Static Void - VS2010

Thursday, January 05, 2012

Visual Studio 2010 - find TFS working directory

 
//find the working folder for each TFS
var projectCollections = RegisteredTfsConnections.GetProjectCollections();
 
foreach (var registeredProjectCollection in projectCollections)
{
    Console.WriteLine("Project collection: {0} {1}", 
registeredProjectCollection.Name, 
registeredProjectCollection.Uri.AbsoluteUri);
    var projectCollection =
        TfsTeamProjectCollectionFactory.GetTeamProjectCollection(registeredProjectCollection);
 
    var versionControl = projectCollection.GetService<VersionControlServer>();
 
    // get workspace
    var workspace =
        versionControl.QueryWorkspaces(null,
                System.Threading.Thread.CurrentPrincipal.Identity.Name,
                Environment.MachineName)
                .FirstOrDefault(x => 
                    x.Folders.Length > 0 &&
                    //if there is a Work Item Manager, we don't care
                    x.Name != "WIM (" + Environment.MachineName + ")");
    if(workspace == null) continue; //no workspace for this server
 
    //there's normally only one
    WorkingFolder folder = workspace.Folders.First();
    Console.WriteLine("Working folder {0}", folder.LocalItem);
}

//old VS 2008 way
//using (TeamFoundationServer tfsServer = new TeamFoundationServer(tfsServerName))
//{
//    // Get a reference to version control
//    VersionControlServer versionControl =
//        (VersionControlServer) tfsServer.GetService(typeof (VersionControlServer));
//    //....
//}

TFS | VS2010

posted on Thursday, January 05, 2012 9:51:17 AM (Romance Standard Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [0]

Saturday, December 10, 2011

MCPD Web Developer .Net 4

I've just done all 4 of the exams for .Net 4.0 MCPD Web Developer. Overall, I quite enjoyed it. I even learned a bit.

Programmer certifications, and particularly the Microsoft ones, get a lot of criticism. In theory they prove someone is proficient in the technology. In practice, by itself a certificate is unreliable.

Microsoft's Partner program insists that companies have staff with certifications. The body shops put their new recruits through a brief course so they can pass and then be sold on. Often, they memorised the questions and answers from internet dumps. It's disappointing to google the exam codes: apart from the Microsoft syllabus, every link is a site selling the answers.

If you're a consultant, or you're going to change jobs, experienced programmers probably have to do the exams too. If you work for a Microsoft Partner you have to do it, and HR departments filter their CVs using it. Really, the best measure of proficiency is years of experience and types of projects. That's real-world practical knowledge. Okay, I would say that, having been doing this for 25 years. But, as the company I work for needs the certificate points, and they're paying, I'm happy to do the exams.

For .net 1 we had to do exams for ASP, windows forms and web services, but most .net programmers then only worked in one or two of those- certainly never windows forms and ASP. I was actually quite impressed by the .Net 2 foundation exam, which covered a lot of basics: collections, threads, tracing, serialization, globalization, encryption. Specific projects may not involve some of it, but a good .net programmer should know almost all of it (even if you have to google the details). Unfortunately they dropped it for .Net 4, going back to technology areas (asp, web services) just like the original .net 1 exams. Now for .net 4 "web" we have asp, wcf and data access (ado/entity framework). Broadly I agree you'd expect all web developers to know those topics, so that's not too bad.

One big problem with certification questions is that they pick on obscure APIs and ASP controls. Now, questions on the validation controls is probably a good basic requirement, but frankly the gridview events are a nightmare anyway, so memorizing them for an exam is painful. The .net 4 asp exam wasn't too bad although there was some API questions that in real life you'd just google. One of the jQuery questions annoyed me too, using an unusual API detail (I think an older syntax) when they could have used a better, clearer replacement.

The older exams had sections devoted to things nobody ever uses. On the asp .net 2 exam it was mobile controls, and web parts (cloned from Sharepoint, and never used outside Sharepoint). Fortunately there seems less of that in the .net 4 exams, although there's still some asp ajax library stuff in there, plus some dynamic data. The big problem was that jQuery and MVC have moved on since the exam was written. All the questions were about MVC 2, not 3. It's not that the questions were obsolete (there was nothing much about webform views to confuse those who use Razor), it's just that the pace of change is making exams less relevant.

The other exams had little used topics too. The WCF exam covered MSMQ, which I've never seen used in real life. The data access exam was more problematic. Basic ADO is useful, but there was still material about little used dataset features like constraints and dataRelations. There was not much on Linq2Sql, perhaps just as well, but most of the exam was Entity Framework. I know EF is used out there, but I've yet to encounter EF and it seems to be in second place to NHibernate at least for ORM data access. So I did learn something for this exam, and yes, I passed the exam as a novice with no real world experience of Entity Framework. On the other hand, as an experienced programmer I'd feel comfortable doing EF (even if I'd rather be doing NHibernate.)

Two of the exams - the WCF and the ASP Pro exam - had "testlets" with a case study and a small number of questions about the scenario. The WCF was over-elaborate, with source listings and xml, but for all that I thought it was a little more realistic and actually quite enjoyable.

To study, I used the Microsoft Training Kit books, MSDN and for the areas I was less familiar with - mostly EF and some aspects of WCF - a little practice. The WCF exam didn't have a book, so I had to use the .net 3.5 one and look up a couple of subjects (routing and discovery). I skimmed the bits I knew well (the asp/ web side generally). Generally I found you needed a bit more knowledge than was in the books, but only a few things were really obscure. Overall, studying for the exam was interesting and useful. Learning about WCF routing and discovery and EF, things I haven't actually used, did bring me more up-to-date with the .net 4 stack.

A pity Microsoft's "congratulations" email contains a link to a blog that closed 2 years ago.

.net 4 | VS2010

posted on Saturday, December 10, 2011 10:15:55 PM (Romance Standard Time, UTC+01:00)

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Friday, June 10, 2011

T4 preprocessing

T4 preprocessed templates are a neat way of generating text at run time, which can be deployed to machines without Visual Studio. Here's MSDN

Here's a simple template, ClassWriter.tt, which must be marked CustomTool = "TextTemplatingFilePreprocessor" in properties (not "TextTemplatingFileGenerator" which is a normal T4).

