VS2010

West Palm Beach .Net User Group 2011 Update

Sam Abraham — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 14:06:30 GMT

In the past few months, we at the West Palm Beach .Net User Group have been busy soliciting your feedback on topics you would like covered at our upcoming meetings. We have also been encouraging our members to step up and share on the projects they work on and the technologies they use. The result is the schedule below which we hope brings a good variety of today’s hottest topics. We look forward to seeing you at our meetings and to receiving your feedback as we continuously strive to improve the group.

Our upcoming July 26^th meeting features Shervin Shakibi on HTML 5. This meeting presents a good opportunity to get heads up on this new technology which is quickly capturing developers’ interest and market share.

For August, Ritesh Pahwa covers TFS 2010. There have been multiple questions on the new features introduced in TFS 2010 as well as on the upgrade process from older TFS editions. Ritesh, who managed the successful upgrade to TFS 2010 for Palm Beach County earlier this year, will be answering all our questions and sharing tips on leveraging the latest features in TFS 2010.

September brings our own Amir Liberman to share on his CodePlex LINQ Extensions Library and answer all our tough LINQ questions.

Other topics generating a big buzz today are Windows Phone 7 and the Kinect SDK. We are very privileged to have our esteemed Microsoft Developer Evangelist, Joe Healy, traveling all the way from Tampa to share with us the latest on Windows Phone 7 in October and Kinect in November. Joe’s back-to-back appearance at our group is bound to finish our year on a strong technical note.

Plans are already underway for 2012. Our focus continues on bringing you the latest technologies presented by a diverse group of speakers, but we also hope to kick it up a bit to increase your participation in “YOUR” group. We are recruiting new volunteers with the goal of bringing you value-added services and special events in addition to the regular FREE monthly meetings. Stay tuned for more announcements as plans get finalized.

Look forward to meeting and chatting with you at our upcoming meetings. Should you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact me via my blog, www.geekswithblogs.net/wildturtle

Sam Abraham

Site Director - West Palm Beach .Net User Group

http://www.fladotnet.com/

Debugging Install Functions in Visual Studio 2010

Sam Abraham — Tue, 24 May 2011 15:24:14 GMT

Most of us have probably used or know of the System.Diagnostics.Debugger.Break(). For more information on Debugger.Break checkout this link http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.diagnostics.debugger.break.aspx

Online documentation states that if no debugger is already attached, user would be prompted to attach one to executing program when the break is hit. For some reason however, this didn’t work for us when our desired breakpoint was in an OnInstall() function of an installer class.

Further digging revealed that the comments decorating the Break() call differ a bit from the online documentation:

// Summary:

// Signals a breakpoint to an attached debugger.

// Exceptions:

// System.Security.SecurityException:

// The System.Security.Permissions.UIPermission is not set to break into the

// debugger.

[SecuritySafeCritical]

public static void Break();

Apparently, Break() only signals a breakpoint to an attached debugger as per the summary above.

In looking at other calls within the Debugger class, we found the Launch() function which is documented as following:

// Summary:

// Launches and attaches a debugger to the process.

// Returns:

// true if the startup is successful or if the debugger is already attached;

// otherwise, false.

// Exceptions:

// System.Security.SecurityException:

// The System.Security.Permissions.UIPermission is not set to start the debugger.

[SecuritySafeCritical]

public static bool Launch();

This call forces the launch of debugger selection prompt where we can select Visual Studio 2010 as our JIT debugger. Once selected code execution breaks allowing us to step through the code. The Deubbger.Launch() call worked perfectly when called inside our OnInstall() function and allowed us to conveniently debug installer code.

Upgrading VSCommands2010

Sam Abraham — Mon, 23 May 2011 13:36:51 GMT

VSCommands2010 adds multiple convenient features to Visual Studio 2010. For instance, one feature of VSCommands2010 I use frequently is the ability to visually "Group" partial classes in Solution Explorer. This comes in handy especially with the relatively large number of files in our .Net 4.0 solutions.

