StrataFrame Forum

Am I mis-used Strataframe.NET?

http://forum.strataframe.net/Topic6005.aspx

By Chan - 1/21/2007

Hi,

If you are following this forum, you may found that I keep hitting errors while using SF.NET. I didn't see any other users here face my problems before. And most of my posted questions are not able to be solved till today.



As whom has more experience on .NET and SF.NET, do you think I have mis-used SF.NET? Or, do you all never need to do what I need to accomplish?



Please advice
By Trent L. Taylor - 1/22/2007

If you are following this forum, you may found that I keep hitting errors while using SF.NET. I didn't see any other users here face my problems before.

I am not sure of your experience with .NET, but different developers run into different issues depending on their overall experience with .NET when starting.  Many of your problems are very basic and other developers have run into as well.

And most of my posted questions are not able to be solved till today.

I am confused on this point.  We pulled up all of your 23 posts as well as some emails early on and you have never had to wait more than 24 hours for a response (and that was over a weekend on those posts).  Most of your posts have been answered within hours, and some within minutes.  Also, many of your posts were answered on the weekend during our time off while we were at home.  We never leave any of our users posts unanswered.  There have been times when we have accidentally missed a post and our users will post another item on that thread just to remind us to look at it again.  But I did not see that with any of your posts.

As whom has more experience on .NET and SF.NET, do you think I have mis-used SF.NET?

I think this is more of a learning curve from my experience with your posts.  I think you could benefit by going through the tutorials and looking at the samples.

Or, do you all never need to do what I need to accomplish?

I will let some of our SF users answer this for you if they choose.

By Ivan George Borges - 1/22/2007

Hi Chan!

Hope everything is fine with you.

I just jumped in to give you my impressions.

I'm not that experienced in .NET, so you can guess I get errors too, all the time. Most of them, for not knowing the right way, or best practices of doing things. I've been developing systems for nearly 25 years now, so you can guess the many times I had to start with some new technology. What you are facing now, and that I'm facing too, is quite normal, it just takes time. Don't be so demanding on yourself.

As for the forum, I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm kind of a professional lurker... I mean, I read all the posts! Hehe I've seen your questions, and I've seen them getting answered, I myself have learned a few things with your posts...

For a start, I tend to keep things as simple as I can to accomplish what I need. This will build up some knowledge that will allow me to go deeper and more sophisticated in the near future. One thing I learned with a good friend of mine was to try not fighting the framework, and this is from the FoxPro days. This saves a lot of time in the beginning.

So, don't worry, we are all here learning together.

Cheers.

By Greg McGuffey - 1/22/2007

I've been developing systems for nearly 25 years now


It must be an old picture of Ivan then...or he started when he was 5 years old Wink





What you are facing now, and that I'm facing too, is quite normal, it just takes time. Don't be so demanding on yourself.


I'm in this boat too, as many of us are I suspect. A good reminder to take it slow...I'm going to remind my boss of this!



I'm kind of a professional lurker... I mean, I read all the posts!


Wow, I've become a luker too! Wink And for the same reasons, I learn a ton. Sometimes another's post answers my questions, sometimes I file it away for the next thing I'll have to do and sometimes it's completely beyond me, but having been exposed to it, I'm more likely to learn it later if I need it.



For a start, I tend to keep things as simple as I can to accomplish what I need. This will build up some knowledge that will allow me to go deeper and more sophisticated in the near future. One thing I learned with a good friend of mine was to try not fighting the framework, and this is from the FoxPro days. This saves a lot of time in the beginning.


I'm going to get this tattooed on my forehead! I'm always trying to go too deep too fast. Yet every time I simplify it to start, it get there sooner!



So, don't worry, we are all here learning together.


Ahmen Brother!





Chan, one of the reasons I'm totally sold on SF is that the developers (and community, like Ivan) are totally helping me get up to speed with both SF and .NET. Before November of last year, I'd never written a line of .NET code. Yet 2.5 months later, I'm chugging away. I have a pretty cool app mostly built. It includes customization to the security mod (see my numerous posts on how to handle row level security), a fancy custom search form and some pretty complicated forms, like a wizard with around 80 pages, that uses a treeview to allow random access to the pages (my posts on how to use the wizard and panel manager). When I first looked at what I had to learn to get done what I need, it was daunting.



