gmStudio Release News: Wednesday, July 18, 2018

Created by Mark Juras
Last updated: Oct 21, 2018

gmBasic: Upgrade Engine

gmBasic is a powerful code transformation tool that reads, interprets, and rewrites VB6/ASP/COM systems for .NET (using either C# or VB.NET). We are always improving gmBasic to make it more robust and flexible so that it produces cleaner, more correct results. This distribution, Version 30.75, includes several enhancements:

  • Improves the general ability to produce accurate, build-complete .NET code systems from VB6 code (most recently making enhancements needed to upgrade a large insurance application with 26 inter-related VBPs referencing 592 code files containing 575K LOC and 34 third-party-COM components)
  • Improves accuracy and readability of certain complex conditional expressions
  • Improves default C# coding style to use lightweight object-oriented coding conventions (formerly, this required the "SubSystem=loc" option)
  • Improves default VB.NET coding style to favor using VB.NET run-time support rather than extension methods
  • Improves handling identifiers containing international characters

gmStudio: Upgrade Solution Development Environment

Powered by gmBasic, gmStudio is a development environment for creating high-performance, custom VB6/ASP/COM-to-.NET upgrade solutions. We are always adding functionality to gmStudio and making it easier to use. This distribution includes several enhancements:

  • Adds flexibility of deployment by allowing the user to specify .NET project file and folder naming conventions as part of each gmStudio project's settings
  • Adds options for project task name conventions to better support different types of legacy project naming conventions
  • Adds support for setting CodePage in the .NET project file
  • Adds support for setting .NET Project Type GUIDs needed for WPF upgrades
  • Improves conventions for StartUpObject conventions for WPF upgrades
  • Improves handling of MigrationSupport stub classes in integrated translations
  • Improves handling of international characters in all Search Reporting functions
  • Adds stable-but-unique Project GUID generation for all .NET projects
  • Improves gmStudio About Box Reporting
  • Corrects screen layout issues when running Windows with Text Size greater than 100%
  • Improves Analytics Reports and model Audits to use gmMetrics, a gmSLAPI application
  • Improves default handling of Last Message field to avoid spurious differences between versions of gmProj files
  • Adds support for interpreting foreign language build logs
  • Adds support for using the %ProjFolder% token in Solution File Generator project list
  • Improves log content for Solution File Generator
  • Improves reporting of #INFO messages in Translation Log Reports
  • Adds sort indicators to ListView column headers
  • Improves integration with upgrade tasks using a gmslAPI executable
  • Improves Configuration Form User files listing to include sub-folders
  • Adds support for Form-to-XAML in the Side-by-Side Viewer for WPF upgrades
  • Adds option to skip running translations in Upgrade Wizard thus running only the metrics reports
  • Improves handling of very large (>64MB) log files (e.g., when using diagnostics)

gmSLAPI: a .NET API for Developing Advanced Upgrade Solutions

Powered by gmBasic, gmslAPI is a .NET API for automating the gmBasic upgrade engine and accessing the semantic models produced by our unique linguistic compilation technology. gmSLAPI also includes classes to facilitate integrating with gmStudio and managing complex upgrade rules.

  • Improves organization of gmslAPI classes with namespaces
  • Improves handling conditions on nested rules in ScriptRules.xml
  • Improves ScriptRules logger to use the LogMessage API

Sample Upgrade Rules

gmStudio ships with a collection of sample upgrade rules that can be used to add custom features to your upgrade solution. These XML documents and gmSL scripts are distributed as source that you may modify to fit your unique requirements. The sample rules were updated to reflect the latest product improvements and conventions.

  • Improves standard ScriptRules.xml template
  • Improves standard translation templates to assume new C# dialect rather than the deprecated "SubSystem=loc" option
  • Improves Analytics Reports and Audits Reports script templates to use gmMetrics
  • Changes default handling of Line to migrate to MigrationSupport.Line rather than Label
  • Removes SubSystem=loc; The loc conventions are now the default for translation to C#
  • Removes SubSystem=lob; VB.NET bias is now the default for translation to VB.NET
  • Improves migration of VB6 File System Listbox controls to facilitate stub framework integration

Sample Upgrade Solutions

Great Migrations publishes a number of sample VB6/ASP upgrade solutions to illustrate the capabilities of gmStudio. The sample upgrade solutions were updated to reflect the latest product improvements and conventions.

  • Samples updated to reflect changes to SubSystem changes
  • Samples updated to reflect changes to MigrationSupport.UI
  • Improves packaging of "All Samples" content