.NET MVP KenLin's Blog : Visual Studio

Windows Azure Services

kenlin — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 03:26:00 GMT

Windows® Azure is a cloud services operating system that serves as the development, service hosting and service management environment for the Azure Services Platform. Windows Azure provides developers with on-demand compute and storage to host, scale, and manage Web applications on the Internet through Microsoft® data centers.

To build these applications and services, developers can use their existing Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2008 expertise. In addition, Windows Azure supports popular standards and protocols including SOAP, REST, and XML. Windows Azure is an open platform that will support both Microsoft and non-Microsoft languages and environments. What is the Azure Services Platform?

Microsoft Commits to November Release Date for Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5

kenlin — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 06:49:00 GMT

BARCELONA, Spain — Nov. 5, 2007 — Today, during the keynote address at Microsoft TechEd Developers 2007, S. “Soma” Somasegar, corporate vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft Corp., announced that Microsoft will release Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 by the end of November 2007. Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 enable developers at all levels to rapidly create connected applications that offer compelling user experiences for Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, the 2007 Microsoft Office system, mobile devices and the Web. Soma also unveiled plans to open new opportunities for Visual Studio partners, as well as to deliver new tools and resources for developers, including a first Community Technology Preview (CTP) of the Microsoft Sync Framework and new capabilities for Popfly Explorer.

“The highly social and visual nature of the Web has fundamentally changed what users expect from all applications they interact with, regardless of whether it’s on a customer-facing Web site or Windows rich client application, or a desktop business application built using Microsoft Office,” said Somasegar. “Traditionally, organizations have been hard pressed to deliver the richer, more connected applications and services they need to boost productivity, drive revenue and stay ahead of the competition. With Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5, it is easy for developers to use the skills they already have to build compelling applications that take advantage of the latest platforms.”

FWBS Ltd., Xerox Corp., Dell Inc. and K2 are just a few of the early adopter customers that are already experiencing the benefits of these releases. FWBS used Visual Studio, the .NET Framework and the Microsoft Office system to build an Office Business Application (OBA) for the law field. The application enables users to work within Microsoft Office — the tools they use every day — while also dramatically improving productivity and helping users respond quickly to changing business needs.

Xerox has also had early success developing applications with the new tools. “We’ve already seen significant advantages from using Visual Studio Team System 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5. With the first application we built, we easily saved 50 percent of the time and money it would have taken to create the same application with other tools,” said Eugene Shustef, feature design lead, Global Technology, Xerox. “That’s more than a savings to IT — it delivers a huge time-to-market advantage because it put the tool into the hands of our analysts six months sooner than they would have had it otherwise.”

Creating New Opportunities for Partners

Microsoft also announced plans to make additional investments in the Visual Studio partner ecosystem. In response to partner feedback and in order to provide better support for interoperability with other developer tools and cross-platform scenarios, Microsoft is today announcing plans to change licensing terms, no longer limiting partners to building solutions on top of Visual Studio for Windows and other Microsoft platforms only. This licensing change will be effective for the release of Visual Studio 2008 and the Visual Studio 2008 SDK.

“Integrating dynaTrace’s cross-platform application performance management and diagnostics product with Visual Studio has opened up additional commercial opportunities for our business and delivered a compelling solution for our customers. .NET and Visual Studio is a strategic platform for our business, and Microsoft’s additional investments in the partner ecosystem make it even more compelling,” said Klaus Fellner, senior director of product marketing at dynaTrace. “We’re looking forward to taking advantage of the new technology available with the launch of Visual Studio 2008 and the partner benefits available through the Visual Studio Industry Partner (VSIP) program.”

In addition, Microsoft announced plans to create a shared source licensing program for Premier-level partners in the VSIP program. The program will provide these partners with the ability to view Visual Studio IDE source code for debugging purposes, and simplify the process of integrating their products with Visual Studio 2008.

