What's New in Remote Data Services 1.5

Updatability with Other Databases

Updatability is defined as being able to insert and delete records, and update the contents of one or more records.

With Remote Data Services 1.5, you can update a number of databases, including Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Access, Oracle, and so forth. This is different from previous versions, which supported updatability only with SQL Server databases through the for browse clause.

Sorting and Filtering

The following AdvancedDataControl properties and methods provide recordset sorting and filtering functionality on the client-side cache. The sorting functionality orders records by values from one column. The filtering functionality displays a subset of records based on a find criteria, while the full recordset is maintained in the cache.

Method or Property Description
SortColumn Specifies the name or alias of the column to sort the recordset by.
SortDirection Specifies the sort order; True = ascending and False = descending.
FilterValue Specifies a value to filter records with, for example, 'Programmer' or 125.
FilterCriterion Specifies the evaluation operator of the FilterValue to the records. Can be any one of the following: <, <=, >, >=, =,<>
FilterColumn Specifies the column to evaluate the filter criteria on.
Reset Executes the sort or filter based on the properties set. Rewrites the recordset as read-only if it is not already read-only. Reset will fail if there are pending changes.

Asynchronous Population

You can now open and populate a disconnected recordset asynchronously. The following AdvancedDataControl method and properties help provide this functionality.

Property/Method Description
ExecuteOptions Indicates the type of asynchronous execution.
State Returns the state of the AdvancedDataControl object's recordset.
Cancel Cancels the currently running asynchronous execution or fetch.

Operability within Internet Explorer 4.0

Remote Data Services now supports Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0. The AdvancedDataControl, AdvancedDataFactory, AdvancedDataSpace, and ADOR.Recordset objects, as well as many HTML and ActiveX™ data-aware controls can work together in this new version of Internet Explorer.

Also, Internet Explorer 4.0 includes all of the Remote Data Services client components, so that you don't need to use the CODEBASE parameter to download the Remote Data Services .cab file. This makes it easier to deploy Remote Data Services applications.

Data Binding Extensions to HTML

Two relationships are key to data binding with Internet Explorer 4.0: source and consumer. Data consumers specify binding by referencing the data source to which they are bound. To achieve this, your data consumers (controls such as text boxes or grids) specify the source of the data and the type of the data being bound. You specify the DATASRC parameter to identify the data source object (in this case, the AdvancedDataControl object), and a DATAFLD parameter to identify a property of the data source object or a column of the data set.

This is slightly different from previous versions of Remote Data Services, which used the Bindings property to bind controls to data.

See Also For more information on how to use the data binding extensions to HTML with Internet Explorer 4.0, see the Internet Client SDK, http://www.microsoft.com/intdev/inetsdk/inetsdk.htm (in the table of contents, click Authoring with HTML, and then under HTML for Internet Explorer 4.0, click the HTML for Data Awareness hyperlink).

ConvertToString Method

The ConvertToString method of the AdvancedDataFactory object converts a Recordset to a MIME string that represents the recordset data.

CreateRecordset Method

The CreateRecordset method now applies to the AdvancedDataControl object and the AdvancedDataFactory object. This means that you can now create a Recordset object directly with the AdvancedDataControl on the client side whereas with 1.0 you could only do this on the server side. This results in fewer network roundtrips, and provides more flexibility for your application.

SourceRecordset Property vs. Recordset Property

The AdvancedDataControl object now supports Recordset and SourceRecordset properties. SourceRecordset is a write-only property and Recordset is a read-only property.


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