Visual Studio

Compose #WPF applications using pre-defined designer created views #XAML(AppModels)

onoj — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:43:49 GMT

When you are facing the buy-vs-build question, often the reason for "build" is that you have a unique back end. You would probably be happy to use a front end you didn't write, as long as you could hook it into your data store. The Application Models project is aimed at just this problem. AppModels are pre-packaged XAML views and data models organized around application domains such as Project Management, Sales and Human Resources. Using the AppModels VS2008 add-in, developers can compose WPF applications using pre-designed views, and hook those views into a WPF Client application or data source with minimal code and a high level of reusability.

Features include:

A Full Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) stack
Fully-themed WPF XAML views
ADO.Net Entity Framework integration
Models can be integrated into WPF or VSTO applications
Seven AppModel starter packages hosted on CodePlex
Code-generation tools

Two visual themes can be applied to all of the visual assets. Each Theme has a set of icons that were built using Expression Design and exported as XAML, a Resource Dictionary containing custom styles, and a customized set of “Simple Style” user controls. All the Views share the same style naming conventions and have been constructed to support creating many different looks by simply modifying the presentation values in the Resource Dictionaries.

Screenshot 1: AppModel Theme 1

Screenshot 2: AppModel Theme 1

Screenshot 3 of AppModel Theme 2

Screenshot 4: AppModel Theme 2

Windows 7 API Code Pack for .NET Framework: DX Types are disposable; explanation. #Win7 #CodePack #vs

onoj — Thu, 28 May 2009 09:20:00 GMT

@SlimDX asked on twitter last week:

Dear Windows API Code Pack: I may be mistaken, but your DX types aren't actually disposable from what I saw. What?

Here is a response from a developer on the Code Pack project:

Yes, we do support Dispose() on all of our wrapper types.

At first glance it might not be very obvious how we support it, but here's how:

C++/CLI generates the IDisposable pattern supporting method, Dispose(),.if we implement the equivalent ~ (destructor) on a ref class or struct, which we sometimes do. However, in most cases, I don't have an explicit destructor, instead for almost all ref classes and ref structs , Either I include an auto pointer member by value which implements a finalizer and destructor (desctructor calling into the finalizer code), or inherit from a class that includes that auto pointer.

Then, C++/CLI has this "helpful" feature that it will automatically implement the IDisposable required Dispose() method for us when a type contains an IDisposable member. Meaning, almost all of our exposed types (including all wrapper structs/classes), implement Dispose().

There are two easy ways to use Dispose() in C#:

- Call obj.Dispose() directly, when the obj is no longer needed (Preferably setting it to null afterwards to make sure it's no longer needed), e:.g

Viewport vp = new Viewport();

// Use vp here

...

vp.Dispose(); // vp destroyed

vp = null;

- Or, use the using(...) keyword, e.g (from one of our samples)

using (Texture2D buffer = swapChain.GetBuffer(0))

{

renderTargetView = device.CreateRenderTargetView(buffer, null);

} // buffer.Dispose() will be called here

One look at the reflected code, or our docs, or by using intellisense on a type, will show we implement the Dispose() pattern.

e.g. of reflected code:

public class PassDescription : IDisposable

{

public PassDescription();

...

public override sealed void Dispose();

protected virtual void Dispose(bool __p1);

...

}

// Summary:

// Base class for all classes supporting internal IUnknown interfaces

public abstract class DirectUnknown : IDisposable

{

...

public override sealed void Dispose();

protected virtual void Dispose(bool __p1);

...

}

Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Training Kit #vs10

onoj — Fri, 22 May 2009 08:02:42 GMT

The training kit is here.

The Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Training Kit includes presentations, hands-on labs, and demos. This content is designed to help you learn how to utilize the Visual Studio 2010 features and a variety of framework technologies including:

C# 4.0
Visual Basic 10
F#
Parallel Extensions
Windows Communication Foundation
Windows Workflow
Windows Presentation Foundation
ASP.NET 4
Entity Framework
ADO.NET Data Services
Managed Extensibility Framework
Visual Studio Team System

This version of the Training Kit works with Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 and .NET Framework 4 Beta 1.