<#@ template language="C#" #>
<#@ import namespace="System.Linq" #>
<#@ parameter type="Generator.Model.Table" name="table" #>
using System;
 
namespace <#= table.Namespace #>
{
    [Serializable]
    public class <#= table.Name #>
    {
<#  foreach(var column in table.Columns.Where(c=> !c.Hidden)) { #>
        public virtual <#= column.Type #> <#= column.Name #> { get; set; }
<#    } #>
    }
}

At development time, Visual Studio generates the class in the corresponding namespace which you can then call (yeah, it generates code for generating code...).

Notice we're passing a parameter, which has to have the full namespaced name (even "string" has to be "System.String").

The generated class is partial and the parameters are property getters with a backing field. MSDN suggests that to pass in your parameters you should manually code a partial class with conventional properties or a constructor. Actually, there's an easier no-code way. Use the Session property (which is just a Dictionary<string, object>) which you can use with an Initialize() method. Like this:

//create the class generated by TextTemplatingFilePreprocessor 
var generator = new ClassWriter();
//create a session dictionary, fill it and initialize
generator.Session = new Dictionary<string, object>();
generator.Session.Add("table", table);
generator.Initialize();
//transform!
var text = generator.TransformText();

The key things to watch out for:

you must create the Session dictionary (it's not initialized internally)
you must call Initialize() after it's populated.

You can also use System.Runtime.Remoting.Messaging.CallContext but weirdly you must still initialize the Session dictionary (Initialize checks Session first, then CallContext).

You may be tempted to reuse the T4 template class like this.

//don't do this
var generator = new ClassWriter();
foreach (var item in list)
{
    generator.Session = new Dictionary<string, object>();
    generator.Session.Add("table", item);
    generator.Initialize();
    var txt = generator.TransformText();
    WriteText(item, txt);
}

The template class actually uses an internal StringBuilder called GenerationEnvironment. So each call returns everything you wrote before. You can't actually reset the StringBuilder (although you can append to it with Write overloads). So, always create the template class within the loop.

.net 4 | VS2010

posted on Friday, June 10, 2011 1:50:55 PM (Romance Daylight Time, UTC+02:00)

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Thursday, April 07, 2011

Publish and Transform in MSBuild script

VS 2010 web.config transformations are great.
Change your development web.config which looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
 
<configuration>
  <connectionStrings>
    <add name="ApplicationServices"
         connectionString="data source=.\SQLEXPRESS;Integrated Security=SSPI;AttachDBFilename=|DataDirectory|aspnetdb.mdf;User Instance=true"
         providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
  </connectionStrings>
 
  <system.web>
    <compilation debug="true" targetFramework="4.0">

by adding a Web.DeployTest.config file which looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration xmlns:xdt="http://schemas.microsoft.com/XML-Document-Transform">
 
  <connectionStrings>
    <add name="ApplicationServices" connectionString="Data Source=StaticVoidSqlServer;Initial Catalog=Northwind;Integrated Security=SSPI;" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient"
         xdt:Transform="SetAttributes" xdt:Locator="Match(name)"/>
  </connectionStrings>
 
</configuration>

Only by default it's tied up with the build configurations (Debug, Release etc) and the Web deploy story.
But I don't want a web deployment package. I want:

a normal "Release" configuration build
a directory containing all the website files that I can XCopy deploy (like old school Visual Studio 2008 publish)
the web.config transformed with my custom "DeployTest" name.

Doing it this way means the web.DeployTest.config is not automatically nested under the web.config (and I should mark it as BuildAction=None).
But that's my requirements. So I wrote an MSBuild file.

Batch file (build.bat)

First here's a standard batch file, "build.bat", to launch it (I want MSBuild 4.0):

%systemroot%\Microsoft.Net\Framework\v4.0.30319\MSBuild.exe build.proj  /t:Release & pause

MSBuild script (build.proj)


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<Project ToolsVersion="4.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003" DefaultTargets="Release">
 
  <UsingTask TaskName="TransformXml" AssemblyFile="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll" />
 
  <PropertyGroup>
    <!-- properties that are used in this build file - referenced as $(PropertyName) -->
    <ProjectName>StaticVoid</ProjectName>
    <DeployConfiguration>DeployTest</DeployConfiguration>
 
    <PublishPath>$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\..\Publish\</PublishPath>
    <OutputPath>$(PublishPath)\StaticVoid\</OutputPath>
    <PackagePath>$(PublishPath)\StaticVoidPackage\</PackagePath>
 
    <TransformInputFile>..\StaticVoid\Web.config</TransformInputFile>
    <TransformFile>..\StaticVoid\Web.$(DeployConfiguration).config</TransformFile>
    <TransformOutputFile>$(OutputPath)\Web.config</TransformOutputFile>
 
    <ImageResourcesPath>..\ImageResources</ImageResourcesPath>
 
  </PropertyGroup>
 
  <ItemGroup>
    <ImageResources Include="$(ImageResourcesPath)\*.jpg" />
  </ItemGroup>
 
 
  <!-- targets -->
 
  <Target Name="PublishWebsite">
    <Message Text="Publishing Website" />
    <RemoveDir Directories="$(PublishPath)"/>
    <!-- do a deploy -->
    <MSBuild Projects="..\StaticVoid\StaticVoid.csproj"
		Properties="Configuration=Release;OutputPath=$(PackagePath);DeployOnBuild=true;DeployTarget=PipelinePreDeployCopyAllFilesToOneFolder;AutoParameterizationWebConfigConnectionStrings=false;_PackageTempDir=$(OutputPath)"/>
  </Target>
 
  <Target Name="Transform">
    <!-- transform the web.config -->
    <TransformXml Source="$(TransformInputFile)"
                  Transform="$(TransformFile)"
                  Destination="$(TransformOutputFile)" />
  </Target>
 
  <Target Name="BuildWebsite" DependsOnTargets="PublishWebsite">
    <!-- we don't need the deployment package, we wanted the published files to copy manually -->
    <RemoveDir Directories="$(PackagePath)"/>
    <!-- copy the unmanaged resources -->
    <Copy SourceFiles="@(ImageResources)" DestinationFolder="$(PublishPath)images" SkipUnchangedFiles="true" />
  </Target>
  
