CodeFutures Support Blog

The latest release candidate of FireStorm/DAO 2.4 is now available to download:

http://www.codefutures.com/products/firestorm/download/

FireStorm/DAO 2.4 GA will be available for download early next week once documentation has been updated to reflect the new functionality.
Major new features include:

• Support for Stored Procedures - In addition to exposing tables, views, and custom SQL statements as Data Access Objects, FireStorm/DAO 2.4 now exposes Stored Procedures as Data Access Objects, unlocking legacy business logic stored in databases. Initially available for Sybase, Oracle, and SQL Server.
• New Interactive SQL Tool allows queries to be tested directly from FireStorm/DAO
• Database Schema Migration - It is now possible to change the target database in a FireStorm/DAO project file and any SQL data types not supported by the new target database will automatically change to supported types, making it easy to migrate a schema to a new database platform.
• New wizards for importing databases and generating code
• Full support for Apache Derby (open-source embedded Java database)
• Improved support for Sybase ASE
• It is now possible to generate Web Applications using simple JSP pages in addition to generating Web Applications based on Struts and Tiles
• FireStorm/DAO now uses JDOM 1.0 in place of a proprietary XML parser for reading/writing project files, allowing easier integration for OEM customers.
• It is now possible to define Table DAO finder methods by defining a full SQL SELECT statement (that can be a multi-table join) instead of just defining the SQL WHERE clause.

In addition, there are numerous extra enhancements, particularly around usability. For example, when defining new columns (or amending existing columns), the usability enhancements include:

• FireStorm/DAO now provides a combobox for selecting SQL data types rather than a free-form text input, and populates this combobox with the appropriate data types for the selected database platform.
• The SQL precision and scale fields are now only enabled if a SQL data type is selected that supports precision and/or scale
• The JDBC type is automatically set based on the SQL data type selected
• Autofill buttons (represented as small light bulbs next to input fields) are available to set the column's SQL name and SQL type intelligently based on the Java name and Java type.