DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by darrenstokes

Fast Add Reference Dialog for VS 2010

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:00:00 GMT

I have spent a couple of days on implementing a fast add reference dialog box for Visual Studio. The time of adding a reference has been a great time to have some coffee, to have lunch, or even a way to save economy (remember, developer time costs money!).

Visual Studio 2010: Web.config transforms

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 15:15:00 GMT

Recently I wrote about Visual Studio 2010 and multiple web.config files support. Let's see how to play with web.config transformation so we can use one configuration on development environment and the other for production environment.

Useful Visual Studio Shortcuts-Some new VS 2010 shortcuts included too

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 10:45:00 GMT

Here's a compilation of some Visual Studio keyboard shortcuts that I personally find useful. I have included some that may make their way into the Visual Studio 2010 release.

The Greatest Exception Handling WTF?!? of All Time

Thu, 28 May 2009 10:00:00 GMT

The Exception object has ONE purpose and ONE purpose only - to represent a runtime error, nothing more. Exceptions should never be used for purposes for which they were not intended -- or you could end up with this monstrosity...

Visual Studio 2008 Built-in C# Code Snippets Cheat Sheet

Thu, 21 May 2009 11:45:34 GMT

A printer-friendly list of all the C# snippets that come with Visual Studio 2008.

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 for MSDN Subscribers

Tue, 19 May 2009 07:46:09 GMT

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 is now on MSDN along with .Net 4 Beta 1. Some highlights from the information: .Net 4.0 Cloud Development - Windows Azure which is basically utility computing where you pay by the hour for your usage. Parallel Development - Not sure if this only means PLINQ for .Net developers or if they are only talking about C++ devs. TDD Improvements - Editor changes for building test cases first, and then writing the code. ASP.NET - CSS grids and design surfaces changes, more Javascript debugging improvements. C++ Compiler - Lots of changes for C++ development, including MFC. Sharepoint templates New Project Templates Windows 7 - MFC updates for Ribbon UI, and WPF changes. Application Model Changes - Reverse existing codebases, and lots of changes in Architect Edition to support more model types (including Class Libraries finally). Test Runner - This is potentially huge as it allows testers to submit bug reports complete with callstacks and traces that you can actually use to resume an app at the error point to avoid the dreaded No Repro on bug reports. I have seen this demo and it is quite impressive. We will see how it actually works though.

Five Reasons for using an ORM Tool

Sat, 16 May 2009 01:46:03 GMT

Gud intro of as what orm tools do...

Creating a Custom Observable Collection in WPF | UX and WPF ramblings

Thu, 14 May 2009 03:16:02 GMT

One of the biggest advantadges WPF has is its Data Binding features. Data Binding can be done in several ways, but the most common is using the INotifyPropertyChanged and INotifyCollectionChanged interfaces. For simple objects, all you need to do is implement the INotifyPropertyChanged, and raise the PropertyChanged event when your properties change. When you want to bind to a collection, you will want to use ObservableCollection<T>. This collection implements both interfaces, therefore notifying you when the items in the collection change and when the items' properties change. This works great if you're using standard collections. The problem arises when you want to use a custom collection. For databinding to work with custom collections, you will have to create a new "Observable" wrapper around it.

YUI Compressor for Visual Studio

Wed, 13 May 2009 04:01:14 GMT

Add a custom tool in visual studio for YUI Compressor.

Open Source or Die - The Real Future of Graffiti?

Tue, 12 May 2009 12:16:02 GMT

Telligent's Graffiti hasn't quite flatlined yet, but the signs aren't looking too good. Could OSS be the way to breathe life back into this once-promising CMS platform?

