This page is for Peter's Date Package ("PDP") and Professional Validation And More ("VAM") users to learn about the upgrade process to
Peter's Data Entry Suite.

Select the product(s) you want to upgrade to see your pricing options:

Professional Validation And More ("VAM") NO SELECTION Suite v3 Any module from v3 v2 Level 2 v2 Level 1 v1    Peter's Date Package NO SELECTION v2 v1.x

• Source code licenses are upgraded for free with the upgrade of a Web Server, Site, or Redistribution License.
• If at the time of placing the order, you want to order additional modules, they are $60/$300/$480 (Web Server/Site/Redistribution). This is a 33% savings over the list prices. (They are normally $90/$450/$800.)
• If at the time of placing the order, you want to order additional Web Server licenses, each module is $60 and the Suite is $200, a 33% savings over the list prices. (They are normally $90 and $300.)

These prices are only good at the time of placing an upgrade order. Prices and offers subject to change without notice.

Peter's Data Entry Suite v5.0 is an extensive upgrade. It merges the Peter's Date Package product into the Professional Validation and More codebase. They each bring functionality to the other. In addition, many months were spent on expanding their feature sets. This document describes the changes in detail.

There are a multitude of features added in previous upgrades. Get the the What's New guides for earlier versions here:

General Enhancements

• The first thing you will see is the new Web Application Updater program. It takes over the chores of installation, upgrading, and converting native controls to their DES equivalents. Its extensive logging and backup capabilities will give you confidence as you modify your web application with this product.
• Like with any upgrade, the documentation has been enhanced. Key to this is the first page, where quick links get you to many key topics in the product, reducing your searches.
• Design mode users will find extensive use of the SmartTag menu, which provides the most important properties, and quick links to open the relevant help files.
• AJAX setup is easier as most of it can be done in design mode through properties on the new PageManager control and the SmartTag menu of each control. Plus Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX setup no longer needs you to specify the ScriptManager or UpdatePanel controls.

Top 10 Enhancements for Professional Validation And More Users

This list assumes you are using the Professional Validation And More v3 Suite or one of its modules.

1. The Suite now includes the controls of Peter's Date Package in the new module "Peter's Date and Time". There are 18 award-winning controls built around date and time entry.
2. Use the new PageManager control to explore and set page-level properties. No more writing code in the Page_Load() method.
3. Use the new NativeControlExtender control to expand the capabilities of native TextBoxes, buttons, and more with DES features.
4. The Peter's More Validators module (formerly VAM: Specialized Validators) includes two new validators:
   • MultipleRequiredControlsValidator - Evaluates two or more data entry controls to evaluate if they are blank or have data. This is an extension of the idea behind the RequiredTextValidator and RequiredListValidator by looking at the state of several controls and determines if the right combination has data or not.
   • ListSizeValidator - Evaluates a listbox or dropdownlist to determine if has enough elements listed. It is used when the UI allows adding and removing elements to a list. Typically users want to report an error when the list is empty, however, this allows a range (Min/Max) to provide more flexibility.
5. The Peter's More Validators module provides a new ErrorFormatter: PopupErrorFormatter. It is similar to the ValidatorCalloutExtender. It pops up a callout with the error message as the mouse passes over an image, or when focus enters the data entry control.
6. The Peter's TextBoxes module (formerly VAM: Data Entry Controls) introduces the PercentTextBox, for data entry of percentage numbers.
7. If you are not using the validators from Peter's Professional Validation module, Peter's TextBoxes includes the validators needed to handle the IntegerTextBox, DecimalTextBox, CurrencyTextBox, and MultiSegmentDataEntry control within the native validation framework.
8. Interactive Hints and now ToolTips have been enhanced to popup their message more effectively. For Interactive Hints, a message pops up with a callout pointing to the data entry control. For Enhanced Tooltips, the same style popup allows tooltips with HTML formatting.
9. Use the ChangeMonitor to keep buttons disabled until an edit occurs. It is found in the Peter's Interactive Pages module (formerly VAM: Client-side Toolkit).
10. Use the TextCounter control to communicate the number of characters or words in a textbox, with warnings as the user approaches and reaches the maximum.

Top 10 Enhancements for Peter's Date Package Users

This list applies to both v2 and v1.1 users. Look for From v1.1 on items for v1.1 users.

1. The textbox controls now subclass from the enhanced textbox already in Professional Validation. As a result, you get the numerous features found here.
2. Popup controls can avoid passing along a majority of their HTML to the browser through the new ClientSideCreatesHTML. Instead, the browser can create the HTML and setup scripts, reducing the page size and delivery time. Optionally, it can delay creating the HTML until the user first attempts a popup.
3. Image-based buttons, such as the calendar toggle and the next/prev month buttons on the calendar, support a mouseover image. The button's appearance can change as the mouse passes over.
4. From v1.1 New control: MultiSelectionCalendar. This version of the Calendar control supports multiple selected cells, either by a single date, week, day of the week, or month. It can enforce selecting a range, where all dates are selected between the start and end picked.
5. From v1.1 All calendars now offer Multiple Month View. Show 2 or more sequential months simultaneously.
6. From v1.1 MonthYearPicker has an alternative format called "Few Years". It shows a small list of years with all of their months, allowing the user to click once to select a month.

   

7. From v1.1 TimeOfDayTextBox and DurationTextBox now offer a popup TimePicker. The TimePicker gives a multicolumn list of suggested times to pick from. With the new UnselectableTimesValidator, you can demand the user picks only from those times. The TimePicker is also available in two stand-alone controls.

