I am trying to add an association between two entities based on database views each of which has an identity key and one of which also has a field that corresponds to a foreign key for mapping to the identity key of the other view. Is it possible to add an association with the latest release of the Open Access ORM? Or is this feature not implemented for views?
Addendum: After uninstalling and then re-installing Telerik OA ORM, and then discovering that the Association tool is under the "Class Diagrams" header, and that this tool is NOT a drag-and-drop control but rather a selector for which it is then necessary to click on the two tables for the association.... well I finally got associations to work for views.
Suggestions: How about labeling the section for the tools with something like "Telerik Open Access" instead of "Class Diagrams"?!? And how about enabling addition of an association in a more intuitive way directly from the designer surface or one of the tables for the association?!?
In general, I continue to struggle with Open Access ORM each time that I have tried it. This time around, I encountered the above problems, and I also find it rather difficult to change a namespace or a model name. For example, if I change the name of the Conceptual Model, the designer does NOT automatically change the domainContextContainer and so I have to do that manually in the XML editor view of the *.rlinq file. Finally, even though the Rlinq Domain Model compiles OK without errors, then when I try to run the Data Services Wizard to use the domain model, create a service and add it to a Silverlight app, the Data Services Wizard complains that the project does not have a valid DAL...
So at this point, I conclude that I probably should wait for major improvements in the next release before trying again....
1 Answer, 1 is accepted
I see you have encountered several issues and I would like to apologize on behalf of my team. We are trying to improve both the installation process and the user experience with our product. Therefore, you cannot imagine how useful your comments and suggestions may turn out to be.
Firstly, the reason for the failed installation may be that the previous version of OpenAccess was not uninstalled properly (if there was one). I can only guess what the true cause for the failure may be. I would be glad if you could explain what the state of your machine was prior to installing our product – whether you had or not a copy of OpenAccess. The installation should be smooth if OpenAccess was uninstalled properly.
Having an association on a view is not a common scenario because an association corresponds to a foreign key which is defined on a table in the database. The very definition of the view is a SELECT statement. Yet, adding associations between views is possible with OpenAccess because we treat them as tables. Your conceptual model will be well defined but the relational one will lack integrity.
We have decided to name the toolbox Class Diagrams because all the tools are related to the entity diagram of a persistent class. I would like to highlight the fact that we have improved our association dragging process in our latest internal build (version 2010.2.804.5) – you can now start to drag an association from anywhere in the MetaClass design surface. We will definitely consider the addition of more options regarding the tools manipulation – I just cannot give you an exact time-frame. Any suggestions as to what you feel is convenient are highly welcome.
I admit that changing the model name is not synchronized for the currently released OpenAccess versions but I assure you this will be fixed for the next distribution. With regard to the Data Services Wizard, can you describe briefly the steps you took to get the invalid model error? I need to know the type of the projects you have, where you have put your DAL, etc. I am very concerned that this is happening and would like to investigate the reason for this behavior.
I want to remind you once again that any proposals you make will be taken into consideration for improving our product. Do not hesitate to contact us if you need examples or have questions regarding OpenAccess.
Sincerely yours,Petko_I
the Telerik team