gmStudio Release News: Wednesday, 02-September-2020

Created by Mark Juras
Sept 02, 2020

Announcing the Great Migrations FAQs

We published a collection of over 75 FAQ articles relating to our tools, techniques, and methodology. We will continue to grow and maintain this collection based on customer questions and related topics. We are happy to elaborate on these and your VB6/ASP Upgrade questions and concerns. Contact us anytime to discuss.

gmBasic: Upgrade Engine

gmBasic is a code transformation tool that reads, interprets, and rewrites VB6/ASP/COM systems to one of the .NET languages (C# or VB.NET). Based on feedback from our clients and migration projects in the field, we are continuously improving gmBasic so as to help users more easily produce cleaner and more correct results. Most recently, this work included the general improvements needed to produce build-complete C# code for a commercial ERP system. This system is a single executable: 1.2M LOC organized into 850+ code files and 22,500 methods supported by 69 COM libraries. Now that's one massive VBP. This distribution, Version 31.14, includes several enhancements:

  • Continues improvements to late-stage type inference for symbols of type Object
  • Improves support for Optional Parameters and Named arguments when Select OptionalArguments=on
  • Improves specification of ref/out argument marshaling in Interface Definition Files
  • Improves screen geometry adjustment on UI containers having ScaleMode=Pixels

gmStudio: Upgrade Solution Development Environment

Powered by gmBasic, gmStudio is a development environment for analyzing code and developing custom VB6/ASP/COM to .NET upgrade solutions. We are continuously adding functionality to gmStudio and making it easier to use. This distribution includes several enhancements:

  • Improves error handling and logging for Analytics Reports
  • Improves the GlobalStubs process that generates integrated .NET projects from inter-related VB6/COM components
  • Improves Visual Studio integration by allowing for a user-specific SetEnv.cmd script in the User\AppData folder
  • Improves the Create Specification Code operation to use the application default .NET IDE setting
  • Improves performance of running external tools (e.g. MSBuild)
  • Improves the Shared File Consolidation process to allow re-hosting up to 64 shared files
  • Improves the gmStudio Visual Studio Extension (VSIX) to work with VS2019
  • Improves resolution of the .NET member name in the Build Log and Target Code Scan reports
  • Improves Analytics Reports to allow running the internal class or gmMetrics.exe (default is internal)
  • Improves UI Theme support and user error handling
  • Corrects field parameter problems with Search Template Reporting

gmslAPI: a .NET API for Developing Advanced Upgrade Solutions

Powered by gmBasic, gmslAPI is a .NET API for automating our upgrade engine and accessing the semantic models produced by our unique linguistic compilation technology. gmslAPI also includes classes for managing complex upgrade rules and integrating with gmStudio. This API was updated to reflect the latest product improvements and conventions.

  • Improves error handling and logging in the Analytics Reports services

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. See also additions and changes in gmStudio Extensions Repository.

  • Adds sample TLBINF32.DLL RefactorLibrary
  • Adds sample MSXML6.DLL RefactorLibrary
  • Improves sample MSCOMDLG32.OCX RefactorLibrary

Sample Upgrade Solutions

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

  • Improves ScanTool sample to use RefactorLibraries for all COM upgrades