   

8. From v1.1 DateTextBox supports date entry in abbreviated and long date formats, such as "May 31, 2006".
9. From v1.1 The SpecialDates control has so many improvements that are important:
   • It can be populated from a Data Source, such as your database.
   • It supports multiple entries on the same date. This is usually multiple times in one day, although you might have a list of events that share a common time. These are called Time Rows. It can also merge the descriptions of from multiple entries on the same date if you prefer not to separate the data between date and a list of events.
   • There are simplified methods on the SpecialDates object to populate the xDates collection without dealing with all of those objects. In fact, the User’s Guide doesn’t talk much about creating SpecialSingleDate or the other objects. It has users take advantage of methods like AddDate() and AddDateRange(). Your code will continue to work, but future code may use the new methods.
   • Calendar can display the date entries using a several predefined formats. There is a format to quickly show a list of time elements. Plus there is a format to give you exact control over the look of the list of Time Rows. Calendar can also popup an expanded description of the date as the mouse passes over a date cell. With this feature, you might provide a very simple description in the date cell so the cell stays small, and let the popup show the full details of that date.

     

   • You can have all dates not defined in the SpecialDates control be considered unselectable.
   • Client-side data is far more compact, reducing the transfer times (even on AJAX-style callbacks which are already in the ASP.NET 2.0 enhanced assemblies of this product.)
   • The Dates collection can be cached automatically so you don’t have to populate it unless different data is needed.
10. From v1.1 All calendars can now show date numbers in date cells outside of the MinDate through MaxDate range.

What you should know before upgrading from Professional Validation And More

The upgrade from any previous version of Professional Validation And More is easy. Usually it is accomplish through the wizard-driver Web Application Updater program. It will add new files, migrate settings from web.config and your custom.des.config file, and change the product namespace and assembly (to PeterBlum.DES) in your webforms. It always backs up files that it changes.

There are a few breaking changes. They are mostly handled by the Web Application Updater program. For details, see the "Breaking Changes" topic of the Professional Validation And More section in the What's New.pdf. Several breaking changes are important enough that they are described below.

For most users, the upgrade process will take only a few minutes.

What you should know before upgrading from Peter's Date Package

Peter's Date Package was merged with Professional Validation And More to make its controls fit naturally with the VAM code base. For example, all textboxes are inherited from the Enhanced textbox class of VAM and property names no longer start with a "x" character. This gives you conformity throughout the suite.

For many users, the path to convert pages with Peter's Date Package controls will be very easy. You run the Web Application Updater program and let it make the adjustments to your code.

However, there are a number of breaking changes and obsolete features. The Web Application Updater program and the Installation Guide provide great detail to be sure your migration goes smoothly. In addition, Peter's free email tech support is available. Several breaking changes are important enough that they are described below.

Here are the key changes that you should be aware of. Please see the Breaking Changes topic of the Peter's Date Package section in What's New.pdf for extensive details.

• The ContextMenu and Help button require the ContextMenu control. That control is no longer part of the Peter's Date and Time module. Instead, it has been moved into the Peter's Interactive Pages module. To provide continuity, Peter will issue 33% discounts on licenses for Peter's Interactive Pages module to upgraders if ordered when you upgrade.
• The Date and Time TextBoxes no longer provide properties defined as "Error Handling" in the PDP User's Guide. Peter's Professional Validation module's job is to provide error handling. So the Peter's Professional Validation module is required if you need these features. To provide continuity, Peter will issue 33% discounts on licenses for Peter's Professional Validation module to upgraders if ordered when you upgrade.
• There are dramatic style sheet changes, with new files, new style sheet class names, and different ways to handle some of the effects. These changes affect the product design but have only limited impact on the control's appearance.

Even with these issues, immediately after running the Web Application Updater, your pages should continue to run, so you can tune the style sheets and adjust the obsolete features in time.

In addition, you can have both Peter's Date Package and Peter's Date and Time module controls installed in the same web application. That means you can use Peter's Date and Time on new pages or convert a single page from PDP to DES. Feel free to email me if you have any questions.

Version 5 does have several major breaking changes

• ASP.NET 1.0 and 1.1 platforms are no longer supported.
• The code base has been refactored.The basic idea is that in the past, a web control object held most of the code, and now it uses a multiple teired approach. There are usually 3 classes for each control: the web control top layer, the HTML output layer, and code that is UI neutral.
  

  Most users will not be impacted by this. The upgrade process renames changed classes and obsolete properties still work, only they are marked with the ObsoleteAttribute to advise you to change your code. Expect a lot of these.

  Here is where changes will impact you: If you have subclassed any of the DES, VAM, or Peter’s Date Package classes, they are likely to break except those that override ONLY the constructor. Most significant is to any Condition, DESTypeConverter, and ErrorFormatter class that you have developed, however your web control subclasses may also break. Expect compiler errors (not warnings) in this case.

  Please let Peter help you convert the classes by emailing the code to these classes, including any javascript support files. Contact Peter at support@peterblum.com. Peter may do the actual work. If so, he may charge for this work, depending on its extent. Costs will be discussed prior to doing the work.

Due to the impact of the major breaking changes, users have the option of using Version 4 instead of Version 5. Version 4 is not impacted by these breaking changes. Version 4 will continue to be supported, but code changes will be limited to bug fixes. Version 5 should be used if you need BLD or feature updates.

Your Version 5 serial number and license files work with Version 4. You can upgrade from Version 4 to Version 5 when you are ready. If you want to retrieve Version 4, click here and login with your version 5 serial number.