You might have noticed that starting with v14.2 we made an EF-based version of our popular XCRM show-case demo. It is installed at %PUBLIC%\Documents\DevExpress Demos 14.2\Components\eXpressApp Framework\XCRM\ by default.

Data models and DbContext code are located within the XCRM.Module\Data\ folder for you to explore. These data models are built for real and quite complex scenarios, so you can use this as a reference in addition to our two other Entity Framework demos:

• %PUBLIC%\Documents\DevExpress Demos 14.2\Components\eXpressApp Framework\EFDemoCodeFirst\
• %PUBLIC%\Documents\DevExpress Demos 14.2\Components\eXpressApp Framework\EFDemoModelFirst\

We decided to build this new demo to enhance our Entity Framework integration more by putting it through all sorts of torture and stress that can be seen in the real world. We think that this decision was helpful as we could fix some issues and make other improvements. For instance, interfaces like IObjectSpaceLink and IXafEntityObject (they are to be documented) can be implemented by your entity classes and provide you an easy way to access IObjectSpace and write a custom business logic when a record is being loaded, saved, deleted, which increases usability (previously you would trap ObjectContext's events for this or use Controllers).

While there are still known issues with this demo (some performance issues related to specifics of MS SQL Server query execution plan building, which may slow down the execution for the first time in case of complex data structures), you can test it. We would greatly appreciate it if you give us your feedback.

See Also:
1. Looking for practical experiences with both DevExpress XPO & ADO.NET Entity Framework
2. EF7 - What Does “Code First Only” Really Mean