  <Target Name="Release" DependsOnTargets="BuildWebsite; Transform;">
  </Target>
 
</Project>

A little explanation

The MSBuild task for the website project (StaticVoid.csproj) has a whole set of extra properties set which make it do a deploy.
(Broken here to be easier to read:)
    <MSBuild Projects="..\StaticVoid\StaticVoid.csproj"
		Properties="Configuration=Release;
OutputPath=$(PackagePath);
DeployOnBuild=true;
DeployTarget=PipelinePreDeployCopyAllFilesToOneFolder;
AutoParameterizationWebConfigConnectionStrings=false;
_PackageTempDir=$(OutputPath)"/>

The regular deployment package is written to $(PackagePath). I don't care about that, so I delete it.
The actual directory and files that I wanted are written to $(OutputPath) using the _PackageTempDir property.

For the transform, note the msbuild xml must have Project ToolsVersion="4.0" and

<UsingTask TaskName="TransformXml" 
AssemblyFile="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll" />

And then the transformation:
    <TransformXml Source="$(TransformInputFile)"
                  Transform="$(TransformFile)"
                  Destination="$(TransformOutputFile)" />

with $(TransformFile) defined as

<TransformFile>..\StaticVoid\Web.$(DeployConfiguration).config</TransformFile>

Simply changing the DeployConfiguration property lets me have test and production builds which transform things nicely.

Update: the old _CopyWebApplication still works too

In Visual Studio 2008 you could use this task:

    <MSBuild Projects="..\StaticVoid\StaticVoid.csproj"
             Targets="ResolveReferences;_CopyWebApplication"
             Properties="Configuration=Release;
                         WebProjectOutputDir=$(OutputPath);
                         OutDir=$(OutputPath)\bin\" />

This still works in Visual Studio 2010's MSBuild (and you don't have a package directory to delete).
The transforms can still be done manually.

.net 4 | VS2010

posted on Thursday, April 07, 2011 12:34:35 PM (Romance Daylight Time, UTC+02:00)

Comments [0]

Monday, November 01, 2010

Database Schema Reader

A long time ago I wrote my database schema reader. It was 2005, .Net 2.0 was just out and I was learning about the new features. .Net 2.0's ADO DbProviderFactory had a nice idea, GetSchema, to get database independent schema information. But the GetSchema collections were slightly different for each database, and they were data tables. So I wrote a simple facade over them to get proper classes.

Initially I used it to generate CRUD stored procedures, and then to generate data access code, even including NHibernate mappings. I even did some (simple) database conversions. All this was quite icky, and each time I did the code-gen a different way, but the core facade worked well.

After getting a couple of queries about the extracts I'd already posted, I thought I might as well put up the entire source code. So here's the codeplex project with the source code, and even some basic SQL code-gen.

I picked Codeplex just because it's more .Net-centric than Google code or github, plus I'm more familiar with TFS and Subversion source control. It was pretty easy. I don't expect many downloads (if any!), but maybe a couple of people can steal the relevant bits of source code.

Check out the database schema reader codeplex project.

.net 4 | Codeplex | VS2010

posted on Monday, November 01, 2010 12:59:33 PM (Romance Standard Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [0]

Sunday, June 06, 2010

Smart Paste in 2010

One of the really useful Visual Studio add-ins is Smart Paster. It adds a "Paste As." context menu that allows you to paste in the clipboard text as a comment, a correctly quoted string or a string builder.

There are versions for VS 2003, 2005 and 2008. But not 2010.

Sometimes you can just copy in the dll and addin file into the VS 2010 Addins folder (.\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Addins) and edit the addin file (it's just xml) to say "10.0" instead of "9.0". But that doesn't work for SmartPaster - VS 2010 shows an error and insists on disabling the addin.

The VS 2008 download includes the source, so I tried to upgrade it.

It turns out the problem is when it creates the context menus it sets the CommandBarButton.FaceId property (to show an image next to the text). But in VS2010 that throws a DeprecatedException.

Ok, simple fix, but the original source is old code with a fairly high WTF-per-line ratio (well, it was written 2004, .Net 1.1). Before long I had ported it from VB.Net to C# (thanks Telerik) and rewritten large parts (mostly refactoring with Coderush). I simplified by dropping the "regionize" stuff (never use it), the VB support and the configuration form. Here's my code- you can create a new Extensibility Addin project, replace the Connect class and add the SmartPaster class- see below.

It's still a port, so certainly not as clean as something just written from scratch. And perhaps VS2010 has nicer ways of doing all these things now the code window is a WPF control - the EnvDTE objects are ugly and hard to use. Anyway, thanks to Alex Papadimoulis for the original code.

Update: download the binary and unzip into your Addins folder.

Update 2: source and binary are also on Codeplex. (It's exactly the same as shown here.)

   1:  using System;

   2:  using System.Collections;

   3:  using EnvDTE;

   4:  using EnvDTE80;

   5:  using Extensibility;

   6:  using Microsoft.VisualStudio.CommandBars;

7:

   8:  namespace SmartPaster2010

   9:  {

  10:      ///<summary>The object for implementing an Add-in.</summary>

  11:      ///<seealso class='IDTExtensibility2' />

  12:      public class Connect : IDTExtensibility2

  13:      {

  14:          private readonly ArrayList _pasteAsButtons;

  15:          private readonly SmartPaster _smartPaster;

  16:          private CommandBarPopup _pasteAsPopup;

17:

  18:          ///<summary>Implements the constructor for the Add-in object. Place your initialization code within this method.</summary>

  19:          public Connect()

  20:          {

  21:              _pasteAsButtons = new ArrayList();

  22:              _smartPaster = new SmartPaster();

  23:          }

24:

  25:          ///<summary>Implements the OnConnection method of the IDTExtensibility2 interface. Receives notification that the Add-in is being loaded.</summary>

  26:          ///<param term='application'>Root object of the host application.</param>

  27:          ///<param term='connectMode'>Describes how the Add-in is being loaded.</param>