Here’s the list of Hands On Labs that are in the training kit:

Item	Unit
Lab: Introduction To F#	Managed Languages
Lab: Visual Studio 2010: Office Programmability	Managed Languages
Lab: Visual Studio 2010: Test Driven Development	Managed Languages
Lab: ASP.NET AJAX	ASP.NET 4
Lab: Introduction to ASP.NET Web Forms 4.0	ASP.NET 4
Lab: Web Development in Visual Studio 2010	ASP.NET 4
Lab: Building a Data-Driven Master/Detail Business Form in WPF using Visual Studio 2010	Windows Presentation Foundation
Lab: Introduction to Workflow 4.0	Windows Workflow
Lab: Introduction to Workflow Services using .NET Framework 4.0	Windows Workflow
Lab: Creating Flowchart Workflows	Windows Workflow
Lab: Workflow Designer Programming Model	Windows Workflow
Lab: Monitoring Workflow Services	Windows Workflow
Lab: WCF Service Discovery	Windows Communication Foundation
Lab: Introduction to ADO.NET Data Services	Data Access
Lab: Introduction To Project "Velocity"	Data Access
Lab: Parallel Extensions: Building Multicore Applications with .NET	Parallel Computing
Lab: Introduction To Managed Extensibility Framework	Extensibility

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 download options

onoj — Tue, 19 May 2009 17:59:00 GMT

Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 mark the next generation of developer tools from Microsoft. Download the beta today!

Professional

Visual Studio 2010 Professional Beta 1 – Web Installer

Visual Studio 2010 Professional Beta 1 – ISO

Team System

Visual Studio Team System 2010 Team Suite Beta 1 – Web Installer

Visual Studio Team System 2010 Team Suite Beta 1 - ISO

Visual Studio Team System 2010 Test Load Agent Beta 1

Visual Studio Team System 2010 Team Foundation Server Beta 1

Microsoft Visual Studio Lab Management 2010 Beta 1

Visual Studio Team System 2010 Lab Agent Beta 1

.NET Framework

Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 Beta 1

Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 Client Profile Beta 1

Other bits

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Remote Debugger (Beta 1)

Visual Studio 2010 Shell (Integrated) Beta 1 Redistributable Package

Visual Studio 2010 Shell (Isolated) Beta 1 Redistributable Package

Visit the Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Beta 1 site to download the Beta, submit product feedback, find links to forums or for additional information about the Beta.

Downloading and Installing Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 on Channel9.

Install Window7 from USB Key onto netbook – what worked for me

onoj — Sun, 10 May 2009 10:57:00 GMT

I just finished installing Windows 7 RC on my friends ASUS EEE PC 900 and it works great. There are a lot of different how to guides out there – i cobbled together my approach from a variety of sources. Here’s what I did:

1. Downloaded Windows 7 RC

This proved to be harder than I thought it would be. First the default download manager that fires up after you register for the RC kept stalling on me. I had to keep stopping and starting it to get it to move (probably due to traffic).
I then tried downloading the bits directly using my own download manager

Direct URL for Windows 7 RC English 32-bit (x86):
7100.0.090421-1700_x86fre_client_en-us_retail_ultimate-grc1culfrer_en_dvd.iso (others)
Download manager that worked for me was Internet Download Manager but I’m sure that others work

Hit the link from IE first as it may require registration – this is a good thing because you’ll get a key after the process
I launched the file URL start from the DL manager

I was getting a respectable 600 and 800KB/sec

I also decided to check to see if there was a Windows 7 RC torrent, there were many

I found one with a MD5 hash (8867C13330F56A93944BCD46DCD73590), size (2.35GB) and filename (7100.0.090421-1700_x86fre_client_en-us_Retail_Ultimate-GRC1CULFRER_EN_DVD.iso) that matched

Windows_7_Ultimate_x86_RC_Build_7100.torrent (ThePirateBay download link or mininova torrent link)

2. Get Windows 7 RC Key

If you used an alternative download method you may not have acquired a key. To get a key this FAQ item.

3. Make a bootable 4GB key

I’m told larger keys will work but I used a 4GB
There are bunch of slightly different methods out there for making the bootable key but these from TechNet worked for me:
Use a USB Key to Install Windows 7—Even on a Netbook

4. Drop the bits onto the key

The .iso file is a disk image. You can access its contents like a zip file. Expand the content of the .iso file to the key, I used 7-Zip but WinRAR and other work too.

