I added relation fields to DataMgr in version 2.0. Upon receiving a question about them by email, I noticed that I haven't ever written a good introduction about how to use them (though I have mentioned them several times).
Among design professionals, Flash intros are not popular. Even so, sometimes a client will insist. I had this very situation recently.
I made the argument that it was bad for usability. No avail, working in a visual medium, they were very concerned with making a visual impact. I made the argument that it would be bad for search engines. No avail, the client was only concerned with visitors already familiar with the company.
Having failed to convince the client not to have a Flash intro on their site, I was left with figuring out how to best accomplish their request. I couldn't do anything about the usability (the intro did include a "skip intro" button though). The search engine problem, however, seemed like something that I should be able to solve.
One common problem that many developers face is Database Schema Synchronization, that is making sure that your database has the right schema (table and columns and whatnot). This is important when moving code from development to production (to avoid a long task list of columns and tables to add) and important for distributed programs (things like BlogCFC that are used in lots of places).
Typically, this is done by writing several SQL scripts the keep the database schema up to date. Then you run the correct script for the next upgrade. Barney Boisvert wrote is SchemaTool to make this easier.
The problem is compounded if you want to support multiple databases. Ideally the SQL syntax should be the same from database to database, but usually it isn't. This means that you also have write separate SQL scripts for each database that you support.
DataMgr solves all of these problems in a manner that I feel is rather elegant.
When I released the full version of DataMgr 2.0, it was partly because it was stable and partly because I had some ideas for 2.1 and I knew I needed to finish up 2.0 before I started such major changes (2.0 had already been through 4 release candidate versions, after all).
This time is different. DataMgr 2.1 is the fulfillment of the vision that I had for 2.0 (no knock to that version, of course).