  28:          ///<param term='addInInst'>Object representing this Add-in.</param>

  29:          ///<seealso class='IDTExtensibility2' />

  30:          public void OnConnection(object application, ext_ConnectMode connectMode,

object addInInst, ref Array custom)

  31:          {

  32:              _applicationObject = (DTE2)application;

  33:              _addInInstance = (AddIn)addInInst;

34:

35:

  36:              //check for the commands

  37:              bool cmdExists = false;

  38:              foreach (Command cmd in _applicationObject.Commands)

  39:              {

  40:                  if (cmd.Name.EndsWith("PasteAsComment", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase))

  41:                  {

  42:                      cmdExists = true;

  43:                      break;

  44:                  }

  45:              }

46:

  47:              try

  48:              {

  49:                  if (!cmdExists)

  50:                  {

  51:                      AddPasteAsCommands();

  52:                  }

53:

  54:                  if (connectMode == ext_ConnectMode.ext_cm_Startup && _pasteAsPopup == null)

  55:                  {

  56:                      //Add items to the Context (Right-Click) Menu

  57:                      //find the position of the &Paste command

  58:                      int position = 0;

59:

  60:                      CommandBar codeWindow = _applicationObject.CommandBars["Code Window"];

61:

  62:                      for (int i = 1; i <= codeWindow.Controls.Count; i++)

  63:                      {

  64:                          if (codeWindow.Controls[i].Caption == "&Paste")

  65:                          {

  66:                              position = i;

  67:                              break;

  68:                          }

  69:                      }

70:

  71:                      //add the popup menu "Paste As...", which may already be on the menu

  72:                      _pasteAsPopup = (CommandBarPopup)codeWindow.Controls.Add(

(int)MsoControlType.msoControlPopup, 1, Type.Missing, position + 1, Type.Missing);

  73:                      _pasteAsPopup.Caption = "Paste As ...";

  74:                      AddPasteAsButtons();

  75:                  }

76:

  77:              }

  78:              catch (Exception ex)

  79:              {

  80:                  System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(ex.Message);

  81:              }

  82:          }

83:

  84:          private void AddPasteAsCommands()

  85:          {

  86:              //no configure or regionize because I never use 'em

  87:              _applicationObject.Commands.AddNamedCommand(_addInInstance, "PasteAsComment", "Paste As Comment", "Pastes clipboard text as a comment.", true, 22, null, Convert.ToInt32(vsCommandStatus.vsCommandStatusSupported) + Convert.ToInt32(vsCommandStatus.vsCommandStatusEnabled));

88:

  89:              _applicationObject.Commands.AddNamedCommand(_addInInstance, "PasteAsString", "Paste As String", "Pastes clipboard text as a string literal.", true, 22, null, Convert.ToInt32(vsCommandStatus.vsCommandStatusSupported) + Convert.ToInt32(vsCommandStatus.vsCommandStatusEnabled));

90:

  91:              _applicationObject.Commands.AddNamedCommand(_addInInstance, "PasteAsStringBuilder", "Paste As StringBuilder", "Pastes clipboard text as a stringbuilder.", true, 22, null, Convert.ToInt32(vsCommandStatus.vsCommandStatusSupported) + Convert.ToInt32(vsCommandStatus.vsCommandStatusEnabled));

  92:          }

93:

94:

  95:          private void AddPasteAsButtons()

  96:          {

97:

  98:              //now the buttons

  99:              CommandBarButton pasteAsButton;

 100:

 101:              //add "Comment"

 102:              pasteAsButton = AddCommandButton();

 103:              pasteAsButton.Caption = "Comment";

 104:              pasteAsButton.TooltipText = "Inserts clipboard with each line prefixed with a comment character";

 105:              pasteAsButton.Click += PasteAsComment;

 106:              _pasteAsButtons.Add(pasteAsButton);

 107:

 108:              //add "String"

 109:              pasteAsButton = AddCommandButton();

 110:              pasteAsButton.Caption = "String";

 111:              pasteAsButton.TooltipText = "Inserts enquoted clipboard text with line breaks and other characters escaped";

 112:              pasteAsButton.Click += PasteAsString;

 113:              _pasteAsButtons.Add(pasteAsButton);

 114:

 115:              //add "StringBuilder"

 116:              pasteAsButton = AddCommandButton();

 117:              pasteAsButton.Caption = "StringBuilder";

 118:              pasteAsButton.TooltipText = "Inserts enquoted clipboard text built up by a stringbuilder.";

 119:              pasteAsButton.Click += PasteAsStringBuilder;

 120:              _pasteAsButtons.Add(pasteAsButton);

 121:

 122:          }

 123:

 124:          private CommandBarButton AddCommandButton()

 125:          {

 126:              var pasteAsButton = (CommandBarButton)_pasteAsPopup.Controls.Add((int)MsoControlType.msoControlButton);

 127:              //in 2010, CommandBarButton.FaceId throws a DeprecatedException.

 128:              //pasteAsButton.FaceId = 22;

 129:              pasteAsButton.Visible = true;

 130:              return pasteAsButton;

 131:          }

 132:

 133:          #region "PasteAs Handlers"

 134:

 135:          ///<summary>

 136:          ///Occurs when the user clicks the PasteAsString button.

 137:          ///</summary>

 138:          ///<param name="ctrl">

 139:          ///Denotes the CommandBarButton control that initiated the event.

 140:          ///</param>

 141:          ///<param name="cancelDefault">

 142:          ///False if the default behavior associated with the CommandBarButton control occurs, unless its canceled by another process or add-in.

 143:          ///</param>

 144:          private void PasteAsString(CommandBarButton ctrl, ref bool cancelDefault)

 145:          {

 146:              _smartPaster.PasteAsString(_applicationObject);

 147:          }

 148:

 149:

 150:          ///<summary>

 151:          ///Occurs when the user clicks the PasteAsComment button.

 152:          ///</summary>

 153:          ///<param name="ctrl">

 154:          ///Denotes the CommandBarButton control that initiated the event.

 155:          ///</param>

 156:          ///<param name="cancelDefault">

 157:          ///False if the default behavior associated with the CommandBarButton control occurs, unless its canceled by another process or add-in.

