Photo by Makarios Tang on Unsplash
TMS Aurelius 4.0 has just been released! It's a major update with exciting new features:
- TAureliusConnection component
- Generate entities from existing database, from the IDE
- Direct Microsoft SQL Server database access
First, a new TAureliusConnection component is now available. Even though creating a database connection in TMS Aurelius has always been as easy as writing one line of code, with TAureliusConnection you can now do it at design-time. Just drop a TAureliusConnection component on the form and double-click it to configure (or set properties in object inspector, of course):
As expected, you can adapt any supported database-access component (like TFDConnection from FireDAC), set SQL dialect, and you are done.
This makes it even easier to configure a connection, test it in advance at design-time, and provide further design-time support for both Aurelius and XData. Expect lots of new components for both frameworks with great design-time support!
But TAureliusConnection component already brings great stuff for this 4.0 version:
Generate entities from existing database, from the IDE
It is now possible to generate TMS Aurelius entity classes from an existing database directly from the IDE. Creating classes from database has always been possible by using the great TMS Data Modeler tool. It is a database modeling tool which can import existing database structure to the model, and then generate Delphi source code with TMS Aurelius classes. It's very powerful, with a scripting system to customize the source code output, ability to separate classes by units, among other things. But now you don't need to use a separate tool, and not even leave Delphi IDE, you can quickly generate entity classes using TAureliusConnection component. Simply configure the database connection on it, then right-click the component and choose "Generate entities from database..."
This will connect to the database, import the existing database structure, and open the export dialog with several options to customize the output source code. You can then select tables to export, choose naming policy for classes and properties, among other options. You can even preview the final source code in the "Preview" tab, before confirming.
When you click "Ok" button, a new unit with the declared entities will be created in the same project of TAureliusConnection component. You can start using your Aurelius classes in your project without even saving it!
But, for me personally, the greatest feature of this release is direct Microsoft SQL Server access.
Direct Microsoft SQL Server database access
TMS Aurelius (and TAureliusConnection) now has the concept of "adapter mode" and "driver mode". The former is the one you are used to: use an existing db component library and Aurelius will adapt and abstract it. But now you can also use "driver mode" which is a direct connection to the database without needing such components! Yes: to access Microsoft SQL Server with Aurelius, you don't need FireDAC, dbExpress or ADO anymore!
Here is how the TAureliusConnection configuration dialog looks for driver mode:
If you prefer not to use the TAureliusConnection and just create the IDBConnection interface yourself like you are used to, just use the new TMSSQLConnection class, which implements IDBConnection, and pass the parameters to it:
Conn := TMSSQLConnection.Create('Server=.SQLEXPRESS;Database=Northwnd;TrustedConnection=True');
That's the greatest feature of this release in my opinion. And stay tuned to support for more databases in upcoming releases!
Finally, the short video below will show you the new features in action. You can try TMS Aurelius and all the other TMS Business products right now! Download the trial version, watch tutorial videos and many more from the TMS Business main page.