I did however run into an interesting problem as I attempted to upgrade VSCommands to the latest version. Updates to the tool were successfully downloaded to disk as evidenced by the progress bar, but as I acknowledged the terms and conditions and attempted installation, I got an error: “Cannot create a file when that file already exists”. Attempting to uninstall VSCommands2010 from the Extensions Manager screen also failed.

Figure 1 - Updating VSCommands2010

Figure 2- VSCommands2010 Update Failure

The resolution was to first go under C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\Extensions and delete the DPStudio folder. This led Visual Studio 2010 to flag VSCommands2010 as disabled which allowed me to successfully uninstall it. I then went ahead and did a clean install of the latest VSCommands2010 version which succeeded.

Figure 3 - Path to DPStudio folder. Delete folder to disable VSCommands2010 in Extension Manager.

Figure 4 - With VSCommands2010 flagged as disabled, we are now able to uninstall it.

Figure 5 - Successfully installed latest VSCommands2010 version.

Updated: Running ASP.Net MVC3 Alongside ASP.Net WebForms in the Same Project

Sam Abraham — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 18:05:57 GMT

(UPDATED 2/26/2011 with higlighted information) I previously blogged on running ASP.Net MVC in an ASP.Net WebForms project. My reference at the time was a freely-available PDF document by Scott Guthrie which covered the setup process in good detail.

As I am preparing references to share with our audience at my upcoming talk at the Deerfield Beach Coders Café on March 1^st(http://www.fladotnet.com/Reg.aspx?EventID=514), I found a nice blog post by Scott Hanselman on running both ASP.Net 4.0 WebForms along with ASP.Net MVC 3.0 in the same project. You can access this article here.

Moreover, Scott later followed-up with a blog showing how to leverage NuGet to automate the setup of ASP.Net MVC3 in an existing ASP.Net WebForms project.

One frequent question that usually comes up when discussing this side-by-side setup is the loss of the convenient Visual Studio Solution Explorer context menu which enable us to easily create controllers and views with a few mouse clicks.

A good suggestion brought up in the comments section of Scott’s article presented a good work-around to this problem: Manually add the MVC Visual Studio Project Type GUID in your .csproj project file ({E53F8FEA-EAE0-44A6-8774-FFD645390401}) which then brings back the MVC-specific context menu functionality in solution explorer of the hybrid project. (Thanks James Raden!)

Below is how James presented his solution. Note that I was only able to get this to work when I added the project Type GUID at the beginning of the GUID list.

South Florida .Net Code Camp - February 12th, 2011

Sam Abraham — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 13:25:29 GMT

Later this week, I will be heading to our annual South Florida .Net Code Camp, an all-day free “Geek Fest” taking place on February 12^th, 2011.This year’s code camp will be conveniently taking place at Nova Southeastern University in Ft Lauderdale.

With more than 700 already registered, this year’s event is bound to exceed last year’s registration and attendance. We are also fortunate to have secured the backing of a large number of our kind sponsors, supporters and volunteers, with our efforts led by our chief organizer, Fladotnet founder and Microsoft MVP, Dave Noderer.

As a member of the volunteer organizing team, I have gotten a good exposure on what it takes to run a code camp and gotten to appreciate the tremendous amount of work such a large event takes to put together to handle logistics such as venue, food, speaker registration and scheduling, website updates; that of course in addition to the essential outreach efforts necessary to secure sponsorships.

As Dave puts it, Code Camp is a great venue for those who want to gain exposure and experience as technical speakers to try it out just as much as it being a forum for experienced speakers to share the latest on their topics of interest. So far, 65 speakers are already scheduled to speak, bringing us an array of diverse topics.

I will be speaking on ASP.Net MVC3, the Razor view engine and present a brief introduction to NUGet. Below is a brief abstract on the session. For more information on code camp and to regsiter, please visit http://www.fladotnet.com/codecamp/Default.aspx

Hope to see you there!

Diving into ASP.Net MVC 3 and the Razor View Engine

The first few minutes of this session will bring those who might not have previously used or learned about MVC up to speed with the necessary rules and conventions for an MVC project. We will then cover the latest additions to ASP.Net MVC 3 and discuss the value it brings with its new Razor View Engine and the various project template improvements made in Visual Studio 2010. We will also explore how to leverage both Razor and ASPX View Engines in one project. Audience participation is strongly encouraged and will be solicited.