 158:          ///</param>

 159:          private void PasteAsComment(CommandBarButton ctrl, ref bool cancelDefault)

 160:          {

 161:              _smartPaster.PasteAsComment(_applicationObject);

 162:          }

 163:

 164:          ///<summary>

 165:          ///Occurs when the user clicks the PasteAsStringBuilder button.

 166:          ///</summary>

 167:          ///<param name="ctrl">

 168:          ///Denotes the CommandBarButton control that initiated the event.

 169:          ///</param>

 170:          ///<param name="cancelDefault">

 171:          ///False if the default behavior associated with the CommandBarButton control occurs, unless its canceled by another process or add-in.

 172:          ///</param>

 173:          private void PasteAsStringBuilder(CommandBarButton ctrl, ref bool cancelDefault)

 174:          {

 175:              _smartPaster.PasteAsStringBuilder(_applicationObject);

 176:          }

 177:          #endregion

 178:

 179:          #region "Exec"

 180:

 181:          ///<summary>

 182:          /// Implements the Exec method of the IDTCommandTarget interface.

 183:          /// This is called when the command is invoked.

 184:          ///</summary>

 185:          ///<param name='commandName'>

 186:          ///        The name of the command to execute.

 187:          ///</param>

 188:          ///<param name='executeOption'>

 189:          ///        Describes how the command should be run.

 190:          ///</param>

 191:          ///<param name='varIn'>

 192:          ///        Parameters passed from the caller to the command handler.

 193:          ///</param>

 194:          ///<param name='varOut'>

 195:          ///        Parameters passed from the command handler to the caller.

 196:          ///</param>

 197:          ///<param name='handled'>

 198:          ///        Informs the caller if the command was handled or not.

 199:          ///</param>

 200:          ///<seealso class='Exec' />

 201:          public void Exec(string commandName, vsCommandExecOption executeOption, ref object varIn, ref object varOut, ref bool handled)

 202:          {

 203:              handled = false;

 204:              if ((executeOption == vsCommandExecOption.vsCommandExecOptionDoDefault))

 205:              {

 206:                  handled = true;

 207:                  switch (commandName)

 208:                  {

 209:                      //case "SmartPaster.Connect.Configure":

 210:                      //    //show the config form

 211:                      //    SmartPasterForm myForm = new SmartPasterForm();

 212:                      //    myForm.ShowDialog();

 213:                      //    //since config may have changed, show/hide buttons

 214:                      //    EnableContextMenuButtons();

 215:

 216:                      //    break;

 217:                      case "SmartPaster.Connect.PasteAsComment":

 218:                          _smartPaster.PasteAsComment(_applicationObject);

 219:                          break;

 220:                      case "SmartPaster.Connect.PasteAsString":

 221:                          _smartPaster.PasteAsString(_applicationObject);

 222:                          break;

 223:                      case "SmartPaster.Connect.PasteAsStringBuilder":

 224:                          _smartPaster.PasteAsStringBuilder(_applicationObject);

 225:                          break;

 226:                      //case "SmartPaster.Connect.PasteAsRegion":

 227:                      //    _smartPaster.PasteAsRegion(_applicationObject);

 228:                      //    break;

 229:                      default:

 230:                          handled = false;

 231:                          break;

 232:                  }

 233:              }

 234:          }

 235:          #endregion

 236:

 237:          #region Standard Template Stuff

 238:          ///<summary>

 239:          ///Implements the OnDisconnection method of the IDTExtensibility2 interface. Receives notification that the Add-in is being unloaded.

 240:          ///</summary>

 241:          ///<param name="disconnectMode">The disconnect mode.</param>

 242:          ///<param name="custom">The custom.</param>

 243:          ///<seealso class="IDTExtensibility2"/>

 244:          public void OnDisconnection(ext_DisconnectMode disconnectMode, ref Array custom)

 245:          {

 246:              if (_pasteAsPopup != null &&

 247:                  (disconnectMode == ext_DisconnectMode.ext_dm_UserClosed || disconnectMode == ext_DisconnectMode.ext_dm_HostShutdown))

 248:              {

 249:                  _pasteAsPopup.Delete(true);

 250:              }

 251:          }

 252:

 253:          ///<summary>Implements the OnAddInsUpdate method of the IDTExtensibility2 interface. Receives notification when the collection of Add-ins has changed.</summary>

 254:          ///<param term='custom'>Array of parameters that are host application specific.</param>

 255:          ///<seealso class='IDTExtensibility2' />

 256:          public void OnAddInsUpdate(ref Array custom)

 257:          {

 258:          }

 259:

 260:          ///<summary>Implements the OnStartupComplete method of the IDTExtensibility2 interface. Receives notification that the host application has completed loading.</summary>

 261:          ///<param term='custom'>Array of parameters that are host application specific.</param>

 262:          ///<seealso class='IDTExtensibility2' />

 263:          public void OnStartupComplete(ref Array custom)

 264:          {

 265:          }

 266:

 267:          ///<summary>Implements the OnBeginShutdown method of the IDTExtensibility2 interface. Receives notification that the host application is being unloaded.</summary>

 268:          ///<param term='custom'>Array of parameters that are host application specific.</param>

 269:          ///<seealso class='IDTExtensibility2' />

 270:          public void OnBeginShutdown(ref Array custom)

 271:          {

 272:          }

 273:

 274:          private DTE2 _applicationObject;

 275:          private AddIn _addInInstance;

 276:          #endregion

 277:

 278:          ///<summary>

 279:          ///Queries the status.