Tools for Today and Tomorrow

Microsoft also announced a number of additional resources for developers of all skill sets, enabling them to make the most out of their Microsoft tools investments to build great applications on the latest platforms:

•

The first CTP of the Microsoft Sync Framework demonstrates Microsoft’s ongoing investments in synchronization and builds on the synchronization functionality available in Visual Studio 2008. With Visual Studio 2008, developers can rapidly take advantage of offline synchronization capabilities to sync-enable applications and services easily with rich designer support. The Microsoft Sync Framework extends the support featured in Visual Studio 2008 to also include offline and peer-to-peer collaboration using any protocol for any data type, and any data store. This is part of Microsoft’s long-term commitment to providing synchronization for partners and independent software vendors that can embed the Sync Framework into their applications easily to create rich sync-enabled ecosystems that allow any type of data to follow their customers wherever they go.

•

A new release of Popfly Explorer will add new Web tools that provide Web developers and Popfly users an easy way to add Silverlight gadgets built in Popfly to their Web pages, as well as publish HTML Web pages directly to Popfly.

These latest releases are part of the broader Microsoft Application Platform, a portfolio of technology capabilities and core products that help organizations develop, deploy and manage applications and IT infrastructure. They also mark another major milestone leading up to the global launch of Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008 on Feb. 27, 2008, in Los Angeles.

Product Information and Availability

Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 will be available by the end of November 2007. The .NET Framework 3.5 will also be available to end users via a free, optional download from Microsoft Update. A CTP of Microsoft Sync Framework is available today at http://msdn.microsoft.com/sync. Popfly Explorer is a hosted development environment available today at http://www.popfly.com. More information about all of these releases is available at http://www.msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio.

Enable ASP.NET AJAX v1.0 to your existing ASP.NET 2.0 Web Site or Web Application.

kenlin — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 10:59:00 GMT

Few days ago, I shared about how to upgrade your ASP.NET 1.1 to ASP.NET 2.0, this time I am going to discuss about enabling ASP.NET AJAX v1.0 to your existing Web Site or Web Application.

1) You have to downlaod and install the ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX Extensions 1.0. Here
2) You may download and extract the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit. Here

After install it, you will found out that you may create AJAX Enabled Web Application when creating new projects(Web Site or Web Application). You may also found out that there is a new tab called "AJAX Extensions" in Toolbox. If you have extracted the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit, you may do the following,

1) Create new tab called "AJAX Control Toolkit";
2) Right click under the created tab and click on "Choose Items...";
3) Click "Browse..." and browse to the folder which you extract the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit, and then browse to "~\SampleWebSite\Bin\" and select AjaxControlToolokit.dll
4) Now you will see a lot of controls which you are ready to use. You may browse and view the "Toolkit Live" to get the sample and idea on the controls.

You are now ready to build your AJAX web site or web application. However, if you have any existing ASP.NET 2.0 Web Site or Web Application, you do the normal action to write AJAX, you will found out that the AJAX is not working in your existing Web Site or Web Application. You have to do the following in order to let your existing ASP.NET 2.0 Web Site or Web Application to be "AJAX Enabled",

1) Open web.config from your existing web site or web application
2) Add the following XML under <configuration> tab.

<configSections>
    <sectionGroup name="system.web.extensions" type="System.Web.Configuration.SystemWebExtensionsSectionGroup, System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35">
      <sectionGroup name="scripting" type="System.Web.Configuration.ScriptingSectionGroup, System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35">
          <section name="scriptResourceHandler" type="System.Web.Configuration.ScriptingScriptResourceHandlerSection, System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" requirePermission="false" allowDefinition="MachineToApplication"/>
        <sectionGroup name="webServices" type="System.Web.Configuration.ScriptingWebServicesSectionGroup, System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35">
          <section name="jsonSerialization" type="System.Web.Configuration.ScriptingJsonSerializationSection, System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" requirePermission="false" allowDefinition="Everywhere" />
          <section name="profileService" type="System.Web.Configuration.ScriptingProfileServiceSection, System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" requirePermission="false" allowDefinition="MachineToApplication" />
          <section name="authenticationService" type="System.Web.Configuration.ScriptingAuthenticationServiceSection, System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" requirePermission="false" allowDefinition="MachineToApplication" />
        </sectionGroup>
      </sectionGroup>
    </sectionGroup>
</configSections>

