Habanero v2: Create One Application for the Desktop & Web

South Africa (SANEPR.com) October 7, 2008 -- Having established itself as a reputable ORM framework, Habanero's version 2 beta release by Chillisoft Solutions sees it launch as a full Enterprise Application Framework that provides free open source tools to produce an agile application from the data layer through to the front-end, supporting ORM, code generation and runtime UI generation.

Version two's key new feature is the integration of a ControlFactory structure in its runtime UI generation layer, allowing the development of an application whose user interface knows little about its release environment. With little more than the switch of a configuration, the application can be released either on the desktop or the web. This has been made possible by the integration of Visual WebGUI by Gizmox, which successfully simulates the rich controls of Windows Forms and hugely enhances bandwidth use for data-rich web applications.

Employed with great success in production scenarios with projects of various scales, Habanero is being used to simplify the development process by streamlining common operations without limiting the developer's access to flexibility and control. Using object relational mapping (ORM) to map relational databases to the rich domain object layer, developers are given the freedom to apply agile techniques, because the cost of change to the data structure is so substantially reduced. While experienced developers will understand the convenience of circumventing the usual implementation of CRUD sql statements, ORMs cater equally well for junior developers who can develop without needing to understand the complexities of data persistence and the nuances of supporting multiple database vendors.

Habanero has ventured beyond the limited model of other ORM implementations by providing a runtime UI generation layer that links up seamlessly with the data and logic layers. Without compromising separation of concerns, Habanero's UI layer hugely facilitates change management by holding a set of XML display definitions that are used to construct runtime grids, forms and controls that map data from the business objects to controls and enforce business rule validation. This approach allows for a simple-case front-end to produced incredible quickly, but still provides for a developer to have full access to the individual controls in order to assign custom behaviour.

The release of version two includes support for the popular Firebird database. Along with the existing coverage for MySQL, Microsoft Access and Sql Server, Oracle, SQLite and PostgreSQL, Habanero includes extraction of the data layer in order to support custom data sources like an in-memory database, with hugely improves test coverage performance and allows for prototype applications to be assembled rapidly. Included with Habanero is the Firestarter tool for reverse engineering mapping definitions from existing database schemas, managing the definitions and generating working code solutions.