Best Practices When Building Objects for Aptify

This section describes Aptify's recommended procedures for building assemblies that you can add to Aptify based on your code. The following is an overview of the typical steps that a developer performs during the development cycle:

1. Create a Visual Studio project with the appropriate code to perform the desired functions.
   • See the sections of this guide that describe how to write a particular type of code-based configuration for more information:
     • Writing an Entity Plug-In Object
     • Writing a Duplicate Check Plug-In Object
     • Writing an Entity Action Wizard
     • Writing a Layout Control
       
       
2. If you are interested in following Aptify's best practice to sign your code, configure your project for delayed signing as described in Preparing a Project for Delayed Signing.
   • Signing code is not a requirement, but it is a recommended best practice from Aptify. See Recommendations When Signing Assemblies for details and for information on how to create your own private and public keys.
     
     
   • Delayed signing uses your organization's public key to partially sign the assembly. See Delayed Signing for details.
     
     
   • For illustration purposes, the code-based configurations included with the sample application have been signed using the Private/Public key pair found in the Sample Code\SigningKeys folder.
     
     
   • Note that to sign an object so it becomes a strongly named assembly, all of the References used in that assembly must also have already been signed (that is, each is strongly named).
     
     
3. Use Visual Studio to build an assembly for testing.
   • Select the Build menu in Visual Studio to build the assembly. For projects currently in the Debug Solution Configuration, the assembly is generated in the project's Bin\Debug folder by default.
     
     
4. If you used delayed signing, turn off verification for this assembly. See Delayed Signing for details.
   
   
5. Add the assembly to the Aptify Object Repository and specify the appropriate assembly information in the required location within Aptify.
   
   
   • This location varies depending on the type of configuration you have created. For example, if you created a layout control for a form template, you specify the assembly information on the Form Templates record's Layout Control tab. See these sections for specific instructions:
   1. • Adding an Entity Plug-In Object to an Entities Record
      • Adding a Duplicate Check Plug-In Object to an Entities Record
      • Adding a Wizard to Aptify
      • Adding a Layout Control
        
        
6. Perform tests within Aptify to determine whether it is functioning as intended.
   
   
7. Modify the project code as necessary to address any problems encountered from testing the assembly within Aptify. If needed, set up your environment to debug the code.
   • See Recommendations for Debugging Code for details.
     
     
8. Build a Release version of your assembly.
   • Change the Solution Configuration from Debug to Release.
     
     
   • Use Visual Studio's Build menu to compile the assembly; the file is added to the project's Bin\Release folder by default.
     
     
9. If you are signing assemblies, sign the assembly using your organization's private key. See Signing a Delayed Signing Assembly with the Private Key for details.
   
   
10. Update the Aptify Object Repository to use the new version of your assembly.
    • See Administering the Object Repository for details. Updating a repository object is also described in Updating Crystal Reports Already Present in Aptify and Updating SSRS Reports Already Present in Aptify.