[Solved] "Enable Project" does not Appear

[Stacey]

Using a clean install of Windows 7, 64-Bit, Visual Studio 2010 Professional, and the OpenAccess ORM Trial, I am attempting to follow the guides.

http://tv.telerik.com/watch/openaccess-made-easy-enable-project?seriesID=858

Is the most recent I have examined. However this "Enable Project" option does not appear for me. Do I have to do something special to make said options appear? I have done no modifications, everything was installed as pure defaults. SQL Express 2008 R2 is my Database Engine. 

I am evaluating OpenAccess with hopes of buying it, but I am having trouble getting a lot of the demos to work because of little inconsistencies like this. Any ideas?

I am attempting to attach a screenshot, to show what is happening.

I would like to reiterate, everything is defaults. I am using the Visual Studio 2010 disk from an MSDN Subscription, Standard Windows 7 64 -Bit. I have also installed Telerik "JustCode" Trial as well. 

I have had this problem more than once (in fact, this problem is what led me to do a machine reformat to see if I had just messed up my Windows install). I have had this problem on three machines, so far, and can find very little information concerning it.

[Stacey]

Attaching screenshot of what I have.

[IT-Als]

Hi Stacey,

The default installation of OpenAccess is geared to the Visual Designer way of working.
In previous releases the other way was "Classic". Many of the older samples uses the "Classic" approach of doing things.

However, you can still gain access to the "Classic" way of doing things. In the OpenAccess menu in Visual Studio go to the Options menu item. On the General tab mark "Show old menu entries....."

Note: It's either the "Visual Designer" way or the "Classic" way - not both, meaning you can not mix them.

If you are evaluating I would definitely go for the Visual Designer way. This is the future of OpenAccess, although the "Classic" approach will not get deprecated in the near future I guess.

Regards

Henrik

[Stacey]

Please understand I mean no disrespect to Telerik or it's fine line of products, as I am an avid lover of JustCode already and plan to be purchasing soon, however I am disappointed to hear this news.

What drew us to Telerik OpenAccess ORM in the first place is the Fluent API (Beta). However it is very cumbersome to work with. In fact, it has taken me and my programming friends several hours of work just to get simple samples working, even with the documentation on how to enable the extenders. If in fact the Visual Designer is the 'true' future of the product, I am quite disappointed. 

Are there any plans to make enabling a project to use Telerik OpenAccess ORM and the Extenders a little less cumbersome and a bit more intuitive in the future? We've no interest in the Visual designer, as it impedes the way we, collectively, as a team, think and build code. The Fluent API is our biggest pull, and we are struggling between OpenAccess, Fluent nHibernate, and Microsoft Entity Framework CodeOnly at the moment. 

nHibernate is the most mature of the three, we feel, and has so far won out in the most ways, however the Microsoft Entity Framework CodeOnly is rapidly picking up our interest. However, I have always found Telerik's products to be very solid and very pleasurable to use. I'd love to put my foundation on something I know will be solid, but as cumbersome as 'Enabling' a project is right now, I cannot see us going forward with the OpenAccess model. 

[Petko_I]

Hello Henrik and Stacey,

Henrik is right about our menu entries. We have changed their general look so that they are more suited to the new visual designer approach. The old menu is not gone and it can be accessed by specifying an option in the menu – please have a look at this blog post for more information regarding this. What I must admit is that the OpenAccess made easy tutorial is not updated to reflect the changes with the new approach. However, we have updated our help and the Getting Started section is a nice place to start experimenting with OpenAccess.

Do not hesitate to contact us if you face further difficulties.

Kind regards,
Petko_I
the Telerik team

[Stacey]

As a fellow developer, and someone who has to coordinate a lot of things, I completely understand that there is an incredulous level of complexity involved in products like this. So much so that the nitpicking customers like me probably seem irksome. However, I also understand that if your customers never tell you what is wrong, you may not ever know. 

• OpenAccess ORM drew us in because of the promise of Fluent API. I realize this is labelled as (Beta), I really hope it improves. As it is right now, it is very frustrating to setup. (Having to do all of the MSBuild Operations is frustrating, especially because the documentation seems to be a bit dated on it)
• The documentation in general for OpenAccess seems separated. It feels like I go to one site, and see one thing, then a different site, and see something else. I understand that any team as good as Telerik has a lot on its plate, but I think unifying the documentation would be very wise. I feel like it is difficult to get a clear answer on some things, at this point in time.