<system.web>
    <pages>
      <controls>
        <add tagPrefix="asp" namespace="System.Web.UI" assembly="System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"/>
      </controls>
    </pages>
    
    <compilation debug="false">
      <assemblies>
        <add assembly="System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"/>
      </assemblies>
    </compilation>

    <httpHandlers>
      <remove verb="*" path="*.asmx"/>
      <add verb="*" path="*.asmx" validate="false" type="System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptHandlerFactory, System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"/>
      <add verb="*" path="*_AppService.axd" validate="false" type="System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptHandlerFactory, System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"/>
      <add verb="GET,HEAD" path="ScriptResource.axd" type="System.Web.Handlers.ScriptResourceHandler, System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" validate="false"/>
    </httpHandlers>

    <httpModules>
      <add name="ScriptModule" type="System.Web.Handlers.ScriptModule, System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"/>
    </httpModules>
</system.web>

<system.web.extensions>
    <scripting>
      <webServices>
      
      
      
      

      
      
      </webServices>
      
    </scripting>
</system.web.extensions>

<system.webServer>
    <validation validateIntegratedModeConfiguration="false"/>
    <modules>
      <add name="ScriptModule" preCondition="integratedMode" type="System.Web.Handlers.ScriptModule, System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"/>
    </modules>
    <handlers>
      <remove name="WebServiceHandlerFactory-Integrated" />
      <add name="ScriptHandlerFactory" verb="*" path="*.asmx" preCondition="integratedMode"
           type="System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptHandlerFactory, System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"/>
      <add name="ScriptHandlerFactoryAppServices" verb="*" path="*_AppService.axd" preCondition="integratedMode"
           type="System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptHandlerFactory, System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"/>
      <add name="ScriptResource" preCondition="integratedMode" verb="GET,HEAD" path="ScriptResource.axd" type="System.Web.Handlers.ScriptResourceHandler, System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" />
    </handlers>
</system.webServer>

Now you are ready to make your web site or web application to be "AJAX Enabled".

Upgrading ASP.NET 1.x to ASP.NET 2.0

kenlin — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 07:24:00 GMT

Last time, I speak in UserGroup gathering in 2007 Sept right after MSDN Seminar, the topic was "Experience Sharing: Upgrading ASP.NET 1.x --> 2.0 --> AJAX". Well, I also promised that i will blog about it. Actually, it is nothing new and it is nothing special. I just shared my experience on how I upgrade ASP.NET 1.1 to 2.0 and how to enable AJAX.

First, I am not sure if you know that, in .NET framework 2.0, there is 2 types of Web Projects, ASP.NET 2.0 Web Site and ASP.NET 2.0 Web Application. You may refer to the following link for more information if you would like to read more.

Introduction to Web Application Projects
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/Aa730880(VS.80).aspx

If you are going to upgrading your existing ASP.NET 1.x project, you should choose to be using ASP.NET 2.0 Web Application project. This is the message from one of ScottGu's blog, Tutorial on VB and C# are also mentioned.

"Because the VS 2005 Web Application Project model has the same conceptual semantics as the VS 2003 Web Project Model, it also makes migrating VS 2003 web projects very, very easy – with zero/minimal code changes required. To learn how to automatically upgrade a VS 2003 web project using this option, please review these VB and C# tutorials that walkthrough the VS 2003 to VS 2005 upgrade process step-by-step."