5. Boot the netbook from the USB stick

This bit threw us. We were working on an ASUS EEE PC 900 and following this article on MultiMolti’s blog. We couldn’t get the machine to boot from the stick. Turns out weren’t following the steps precisely.
The problem was that to access the boot menu you need to hit ESC on the grey BIOS screen at boot. This is in the instructions but of course we didn’t read them thoroughly…

6. Install video driver

I read somewhere that Windows Update (WU) will drop the correct driver. We, however, went ahead and grabbed the XP driver right from Intel.
If you download the driver be sure to set the compatibility mode on the driver install. We set it to Vista and it installed fine. See the end MultiMolti’s blog entry for details on setting compatibility mode.

7. Run Windows Update

That’s it. Now Win7 is rocking the netbook – given it a second wind.

Thank you to the community at-large for the various blog entries, instructions and alternate download methods. Now off to my long in the tooth Dell OptiPlex

USB Key Installed Windows 7 – worked great

onoj — Sat, 09 May 2009 09:20:32 GMT

I followed the instructions from the first hit here. Note that this approach requires Vista to make the USB key bootable. Most hits on that search seem to work ok – be sure to scan the comments though to pick up on typos in the articles (that will save you some time and frustration.

The USB key install worked great and was quick!

Windows 7 API Code Pack for the .NET Framework 2min demos

onoj — Thu, 07 May 2009 08:56:07 GMT

The Windows 7 API Code Pack for the .NET Framework (formerly VistaBridge) wraps Windows 7 native functionality for easy consumption from your .NET Framework Windows 7 Client applications. Features in the 0.85 release include:

Support for Windows Shell namespace objects, including the new Windows 7 libraries, Known Folders and non file system containers.
Windows Vista and Windows 7 Task Dialogs.
Windows 7 Explorer Browser Control supporting both WPF and Windows Forms.
Support for Shell property system.
Helpers for Windows 7 Taskbar Jumplists, Icon Overlay and Progress bar.
Support for Windows Vista and Windows 7 common file dialogs, including custom file dialog controls.
Support for Direct3D 11.0 and DXGI 1.0/1.1 APIs.
Sensor Platform APIs
Extended Linguistic Services APIs

Check out the 2 minutes or less demo videos of the Windows 7 Code Pack in action:

WinForms to WPF converter sample

onoj — Tue, 05 May 2009 10:11:55 GMT

Eric Lee is creating a WinForms to WPF converter sample. Check it out on Codeplex. Or watch the short demo video.

MessageSecurityException was unhandled

onoj — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:21:21 GMT

Just encountered this while attempting to call an 'https' web service that required NTLM authentication.

Exception text:

"The HTTP request is unauthorized with client authentication scheme 'Anonymous'. The authentication header received from the server was 'Negotiate,NTLM'."

Solution:

Changed clientCredentialType to 'windows'. Do this in the app.config.

Changed from:

realm="" />

To:

Do not change security mode to 'TransportCredentialOnly' the service is 'https'. That threw me, I saw that solution on several sites but they were addressing 'https' services, just NTLM.

Resources:

This post helped me to work out what was going on:
https://geekswithblogs.net/socasanta/archive/2007/07/06/113725.aspx

NetDispatchFaultExcetion was unhandled

onoj — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:08:40 GMT

I just came across this whilst making a web service call from a Windows Forms client application.

Exception text:

"The formatter threw an exception while trying to deserialize the message: There was an error while trying to deserialize parameter https://tempuri.org/:GetWizardInfoResponse. The InnerException message was 'There was an error deserializing the object of type DataManagementConsoleFileProducer.RegSysWebService.GetWizardInfoResponseBody. The maximum string content length quota (8192) has been exceeded while reading XML data. This quota may be increased by changing the MaxStringContentLength property on the XmlDictionaryReaderQuotas object used when creating the XML reader. Line 222, position 14.'. Please see InnerException for more details."

Solution:

Increase maxStringContentLength value in the readerQuotas element in projects app.config file.

maxStringContentLength="8192" maxArrayLength="16384"
maxBytesPerRead="4096" maxNameTableCharCount="16384" />

Resources:

This post helped me to work out what was going on:
https://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=3077193&SiteID=1