Active Query Builder VCL and ActiveX Editions 1.14 released
We're glad to announce the new minor version of Active Query Builder. You can download the newest version from the download page.
What's new in the Active Query Builder version 1.14?
General fixes and improvements:
SQLite: The query properties form is implemented, Ability to fetch metadata from "attached" databases is added.
Oracle: Retrieval of descriptions for objects and fields from the database is implemented.
The LIKE criteria parsing is improved. Manually entered criteria like "LIKE John Doe" will be distinguished as "LIKE 'John Doe'".
Basic support for custom aggregate functions is implemented.
MS SQL Server: Custom aggregate functions retrieval is made.
MS SQL Server: Parsing of DatePart, DateName, DateDiff, DateAdd functions is fixed.
MS SQL Server: Fixed parsing of fields with names matching datatype names, like "DateTime".
Oracle: Parsing of the SEED keyword is fixed.
Oracle: Parsing of "CONNECT BY" and "START WITH" clauses sequence is fixed.
Oracle and PostgreSQL: interval literals support is added.
Firebird, InterBase: List of reserved words is imported into the grammar.
The INNER keyword can be omitted now in join specifications for Firebird, Interbase and MS SQL Server via the InnerKeywordInLinks property.
SQL dialects without databases support (like Oracle) didn't skip default schema from object names. Fixed now.
Unambiguous reading metadata from XML generated by other AQB Editions (.Net, Java) is made.
CROSS JOIN processing bug is fixed.
VCL Edition fixes and improvements:
The new TacFieldsListDescriptionColumnOptions.ShowLongDescription property is added to control which description will be shown in the Description column of the fields list:
  when it's False (default), the TacMetadataField.ShortDescription is shown;
  when it's True, the TacMetadataField.LongDescription is shown.
The new property is added to create aliases automatically based on alternate names: TacQueryBuilder.SelectListOptions.CreateColumnAliasesFromAltNames.
The new properties are made to control case sensitivity of metadata filter items: TacMetadataFilterItem.SchemaMaskCaseSensitive and TacMetadataFilterItem.ObjectMaskCaseSensitive.
The new properties are made to force the query builder to show or omit the AS keyword in alias definition. Use the TacQueryBuilder and TacBaseSQLBuilder AsKeywordInExpressionAlias and AsKeywordInObjectAlias properties for this purpose.
The new methods are added to get database schemes list:
TacBaseSyntaxProvider.GetSchemaNames - for specific database servers;
TacBaseMetadataProvider.GetSchemaNames - for generic ADO connections.
The new TacMSAccessSyntaxProvider.LoadLinkedTables property is made to control loading of linked database objects into metadata container.
The new events are added to control unchecking of a field from the datasource field list: OnDatasourceFieldRemoving and OnDatasourceFieldRemoved.
(!) API changes: TacMetadataFieldNamesList class is renamed to TacMetadataQualifiedNameList.
ActiveX Edition fixes and improvements:
The new IFieldsListDescriptionColumnOptions.ShowLongDescription property is added to control which description will be shown in the Description column of the fields list:
when it's False (default), the IMetadataField.ShortDescription is shown;
when it's True, the IMetadataField.LongDescription is shown.
The new property is added to create aliases automatically based on alternate names: IActiveQueryBuilderX.SelectListOptions.CreateColumnAliasesFromAltNames.
The new properties are made to control case sensitivity of metadata filter items: IMetadataFilterItem.SchemaMaskCaseSensitive and IMetadataFilterItem.ObjectMaskCaseSensitive.
The new properties are made to force the query builder to show or omit the AS keyword in alias definition: IActiveQueryBuilderX.AsKeywordInExpressionAlias and IActiveQueryBuilderX.AsKeywordInObjectAlias.
The new demo is made to illustrate custom letadata loading in .NET and ASP.NET projects (CSCustomMetadataLoading).
The new property: IActiveQueryBuilderX.SQLSyntaxParams - can be used to control some server-specific syntax options.
The new event is added to change object's captions at the query building area: IActiveQueryBuilderX.OnCustomizeDatasourceCaption.
We have been using Active Query Builder for over a year and must say that both the product and support have been outstanding!
We chose Active Query Builder due to its flexibility and features, but have been truly pleased by its power and hidden capabilities. ...
In summary Active Query Builder provides excellent components, great support and a very flexible feature set. It has allowed us to provide features to our end users that I did not think would be possible in the first release of our new tools and in a timeframe that was much shorter than planned. I would recommend that anyone dealing with databases in the .Net world should be aware of this component and its capabilities!