However, if you want to move your existing ASP.NET 2.0 Web Site to ASP.NET 2.0 Web Application, you may read the following message from ScottGu's blog,

"If you want to migrate an existing VS 2005 Web Site Project to be a VS 2005 Web Application Project, please also review these other VB and C# migration tutorials that walkthrough the Web Site to Web Application conversion process step-by-step. This article here also describes some of the differences between the VS 2005 Web Site Project Model and VS 2005 Web Application Project Model. "

Q: How can I create ASP.NET 2.0 Web Application Project?
A: Your machine must installed VS2005 with SP1 in order to create ASP.NET 2.0 Web Application Project

Q: I don't want to install VS2005 SP1 at the moment, any other way?
A: you need the deprecated “Microsoft Visual Studio Web Application Projects” installer you can find it here.

Q: Anything I need to download if I am going to start developing in ASP.NET 2.0 Web Application Project?
A: Available as a separate download is a custom build tool for generating a strongly-typed Profile class for the ASP.NET 2.0 Profile system. This allows you to right-click on a web.config file containing profile declarations and auto-generate the Profile type into your code-behind project assembly. You can learn more about this and download it here.

Q: I would like to read more and the full story on ScottGu blog.
A: Sure, you may go to ScottGu's blog - VS 2005 Web Application Project V1.0 Released

Q: Any other resource from Microsoft Official link?
A: Sure, here you are, MSDN: Upgrade from ASP.NET 1.x

Q: You mentioned ASP.NET 2.0 to AJAX....
A: Yes, I am going to blog about it later on. Please come back some time for more detail.

Knowledge of language features, "Operator Overloading "

kenlin — Mon, 14 May 2007 20:29:00 GMT

Well, I am one of the VB insiders, we are talking about a video. This video is a chatting video between 5 guys from difference team(VB, C#, C++, Channel 9 interviewer). They are going to answer you few question about the language future from their view when developing CLR/LINQ/VB/C#/C++. But the point we VB Insider discussing is, one of them, Brian Beckman has spoken that he likes C# because of the "Operator Overloading" support. That means he does not know that VB.NET(Or shorten called VB9 now) also has operator overloading support.

Another interesting issue I found afterward, I open up .NET Documentation, type the "operator overloading" keyword in Index Tab, I found a C# article("Help me, I am overloaded") on Operator Overloading and explain to you how to do so, why to do so(ms-help://MS.VSCC.v80/MS.MSDN.v80/MS.VSADD.v10.en/dncscol/html/csharp06212001.htm). But when I click in VB, it only shows you the "SAMPLE"(ms-help://MS.VSCC.v80/MS.MSDN.v80/MS.VisualStudio.v80.en/dv_vbcode/html/30202e10-8bdc-47dc-8fd1-f0ff9ffa0641.htm). Oh...god...no article in VB? How the VB beginner learn and understand it then? No wonder why he said the above comment.

http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=273697#273697
Anders Hejlsberg, Herb Sutter, Erik Meijer, Brian Beckman: Software Composability and the Future of Languages

Posted by Charles // Mon, Jan 22, 2007 1:09 PM

How will imperative programming languages evolve to suit the needs of developers in the age of Concurrency and Composability? What role can programming languages play in enabling true composability? What are the implications of LINQ on the furture of managed (CLS-based) and unmanaged(C++) languages? How will our imperative languages (static) become more functional (dynamic) in nature while preserving their static "experience" for developers?

Answers to these questions and much more are to be found in this interview with some of Microsoft's leading language designers and programming thought leaders: Anders Hejlsberg, Technical Fellow and Chief Architect of C#, Herb Sutter, Architect in the C++ language design group, Erik Meijer, Architect in both VB.Net and C# language design and programming language guru, and Brian Beckman, physicist and programming language architect working on VB.Net.

This is a great conversation with some of the industry's most influential programming language designers. Tune in. You may be surprised by what you learn...

