VS.NET

SlickEdit Gadgets

Jannik Anker — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 18:11:00 GMT

I just installed a "funny" little (free) plugin for VS.2005. It's called SlickEdit Gadgets - I haven't really figured out yet if it can help me be more productive, but try it out for yourselves:

Download the free SlickEdit Gadgets thingy here

Visual Studio 2005 PowerToys

Jannik Anker — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 14:40:00 GMT

Via Paul Ballard:

"Microsoft has just dropped a set of Visual Studio 2005 PowerToys. Here's what you get:

Source Code Outliner : The Source Outliner tool is a Visual Studio extension that provides a tree view of your source code's types and members and lets you quickly navigate to them inside the editor.
Visual C++ Code Snippets:The Visual C++ Code Snippets tool lets you insert snippets in your code by using a pop-up menu that contains programming keywords. VB.NET and C# languages have this functionality in Visual Studio 2005.
Indexed Find : The Indexed Find tool is a Visual Studio extension that uses the Microsoft Indexing Service to provide improved Search capabilities to the integrated development environment (IDE). It sends the results of a search to the Output Window.
Super Diff Utility: The Super Diff Find tool is a Visual Studio extension that compares text files. It uses color coding and graphics to show the difference between the files in deleted text (red), changed text (blue), inserted text (green).
Event Toaster Utility: The Event Toaster tool is a Visual Studio extension that notifies users about specific events within the Visual Studio IDE."

Oh, and you can get them here.

Visual Studio trick for obtaining the public key token and blob of a signed assembly

Jannik Anker — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 14:42:00 GMT

I hate command prompts.

I know - I'm supposed to be a geek and all, and therefore love prompts and stuff. But I just hate them anyway. So I was very pleased when I stumbled across andrewconnell.com, where I found a very nifty trick for avoiding some command prompt hell...

BTW, the article says it's a VS2005 trick, but it works fine for me in VS2003...

Tricking out your apps (WinForms)

Jannik Anker — Wed, 03 May 2006 17:18:00 GMT

What I've learned today:

The final application startup tweak we'll discuss is preventing a second instance of the application from starting. Of course, some document-based applications make sense to run multiple times, but many utilities make no sense, or can even cause problems when run this way. It turns out that we can easily make a change to accomplish this. In Visual Basic, you can simply click the Make single instance application checkbox in Project Settings to enable single-instance mode. In C# (and VB for that matter), you can create the same effect in the Main method.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;

public class MyClass
{
    public static void Main()
    {
        bool exclusive;
        Mutex m = new Mutex(true, "C4F-TrickedOut", out exclusive);
        if( exclusive )
        {
            Application.EnableVisualStyles();
            Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(false);
            Form1 mainForm = new Form1();
            Application.Run();
        }
        else
        {
            MessageBox.Show("Another instance is already running.");
        }
    }
    
    
}

Very nice. More like this here (Coding4Fun)

Component Factory has released their Krypton Toolkit

Jannik Anker — Mon, 14 Nov 2005 16:27:00 GMT

The Krypton Toolkit is a collection of Windows Forms UI controls, built with and targeting VS.NET 2005 and .NET Framework 2.0. You can download a free copy over at componentfactory.com. Phil Wright, the owner of Component Factory, has a blog worth a read.

Yes! VS.NET 2005 is available for (MSDN) download!

Jannik Anker — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 13:18:00 GMT

Via Andrew Connell...

The newest versions of Visual Studio.NET and SQL Server (2005) are now available for download, if you are an MSDN subscriber! If you are not, you'll have to wait till the official release on November 7th. Download size: 2760 MB... Yawn... ;-)

Scott Guthrie: Visual Studio 2005 Profiles and a Few Tweaks I like to Make

Jannik Anker — Fri, 21 Oct 2005 18:07:00 GMT

Scott Guthrie on tweaking the new VS2005 profile support:
"One of the new features in VS 2005 is the support for "profiles" in the IDE. Profiles provide the ability to define pre-set defaults for options, menus, key-bindings, and command-bars across the tool-set. VS 2005 ships with several built-in profiles out of the box including: VB, C#, C++, Web, Test, and a General Development Settings similar to 2003. When VS launches the very first time it prompts a user to pick which of these profiles to use by default (note that you can build all app types and even use all languages regardless of which profile you pick).

If you ever want to change or reset your profile, you can select the Tools->Import and Export Settings menu option. It will then walk-you through a wizard where you can export or import settings to/from others (these are saved as XML files that you can ship around to work colleagues or friends). If you select the "reset all settings" radio button in this dialog, it will let you nuke and re-pick your default profile from scratch (for example: to re-pick the C#, VB or Web one by default)."

I look forward to getting my hands dirty - I am impatiently awaiting the final MSDN release of VS2005. I have Beta 2 installed on a slow test-PC, which is far from a pleasant working experience (sloooooooow), and with (hopefully) only a few days until final release, I have to try resisting the temptation of installing the RC - in order to avoid installation issues caused by "intertwining" versions. Must... resist... temptation... ;-)

101 Samples for Visual Studio 2005

Jannik Anker — Fri, 05 Aug 2005 03:57:00 GMT

At the VS2005 MSDN lab, 101 Samples for Visual Studio 2005 are now available. I am blogging while on vacation, so I haven't really had a chance to look into them any further. Looks nice, though.

BTW, look at the very bottom of the page: "The remaining 51 samples are coming soon. Stay tuned." ;-)

Give Your Everyday Custom Collections a Design-Time Makeover

Jannik Anker — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 06:51:00 GMT

Paul Ballard has written an excellent article for the latest MSDN Magazine (August 2005) about custom collections. I am currently in the midst of a project that uses custom collections a lot, so naturally I have a healthy interest in the subject ;-) I have to admit that I haven't read it in full yet, just browsed through it.

Pauls suggested implementation of interfaces etc. is great as inspiration - I've done most of it like he does, but I may have missed a few nice details (like implementing IEditableObject - I didn't even know it existed!). So without actually going back to the drawing board, some things may end up being implemented differently from today, based on the suggestions and eye openers in this article.

My project is using Framework 1.1 and Pauls code is based on Framework 2.0, so I'll have to see what can and cannot be done within my solution :-/

The article and source code is available here:
Data Binding: Give Your Everyday Custom Collections a Design-Time Makeover -- MSDN Magazine, August 2005

Visual Studio 2005 Documentation (MSDN2)

Jannik Anker — Mon, 27 Jun 2005 00:51:00 GMT

An MSDN "sister-site" is available on msdn2.microsoft.com, focus in on VS.NET 2005.

Visual Studio 2005 Documentation