Editing the files outside of the designer

[tbd.work]

Is it possible to recreate the meta-data from the javascript file?

The way we understood the documentation was that we could still edit the files within Visual Studio but jump back to the designer, obviously, any changes we are making to the generated javascript gets overridden the moment we save it in the designer.

Having seen the designer, we are definitely interested in using it, but want to clarify this point, so we can make a decision as to using the designer or hand-editing everything.

[aconran]

Is it possible to recreate the meta-data from the javascript file?

No.

The way we understood the documentation was that we could still edit the files within Visual Studio but jump back to the designer, obviously, any changes we are making to the generated javascript gets overridden the moment we save it in the designer.

The generated files are owned by the designer. You can create overrides of each class by clicking the "Create Override" button in the code view. This will create a template file that the designer will leave alone and you are free to implement whatever you would like there with whatever editor (like Visual Studio). One limitation of the tool currently is that you cannot work with the external editor concurrently with Designer. We are looking to address this in the near future.

Having seen the designer, we are definitely interested in using it, but want to clarify this point, so we can make a decision as to using the designer or hand-editing everything.

I think you would definitely be able to get some mileage out of using it to generate most of your application and then fleshing out any additional things that require raw source code via overrides.