Blog | Great Migrations

gmStudio Release News: Sunday, 11-December-2022

Dec 10, 2022

egmBasic: Upgrade Engine

gmBasic is a code transformation engine that reads, interprets, and rewrites VB6/ASP/COM systems to one of the .NET languages (C# or VB.NET). Based on feedback from our clients and migration projects in the field, we are continuously improving gmBasic so as to help developers more easily produce cleaner and more correct upgrade results. Most recently, this work includes general improvements needed to automatically produce build-complete VB.NET and C# versions of a document/workflow management system comprised of 213K LOC and of a regional government license administration system comprised of 250K LOC. This distribution, Version 40.39, includes many enhancements; for example:

Improves migration of strings from FRX file to Designer code
Improves handling naming conflicts between enums and fields
Improves migration of type-inferred Variant-array used with empty string
Improves migration of logic comparing IntPtr and zero
Improves migration of Load control statement with a type-inferred ControlArray
Improves inferring the type of Object as a strongly-typed ControlArray
Improves migrating optional default Date parameter values
Improves generation of EventArgs classes in the Stub Framework
Improves migration of event handlers with weakly-typed parameters
Improves migration of OLE_HANDLE used as a method parameter
Improves inference of weakly-typed parameter based on Array() argument
Improves migration of complex conditional expressions with both bitwise and logical operations
Improves handling of AlignmentConstants and control.Alignment properties
Improves Twips to pixels migration to a Const
Improves recognizing types imported from external libraries used in RefactorLibraries
Improves csproj and vbproj generation to follow current Visual Studio conventions
Improves migration of Printer.KillDoc
Improves recognizing the type of ControlArray elements
Improves handling one-line With blocks using alternate statements separator
Improves interpreting expressions of the form Me.frmX.Controls!name
Improves migrating For Each ctl in Me.Controls
Improves handling COM APIs where there is a name clash of the library and one of its classes (SSPlitter)
Improves migrating Do-While where the loop control variable is declared within the body of the loop
Improves migrating Select-Case using a constant Select value over different constant case values
Improves migrating of VB4AppearanceConstants
Improves handling methods calls passing a ColorConstant argument to an OLE_COLOR parameter
Improves migrating event handlers for ControlArrays
Improves migration of ControlArray used as a With block variable
Improves migration of conditional expressions using default property
Improves migration of logical calculations involving enum and bool
Improves migration of the Implication operator (Imp)
Improves migration of For Each over an enumerable COM property
Improves migration of Get Property return values
Improves comparisons involving stdole.StdPicture
Improves migration of Debug.Print using Tab() function
Improves migration of Button.Default property to AcceptButton
Improves migrating complex logic expression involving Long, Boolean, and bitwise operation
Improves handling of computations using Currency and Double
Improves migration of recursive functions passed as an argument in the recursive call
Improves using refTemp for an argument passed to object! operation.

gmStudio: Upgrade Solution Development Environment

Powered by gmBasic, gmStudio is a platform for analyzing code and developing custom VB6/ASP/COM to .NET upgrade solutions. We are continuously adding functionality to gmStudio and making it easier to use. This distribution includes several enhancements:

Adds Visual Studio 2022 support for authoring VS022 projects and integrating with VS2022 IDE
Adds Analytics Unused Symbols Report
Adds Analytics Late Calls Report
Improves Iceberg Report to reflect new build-path conventions
Improves References Report to include IdfPath and IdfType even if the IDL contains TLI warnings
Improves COM Reference searches and Snapshot comparison to use TaskTag-specific folder content
Improves Task Removal confirmation dialog to show number of tasks selected for removal

gmAPI: a .NET API for Developing Advanced Upgrade Solutions

Powered by gmBasic, gmAPI is a .NET API for automating our upgrade engine and accessing the semantic models produced by our unique linguistic compilation technology. gmAPI also includes classes for managing complex upgrade rules and integrating with gmStudio. This API was updated to reflect the latest improvements and conventions in the gmBasic platform.