HowTo: Visual Studio using the Shared Profile feature in Parallels

Fri, 08 May 2009 20:42:10 GMT

Loading projects in Visual Studio using the Shared Profile feature in Parallels

Free T4 Editor for your ASP.NET MVC T4 Templates available

Sat, 09 May 2009 01:01:06 GMT

Found on tangible blog, that the new tangible T4 Editor 1.4 FREE EDITION now includes full Intelli-Sense support for MVC Host and related namespaces used in ASP.NET MVC 1.0 RTM T4 Templates. In addition it provides a nice highlighting for ASP.NET and T4 Code. Seems like anyone can now edit MVC T4 Templates with full comfort without investing a penny. Awesome!

MonoDevelop On Mac OSX

Wed, 06 May 2009 23:59:27 GMT

MonoDevelop and Silverlight development on Mac OSX

NHibernate: Transparent pre generation of lazy loading proxies in VS

Tue, 05 May 2009 19:55:36 GMT

Pre generate NHibernate lazy loading proxies with minimal changes to project, build and deploy configuration, to make whole process of proxies pre generation transparent as much as possible.

Adding Default Assemblies, Namespaces and Control Prefixes in Config

Wed, 06 May 2009 06:16:05 GMT

The fact that you can assign namespace and assemblies in your web.config file is one of the most underused features of ASP.NET

Castle Windsor 2.0 RTM Released!

Tue, 05 May 2009 13:46:04 GMT

Some would say that it is about time, I would agree. Windsor might not be the OSS project in pre release state for the longest time (I think that the honor belong to Hurd), but it spent enough time at that state to at least deserve a honorary mention. f you will look, you won't find Windsor 1.0, only release candidates for 1.0. As I believe I mentioned, Windsor has been production ready for a long time, and for the full release we decided to skip the 1.0 designator, which doesn't really fit, and go directly to 2.0

Boot Image Creation Tool

Mon, 04 May 2009 04:03:06 GMT

Open Source Boot Image Creation Tool in C#. Part of MOSA Project.

Creating Visual Studio Templates from your Web Projects

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 06:16:03 GMT

Visual Studio has the nice capability to create project templates from existing projects and with a little bit of work it's real easy to create a project environment that's ready to roll without having to dig for related components first. This applies to Web projects more than anything for me as I have a fair bit of generic utility code that is project specific and needs to be added to just about all projects. Templates make this real quick and easy. Here's how.

My New Favorite Tool: OneNote

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 07:01:15 GMT

Review of Microsoft OneNote 2007 relating to the developer.

Static Method Interception in .NET with C# and Mono.Cecil

Sat, 02 May 2009 04:01:02 GMT

Interested in Mono.Cecil? A very short introduction to a very cool and powerful tool.

Using Reference Assistant to Help with Spring.net Configuration Issues

Sat, 25 Apr 2009 23:55:36 GMT

XML configuration of IoC containers is flexible but can be problematic and increase debugging time. The post shows how Reference Assistant can be used to help with XML IoC configuration, using Spring.net as an example.

Using Obscure Windows COM APIs in .NET

Sat, 25 Apr 2009 00:16:02 GMT

A lot of the new Windows Vista and Windows 7 APIs are exposed via COM. Here's a simple introduction for how to use them when no wrappers are available.

ELMAH: Error Logging Modules and Handlers for ASP.NET (and MVC too!)

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 22:01:11 GMT

ELMAH has been one of the most useful tools for ASP.NET developers to log errors on their web applications. Now Scott has a nice talk on how to use it even in your ASP.NET MVC applications. Cool!

Mindscape LightSpeed Designer Visual Studio Addin

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 10:46:02 GMT

The LightSpeed Model designer is integrated directly into Visual Studio so that you don't have to leave your development environment to create a rich domain model. With a sophisticated design surface that supports both model first and database first approaches you can work exactly how you want without having the tools get in your way. The LightSpeed designer is available as part of every edition of LightSpeed. See their website for a free fully functional trial of their Express Edition. See www.mindscape.co.nz for downloads.

Software Startup Lessons (Part 7) - Versatility

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 07:01:04 GMT

Today we'll talk about of the key lessons that we learned in university that helped us during the first two years of our business: versatility.