We are still evaluating OpenAccess ORM. Can you tell us if any of this will be alleviated or investigated as the product's life cycle continues? Specifically how cumbersome it is to enable a project to use it for the Fluent API. Even using the guide, I have had great strains and difficulty getting the Fluent API only mapping to work properly. You can understand why I would be nervous about dropping the cost of the product into something like that. 

(On another note, this "Reply" editor is gorgeous. Is this the ASP.NET Editor Control?)

[Petko_I]

Hello Stacey,

Thank you for your comments. We are aware of the current state of our help resources. We have planned to make another OpenAccess Made Easy guide which will focus on the new visual designer approach. We would also like to unify the other resources so that they are up to date. However, I cannot give you an exact date as to when this will happen. The task of unifying our resources will be addressed as soon as possible. Right now, we are busy preparing new features for the Q3 release. To convince you that we have taken measure with regard to the state of the OpenAccess related materials I will tell you that with the Q3 release we will introduce a special SDK. It will provide links to our blogs, help topics, featured resources, etc. and will also have a dedicated section for managing sample solutions which use OpenAccess.

When it comes to the Fluent Mapping API we are putting some further effort so that the drawbacks you mention will vanish. There will be no longer need to perform the MSBuild task described in the help. We will add quite a few features to it and improve existing ones. The Fluent Mapping API is definitely a priority on our roadmap. The first and more pressing improvements will appear with the Q3 release.

And yes, we use the ASP.NET RadEditor control.

Any further suggestions regarding the user experience with OpenAccess are welcome.

Best wishes,
Petko_I
the Telerik team

[Stacey]

• "When it comes to the Fluent Mapping API we are putting some further effort so that the drawbacks you mention will vanish. There will be no longer need to perform the MSBuild task described in the help. We will add quite a few features to it and improve existing ones. The Fluent Mapping API is definitely a priority on our roadmap. The first and more pressing improvements will appear with the Q3 release."

When you say "Q3 Release" I cannot assume you mean by the Yearly Quarter, since we are in Q4 of this year and I do not see these improvements. I hate to be 'that customer' but can you give me a better estimate on when we might see some of this?

[Stacey]

• Any further suggestions regarding the user experience with OpenAccess are welcome.

The documentation is just not very good, right now. I'm sorry to say something so hostile, but that's how I honestly feel.
Just take a look at .. http://www.telerik.com/help/openaccess-orm/openaccess-orm-introduction-what-is-new.html

This is kind of wonky and doesn't give me any information. But I guess that's just me bitching about a page design, not giving you any help to the product, so let me be more forward with the real issue.

It feels very hard to find what you are looking for. Even the Fluent Mapping API only gets a single page or two dedicated to it. 

(It feels difficult to find the documentation in general).

I feel like I have to 'hunt' to find things. Even discovering the documentation in general was not very intuitive.

1. go to www.telerik.com
2. Click on 'Developer Productivity
3. Click on 'Support'

Once I figured out that all support was all encompassing, it was a bit easier - I'm not saying this is a bad design, but I expected to find the documentation available on the page about the product I was interested in, not orthogonal to the entire site. Perhaps this is just my OCD talking.

I notice that the Q3 release is available, in contrast to what I posted moments ago (for which I apologize for jumping the gun), but I see no updates that indicate that avoiding the MSBuild part of the Fluent API is present.
(http://www.telerik.com/help/openaccess-orm/getting-started-root-getting-started-with-fluent-api.html)

I have to scroll down to the bottom just to find links for anything else related to the Fluent API, when this should be it's own section of the documentation! 

( again, I just cannot get over this RAD EDITOR control. It is so gorgeous and smooth. I actually own ComponentArt's suite and their Editor control is getting on my nerves. If this thing really works for ASP.NET MVC, I might really consider switching)

[Petko_I]

Hello Stacey,

We are sorry you were the one to find this out, but the online documentation is not yet updated. While it is still a work in progress, we have been putting a lot of effort in improving it. However, you can open up the chm documentation installed with OpenAccess as it will contain the most recent changes. You will be pleased to find that there is indeed a whole chapter dedicated to the Fluent Mapping API. A lot of scenarios are now covered in a step-by-step flavor - you will even find a detailed inheritance section. 

We are sorry for the inconvenience caused and we do hope this is helpful.

Greetings,
Petko_I
the Telerik team