Microsoft Expression Blend Free Trial

kenlin — Mon, 14 May 2007 20:27:00 GMT

Because of the Silverlight(new naming for WPF/E), you may need to create a lot of XML based graphic and its action/movement. Microsoft® Expression Blend™ is the professional design tool to create engaging web-connected experiences for Windows. So Microsoft is also announce that Free trial version of Expression Blend is ready to be download since 3rd May 2007. Please read the following,

Microsoft is pleased to present a trial version of Expression Blend. This fully functioning version will expire 60 days after installation.

Help us improve Expression Blend by reporting any technical issues. For more insight into Expression Blend, please see the Expression team blog.

For more information about the .NET Framework 3.0, see the .NET Framework 3.0 Development section of the Windows Software Development Kit. Please also refer to 3rd-party books that are good resources for learning WPF.

In order to edit code, if you do not have Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005 installed, you will also need a free copy of a Visual Studio 2005 Express edition from the Visual Studio Express Web site (choose either the Visual Basic or C# edition).

Installation Instructions

Windows Vista:

Download and install Expression Blend.
Download and install Visual Studio 2005 Express (Visual Basic or C#).

Windows XP SP2:

Install .NET Framework 3.0 first before attempting to install Expression Blend.
Download and install Expression Blend.
Download and install Visual Studio 2005 Express (Visual Basic or C#).

What do the announcements at Mix mean for the Visual Basic developer?

kenlin — Mon, 14 May 2007 20:24:00 GMT

At the Mix conference today in Las Vegas, Ray Ozzie and Scott Guthrie were dropping goodies like tootsie pops from a piñata. There was so much packed into their over two hour keynote that I thought it would be useful to distill the announcements down into one bite-sized post that should make for a pretty quick read (but unfortunately, includes no code samples.)

- VB on Silverlight – In short, this means that you can now use Visual Basic as the code-behind for whiz-bang rich interactive applications that run on Windows or the Mac and can run in IE, Firefox, and Safari. You can download the alpha .NET-enabled release but to develop you will need the Visual Studio Extensions for Silverlight for “Orcas” Beta1.

- Unparalleled support for dynamic languages – As you may have noticed us hinting at over the past couple of years now, VB has certain aspects to it that are dynamic – late binding, explicit member indexing, runtime conversions and operators, etc. With Silverlight comes the introduction of the DLR, a shared runtime component for dynamic languages atop .NET. There are many, many, things this means for VB that will unfold over the coming months, but one of the most important ones is that it will enable simple interoperability between Visual Basic and the other dynamic languages on .NET like Ruby, Python, and JScript. - Live Services – The Live Services team has created Windows Live in a Box that will allow you to begin integrating rich photo experiences, search, contacts and more into your applications. - Productivity Frameworks – Scott and Ray didn’t talk about this in their keynote, but with Mix comes a couple of new productivity frameworks. The first is Dynamic ASP.NET controls which uses runtime database schema and coding conventions to data-bind and generate ASP.NET pages. The second is “Jasper”, a dynamic data access layer that is independent of a presentation technology which sits atop the Entity Framework. We’re looking forward to seeing the reception for these kinds of frameworks.

So, that’s the two-bite version of the announcements… Over the next couple of weeks we’ll post new entries, videos, and samples demonstrating what each of these means in detail – though for some dirty details, you’ll have to wait for the PDC.

I’ll be at VSLive next week to talk about LINQ and Integrated XML in VB Orcas. I also have my turn for the webcast series for the VB LINQ deep dive and TechEd not that shortly after I get back – so I’ve got some work to do! Enough overview, back to coding!

