How to reorganize a VB project in more than one project

[lalberti]

I'm working on a very big VB (VB6/SP5) project (200 forms, 90 project windows/Crystal Reports integration, 125 referred MTS classes/components, a lot of interactive COM+ components).

The application is a tipical database application that run under Windows (3th tier application using MS MTS architecture).

The project has grown more and more becoming "a little bit heavy": the .EXE file is about 25 Mb.

To load the project at design time it takes about 3 minutes!

Now I would like to reorganize the application into more than one project.

Sometimes I got compile/link problems too...

Any suggestion about how to cut it?...By application functions, by components, by most used functions?

And how to switch between one project (.EXE) to another?

Any idea about it?

Thanks in advance for any support,

Luca

 

[AndyDuke]

Depends very much on how the application is organised at the moment. Are you using an MDI or SDI style interface, how code is broken down into classes etc.

If you are familiar with the principles of object orientation then you can start by identifying the objects contained within the application (Customer, Supplier, Product etc) and group the business logic for these objects into DLLs.

You will probably end up with a user interface in a .exe, and the business and database logic in a number of DLLs.

Sounds like it could be a lot of work given the size of the proect at the moment.

Andy.