 280:          ///</summary>

 281:          ///<param name="commandName">Name of the command.</param>

 282:          ///<param name="neededText">The needed text.</param>

 283:          ///<param name="statusOption">The status option.</param>

 284:          ///<param name="commandText">The command text.</param>

 285:          public void QueryStatus(string commandName, vsCommandStatusTextWanted neededText, ref vsCommandStatus statusOption, ref object commandText)

 286:          {

 287:              if (neededText == vsCommandStatusTextWanted.vsCommandStatusTextWantedNone)

 288:              {

 289:                  if (commandName.StartsWith("SmartPaster.Connect"))

 290:                  {

 291:                      if (((_applicationObject.ActiveDocument != null)) && ((_applicationObject.ActiveDocument.Object("TextDocument") != null)))

 292:                      {

 293:                          statusOption = vsCommandStatus.vsCommandStatusEnabled | vsCommandStatus.vsCommandStatusSupported;

 294:                      }

 295:                      else

 296:                      {

 297:                          statusOption = vsCommandStatus.vsCommandStatusSupported;

 298:                      }

 299:                  }

 300:                  else

 301:                  {

 302:                      statusOption = vsCommandStatus.vsCommandStatusUnsupported;

 303:                  }

 304:              }

 305:          }

 306:      }

 307:  }

Here's the SmartPaster class.

   1:  using System;

   2:  using System.IO;

   3:  using System.Text;

   4:  using System.Windows.Forms; //clipboard

   5:  using EnvDTE;

   6:  using EnvDTE80;

7:

   8:  namespace SmartPaster2010

   9:  {

  10:      /// <summary>

  11:      /// Class responsible for doing the pasting/manipulating of clipdata.

  12:      /// </summary>

  13:      internal sealed class SmartPaster

  14:      {

  15:          /// <summary>

  16:          ///  Convient property to retrieve the clipboard text from the clipboard

  17:          /// </summary>

  18:          private static string ClipboardText

  19:          {

  20:              get

  21:              {

  22:                  IDataObject iData = Clipboard.GetDataObject();

  23:                  if (iData.GetDataPresent(DataFormats.Text))

  24:                      return Convert.ToString(iData.GetData(DataFormats.Text));

  25:                  return string.Empty;

  26:              }

  27:          }

28:

  29:          #region "Stringinize"

  30:          /// <summary>

  31:          /// Stringinizes text passed to it for use in C#

  32:          /// </summary>

  33:          /// <param name="txt">Text to be Stringinized</param>

  34:          /// <returns>C# Stringinized text</returns>

  35:          private static string StringinizeInCs(string txt)

  36:          {

  37:              //c# quote character -- really just a "

  38:              const string qChr = "\"";

39:

  40:              //sb to work with

  41:              var sb = new StringBuilder(txt);

42:

  43:              //escape appropriately

  44:              //escape the quotes with ""

  45:              sb.Replace(qChr, qChr + qChr);

46:

  47:              //insert " at beginning and end

  48:              sb.Insert(0, "@" + qChr);

  49:              sb.Append(qChr);

  50:              return sb.ToString();

  51:          }

  52:          #endregion

53:

  54:          #region "Commentize"

  55:          /// <summary>

  56:          /// Commentizes text passed to it for use in C#

  57:          /// </summary>

  58:          /// <param name="txt">Text to be Stringinized</param>

  59:          /// <returns>C# Commentized text</returns>

  60:          private static string CommentizeInCs(string txt)

  61:          {

  62:              const string cmtChar = "//";

63:

  64:              var sb = new StringBuilder(txt.Length);

65:

  66:              //process the passed string (txt), one line at a time

  67:              //the original was horrible WTF code

  68:              using (var reader = new StringReader(txt))

  69:              {

  70:                  string line;

  71:                  while ((line = reader.ReadLine()) != null)

  72:                  {

  73:                      sb.AppendLine(cmtChar + line);

  74:                  }

  75:              }

76:

  77:              return sb.ToString();

  78:          }

  79:          #endregion

80:

  81:          #region "Stringbuilderize"

  82:          private static string StringbuilderizeInCs(string txt, string sbName)

  83:          {

  84:              //c# quote character -- really just a "

  85:              const string qChr = "\"";

86:

  87:              //sb to work with

  88:              var sb = new StringBuilder(txt);

89:

  90:              //escape \,", and {}

  91:              sb.Replace(qChr, qChr + qChr);

92:

  93:              //process the passed string (txt), one line at a time

94:

  95:              //dump the stringbuilder into a temp string

  96:              string fullString = sb.ToString();

  97:              sb.Clear(); //lovely .net 4 - sb.Remove(0, sb.Length);

98:

  99:              //the original was horrible WTF code

 100:              using (var reader = new StringReader(fullString))

 101:              {

 102:                  string line;

 103:                  while ((line = reader.ReadLine()) != null)

 104:                  {

 105:                      sb.Append(sbName + ".AppendLine(");

 106:                      sb.Append("@" + qChr);

 107:                      sb.Append(line.Replace("\t", "\\t"));

 108:                      sb.AppendLine(qChr + ");");

 109:                  }

 110:              }

 111:

 112:              //TODO: Better '@"" + ' replacement to not cover inside strings

 113:              sb.Replace("@" + qChr + qChr + " + ", "");

 114:

 115:              //add the dec statement

 116:              sb.Insert(0, "StringBuilder " + sbName + " = new StringBuilder(" + txt.Length + ");" + Environment.NewLine);

 117:

 118:              //and return

 119:              return sb.ToString();

 120:          }

 121:          #endregion

 122:

 123:          /// <summary>

 124:          /// Inserts text at current cursor location in the application

 125:          /// </summary>

 126:          /// <param name="application">application with activewindow</param>

 127:          /// <param name="text">text to insert</param>

 128:          private static void Paste(DTE2 application, string text)

 129:          {

 130:              //get the text document

 131:              var txt = (TextDocument)application.ActiveDocument.Object("TextDocument");

 132:

 133:              //get an edit point

 134:              EditPoint ep = txt.Selection.ActivePoint.CreateEditPoint();

 135:

 136:              //get a start point

 137:              EditPoint sp = txt.Selection.ActivePoint.CreateEditPoint();

 138:

 139:              //open the undo context

 140:              bool isOpen = application.UndoContext.IsOpen;

 141:              if (!isOpen)

 142:                  application.UndoContext.Open("SmartPaster");

 143:

 144:              //clear the selection

 145:              if (!txt.Selection.IsEmpty)

 146:                  txt.Selection.Delete();

 147:

 148:              //insert the text

 149:              //ep.Insert(Indent(text, ep.LineCharOffset))

 150:              ep.Insert(text);

 151:

 152:              //smart format

 153:              sp.SmartFormat(ep);

 154:

 155:              //close the context

 156:              if (!isOpen)

 157:                  application.UndoContext.Close();

 158:          }

 159:

 160:          #region "Paste As ..."