I also remember an early post of mine (while I was evaluating it), where I was feeling frustrated and that the SF people weren't getting my problems. I posted that I felt that they were probably getting frustrated with my bone head questions. Well, they weren't. They were happy to answer my questions. Of course me being frustrated and being impatient wasn't helping, as my questions weren't as clear, or researched or well thought as they could be. I try to do a better job now when posting, just to facilitate my learning, but the problem was never that they didn't try to help (and almost always did help...though sometimes I don't like the answer Wink ). It was tough for about the first month or so for me, then it has gotten easier. This has been my experience.



So, keep the posts coming. You'll get there sooner than you think.
By Ivan George Borges - 1/22/2007

Hi Greg. 

It must be an old picture of Ivan then...or he started when he was 5 years old Wink

I started professionaly when I was 20... I'm 42 now and this picture is 2 years old, so I was 40. It must be all the coconut water and beautiful beaches crowded with pretty girls that kept me young... Tongue

By Trent L. Taylor - 1/22/2007

Hehe LOL
By Greg McGuffey - 1/22/2007

ROFL...I'm moving to Brazil baby!
By Ivan George Borges - 1/22/2007

Tell me when you guys are arriving and I will have all set.

Bring your sun glasses...

Smooooth

By Chan - 1/22/2007

Hi,

Thank you everyone for comment. I am very appreciate that. I will sit down and go thru the whole sample and tutorial again to get deeper into SF.NET.



Also, thank you SF team for great support.



w00t
By Tim Larson - 2/15/2007

Greg,

Could you post a link to your row level security posts?  Ican't seem to find them with the search.

Thanks - Tim

By Greg McGuffey - 2/15/2007

Tim,



Here are the topics that included discussions about how to tweak the security system to include row based security. Of course that can mean lots of things. What my app needs is security based on projects (not VS projects, but projects the clients (who are consultants) are working on and that are defined in the database). Access to projects based on the team working that project and the roles from one project to another can change for a single user.



The solution I'm using is to dynamically set which roles the user has based on the project they are working on. When they login, I have a custom login form that authenticates them and then checks to see what there 'default' project is (meaning which project they use when logging in, which they can set). I track which role(s) they have for each project, so I can assign the roles on the fly. I also have a form that allows them to set their default project and to switch projects. When switching projects, I close all forms and reinitialize the app for the new project (since their roles could change). This also means I need to track roles that are project based (some aren't, they are more 'enterprise' level roles). However, once this is done, it's just normal SF security.



Overview of Problem and discussion of Solution. Has other info not related to my problem, but might be useful

http://forum.strataframe.net/Topic3970-21-1.aspx



Discussion about how to handle users who have access to all projects vs those who are assigned to projects. The solution I'm using is to have a special permission which distinguishes the two (enterprise users have the permission, project users don't). Again there are other solutions and problems discussed.

http://forum.strataframe.net/Topic4164-21-1.aspx



This talks about what happens when a user switches roles or a security admin changes roles.

http://forum.strataframe.net/Topic4986-21-1.aspx



A post by Tim Dol on how to support licensing.

http://forum.strataframe.net/Topic5721-21-1.aspx



Post by Larry Caylor on row level security. Includes discussion about how SF might support this in the future.

http://forum.strataframe.net/Topic5759-21-1.aspx



Question about how to authenticate using Windows when user isn't logged onto windows with the needed credentials (like when access is via a VPN, the user is logged onto their machine or another domain, but need to authenticate against a specific domain).

http://forum.strataframe.net/Topic6001-21-1.aspx



Discussion about logging in/out users or switching users. I used information to also determine how to allow users to switch projects.

http://forum.strataframe.net/Topic5981-21-1.aspx



I couldn't figure out how to set the session lock timeout... Blush

http://forum.strataframe.net/Topic6057-21-1.aspx



The AfterSessionLock event doesn't work in 1.5.1, but will be fixed in 1.6 (according to this post). Includes a work around.

http://forum.strataframe.net/Topic6102-10-1.aspx



A bug in ShowLoginAndAuthUser() that allows session to time out while waiting for user to login.

http://forum.strataframe.net/Topic6058-21-1.aspx



Discussion about using the security views that are distributed with security tables.

http://forum.strataframe.net/Topic6275-21-1.aspx



Good luck!

Greg
By Trent L. Taylor - 2/15/2007

Greg,

Thanks for your participation in helping other StrataFrame users!

By Greg McGuffey - 2/15/2007

My pleasure! Cool