Improves API for Unused Symbols and Late Calls Analysis

gmMetrics: Advanced Metrics Reporting tool

gmMetrics is a tool for reporting the content of system models generated by gmBasic. This includes Symbol Tables, References Reports, Definitions Reports, and Model Audits. gmMetrics is a console application written in C# using gmAPI. We maintain and enhance gmMetrics to keep it in sync with the model schema and to produce new reports.

gmStudio Extensions

gmStudio ships with a collection of sample upgrade rules that can be used to add custom features to your upgrade solution. These XML documents and gmSL scripts are distributed as source that you may modify to fit your unique requirements. The sample rules were updated to reflect the latest product improvements and conventions. See also additions and changes in gmStudio Extensions Repository.

Improves COM replacement Scripting Runtime to System.IO rules
Improves ListBox/ComboBox ItemData FRX to Designer code migration script

gmRTL: Great Migrations Run Time Library

gmRTL is a sample runtime library that contains classes allowing for more readable translations. Learn more about gmRTL here.

Improves ListBox/ComboBox ItemData Support logic
Adds stub methods for Printer, Help, and Control support

Sample Upgrade Solutions

Great Migrations publishes a number of sample VB6/ASP upgrade solutions to illustrate the capabilities of gmStudio. The sample upgrade solutions and results were updated to reflect the latest product improvements and conventions. Learn about the samples here.

Improves the FMStocks Web Site sample for VB.NET

New Reports: Unused Symbols and Late Calls

Dec 10, 2022

Large mature systems often contain symbols that are no longer used. These may be methods that are no longer called or variables and data structures that are no longer referenced by active logic. These unused symbols are often referred to as “dead code, dead wood, Cruft”. Dead code make a system “smell bad” and a form of technical debt, and it can be difficult to identify and risky to remove. An Upgrade Project is an optimal time to deal with dead code because gmStudio can help you identify and remove it.

Learn how in this Support Statement: Unused Symbol Analysis and Reporting

gmStudio Release News: Monday, 10-October-2022

Oct 9, 2022

gmBasic: Upgrade Engine

gmBasic is a code transformation engine that reads, interprets, and rewrites VB6/ASP/COM systems to one of the .NET languages (C# or VB.NET). Based on feedback from our clients and migration projects in the field, we are continuously improving gmBasic so as to help developers more easily produce cleaner and more correct upgrade results. Most recently, this work includes general improvements needed to produce build-complete C# code for a Retail ERP system having 1.2M LOC organized into 73 inter-related VBPs, and to produce build-complete VB.NET code for a Construction Project Management System having 800K LOC organized into 31 inter-related VBPs. The release also includesa sophisticated new utility, gmGlobal, that can automate the process of identifying dead code. This major distribution, Version 40.34, includes many enhancements; for example:

Improves inference of array rank when a undimensioned variant is used as an array
Improves migration of Object inferred as Form used with For Each
Improves migration of the VB6 intrinsic Input function to a Generic method
Improves overall correctness of results when using the Shared Files consolidation capability
Improves overall correctness of results when using the Optional Arguments capability
Improves declaration of stub controls that override Name property
Improves the Global Stub framework for systems that use Implements commands
Improves assembly references added for GlobalStubs translations
Improves avoiding a name clash between external class name and module field
Improves ability to recognize methods called like properties
Improves stub framework generation to allow implementing multiple interfaces (VB.NET)
Improves stubbing Readonly properties (VB.NET)
Improves handling of date literal assigned to const (VB.NET)
Improves handling of operations that involve a late-bound implicit default property
Improves the behavior of Refactor/Remove
Improves migration of array properties
Improves handling name clash between method and one of its parameters
Improves vbCrLf used as an optional parameter default (VB.NET)
Improves translation of late bound reference to a collection item
Improves handling of codes declaring symbols that clash with VB.NET reserved words
Improves handling migration of GoSub in methods declaring optional parameters
Improves logic to detect implicit conversions that must be made explicit (VB.NET)
Improves logic to make default property reference explicit for a Select Case (VB.NET)
Improves detecting and reporting undeclared identifiers
Improves initializing const symbols using an enum entry
Improves reference tracking to allow for Unused symbol analysis
Improves csproj and vbproj content to follow current Visual Studio conventions
Improves processing more HTML5 tags in ASP translations

gmStudio: Upgrade Solution Development Environment

Powered by gmBasic, gmStudio is a platform for analyzing code and developing custom VB6/ASP/COM to .NET upgrade solutions. We are continuously adding functionality to gmStudio and making it easier to use. This distribution includes several enhancements:

Changes Trial License limits; increases duration to 30 days; lowers LOC limits: VB6=5,000 LOC, ASP=2,500 LOC
Adds Source Member to .NET Build Log Report and Target Code Scan Report for VB.NET translation tasks
Adds Translation Audit as a new type of report
Improves IDL generator to allow reporting hidden coclasses
Improves Target Code Scan to report TaskTag rather than File extension in the LocType field
Improves Ctrl-C handling to follow control having focus
Improves Task-list Hot-Key handling
Adds Alt-G as hotkey to Generate and Open VS Solution file
Improves All IDF Scan to search all IDF folders
Corrects issue where malformed XML attributes in ScriptRules file caused gmStudio to hang or crash

gmAPI: a .NET API for Developing Advanced Upgrade Solutions

Powered by gmBasic, gmAPI is a .NET API for automating our upgrade engine and accessing the semantic models produced by our unique linguistic compilation technology. gmAPI also includes classes for managing complex upgrade rules and integrating with gmStudio. This API was updated to reflect the latest improvements and conventions in the gmBasic platform.

gmAPI was extended and used to implement gmGlobal, a utility that identifies and reports unused symbols across multiple inter-related VBPs.
Adds several low-level functions to support reference analysis

gmMetrics: Advanced Metrics Reporting tool

gmMetrics is a tool for reporting the content of system models generated by gmBasic. This includes Symbol Tables, References Reports, Definitions Reports, and Model Audits. gmMetrics is a console application written in C# using gmAPI. We maintain and enhance gmMetrics to keep it in sync with the model schema and to produce new reports.

Adds more detailed symbol usage data to Semantic Audit Reports
Improves accuracy of References Report
Improves accuracy of Definitions Report

gmStudio Extensions

gmStudio ships with a collection of sample upgrade rules that can be used to add custom features to your upgrade solution. These XML documents and gmSL scripts are distributed as source that you may modify to fit your unique requirements. The sample rules were updated to reflect the latest product improvements and conventions. See also additions and changes in gmStudio Extensions Repository.

Improves Environment.std.xml with additional StubBaseClass entries
Adds sample gmGlobalIncludes.gmsl and gmGlobalIncludes.xml to Global Includes analysis
Adds MSCAL.ocx.WinForms.Refactor.xml
Adds MSWORD.OLB.Interop.Refactor.xml

gmRTL: Great Migrations Run Time Library

gmRTL is a sample runtime library that contains classes allowing for more readable translations. Learn more about gmRTL here.

Adds gmRTL.GUI.PictureBoxExtended control to support drawing graphics on a PictureBox

Sample Upgrade Solutions

Great Migrations publishes a number of sample VB6/ASP upgrade solutions to illustrate the capabilities of gmStudio. The sample upgrade solutions and results were updated to reflect the latest product improvements and conventions. Learn about the samples here.

gmStudio Release News: Tuesday, 05-July-2022

Jul 4, 2022

gmBasic: Upgrade Engine

gmBasic is a code transformation engine that reads, interprets, and rewrites VB6/ASP/COM systems to one of the .NET languages (C# or VB.NET). Based on feedback from our clients and migration projects in the field, we are continuously improving gmBasic so as to help users more easily produce cleaner and more correct results. Most recently, this work includes general improvements needed to produce build-complete C# and VB.NET code based for several enterprise systems containing over 2M LOC organized into dozens of inter-related VBPs. This major distribution, Version 40.30, includes several enhancements:

Adds support for specifying a base class for controls in the stub framework
Improves the quality of translations for systems of many inter-related VBPs
Improves handling numeric const values declared with type indicator character
Improves expression of VB File IO Operations: LOF, Seek, FileCopy
Improves handling of parameters declared As Any
Improves handling of name clashes between global symbols
Improves handling of PictureBox.Image.Set
Improves type inference for variants used as arrays
Improves inferring the number of dimensions for array parameters
Improves handling undeclared variables when archaic typing directives (e.g. DefInt) are in use
Improves handling Select-Case with byte compared to enum entry
Improves translation for integer division for VB.NET
Improves conversion of string to double for VB.NET
Improves GoSub migration to support references to local const variables
Improves GoSub migration when subroutines are refactored out of functions for VB.NET
Improves handling of comments in ASP translations
Improves migrating parameterized properties
Improves migrating enumerations in COM libraries
Improves migrating methods with optional arguments
Improves migrating Select Case Is… with Date variables
Improves migrating VB.Line geometry from Twips to pixels in designer code
Improves handling of interfaces when generating translation for a system of inter-related VBPs
Improves handling of custom events and event handlers when generating translation for a system of inter-related VBPs
Improved migration of On Error handling to try-catch

gmStudio: Upgrade Solution Development Environment

Powered by gmBasic, gmStudio is a platform for analyzing code and developing custom VB6/ASP/COM to .NET upgrade solutions. We are continuously adding functionality to gmStudio and making it easier to use. This distribution includes several enhancements:

Adds Reset Filter item to Toolbar Filter button
Adds Line Pragma (%LN%) to ScriptRule pre-processor and editor integration
Adds option to create a starter for a hand-coded IDF (e.g. for when IDF cannot be generated from COM)
Improves handling of Task List context menu hotkeys when task list does not have focus
Improves handling of Task Filtering hotkeys
Improves conventions for using custom tools with gmStudio project tasks
Improves logic for merging ScriptRule elements into the translation script in the order they are defined in the ScriptRules file
Improves user folder scan by suppressing matches in CodeScanList.txt
Improves Source Metrics Report to include DSX report data
Improves Side-by-Side Viewer to include DSX report data
Improves IDF generator to handle typedefs for auto properties in IDL for interop assemblies
Improves Title of the Side-by-Side Viewer panels
Improves Information Panel grid data cache/refresh behavior
Improves Side-by-Side viewer for use with VBScript classes
Improves .NET Build Log reporting performance and editor integration

gmAPI: a .NET API for Developing Advanced Upgrade Solutions

Powered by gmBasic, gmAPI is a .NET API for automating our upgrade engine and accessing the semantic models produced by our unique linguistic compilation technology. gmAPI also includes classes for managing complex upgrade rules and integrating with gmStudio. This API was updated to reflect the latest improvements and conventions in the gmBasic platform.

gmMetrics: Advanced Metrics Reporting tool

gmMetrics is a tool for reporting the content of system models generated by gmBasic. This includes Symbol Tables, References Reports, Definitions Reports, and Model Audits. gmMetrics is a console application written in C# using gmAPI. We maintain and enhance gmMetrics to keep it in sync with the model schema and to produce new reports.

Adds option to generate System Metalanguage Information File Audit
Improves the quality of reference location reporting for ASP systems

gmStudio Extensions

gmStudio ships with a collection of sample upgrade rules that can be used to add custom features to your upgrade solution. These XML documents and gmSL scripts are distributed as source that you may modify to fit your unique requirements. The sample rules were updated to reflect the latest product improvements and conventions. See also additions and changes in gmStudio Extensions Repository.

Adds sample Environment.std.xml to the gmStudio standard distribution
Adds sample rules for setting the base class for classes in the stub dependency framework

gmRTL: Great Migrations Run Time Library

gmRTL is a sample runtime library that contains classes allowing for more readable translations. gmRTL namespace and class structure conventions will replace the legacy RTL conventions in the next gmStudio release. The old conventions (MigrationSupport, MigrationSupportUI, etc.) will be deprecated, but still available as custom migration options. Learn more about gmRTL here.