Adding a Windows Phone 7 Panorama Control inside a Windows Phone User Control

Sam Abraham — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 06:50:14 GMT

I have been playing with the Windows Phone 7 Toolkit all day long (Saturday), all while reading Charles Petzold’s eBook brought to us for free by Microsoft Press.

Time for this 1013-page book couldn’t have been better as it provides us with insights into WP7 development right at the time WP7 phones are becoming available to consumers.

We greatly appreciate and acknowledge the cost Microsoft must have incurred and the big time sacrifice Charles must have made to get that high quality book publicly available in record time.

As I am working on our first Windows Phone 7 Application, we decided to encapsulate a functional area as a Windows Phone User Control and to include a Panorama control within. Online articles consistently demonstrated the Panorama control when defined in a Windows Phone Panorama Page. Additionally, the Panorama control is not available in the Toolbox for easy inclusion in a custom control.

In playing a bit with the Panorama control, I found a quick way to include it in our Windows Phone Control page without investing much effort:

1-Add a new Windows Phone Panorama Page to project. This will automatically add references to Microsoft.Phone.Interop, Microsoft.Phone.Controls in addition to the Microsoft.Pone DLL already referenced by default.

2-Copy the generated namespaces from Windows Phone Panorama Page to User Control XAML page.

xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"

xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"

xmlns:phone="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Phone.Controls;assembly=Microsoft.Phone"

xmlns:shell="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Phone.Shell;assembly=Microsoft.Phone"

xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"

xmlns:mc=http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006

3-Copy the generated Panorama control XAML markup from the Windows Phone Panorama Page to the location desired within the Windows Phone User Control XAML.

<controls:Panorama Title="my application">

<controls:PanoramaItem Header="item1">

<Grid/>

</controls:PanoramaItem>

<controls:PanoramaItem Header="item2">

<Grid/>

</controls:PanoramaItem>

</controls:Panorama>

4-Delete the Windows Phone Panorama page created in step 1 since we didn’t need it in the first place.

5-Ask a friend to pat you on the back for being so efficient and quick.

--Sam Abraham

Experiences With Windows Phone 7

Sam Abraham — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 15:35:36 GMT

A couple of weeks ago, I took a four hour drive to visit Tampa where I got to meet our Microsoft Developer Evangelist Joe Healy (aka. Devfish). Present were (in alphabetical order) Scott Dorman, Nikita Polyakov, Bill Reiss, Ken Tucker, and Kevin Wolf.

If you have been following Windows Phone 7 news lately, you will notice the names above being quiet familiar. Joe Healy was recently featured in a Jessie Liberty YapCast discussing WP7 and the important role Florida plays in evangelizing the value this new mobile OS brings to developers. Furthermore, Scott, Joe, Nikita and Kevin are writing a book to teach us Windows Phone 7 Development in 24 hours (I would however strongly suggest you take a little more than 24 hours to read it). Additionally Kevin and Nikita are 2 of only 22 worldwide inaugural Windows Phone Development MVPs.

With all that love of Windows Phone 7 in the air, I got to play with at least 3 different prototype phones, two of which had QWERTY keyboards (one with the keyboard behind a sliding front panel and another with the keyboard on the front panel), while another device had a touch-screen keyboard. One prototype phone had an expansion SD Card Slot which cleared my initial misconception as I realized that WP7 can handle additional memory beyond the capacity of the built-in memory a phone ships with if the hardware supports a MicroSD Card.

I look forward to completing at least one WP7 application very soon, that of course if by then no similar application exists on AppHub :)

--Sam Abraham

Sam Abraham to Speak at the Tampa .Net Code Camp 2010 - November 13th, 2010

Sam Abraham — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 21:34:13 GMT

Sam Abraham (Me) will be introducing ASP.Net MVC 3 at the Tampa .Net Code Camp, taking place on Saturday November 13th, 2010. I plan to introduce ASP.Net MVC and showcase the latest and greatest features introduced with ASP.Net MVC3 including: Razor syntax, ASP.Net Web Pages Helpers and NuGet (formerly NuPack). Audience participation is encouraged and will be solicited.