Source: VB Team Blog

Finished the Translation on WF HOL Lab04 to VB2005

kenlin — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 20:46:00 GMT

Well, I start doing the translation again. I spent 2 days on this propose in the end of Jan. And I start pick it up again and try to finish it asap. Cause I found someone left message in wf.netfx2.com and asking me if I will do the rest. So....I hope that I would be able to finished all HOL Labs within this month. But it is a very hard job. I wake at 5:30am(because of Jet lag after back from Global MVP Summit 2007 in Seattle), I suppose should be wake up at 7:30am and go to an interview. I found nothing to do and so I still search around about Orcas, I got confuse on what Orcas acutally is. I know that it is Next VS(might be VS2007 with .NET Framework 3.5). But....I also found the Windows SDK for Vista are called Oracs_Mar07CTP in the description....hm....then....Orcas is including Windows SDK too? I then received email from the interviewer and said change the time to this Fri 8am. Cause the interview need to be fits with a Strong Tech Guy from Seattle. Yes...strong one, A guy who has 11yrs working experience, graduated from Harvard Uni.....

Anyway, I don't wanna get into sleep again, so I keep getting information from internet, and found, I have 3 things to do,

(1) Translation on WF HOL(Lab04 - Lab10);

(2) Translation on WF Starter Kit(still in beta and not released yet, so I think only WF team and I got it at this moment);

(3) Study Oracs, LINQ

(4) WF interact with WCF

Well, I found all I need the most is .....WF(cause K2 also is one of my interviewing company). And...I should start from basic first. So I found the first item I should choose is....(1). Then....should be (2). So I start my work on rest of Lab04. When I complete the Exercise 1 of Lab04, I cannot run it successfully. I search around and around, find many people saying that they have the same issues. I found many developers are trying to interact WF with ASP.NET2.0. But it is not a easy job but I think many companies(even in HK) will ask the developers to do so.

Well....until 3:30pm, I still cannot solve it. What happen to my VB one? C# is working and I just do the translation.....I take a rest and don't wanna think about it any more for a short time. I start my work again at about 10pm. I found there is a MSFT guy who answer a lot from this issue in MSDN forum, so I try to send him my source code and ask him if he can help. After I sent the email for 2-5 mins, a light comes up. I try to see my workflow project, get into every State and look at the HandleExternalEvent Activity. GOD! I made mistake on the Initial State. That is why the program cannot run it. Correct it and it works. Thanks god. And then I received that MSFT guy's email and telling me the same stupid thing I found. He is really good, within few minutes and he really do help me and found the point.

And now, it is 4:25am, all translation on Lab04 has done. Double check and the files can close. During today's translation, I found I have made mistake in my MSMVP's blog, http://msmvps.com/blogs/kenlin/archive/2007/01/31/convert-if-someevent-null-into-vb.aspx

In that blog, I mention, if C# is programming like

         if(SomeEvent != null)
         {
            SomeEvent(this, args);
         }

And VB should be

         if Not SomeEventEvent is Nothing Then
            SomeEventEvent(Me, args)
         End If

But....this is not true when apply to WF's State Machine Workflow, I have to make sure the event raise ONLY after the workflow runtime has really started. I have to change one property from the event arguments. So the code turns out like,

if Not SomeEventEvent is Nothing Then
args.WaitForIdle = true

SomeEventEvent(Me, args) 'Or "Raise Event SomeEvent(Me, args)
End If

But then you will found out that the program will fire another exception, it is saying (Event "{1}" on interface type "{0}" for instance id "{2}" cannot be delivered). Now you have to look deep into the InnerException and you will found ("Type {0} is not marked as serializable"). But you already given the serializable Attribute to the class. Why the exception is fired? It appears every parameter going into the event must be serializable, including the sender parameter! We pass this reference, which points to our payment processing service. The workflow instance doesn't actually need a reference to the testing service (if it needs to invoke a method on the service, it can use the CallExternalEvent activity), so we can fix this problem by leaving the sender parameter as null or Nothing. So finally, your code(with WF) will be like this,

if Not SomeEventEvent is Nothing Then
args.WaitForIdle = true

SomeEventEvent(Nothing, args) 'Or "Raise Event SomeEvent(Nothing, args)
End If

Convert (If (SomeEvent != null)) into VB

kenlin — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 02:40:00 GMT

As I said yesterday, I translated 3 labs on official WF HOLs from C# to VB2005. Today I start the lab04, I found out that there are some code that I cannot find a way to make it work in VB. So I start searching and found the following result in http://www.codeproject.com/vb/net/backgroundworker.asp . Following what he said and the code now is working.