Sample Upgrade Solutions

Great Migrations publishes a number of sample VB6/ASP upgrade solutions to illustrate the capabilities of gmStudio. The sample upgrade solutions and results were updated to reflect the latest product improvements and conventions. Learn about the samples here.

gmStudio Release News: Saturday, 05-March-2022

Mar 4, 2022

gmBasic: Upgrade Engine

gmBasic is a code transformation tool that reads, interprets, and rewrites VB6/ASP/COM systems to one of the .NET languages (C# or VB.NET). Based on feedback from our clients and migration projects in the field, we are continuously improving gmBasic so as to help users more easily produce cleaner and more correct results. Most recently, this work includes general improvements needed to produce build-complete C# code for a Construction ERP product. This system is 31 inter-related VB6 project components containing 820K LOC organized into 1,125 code files and supported by 46 external COM libraries. This distribution, Version 40.25, includes several enhancements:

Improves handling the default member operator, ’!’
Improves handling inferring implicit references to default members
Improves handling of logic using ControlArrays
Improves handling recognizing references to unqualified global enumeration entries
Improves handling numeric literals using exponential notation
Improves handling of numeric values using hexadecimal notation in IDL to IDF
Improves parsing ASP attribute values containing complex VBScript logic
Improves migration of a local method to a custom call pattern
Improves migration of VBP information to AssemblyInfo content

gmStudio: Upgrade Solution Development Environment

Powered by gmBasic, gmStudio is a development environment for analyzing code and developing custom VB6/ASP/COM to .NET upgrade solutions. We are continuously adding functionality to gmStudio and making it easier to use. This distribution includes several enhancements:

Improves logic that maintains the Workspace runtime folder
Improves performance of .NET Build Log Report and the associated listing in the UI
Improves IDL/IDF handling of const = Infinity
Improves spawning a process without console logging
Improves ScriptRule command to allow script variables in the id attribute

gmAPI: a .NET API for Developing Advanced Upgrade Solutions

Powered by gmBasic, gmAPI is a .NET API for automating our upgrade engine and accessing the semantic models produced by our unique linguistic compilation technology. gmAPI also includes classes for managing complex upgrade rules and integrating with gmStudio. This API was updated to reflect the latest product improvements and conventions.

gmMetrics: Advanced Metrics Reporting tool

gmMetrics is a tool for reporting the content of system models generated by gmBasic. This includes Symbol Tables, References Reports, Definitions Reports, and Model Audits. gmMetrics is a console application written in C# using gmAPI. We maintain and enhance gmMetrics to keep it in sync with the model schema and to produce new reports.

gmStudio Extensions

gmStudio ships with a collection of sample upgrade rules that can be used to add custom features to your upgrade solution. These XML documents and gmSL scripts are distributed as source that you may modify to fit your unique requirements. The sample rules were updated to reflect the latest product improvements and conventions. See also additions and changes in gmStudio Extensions Repository.

Adds MSCAL.ocx.WinForms.Refactor.xml
Improves GM.MSCAL.OCX.xml
Improves mscomctl.ocx.WinForms.Transform.gmsl
Improves scrrun.dll.Transform.gmsl
Improves StubControlBaseClass.Rules.xml
Improves StubControlBaseClass.xml
Improves wpfSubsystem.gmsl

gmRTL: Great Migrations Run Time Library

gmRTL is a sample runtime library that contains classes allowing for more readable translations. gmRTL namespace and class structure conventions will replace the legacy RTL conventions in the next gmStudio release. The old conventions (MigrationSupport, MigrationSupportUI, etc.) will be deprecated, but still available as custom migration options. Learn more about gmRTL here.

Improves gmRTL.GUI.ControlHelper.GetDrawStyle/SetDrawStyle.style

Sample Upgrade Solutions

Great Migrations publishes a number of sample VB6/ASP upgrade solutions to illustrate the capabilities of gmStudio. The sample upgrade solutions and results were updated to reflect the latest product improvements and conventions. Learn about the samples here.