DataMgr 2.2 Alpha (with Derby support!)

It has been 6 months since DataMgr 2.1 was released. In that time I have been slowly improving my local copy of DataMgr. I now think that the improvements are ready for public trial. I am running several live sites on the build that I am making public.

DataMgr 2.2 Alpha 1 brings a few new features to DataMgr:

• Derby support!
• filters: The ability to filter any field (including relation fields) by an operator other than equality. For example, this would allow "LIKE" comparisons as well as ">=" and "<=" comparisons.
• advsql: This is now a supported feature that allows you to insert custom SQL into any query
• The ability to include filters in a relation field definition
• SmartCache: This is an experimental feature available only in CF8 that allows you to have DataMgr cache data that hasn't been updated since the last retrieval.

The one spot of bad news is that I made an exception to my rule of never changing the public API. Fortunately, I don't think anyone uses the method that I changed.

If you call the "getFieldWhereSQL" method directly, then you will have to change your code to the new syntax in order to upgrade. This is the first (and hopefully last) time that I am changing the API from one version to another. I did so this time because it made a major impact in my ability to add a new feature and I have strong reason to believe that no-one will actually be affected by it.

I need your help

I need help to get the most significant feature added to DataMgr - support for more databases. I have Derby working and I think I am close to getting Oracle to work (though I need to test on a real Oracle database - not just the free version). If you use a database other than the ones currently supported, I would love to get access to it to test on and hopefully add support for that database in DataMgr.

Additionally, any testing that anyone could provide on DataMgr 2.2 would be greatly appreciated.

The Road Map

I am hoping that I can add support for every major database supported by ColdFusion in DataMgr 2.2. That version will also mark the end of the road for support for MS Access. I have tried to support that database for as long as I can. As it now, however, I have been getting requests for features that I simply cannot add if I intend to continue to support MS Access. Once I drop support for MS Access, then I can concentrate on adding those feature to DataMgr.

In the meantime, feel free to download DataMgr 2.2 Alpha from the repository. If you have a database I can test against, let me know.

DataMgr is open source and free for any use.