Look forward to seeing you all there!

Here is the description and bio I submitted:

Introducing ASP.Net MVC
In this session, we will introduce ASP.Net MVC and compare it to traditional Web Forms. We will also introduce the two built-in view engines that MVC ships with (ASPX and Razor).

Speakers:
Sam Abraham is a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) and Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS ASP.Net 3.5/4.0) He currently lives in South Florida where he leads the West Palm Beach .Net User Group (www.fladotnet.com) and actively participates in various local .Net Community events as organizer and/or technical speaker. Sam also serves as Director of Electronic Communications and as Mentoring Project Leader at the South Florida Chapter of the Project Management Institute (www.southfloridapmi.org). Sam finds his passion in leveraging latest and greatest .Net Technologies along with proven Project Management practices and methodologies to produce high quality, cost-competitive software. Sam can be contacted through his blog: http://www.geekswithblogs.net/wildturtle

Thoughts on HTML 5 for ASP.Net MVC 3, WebMatrix and Silverlight

Sam Abraham — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 13:16:27 GMT

With concerns of HTML 5 overshadowing or affecting the roadmap for Silverlight actively addressed in many blog posts, I decided to cover the value HTML 5 brings to another set of web-based Microsoft solutions: ASP.Net MVC 3 and WebMatrix.

A direction to embrace HTML 5 can already be clearly seen in ASP.Net MVC 3 with Unobtrusive Javascript leveraging the “data-“HTML 5 attributes. Additionally, WebMatrix Razor site templates are already HTML5 and CSS3 compliant while continuing to be backwards compatible for older browsers.

With HTML 5, ASP.Net Web Pages Helpers (for both WebMatrix and MVC 3) can evolve to produce elaborate out-of-the-box reusable components while maintaining their light-weight competitive advantage.

Both ASPX and the new Razor view engines enable complete control over a screen’s HTML markup and hence can immediately benefit from the new features of HTML 5 on both IE 9 and other HTML 5 supporting browsers such as Firefox 3.5

With developers doing “HTML 5 coding”, I foresee Razor gaining more popularity due to its efficient syntax and intelligent parsing mechanism that focuses on minimizing tag keystrokes.

In conclusion, HTML 5 might cause some strategy shifts for Silverlight with both technologies bound to co-exist and continue going strong. However one should not ignore the value and power HTML 5 brings to other Microsoft web technologies such as ASP.Net MVC3 and WebMatrix.

--Sam Abraham

Sam Abraham to Speak at the SoFla PDC 2010 10/28/2010

Sam Abraham — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 19:00:08 GMT

Sam Abraham (Me) will be speaking at the SoFla PDC 2010 hosted by the Gold Coast and Miami .Net User Groups in Boca Raton, Florida on October 28th, 2010. The local PDC event will run in parallel to and will embrace some of the content covered and unveiled at the main PDC 2010 hosted in Redmond. This would be my third speaking event in a quiet busy October 2010 and my second visit as speaker to the Gold Coast .Net User’s Group for the month of October.

I will be covering WebMatrix, Razor Syntax, ASP.Net Web Pages Helpers, IIS Express, ASP.Net MVC 3 and NuPack with brief demos as well as presentation slides content showcasing the value each brings. Audience participation and input is encouraged and will be solicited.

All the aforementioned technologies share a few common characteristics:

Free. None requires a license fee.
Open and transparent. Everybody knows where these technologies came from, where they are at today and where they are heading tomorrow with ample information readily available online
Open Source. One can learn internals as well as extend and fix bugs as needed without having to wait for a next official release.

Light weight and efficient. All tools focus on saving development time while improving the efficiency of the development process.

Listens to feedback. While all Microsoft products and groups have multiple communication channels for community feedback, these aforementioned technologies are particularly notable for being mainly community driven.

Welcomes outside contributions. NuPack is a great example of a new convenient tool that is open to developers outside of Microsoft to contribute to. The MVCContrib library is another great example of how community involvement can supplement the base MVC feature set.

I look forward to meeting everyone at the SoFla PDC 2010 and to an engaging discussion of the latest and greatest technologies at the event.

--Sam Abraham