What is LightNOVA?
This is a desktop application written by developers for developers. It’s designed to help developers deliver more products much faster by automatically creating code which developers would otherwise spend weeks or months writing.
How does LightNOVA work?
Almost every application needs to have a database where data can be stored.
It is also common practice to separate the projects in your visual studio solution, namely in the form of Core Layer, Data Access a Layer, Model Layer, Business Logic and Presentation layer. With LightNOVA projects are separated as Core, Logic and Data Access, Model and Presentation.
With that being said, what LightNOVA does is it will connect to your database and extract table information and stored procedures. What it will then do, depending on your selected configuration:
- Entity Framework: Your core layer will be generate which will basically be a replica of your database table schema, the model project which will contain your DTOs, the business logic for CRUD operations and then finally a basic mvc based UI built on top of knockout.js components and SPA method. Depending on size of your database this can take about 1 – 10 minutes. You may need to install 3 nugget packages to allow your application to function properly which are namely AutoMapper, EntityFramework and Newtonsoft Json.
- Stored Procedures: We are also working on this functionality so that you can have LightNOVA generate SP’s on your behalf which will do basic CRUD operations. Therefore the project structure will not include a core project but rather only the Model Layer, Logic layer which will implement stored procedures along with logic and then a presents layer.
Why use LightNOVA?
It’s ideal for teams who find themselves having to write the same code for every project they work on. In essence code to perform CRUD ops will be the same regardless of what project it is, the only difference will be table names or columns.
What about Business Rules?
With the current version, business rules are not supported. An AI or Machine learning engine is required for LightNOVA to be able to auto generate code based business rules. However, even though this isn’t yet supported, the code is generated in a way where classes are partial so writing your own business rules using the auto generated repository will speed things up.
How much does it cost?
The current version will be released on a pay per use pricing plan. We are working on adding more versatile plans such as a monthly and yearly subscriptions. Please visit this page
All these products will be one license per user. For discounts on bulk purchases please contact sales@technova.co.za
Pricing
All current versions of LightNOVA come with the following features.
- Forum Support
- Entity Framework 6
- Admin UI with Menus
- Built on top of Web Api 2 (Easier integration with providing external service and mobile app coms)
- MVC based
- Knockout.js component based views
- Require.js for loading scripts
- Metro UI framework for developers to customize their UI
- Maximum of 10 database tables per app
- A generic .Net repository which is fully extensible
- Auto-generated messenger helper class for email and sms via Clicatell
LightNOVA Beta 1: Known Bugs and Quirks With Current Release
- Doesn't work well with source control bound solutions/projects. LightNOVA may randomly crash when generation is in progress.
- The list of currently running Visual Studios processes doesn't get updated dynamiclly. LightNOVA will have to be restarted to get latest processes.
- You will need to run both Visual Studio and LightNOVA in Administrator Mode
- Not tested with many to many relationships
- LightNOVA has only been tested on Visual Studio Enterprise, it should work with other versions of 2015.
