The next version of RavenDB will have some exiting new features. Beside many optimisations, improvements and new functionality you will get a new RavenDB Management Studio. Dropping Silverlight is only one of many improvements you will notice. Let’s have a look on what is changed and how much still works as expected.
This post is part of the RavenDB series. You can find the other parts here:
- Part 1: Introducing RavenDB: NoSQL for .Net
- Part 2: Getting RavenDB Up & Running
- Part 3: CRUD-Operations in RavenDB (.Net Client API)
- Part 4: CRUD-Operations in RavenDB (HTTP API)
- Part 5: Designing Documents for RavenDB
- Part 6: Map/Reduce: A Simple Explanation
- Part 7: Indexes in RavenDB
- Part 8: Set Based Operations in RavenDB
- Part 9: Relations in RavenDB
- Part 10: Paging in RavenDB
- Part 11: Evolving Documents in RavenDB
- Part 12: RavenDB 3: The New Management Studio
Now in HTML5
RavenDB Studio is the last application build on Silverlight that I regularly use at home. For version 3 the Silverlight application is replaced with one built in HTML5. As simple as it sounds you now can use the RavenDB Studio on your tablet or on your Mac – without fearing that your Firefox update is going to kill the Silverlight plug-in once more.
Same Features
The new application uses a different design and after a short moment you will find everything at its place. Keeping the same structure and using the same wording makes it really easy to switch from version 2.5 to 3. Even the sample data can still be created in the Tasks tab, what helps the new user to follow along with an older tutorial:
The biggest obstacle I found so far is the selection boxes. For me the two blue colours are too similar to catch the difference:
A better optical differentiation between the states would make the transition even smoother.
More Help
Whenever I tried to make an ad-hoc query on the index I ran into problems. Here you can’t use LINQ and need to know the Lucene syntax. Since it is the only place I use that I often forget how I have to write the query. In the new Studio you get a link to the Lucene documentation right next to the textbox:
Another nice addition: If you open a document you get a box with buttons for all the referenced documents. To see which employee carried out the order you simply click on the button with the employees/5 label:
Simple changes like those have a big impact on the usability. It’s great that the occasional user was not forgotten.
Try It
You find the development release of RavenDB 3 on the official download page. The installation should be as simple as it is for the 2.5 version. But be aware that there is a difference between a development and a production release. If something doesn’t work you may try an earlier build or wait a few days.
Next
With my holydays ahead I have to postpone a deep dive into more new features for the next few weeks. I will catch up as soon as RavenDB 3 is officially released. Until then you should check out the videos from the RavenConf 2014.
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