==========================================================================================

This was not without its quirks.

The best practice for raising events tells us that we should always test that the event is not null before raising the event. That is to say, the event must have handlers. All the articles then give a code sample something like this:

         if(SomeEvent != null)
         {
            SomeEvent(this, args);
         }

The C# implementations of BackgroundWorker both used this standard. But how do I do that in VB.NET? If you try the statement SomeEvent != Nothing, you get the error: 'Public Event SomeEvent(sender As Object, e As System.EventArgs)' is an event, and cannot be called directly. Use a 'RaiseEvent' statement to raise an event. Not very useful!

It turns out that in VB.NET, to get at the delegate derived object to test if it is Nothing, you just add "Event" to the end of the event name. Don't go looking for it in intellisense though, because it won't be there! The resulting VB.NET code is:

         if Not SomeEventEvent is Nothing Then
            SomeEventEvent(Me, args)
         End If

Why have I used SomeEventEvent(Me, args) instead of RaiseEvent SomeEvent(Me, args)?

The default method of a delegate is the Invoke method, and RaiseEvent in VB.NET just calls this method on the delegate, and it makes my code less language specific. Personal preference really.

==========================================================================================

Windows Workflow Foundation(WF) Hands-On Lab01 to Lab03 in VB2005

kenlin — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 06:04:00 GMT

If you are interesting in Windows Workflow Foundation(WF), you should found only C# hands-On Lab. A good news to you, I tried to translated them into VB2005, and it was tested by WF Team and now, you may download them from the following link, the full story are here...

I have 2 entries on the translation of WF, one is including Lab01, while another one is including Lab01-Lab03, they are both top 5 download in http://www.netfx3.com/

===========================================================

http://blogs.msdn.com/pandrew/archive/2006/12/02/Windows-Workflow-Foundation-and-Visual-Basic-.NET.aspx
The Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) runtime supports all CLS compliant programming languages. The Visual Studio 2005 extensions for WF are only provided for C# and Visual Basic .NET. It's easy to find C# samples to get started. Here's some pointers to samples for getting started with Windows Workflow Foundation in Visual Basic .NET.

Hands on Labs in VB.NET - Ken Lin has kindly translated these introductory WF HOLs to VB.NET

http://wf.netfx3.com/files/folders/documentation/entry7167.aspx (Lab01)

http://wf.netfx3.com/files/folders/documentation/entry7553.aspx (Lab01-Lab03)
.

Webclass on VB2005(in Cantonese)

kenlin — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 13:34:00 GMT

I have recorded one webclass few months ago, it is about deploy VB2005 with ClickOnce. Althought this is nothing related to Vista, but I just want to share this with you, if you understand Cantonese, you may go and listen to it. Later on, I will do few more on Windows Workflow Foundation(WF), because I have writen few WF training guide, and it is now waiting approval to be post on MSDN site.

Vista: Glass in C# (Original post by Daniel Moth)

kenlin — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 03:41:00 GMT

Found some good article from chatting with Some other MS MVPs in developer. I found this very good artcle which I would like to be share with you if you wanna try.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We looked at glass in Vista previously so please read that to make sure we are on the same page and using the same terminology... I'll wait...

Great, now that you are back, let's see how to get glass in our C# applications. For starters, if glass is supported and enabled on the user's PC, then your non-client area will by default get the glass effect. In other words, the titlebar and borders will have glass (nothing more for you to do). The question is how to extend that into the client area like other OS applications do (as we saw last time).

There are 3+1 things we need to do:
1. Check that it is supported before proceeding further.
2. Extend the frame into the client area.
3. Paint the extended area black.

