Upgrade to Peter's Data Entry Suite

This page is for Peter's Data Entry Suite v4 ("DES") users to learn about the upgrade process to Version 5.

Let's start with some great news. Your upgrade from DES v4 to v5 is free. You can download it now, run the Web Application Updater to apply its files, and it will continue to work with your current license files and serial numbers.

Source code is also free, although it still requires a separate licensing process. Email Peter with your DES Version 5 serial number to get that license.

Version 5.0 has had few feature changes since version 4. Most of the work is due to the introduction of the Peter’s Business Logic Driven UI module and a major refactoring of the code base. There are several breaking changes to be aware of.

This document describes the changes in detail.

What's New in v5

The Peter’s Business Logic Driven UI module (“BLD”) provides a different and very smart way to build applications that use DES's controls. Use it to separate your business logic from the user interface. The result is both better application design and rapid development of a rich UI.

Learn More

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 these major breaking changes, users may consider staying with Version 4.

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.

Version 4 users can also get Source code for free, after going through a separate licensing process. Contact Peter with your Version 4 serial number to get that license.

Ready to download Version 5?

Retrieve your product serial number for DES 4 and the email address associated with that serial number. Then click here to login.

Download Version 5

You should be able to find your serial number in the Application_Start method of Global.asax. (Redistribution license users must look in individual pages for a line starting with PeterBlum.DES.Globals.Page.Suite_LicenseKey.) If you need more help getting either serial number or email address, contact Peter at PLBlum@PeterBlum.com.