 161:

 162:          /// <summary>

 163:          /// Public method to paste and format clipboard text as string the cursor

 164:          /// location for the configured or active window's langage .

 165:          /// </summary>

 166:          /// <param name="application">application to insert</param>

 167:          public void PasteAsString(DTE2 application)

 168:          {

 169:              Paste(application, StringinizeInCs(ClipboardText));

 170:          }

 171:

 172:          /// <summary>

 173:          /// Public method to paste and format clipboard text as comment the cursor

 174:          /// location for the configured or active window's langage .

 175:          /// </summary>

 176:          /// <param name="application">application to insert</param>

 177:          public void PasteAsComment(DTE2 application)

 178:          {

 179:              Paste(application, CommentizeInCs(ClipboardText));

 180:          }

 181:

 182:

 183:          /// <summary>

 184:          /// Public method to paste format clipboard text into a specified region

 185:          /// </summary>

 186:          /// <param name="application">application to insert</param>

 187:          public void PasteAsRegion(DTE2 application)

 188:          {

 189:              //get the region name

 190:              const string region = "myRegion";

 191:

 192:              //it's so simple, we really don't need a function

 193:              string csRegionized = "#region " + region + Environment.NewLine + ClipboardText + Environment.NewLine + "#endregion";

 194:

 195:              //and paste

 196:              Paste(application, csRegionized);

 197:          }

 198:

 199:          /// <summary>

 200:          /// Public method to paste and format clipboard text as stringbuilder the cursor

 201:          /// location for the configured or active window's langage .

 202:          /// </summary>

 203:          /// <param name="application">application to insert</param>

 204:          public void PasteAsStringBuilder(DTE2 application)

 205:          {

 206:              const string stringbuilder = "sb";

 207:              Paste(application, StringbuilderizeInCs(ClipboardText, stringbuilder));

 208:          }

 209:

 210:          #endregion

 211:      }

 212:  }

.net 4 | Coderush | VS2010

posted on Sunday, June 06, 2010 5:30:02 PM (Romance Daylight Time, UTC+02:00)

Comments [3]

Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Visual Studio navigation

In a large Visual Studio solution, there are better ways of finding a particular class or method than visually hunting through the solution explorer tree.

Visual Studio 2008

Good old Goto Definition (F12) is great.
To quickly go back to where you pressed F12, Control - (minus) is useful but not very well known.

vs_findallrefs But what if you want to find where an interface is implemented, a method overridden or called from elsewhere?
Find All References (Control K, R) is painfully slow and it dumps everything in the Find Symbol Results window with the full file path (you can hack the registry to fix the format, but still...).

Within a source file, incremental search (Control I) is a great hidden secret - no dialog box, just start type and it immediately jumps to the first match. It has a big flaw: it doesn't look in hidden sections (closed regions).

To find a class or method which isn't in the source in front of you, you use Quick Find (Control F) or Find In Finds (Control Shift F). It's slow, and opens in a docked Find window. All those docked windows quickly become confusing.

Visual Studio 2010

VS 2010 still has Slowly Find All References, but it now has a couple of extra goodies.

View Call Hierarchy (Control K, T) has a nice graph of calls to/ calls from which is recursive. In other words, just like Reflector's Analyzer.

There's a neat new Navigate To window (Control comma). It's not a docked window, and has a really cool incremental search of the solution. The search box allows camel hump searching (just the capitals), as well as sub-strings.

Coderush

If you're using Coderush Pro, you've had a nice version of call hierarchy in VS 2005 and 2008- it's the References window. There's a live-sync mode (overkill really), or you update it with Shift-F12 (or use the Refresh button).

Also in Coderush, the jump to... context menu also shows context-sensitive overrides/ implementations and the next/prev reference can be tabbed to within a file (VS 2010 catches up with some features of this by highlighting other uses of a variable when the caret is on it).

My favourite feature of Coderush (and the free version, Coderush Xpress) is the Quick Nav dialog (Control Shift Q), which VS2010's Navigate To emulates. Quick incremental search, with camel-humps and substrings, and filter by members.

UPDATE: In the forthcoming Coderush Xpress for 2010, Quick Nav is gone. Damn. You must have the full Coderush or Resharper (see below). Okay, the built-in Navigate-To does the basic task, without the filtering, but still...

Resharper

Resharper also has an equivalent of QuickNav/NavigateTo, with all the camel humps goodness (no substrings, but you can do * and ? wildcards). (Note that Resharper has two keyboard mappings; I'm using the Visual Studio mappings here).
Find Symbol - Shift Alt T - finds types and type members. Find Type - Control T - just looks at types.

The right-click context menus for implementors, base and especially usages very handy.
You can get to Find Usages with Shift-F12. If there's only one usage (or base or inheritor), you go straight to it.

The reason that Coderush and Resharper can do the quick navigation is that they parse the solution, so for the first minute or so a large solution will show one of their processing messages (theoretically you can type away, but things are slow while they are working).

NDepend

I've just started playing with NDepend. There's a lot here to find your way around large code bases - even graphs - but for now I'll just note that the Visual Studio integration includes context menus which have similar functionality to the find usages described above:

Wrap Up

Having been a Resharper user for many years, the powerful find symbol / type commands became something I used practically every few minutes while coding. It was a shock to find myself in an office with no Resharper, but fortunately the free Coderush Xpress came to the rescue. Visual Studio 2010 vanilla edition with no Resharper or Coderush is actually not as bad as VS 2008 and earlier were- Navigate To/control comma is quite handy and an easy key combo too. Of course I then installed the betas/ trials of the latest Coderush/ Resharper and saw what I was missing. Please boss, can I have a license??? :)

Coderush | NDepend | Resharper | VS2010

posted on Tuesday, May 04, 2010 10:18:54 PM (Romance Daylight Time, UTC+02:00)

Comments [0]

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Visual Studio 2010 editions

Visual Studio 2010 has simplified the numbers of editions
Good riddance to the Visual Studio 2008 mess of Team System x / Team Suite confusion.