Optionally,
4. Allow the user to drag our window by pressing in the glass area as if they were pressing on the window's caption bar.

...
...
(you may view the full story in http://www.danielmoth.com/Blog/2006/06/vista-glass-in-c_17.html)

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Download a complete sample here.

Project Glidepath Public Beta has Launched

kenlin — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 05:47:00 GMT

Visit www.projectglidepath.net to participate in the Microsoft MicroISV Evangelism program that delivers an in-Visual-Studio experience providing the workflow-based guidance, sample code and technology to create applications for Windows Vista.

Project Glidepath delivers workflow-based guidance, code, templates and other content via a software factory, a Visual Studio add-in, consisting of tools for building a product which is a member of a product family.

Project Glidepath's product family is defined as "applications for Windows Vista including applications that use .Net Framework 3.0 technology on down-level operating systems".

Applications built with Project Glidepath focus on making their core application logic reusable so that the user experience can be delivered on many platforms (desktop, mobile, web).

Convert Visual Basic 6 UI controls into Visual Basic 2005 easily and efficiently

kenlin — Wed, 15 Feb 2006 07:16:00 GMT

I read from MSDN site and know that there is a very good article for Converting VB6 UI into VB2005. As there are students reading my blog and I would like to share with them and so that they can learn from it too.

User Interface Controls in Visual Basic 6 and Visual Basic 2005

Introduction
In the world of conversion of Visual Basic 6 applications, little causes more concern than controls that just won't convert. Between in-project controls that you have the source code for, custom ActiveX controls that you bought back in 1997, and the built-in Microsoft controls that have no real conversion path, the task is not easy.

There is hope, however. Code in Visual Basic 6 user controls convert fairly well to Visual Basic 2005. You can use some third party controls via interop. Tools are provided in Visual Studio 2005 to assist with OCX proxy creation. All is not lost.

VS 2005 Migration Toolkit(VSMT) & Win2003 Automated Deployment Services(ADS)

kenlin — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 04:25:00 GMT

I wanna move my current computer which is running windows 2000 standard server as a virtual PC or Virtual Server image. After discuss with one of my MVP friends, I know that there is a tool from Microsoft which is called Virtual Server 2005 Migration Toolkit. And by using this tools, I could migrate a physcial server into a virtual machine.

I then found out that one of the VSMT requirement is ADS. And now, I have stopped here, as One of requirement of ADS is having win2003 Enterprise Server in the network. However, my working enviroment only got win2003 Standard server in. So...No chance to try it.

Here is some useful link for VSMT and ADS.

Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2
In conjunction with Windows Server 2003, Virtual Server 2005 R2 provides a virtualization platform that runs most major x86 operating systems in a guest environment, and is supported by Microsoft as a host for Windows Server operating systems and Windows Server System applications. Virtual Server 2005 R2’s comprehensive COM API, in combination with the Virtual Hard Drive (VHD) format and support for virtual networking, provide administrators complete scripted control of portable, connected virtual machines and enable easy automation of deployment, and ongoing change and configuration.

Virtual Server Community(Including Blogs & KB)

Virtual Server 2005 Migration Toolkit
A free, downloadable tool for Virtual Server 2005, Virtual Server Migration Toolkit (VSMT) simplifies the migration of an operating system and installed applications from a physical server to a server running within a virtual machine that is provided and managed by Virtual Server 2005. With Virtual Server 2005, you can set up multiple virtual machines running different operating systems and applications on the same physical computer.

Server Consolidation and Migration with VSMT
VSMT Whitepaper

Windows Server 2003 Automated Deployment Services
Learn about Windows Server 2003, Automated Deployment Services (ADS), a powerful solution for rapidly deploying Windows server operating systems onto bare-metal servers across large, scaled-out installations. With support for script-based mass server administration, ADS also enables administrators to administer hundreds of servers as if they were one.

Send ADS TEAM FeedBack