Projects

The Lobster Solution has three different projects: LobsterModel, LobsterLite and LobsterWpf

LobsterModel is the API for Lobster and is used by both the LobsterWpf and LobsterLite projects. It provides all the code needed for connecting to an Oracle database, monitoring local files for changes, and automatically updating those files. It produces a .dll file that is loaded by the other two projects.

LobsterWpf is the main project, with a GUI written in WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation). It produces an executable that provides a user-friendly way to use Lobster.

LobsterLite is a basic command line based project which can be used if WPF is not supported on the target platform (for example on non-Windows platforms or early Windows releases). It can be run as a background program that will automatically update files as they are modified, or run to update, insert or delete a target file. As with LobsterWpf, it references the LobsterModel project.

The original project was written in Windows Forms, but it was written poorly with tight bindings between the back and front ends of the program. It was rewritten to separate the model and the GUI, at which point Windows Forms was swapped out for WPF, which offers improved layout and style customisation.