But what's in each version?

Express
What's missing: Unit testing (use NUnit), add ins (not even Coderush Express), source control integration (use file system level tortoiseSVN).
Good for: simple home use, and even then a serious developer will find it lacking (esp no Resharpher/ CodeRush)

Professional
Has addins, MsTest unit testing, TFS integration.
The basic business version. In TFS, checkin policies enforcing code analysis are widely used, but you just can't use it here. You can only use standalone FXCop.

Premium
Has Code analysis (use standalone FXcop), code coverage, coded UI Tests, test impact analysis (new feature, looks promising).
I expect this will be the most common business version, certainly most useful for larger teams.
But it's 5 times the price of Professional for features which aren't that exciting.

Ultimate
Adds historical debugging (intellitrace, it rocks), load tests, manual tests (look good), uml diagrams (really nice), architecture explorer.
The big problem: it's over $11000 / euro12800. Ten times the price of Professional and twice Premium. Very few organisations are big enough to buy that.

Ultimate has some great features, but it's just too expensive. And Premium looks a little thin for such a big price jump.
For the next version, I hope Microsoft will drop a few features from Ultimate to Premium or even Pro.

I reckon intelliTrace and UML diagrams are the ones which would really gain some interest if more people could get their hands on them.

VS2010

posted on Thursday, April 22, 2010 12:27:35 PM (Romance Daylight Time, UTC+02:00)

Comments [0]

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Microsoft TechDays roundup

I've been to several of these things over the years, the biggest being the TechEd Berlin at the end of 2009.

This was a country-one, but it headlined a couple of big names - Anders Hejlsberg and Scott Hanselman. The location (a big cinema) was good, but very crowded and the exhibition seemed small and much too warm. The bookstall was tiny, and while I got some nice swag from the stalls, there seemed to be less than normal (and with so many people it was hard to get around). The official conference bag was a paper bag with training course leaflets. Normally you get something like a Visual Studio Standard or Pro DVD, but there was nothing here- very disappointing.

Anders did the keynote and a C# 4.0 talk. He touched upon how the functional programming had influenced the recent evolution of C#, about declarative styles (showing intent- why not how- such as Linq), and concurrent programming. The C# 4 talk was a good demo of the dynamic object and that the ugly reflection/ interop/ javascript binding code disappeared behind code that looked like normal c#. The optional and named parameters are nicer ways of doing all those overloads, and COM interop (esp MS Office) interop becomes much less horrible.

Scott did his "ninja black belt" MVC 2 talk, with lots of humour. I'll have to try the "air quotes" gesture for generic "of type". I've seen a version of this on the MIX video before, so I was familiar with a lot of it even though I'm not doing MVC at the moment :(
Biggest applause was for the notepad trick to stop Windows shutting down - when an auto update suddenly pops up the restart now button, and you're typing away and click it, the only thing that will stop the shutdown is to open notepad and type something - the notepad save dialog halts the shutdown while every other app obediently kills itself.

A talk about VS 2010 branching and merging was very dry and a bit boring. Personally I think cascading branches or trunk development with release branches are simple and manageable. I can see the value of having a main (trunk) branch that is only merged into and branched from, so it's stable while the release/ feature branches aren't- but it requires lots of merging effort. People seem to say that distributed source control (git/ mercurial) solves the merging problem...

Also saw a talk on Entity Framework 2. Well, apparently it can do everything - read from database, or use templates or use pocos and write the mapping - , and it has nice designers. Still think NHibernate's mapping is not that difficult (I think hql and criteria are steeper learning curves, and pretty ugly compared to linq, but NHibernate's full linq implementation will soon be in place)

VS2010

posted on Wednesday, March 31, 2010 10:11:52 PM (Romance Daylight Time, UTC+02:00)

Comments [0]

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Visual Studio 2010 Release Candidate

The release candidate of Visual Studio 2010/ .Net 4 is out at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/dd582936.aspx
You have to uninstall VS2010 and TFS 2010 before installing, which has two reboots.

The main changes are apparently performance improvements. I spent 20 minutes playing with my (small) projects and didn't notice much difference. The splash screen (now a darker blue I think) sits there for ages before VS2010 appears, but that's no worse than any Visual Studio version before. The real test will be building large multi-project solutions which I haven't tried yet.

VS2010

posted on Saturday, February 13, 2010 8:01:54 PM (Romance Standard Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [0]

Friday, December 04, 2009

Visual Studio 2010 intellisense "consume first"

Lots of nice new stuff in VS2010 intellisense. See the ScottGu blog post which mentions:

"contains" matching (not just "starts with"),
Resharper-style "camel-humps" (PIC for PageIndexChanged).

Also particularly nice for TDD-style coding is the "consume first" mode.
You toggle in with control-alt-space, and it stops the auto-complete. It prevents auto-selecting the wrong thing when you name a new class or method that's close to something that's already in scope.
Very handy in TDD tests, because the classes and methods don't exist until you've written the test.

normal intellisense with autocomplete- press space, and you get CategoryTest. Opps!

Consume first (Ctrl-Alt-Space): no auto-select (you have to click from the dropdown), and the suggestions includes "Category" even through it doesn't (yet) exist.

It then provides "Generate class" hints, and a "Generate Other" dialogue for more control.

More info at the bottom of Soma's post

VS2010

posted on Friday, December 04, 2009 9:06:01 PM (Romance Standard Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [0]

Monday, November 30, 2009

Visual Studio 2010 downloads

The best page with all the ISOs (VS in all editions and TFS Basic) is MSDN
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/dd582936.aspx

So far, it looks good. Lots of nice touches like editing the start page MRU project list (at long last).

Unfortunately a lot of the really nice new stuff is Ultimate version only (all the new UML diagrams and architecture validation and intell-trace historical debugging). The coded UI tests/ UI test recorder seem to be premium edition only.

I suspect most of these (and the other high-end features) will need to drop to professional SKU to be widely accepted (as MSTest was when VS2008 came out) - oh well, looking forward to 2020 :)

VS2010

posted on Monday, November 30, 2009 1:46:07 PM (Romance Standard Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [0]