 01:54 PM

Why the[quote]Viktor Zhivkov said:Hello Brian,

Thank you for your honest feedback about our recent move to stop development of Telerik Data Access integration with Visual Studio.
I understand your frustration. The fact that we are no longer shipping our Visual Designer does not mean that you are forced to stop using Q1 2015 (or any earlier) version of Telerik Data Access that contains all the tools that you are used to.
We will continue to deliver Q1 2015 package to existing clients when they request it (or you can actually download it from Your Account page in our site) and we will be offering help and guidance through either our support system or the community forums.
Moving away from Visual Studio integration will allow us to focus our attention to the runtime of the product and some other projects and we believe these are the right things to invest our time and effort into.
In general you have two options:

continue using Q1 2015 version with RLINQ models without any additional effort
migrate to code-only mapping and NuGet packages

Add <UseXmlMapping>true</UseXmlMapping> to your model project file like this:

1.

2.<PropertyGroup>

3. <UseXmlMapping>true</UseXmlMapping>

4.</PropertyGroup>

Please add the code snippet above after between the last configuration-related PropertyGroup and the first ItemGroup.
Change OpenAccessNuGet.targets to set proper default value for UseXmlMapping:

1.<UseXmlMapping Condition="'$(UseXmlMapping)'==''">true</UseXmlMapping>

Check out the latest announcement about Telerik Data Access vNext as a powerful framework able to solve core development problems.

[/quote]

Now if I have updated my database, I had a nice clean way of "update from Database" and generate .rlinq files, how to do it without visual designer, please can you tell?

answered on 31 Jul 2015, 11:05 AM

I guess the balance of good will vs. development cost for this fell the wrong way for us. This cuts both ways though as I am now looking for alternative solutions to my data access requirements.

For me, a heavily used and perfectly serviceable tool chain has now been broken for me affecting many projects. With this decision, I am locked to VS 2013 unless I can convince my customers that they should spend money on me changing an already working data access layer.

If Telerik don't want to support the designer, why not open source it? The community could then try getting the designer to work in VS 2015 without breaking any licence terms.

answered on 21 Aug 2015, 02:58 AM

Well Done Telerik! You've made a bad decision, and compounded that with the release strategy (None!) and result of this decision have been handled the terribly. I agree with pretty much everyone else on this thread, and I have never responded to these things until now! After more than 20 years in the industry putting up with Microsoft's random (some would say gutless) decisions on technology support I've never written a complaint, but they at least gave us a warning in advance and we could plan for it! And the timing is just great I've started a new grad and the first problem they hit is this! So waste his and my time.

I am very, very tempted to send Telerik a bill for my lost time and my staffs time, which at this point is way more than the subscription cost!!!!

GET Your Act Together! If I pulled this stunt on my clients I wouldn't have Any.

answered on 06 Oct 2015, 01:36 PM

To be honest, I have gone back and forth with them. They just say the same thing, use the last version that had Visual Design support. When they were bought out, the CEO promised us that the company purchasing them wouldn't make changes. And they have, they don't care what the people say anymore, that was something before that we could all appreciate from the original company. They fixed what was wrong and usually made it better. The new Telerik, just wants your money with the least amount of effort to keep us hooked, like an awesome drug dealer. I highly suggest, like some others that I have spoken to here. Move on to EF or Dapper and never look back. This is a sinking ship that will not remedy the wrong doings. I have moved on to Dapper ( which is great and fast but go awful to set up and get running ). Most people will go the route of EF and we can all listen to the SQL purists make fun of us on every single *Exchange style website. This really sucks, but I can tell you that I will not buy another license from this company. Hopefully after this none of you else will either. If anything, the lack of a public response to our outcry really seals the deal and makes me realize one thing, they are nothing more than profiteering gluttons. My thanks goes out to the old "Telerik" team, you are much missed.

answered on 18 Oct 2015, 02:56 PM

I want to second every opinion heard on this thread. Removing the Visual Designer was a really bad move. I do not see the "High Cost" associated with maintaining it. I have a project with hundreds of tables and changes are made on the DB first. Although the Visual Designer could create the first Fluent model, how are we expected to maintain all this Fluent stuff? By hand? The Visual Designer along with Templates allowed me to script all changes to a DB in less than a minute. Now it looks like it will be hours at best finding all changes to the DB and figuring out how to write them in Fluent syntax.

Some response from the Data Access team would be nice. The silence just seems like you just don't care anymore and this is not the Telerik we all loved over the years.

answered on 19 Oct 2015, 12:44 AM

I would imagine that the cost of maintaining the staff and support of a product like DataAccess is high, and given that it's a free product, that's not a good business argument.

I've been left in the lurch over this, but however much you complain in these forums, that's not going to change the decision.

I bought Telerik primarily in the hope that I was supporting the data access tool (which is the main product I used), so given that Kendo UI is free I won't need to renew next year, so perhaps I'll come out of this thing on top!

I'm now using LLBLGen Pro, which was the original product we switched from in 2009. We switched because we wanted the simplicity of the Telerik Visual Designer combined with performance. LLBLGen feels clunky, and has a much steeper learning curve, but at least I can start from my Database, and it is very powerful and fast.

I'd suggest we move on, and find an alternative. If you find what you think is an ideal replacement, post a message on here, and if it links to Telerik's other products, great.

Cheers,
Jason

answered on 19 Oct 2015, 07:45 PM

My issue is that I don't have control over the database. I develop secondary/specialized apps for our main application. I have zero control over the database and typically don't get informed myself to database changes. Using the "Update from database" option was the best thing in my situation. The code only approach would be fine, if I was the one responsible for the database, but I am not. And I have ten different applications that I have to manage and keep the database in sync with. This is costing me an unbelievable amount of time to switch over, which the process to do is horribly documented. If anything I should be billing Telerik for the time lost for this change. Sorry for the rant but this is incredibly frustrating. The customer base should have been polled asking about the impact of this before just doing it.

answered on 20 Oct 2015, 09:07 AM

Jeremy,

I also miss the "update from db" option; so I successfully converted to Entity Framework 6x which was easy to do for me; I created a so called "db first" model which will look at the database and then creates the model. I applied some of the customization I had in Data Access (like custom properties on the context) and re worked some of the references in code (small things like table names ending with a "s"). Only challenge I now have is to make it multi tenant, which seems to can only be done via the "fluent api" feature of the EF. Because of time constraints I'm not going there (yet).

To my surprise, the EF designer has a lot of similar features as in Data Access; "update from db" is one of them. Hope it helps.

Regards,

Ruud

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Data Access 2015.2 624 Version Visual Designer

40 Answers, 1 is accepted