In order to support properly, a class need to implement the IActivatable-interface. For your domain-classes this is quite easy to archive. But what about the .NET-collections? Wouldn't it be nice when the collections also work together the transparent activation framework?
db4o brings special, transparent activation aware collections with it. This collections load the content only when the collections is actually used.
These collections are currently implemented:
It's recommended to use the collection-interfaces wherever possible instead of the concrete classes. This avoids unnecessary direct dependencies on the implementations and makes it easy to exchange the implementations.
You can use the db4o-collection directly in your code. For example in the case you implement the transparent activation support manually. Take a looks these tips: See "Using TA Collections Directly"
The enhancement tools can automatically replace the .NET-collections with the db4o-equivalent. However there are few rules and limitations. See "Enhance Collections"