ZarkBlog

Text Template Transformation Toolkit (T4)

Greg Zarkis — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 02:30:56 GMT

On a recent episode of .NET Rocks, I heard a quote along the lines of "Is it easier to write the code that writes the code or to write the code yourself?" If you want to generate some code with a tool, then this post is for you.

The T4 has to be the most popular tool that I hear so little about. Like CodeSmith, T4 is a template based code generation engine using ASP-like syntax. The best thing about T4 is that if you have Visual Studio 2008 installed, you already have it. I originally intended to write a brief overview here, but Oleg Sych has already written an *excellent* overview here. I could hardly top that.

Madhavrao has also complied a list of links to MSDN articles related to T4 here.

VPC to VMWare Mouse Problems

Greg Zarkis — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 15:39:24 GMT

Thanks to Virtual PC's inability to utilize USB (insert the 'Old Bit' siren sound) and my need for USB support in my virtual machines, I'm in the process of moving some VPC images to VMWare Workstation 6. Recently, I've converted an existing Virtual PC based XP image to VMWare using the the VMWare 3.0.2 converter with no issues. No issues that is until it was time to install the VMWare tools on my recently converted XP machine. The install went fine, but after the required virtual machine reboot, I found that my mouse pointer was more or less stuck in the bottom right corner of the guest's screen. The mouse pointer itself moved around freely, but any clicks hit a target off screen. Not a very useful "enhancement".

Well, it turns out that this may be an issue between the Virtual PC Additions that were already installed on the VPC based image and the VMWare Tools. Specifically, the mouse driver. After some trial and error, I've found two workarounds to this:

Remove Virtual PC Additions from the virtual before conversion to VMWare.
Install VMWare Tools on the converted virtual without the VMWare Mouse driver. This means that you should install the VMWare Tools while logged into the existing virtual rather than silently via the VMWare menu.

More MVC Framework for ASP.NET

Greg Zarkis — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 18:31:22 GMT

If you haven't been living under a mushroom, you're most likely aware of Scott Guthrie's posts on Microsoft's new ASP.NET MVC Framework. If you are indeed living under a mushroom, then you can check out Part 3 right here.

MVC Framework for ASP.NET bits

Greg Zarkis — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 03:57:03 GMT

You may have heard about it, now take a peek at it. Scott Hanselman has posted some MVC bits from DevConnections. You can read about it here. There's not a lot yet, but word is that a CTP is around the corner.

The Source is Here! Pt. II

Greg Zarkis — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 03:04:31 GMT

So now the work has spread, and we get to see some more opinion on the move release source for the .NET Framework available under the Microsoft Reference License (Ms-RL).

Frans Bouma, for one will NOT be looking at the source code, Phil Haack, summed up his opinion in one clever cartoon, Adi is going to risk being tainted, and Joel Ross is going to keep it in mind. J

So, my take? I'm not particularly worried about patent infringement at the moment, but I'm also not the type to cut and paste patented code into my product either. I'm looking.

The Source is Here! The Source is Here!

Greg Zarkis — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 02:56:52 GMT

Julie Lerman has enlightened me to some extremely exciting news for a .NET geek like myself:

Scott Guthrie's announcement that Microsoft is releasing the Source Code for the .NET Framework Libraries!

While I myself am really looking forward to peeking under the hood, a former colleague of mine reacted a bit differently. He seemed to be happier not knowing what's going on inside the soon-to-be former black box. To quote:

<cynical>So now I get to step into the code and know exactly why it doesn't work and exactly why I can't fix it?</cynical>

I spit my coffee all over my keyboard this morning because of that statement.

Composite UI Resources

Greg Zarkis — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 04:07:34 GMT

I've been struggling to get a post out here, so let me begin with a quick list of some of my favorite CAB resources;

Szymon Kobalczyk's Blog:
Understanding Composite UI Application Block

CabPedia
Getting started with CAB
Getting started with SCSF

CodePlex

Jeremy Miller's awesome "Build your own CAB" series, which Bil Simser points out to 'not look at it as "how to replace CAB" but rather "how to learn what it takes to build CAB"'.

That's the short list off the top of my head for now. Hopefully between iterations and beta releases, I'll find more time to share my experiences with developing a Smart Client app using CAB, SCSF, CruiseControl.NET, Subversion, and all the other little things that make this stuff fun.