Version 5.3.1
 —  Natural Business Services Visual Studio Add-in  —

Introduction

The Natural Business Services Visual Studio add-in is available for Visual Studio provides the ability to:


Installation

The Natural Business Services Visual Studio add-in is installed by default during the installation of Natural Business Services. If you did not install the add-in at that time, you can re-run the setup program, select Custom installation, select the add-in, and install the component now.

Note:
For information on installing the Natural Business Services Visual Studio add-in, see Natural Business Services Installation on Windows.

Tip:
If the Natural Business Services plug-in is installed, the plug-in name is displayed on the splash screen when starting Visual Studio.

Start of instruction setTo verify that the Visual Studio add-in is installed:

  1. Start Visual Studio.

    For information, see the Visual Studio documentation.

  2. Select About Visual Studio on the Help menu.

    The About Microsoft Visual Studio window is displayed. For example:

    graphics/about-vs-window.png

  3. Ensure that Natural Business Services is listed in this window.

    Product details provides information about the add-in.

  4. Select OK to close the window.

  5. Open the NBS menu.

    The following options are available:

After installing the Visual Studio add-in, three key areas require configuration settings:

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Configure the Client Component

This section describes how to configure the client component. The following topics are covered:

Step 1: Specify the Development Configuration Settings

During development, the Natural code (subprograms) may be located in a different Natural environment than the runtime (production) code. The location of the Natural code used for development purposes is determined by the configuration settings.

This section describes how to specify the configuration settings for the development environment. This environment is used for generation activities, such as generating Web services.

Start of instruction setTo specify the configuration settings for the development environment:

  1. Select Configuration on the NBS menu.

    The Configuration utility is displayed. For a description of this utility, see Configure Connections.

  2. Define the configuration settings for your development environment.

  3. Select Save to save the configuration settings.

Step 2: Specify the Runtime Configuration Settings

Web services require a Natural runtime environment on the backend. This environment handles functions such as EntireX Communicator connections, security, and servers (attach managers and connection IDs). The connection ID used for the runtime environment for Web services is set in the Web.config file.

Start of instruction setTo specify the runtime configuration settings for the client:

  1. Select Configuration on the NBS menu.

    The Configuration utility is displayed. For a description of this utility, see Configure Connections.

  2. Define the configuration settings for your runtime environment.

  3. Select Save to save the configuration settings.

  4. Open the global Web.config file.

    This file is located in the Web services root directory (NBS/WebServices) and is listed in the Solution Explorer when your project is active.

    Warning:
    Some settings in the Web.config file are required by the Web Service wizard and should not be modified. For example, configSections contains the IIS (Internet Information Server) settings that associate the .sws files to the Web Services Engine (WSE).
  5. Scroll to the ConnectionID setting in the NBS node.

  6. Define the connection ID for your runtime environment.

  7. Save the Web.config file.

For more information on modifying the settings in the Web.config file, see Modify Web.config Files.

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