Thank you very much for the response, Bonnie. I hope you have the time and patience to go a little deeper.

Taking a specific case: with the help of Intellisense I can see that Strataframe Business.dll has a large number of classes, one of which is MicroFour.StrataFrame.Business.BrokenRulesCollection.

Lets say I want to organize the classes inherited form the MicroFour.StrataFrame.Business namespace into the SosaCia.iBusiness namespace (or would you suggest a different namespace scheme?) From your response I created a class project called iBusiness and added a reference to "MicroFour StrataFrame Business.dll" Visual Studio automatically added a file class1.vb to the project. Can I simply add the code to create the subclasses right in the class1.vb file or is there a more recommendable way?

Code in class1.vb

Public Class iBrokenRulesConnection 
    Inherits MicroFour.StrataFrame.Business.BrokenRulesCollection
End Class

I will be using Source Control (Subversion). How does that affect the process?

By the way, do you think the convention I have been using: prefacing class names with "i" for intermediate or "a" for application (a convention originally recommended by YAG when VFP 3.0 came out) may lead to confusion with the use if "I" prefix meaning interface used in the .NET world?

Thanks a lot for the help.

Alex


>Alex,
>
>It's not quite as easy in .NET. You wouldn't be able to create a sub-class-library, which is what you're showing in your VFP example.
>
>Each Project in a .NET Solution will be compiled to a .DLL. But a Project is not actually sub-classed from another DLL. You'll need to create classes in your Project that inherit from each of the Framework classes.
>
>So, you create your IBusiness Project, IBusiness, which will end up compiling into an IBusiness.DLL. Then, you create a class (right-click the Project, Add | Class), then change the code to this:
>
>

>public class MyBizClass : Business.FrameworkBizClass
>{
>}
>

>
>Do this for every class in the Business.DLL that you wish to sub-class. You can either put all the new classes in one file in your new Project, or you can have a separate file for each class in the Framework class. It will probably depend on what class you're sub-classing.
>
>You will also have to add a reference to the Framework class library (right-click the Project, Add References) ... how you do this part depends on whether your Framework classes reside in the GAC, anywhere on your PC or in a central depository accessed by all developers, and also depends on whether you're using Source Control.
>
>~~Bonnie
>
>
>
>
>
>>This is a very basic/newbie question.
>>
>>We are starting a .NET application using Strataframe framework. In the past (with VFP) I've had good results following the advice to subclass a purchased framework twice: once to be to shared among several apps and once again specific to an app.
>>
>>It's been suggested that I create a dll for each level of inheritance classes. Where can I find step by step instructions to create dlls that hold each of the two levels of subclasses? Don't be embarrased that your suggestion is too basic :) I am asking how to do the equivalent of these VFP steps:
>>
>>MD c:\IFramework\Classes
>>CREATE CLASSLIB C:\IFramework\Classes\IBusiness.vcx
>>CREATE CLASS IBusiness OF C:\IFramework\Classes\IBusiness.vcx AS Business FROM c:\Framework\Classes\Business.vcx
>>
>>And then later,
>>MD c:\MyApp\Classes
>>CREATE CLASSLIB C:\MyApp\Classes\ABusiness.vcx
>>CREATE CLASS ABusiness OF C:\MyApp\Classes\ABusiness.vcx AS IBusiness FROM c:\IFramework\Classes\IBusiness.vcx
>>
>>Thank you.
>>
>>Alex