- the Nero Wolfe Database

Welcome to the Nero Wolfe Database!

A little bit of (ancient) history

I have been a Nero Wolfe fan since the 5th grade (for over 40 years) and appreciate the rich and textured world Rex Stout created as background for Wolfe's and Archie's many cases.

I originally created the Nero Wolfe Database over 20 years ago (as I was reading the books from Fer-de-Lance to A Family Affair for the first time) to satisfy my own need to quickly find information regarding the numerous references to previous cases and the persons mentioned within the books. After creating the website, as I read a book, I entered data about its characters and their interactions. I quickly found the task to be overwhelming if undertaken alone. So, I made the site and its data entry pages public, and advertised its existence to the Nero Wolfe email list of which I was a member. I was gratified by how well-received the site was and delighted by all the data Wolfe fans around the world entered into the database.

Alas, after operating for several years, a worm attacked the website, vandalised its data, and I had to shut down the site to protect the server environment that was its home.

For years, I mourned the loss of the website but was too busy to recreate it and host it in a secure way. Time passed.

Recently (the end of 2020), I found myself with the time to rebuild the website; and I trained myself in more modern (and secure) web development techniques than I used in my earlier days. I then designed and implemented a development environment in Microsoft's cloud platform, Azure, where I restored the legacy data from the original website.

Since then, I have recreated the original functionality in an Azure Web App, and enhanced it a bit here and there (e.g. adding support for Meals and Orchids described in the books). This site is the result.

The site is still under construction.

Although, I have implemented and tested all basic functionality (accessible via the links in the menu at the top of the page), I am still working on the site, making various improvements large and small.

One important note: because originally the data entry pages allowed anonymous data entry, some spurious data found its way into the database. I have, therefore, locked down those pages, requiring Azure Active Directory credentials to use them. My brother and I are currently the only users with such credentials and are slowly cleaning up the legacy data and entering additional data.

I seek other serious fans to help out with this effort.

Please send any feedback or suggestions for features or improvements to nwd@dandapkusllc.com, and/or let me know if you'd like to help out with data entry.

Current events (more recent history)

Please check back again as features and functionality are refined and/or added, and deployed. Here's what's transpired to get here:

3/5/2022: Migrated all projects to .NET 6 and updated all NuGet packages accordingly, all of which required changing the DevOps build pipeline to use a windows-2022 VM to build successfully. 'The Red Box' data entry is nearly complete.
6/23/2021: Completely changed the Home page, providing and focusing on search capabilities; fixed various search bugs; created independent About page; 'League of Frightened Men' data entry is well-underway.
5/26/2021: Added client-side validation to data entry pages; added null value checks on various entity property constructors.
5/10/2021: Filtered out Characters from the new Character-Case data entry page if they already have a record for the case; updated Home page with historical content and with some better formatting; added centralized custom error-handling.
5/8/2021: Finished data entry for 'Fer-de-lance'.
5/4/2021: Added code to require AAD authentication only for data entry & modification pages; read-only functionality permits anonymous access.
4/26/2021: Cleaned-up numerous edit and create pages; changed layout margins and page width.
4/20/2021: Enabled adding & editing Characters, Case-Characters, Case-Meals, Case-Orchids, and Case-Quotations; enhanced various index pages.
4/16/2021: Scaffolded CharacterStories, CharacterMeals, and CharacterOrchids; edited main menu to point to the new pages; enhanced the Characters listing on Story index.
4/15/2021: Required dandapkusllc.com Azure AD authentication to access site.
4/2/2021: Added character notes and char-case reserved notes to the story detail page; enhanced CSS to accomodate note revelation styles.
3/29/2021: Added quotations, meals, and orchids to the story detail page.
3/26/2021: Added character, story, and quotation search capability. Cleaned-up some data problems.
3/17/2021: Added Character-story and -quotation functionality. Performed Quotation legacy data migration. Added Quotations UI and linked to menu.
3/6/2021: Added numerous Story- and Character- join entities. Added data access and UI support for Story-Characters. Added Bootstrap UI 'Show' to reveal story resolution info.
2/3/2021: Modified IndexModel class for home page to include call to retrieve NwdChanges for subsequent display; rigged up loop to display the changes.
2/2/2021: Added system changes info to home page; NwdChange entity class created.
1/31/2021: Embellished technology roster on home page.
1/31/2021: Added links to Characters and Stories on home page.
1/26/2021: Downgraded Azure SQL Database to avoid burning Azure credits.
10/15/2020 - 1/30/2021: Discovered legacy Wolfe data; began planning modern restoration of NeroWolfeDatabase.com functionality; began Azure and ASP.NET Core framework R&D; restored and validated legacy Wolfe data in Azure SQL Database; created development environment; performed Git R&D; performed Azure DevOps CI/CD R&D; setup automated build and deployment pipelines in Azure; fought with the Azure cost model after burning up all my MPN credit; performed Entity Framework R&D; performed initial functional requirements, and created core entities; pushed entity classes to SQL Database; migrated legacy data to new tables; scaffolded various classes; customized menu; limited production site to read-only functionality.

This application is built using Visual Studio 2019, ASP.NET Core, and Razor Pages, and the Entity Framework Core all hosted in Azure.