Zeta .NET Base Libraries

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(For the latest changes, see the history section below.)

Introduction

In my zeta HelpDesk article, I've used a library I developed for our internal projects and customer projects to use as a slim thin base library. This article quickly introduces that library.

Originally I did not intend to provide the source or to provide an article at all about this library, but since nice people asked me to do so, here it is.

The library exists and is constantly enhanced since approximately 3 years. Therefore you can expect it to be rather stable and hopefully rather bug-free. But because of the fact that I never planned to release the library and that the library is mostly used by myself only (few exceptions), probably the design and documentation (through comments, only) isn't as good as it could be.

Goals of this Article and the Library

Probably you don't find any usage for all of the functions of the library. But maybe the one or the other class is something you looked for in the past. If this is true for you, you could either use the whole library with the DLL files, or you could extract the source code and compile it with your own projects.

Background

The library requires the .NET Framework 1.1 to be installed. It also runs on the .NET Framework 2.0 (any beta/RC versions) on my test systems.

The library consists of three parts:

• "Core": Classes and functions that can be used from within Windows Forms applications, console applications and Web applications.
• "Windows": Classes and functions that are intended to be used from within Windows Forms applications. This library uses the "Core" library.
• "Web": Classes and functions that are intended to be used from within Web applications. This library uses the "Core" library.

The library uses the following third party libraries which are included as binaries (DLLs):

• SharpZip.NET
• log4net
• ClickOnceButton (a slightly enhanced version)

The Code

In this first article, please excuse that I don't provide any deep information about the library. I wrote this first version of the article mainly to respond to the requests in the zeta HelpDesk article.

Therefore, for now please see the following three screenshots from Lutz Roeder's Reflector for the classes of the library.

Annotation for the "Core" library: When .NET 2.0 is released, I plan to rewrite the classes inside the "ZetaLib.Core.Data" namespace by using Generics in order to dramatically reduce the amount of duplicated code (e.g. the AdoNetOleDBHelper class and the AdoNetSqlHelper class have lot of duplicate code which could be reduced by the use of Generics).

Using the Code

To get working examples of how to use the library, for now please refer to the zeta HelpDesk article. The zeta HelpDesk applications makes heavy use of the ZetaLibNet libraries.

History

• 2007-03-30
  • Added several minor features/classes/functions
  • Did some minor refactoring
  • Started commenting using GhostDoc
  • Started optimizing using FxCop
• 2006-10-26
  • Maintenance release
• 2006-07-07
  • The most notable additions are two Windows Forms controls that allow for tree views and list views with tri-state check boxes ("checked", "unchecked" and "indeterminate") beside the items:

    

    Image: Tree view control with checkboxes with three states.

    

    Image: List view control with checkboxes with three states.
• 2006-03-31
  • Some minor enhancements and fixes
  • Nothing special, just the newest version
• 2005-10-22
  • First release of the article

This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)