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GUI for .NET Mapping Reference
Preface : Purpose
 

Purpose

The OpenEdge GUI for .NET provides a powerful mechanism for building ABL applications that have a .NET user interface. One of the challenges in working with the GUI for .NET is to understand how things you might have done previously with ABL in the past can be done using the new GUI for .NET. This challenge has two different aspects:
*How to accomplish a traditional ABL GUI task using the OpenEdge GUI for .NET
*How to use some feature of the OpenEdge GUI for .NET that is primarily documented in Microsoft and other native .NET documentation
The first issue involves understanding how to code ABL to do something in .NET that the ABL supports as a native feature. The second issue involves understanding how to work with standard .NET features in ABL that are described in .NET documentation in terms of native .NET languages.
This manual provides a brief topical reference intended to help you with these issues. Each topic includes one or more tables that list particular features in one frame of reference and describes how to understand them in the other. So, for example, a table of data type mappings shows how .NET data types map to ABL data types. Another table lists common behaviors supported by the OpenEdge GUI and how identical or similar behaviors are supported using the OpenEdge GUI for .NET. Yet another table describes common C# .NET syntax and how to use the same features in ABL, and so on.
This manual is not intended to be exhaustive, and most of the information is covered in other ABL manuals in the OpenEdge documentation set. However, it will hopefully provide a quick reference to some of the more common questions that you might have when reading .NET documentation or when thinking about how to do something in the GUI for .NET that you have previously done a different way.
In addition to this mapping reference, you can find more information on using the GUI for .NET in the following manuals:
*OpenEdge Getting Started: GUI for .NET Primer — A brief overview of the OpenEdge GUI for .NET and the class-based ABL that supports it.
*OpenEdge Development: ABL Reference — The complete reference to the ABL, including all language elements that support the GUI for .NET.
*OpenEdge Development: GUI for .NET Programming — A programmer's guide for using the GUI for .NET. This manual describes how to access .NET objects using ABL to implement the GUI for .NET in your OpenEdge applications.
*OpenEdge Deployment: Managing ABL Applications — A guide to managing and deploying ABL applications, with sections on requirements and features for deploying GUI for .NET applications.