Question

Is there any GUI-based tools to assist you with writing and maintaining the configuration file? Any code tools to codegen the config file? What are the best ways to make this a little bit easier? Are most people just using Castle ActiveRecord now?

Answer 1

For code/mapping generation there are a number of templates for MyGeneration for creating configuration files and/or classes from a database. CodeSmith has NHibernate templates as well, but CodeSmith is not free, so MyGeneration has an advantage there.

MyGeneration has a GUI that lets you download templates, manage database connections, set template properties, generate code etc. It is not the best user experience ever, but it works.

As has already been mentioned, Fluent-NHibernate can definitely be worth a try if you do not want to write XML mapping files. The documentation is a bit non-existing, but it is quite easy to get started. If you find yourself doing a lot of refactoring, it can be a real time saver.

Here is an example of a Fluent-NHibernate mapping:

public CustomerMap : ClassMap<Customer> {   public CustomerMap()   {     Id(x => x.ID);     Map(x => x.Name);     Map(x => x.Credit);     HasMany<Product>(x => x.Products)       .AsBag();     Component<Address>(x => x.Address, m =>       {           m.Map(x => x.AddressLine1);           m.Map(x => x.AddressLine2);           m.Map(x => x.CityName);           m.Map(x => x.CountryName);       });   } }