An AppGen-Created Clarion# MVC Web App (Screencast)

by Dave Harms

Published 2009-03-20    Printer-friendly version

In this first-ever ClarionMag screencast I'll take you on a tour of a Clarion# web application generated with a template set written in C6 (C7 works too).

We're pretty excited about this template set. It's still alpha code and there's a long way yet to go, but as this screencast shows it really is possible to create Clarion# web sites with AppGen, even though there's no AppGen yet for Clarion#. Of course, when Clarion# gets an AppGen we'll port the templates over to their rightful home.

So what are our plans for the template set? We'll be releasing the core templates to ClarionMag subscribers (and possibly to the wider world), so you'll be able to take advantage of them as well, although you'll have to be pretty ambitious to use them right now (did I mention this is alpha code?).

More importantly for all Clarion Magazine subscribers, we're using these templates to build the next version of the ClarionMag web site. At present, the magazine is delivered via a web application that's a combination of server-side Java code and a C6 database admin application. While that solution has worked well enough for the past decade, we're ready to take advantage of Clarion# and the many tools available to .NET web developers.

Key technologies used by the templates (and the next version of ClarionMag) include the Castle Monorail MVC framework and the NHibernate ORM layer. MVC stands for the Model-View-Controller architecture, which when applied to web applications greatly enhances testability and encourages the separation of the user interface from the business layer. We've been big fans of MVC for years, and Microsoft is finally coming around to our way of thinking. The folks in Redmond have come out with ASP.NET MVC, a very Monorail-like product which is still a bit green but shows a lot of promise. We'll be keeping a close eye on Microsoft's progress, but for now Monorail has the maturity and the features ClarionMag demands.

Watch the screencast now, and then check out Part 2 which takes a look at the generated code and explores the architecture of MVC web apps. We'll have the live demo up in the near future as well as a series of articles on Clarion# MVC web app development.

If you have any comments or questions please post them below.

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David Harms is an independent software developer and the editor and publisher of Clarion Magazine. He is also co-author with Ross Santos of Developing Clarion for Windows Applications, published by SAMS (1995), and has written or co-written several Java books. David is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA).

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