Search results for 'app:weblogs' matching tag 'Visual Studio 2005'

DevTeach 2009 Vancouver

PeterRitchie — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 05:00:00 GMT

The schedule for DevTeach 2009 Vancouver has been announced (http://www.devteach.com/). There’s lots of great software development sessions from some of the leaders in our industry.

If you’re planning on improving yourself, this is the conference to go to. Not only can you attend excellent sessions; but you can hob-knob with the presenters and pick their brains.

If you have a friend or co-worker who’s interested, there’s a limited-time two-for-one offer for an even better price: http://www.devteach.com/Register.aspx

Drag and drop of control selections onto forms designer toolbox

PeterRitchie — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 05:00:00 GMT

A while back I blogged about the ability we have in Visual Studio to select text in a text editor and drag it onto the toolbox. Once on the toolbox you could drag those items back into the text editor to effectively “paste” frequently needed snippets of code into other text files.

Imagine my surprise when we didn’t have this ability in the forms designer. When writing code, it’s a bit specious to want to have multiple copies of hard-coded snippets of code (DRY should come to mind). But, for forms, the only alternative is to create user controls to contain commonly-used control groups. User controls is very heavy weight and basically becomes unusable when talking about simple groups of buttons. For example, “OK” and “Cancel” buttons.

So, as a result, I’ve logged a suggestion on Microsoft Connect suggesting this ability be added to Visual Studio.

If you want to see the potential of a feature like this, see http://machine.nukeation.com/preview.html

Visual Studio Gallery - addins, tools, templates etc for VS2005 and VS2008

BrianMadsen — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 05:00:00 GMT

I'm sure that for many people this isn't news but i figured i'd regurgitate it anyways as i seem to loose some of my tools whenever i move onto another project (as i'm mainly client bound) and keep forgetting where i got them from.

So, not to self (and others): www.visualstudiogallery.com - tons of addins, tools and templates for Visual Studio 2005 and 2008.

Visual Studio 2008 rocks..plain and simple as that..it's THE best development IDE around and it has a phenomenal amount of support from third party vendors.

Some of the tools i use are:

ReSharper - www.jetbrains.com/resharper
- Simply just cannot live without this tool. Productivity is up (clients are happy) and it seems to suit my habits/behaviors (i'm happy) within the Visual Studio IDE. It's worth its price.
GhostDoc - www.roland-weigelt.de/ghostdoc
- Another tool that not just adds method level documentation for me but it also makes me consider more carefully what i'm naming my methods. Great free tool.
Visual Studio 2008 Extensions for Windows SharePoint Services 1.2 - http://www.microsoft.com/DOWNLOADS/details.aspx?FamilyID=7bf65b28-06e2-4e87-9bad-086e32185e68&displaylang=en
- I know i've been dissapointed with this release, but it still features heavily in my work
PowerCommands for Visual Studio 2008 - http://www.visualstudiogallery.com/ExtensionDetails.aspx?ExtensionID=df3f0c30-3d37-4e06-9ef8-3bff3508be31
- This toolset adds quite a lot of features to the right-click context menu in VS2008 (including Open Command Prompt)

I've been using others here and there - mostly because it's either been a requirement from the team i've worked with, or because it's simply just been installed. But those tools above are pretty much a constant standard when i install Visual Studio.

Trace to output window without adding code.

PeterRitchie — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Want to trace some run-time data to the output window while debugging without changing and recompiling your code? Use Tracepoints: http://blogs.msdn.com/saraford/archive/2008/06/13/did-you-know-you-can-use-tracepoints-to-log-printf-or-console-writeline-info-without-editing-your-code-237.aspx

DreamSpark from Microsoft = Free College IT Software

keith — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 06:00:00 GMT

I just saw this from a friend, Chris Koenig, at Microsoft. If you have any children, friends, or family in college and they are heading toward an IT or Graphics Design career then you will want to check this out. This is an incredible opportunity for them to receive $1,000s in free software.

Free Software for Students - Microsoft DreamSpark

Calling all students! Check out this video featuring Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates as he discusses a new initiative called Microsoft DreamSpark targeted at offering Microsoft developer tools FREE to students:

Bill Gates talks about Free Software, Students, and Technology

This is a FANTASTIC deal for students interested in getting into the Software Development field. Using these tools you can build virtually anything you want to from web sites, Windows or Mobile applications, to games for your Xbox 360 - all at no cost to you. I've never seen Microsoft offer something this extensive to this wide a population before, so if you're a student you *definitely* need to take advantage of this offer!

The list of software included in the program includes:

Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition
Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition
Visual Studio 2005 Professional
SQL Server 2005 Express Edition
Expression Studio
XNA Game Studio 2.0
12-month subscription to XNA Creators Club

Additional details on DreamSpark can be found at Channel 8, our community site for students.

No "Add Method Stub" When Passing or Assigning Delegates

PeterRitchie — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 06:00:00 GMT

I finally noticed the other day the "Add method stub" SmartTag wasn't appearing for a new method name I type in. I decided I'd have a closer look...

When you're practicing Test-Driven Development (TDD) you want to write a test for methods before you write the methods. This means you write a test method that calls several other methods that don't exist yet. The Visual Studio IDE, in an effort to promote TDD, recognizes this and when you have your caret over a call to one of these methods a SmartTag shows up and you can select Generate method stub for 'SomeMethod' in 'SomeNamespace.SomeClass'. For example, if you have the following:

    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        SomeMethod();
    }

...if you place the caret (e.g. click on "SomeMethod") somewhere on "SomeMethod" (and it doesn't exist in the current class) the SmartTag rectangle under the 'S' in SometMethod appears and you can hover your mouse over the word "SomeMethod" and the options icon appears that you can click and select Generate method stub for 'SomeMethod' in 'SomeNamespace.SomeClass', and it will generate a method like the following:

    private static void SomeMethod()
    {
        throw new NotImplementedException();
    }

Well, I figured this would also happen when I tried to assign a non-existent method to a delegate. For example, if I had the following:

    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        Action action = SomeOtherMethod;
    }

...I would expect that placing the caret over "SomeOtherMethod" that the SmartTag would show up and I would be able to select 'SomeOtherMethod' in 'SomeNamespace.SomeClass' and it would generate a method like the following:

    private static void SomeOtherMethod()
    {
        throw new NotImplementedException();
    }

Alas, the IDE doesn't recognize use of an undeclared method when used with delegates. i.e. it doesn't appear in these circumstances either:

    static void ProcessDelegate(Action action)
    {
        //...
    }
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        ProcessDelegate(SomeOtherMethod);
        ProcessDelegate(new Action(SomeOtherMethod));
    }

I thought "Add method stub" would be more useful in these circumstances because you're not explicitly passing arguments to the method so it's more likely that you don't know what signature you need to declare. So, I logged a suggestion for it: https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=328782

By the way, the non-generic Action delegate (System.Core.Delegate) is new to .NET 3.5.

Who's Referencing Whom?

PeterRitchie — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 05:00:00 GMT

When developing any sort of application, debugging in inevitable. Sometimes, part of that debugging means trying to figure out why objects haven't been collected and therefore figuring out what object is referencing the object that has yet to be collected.

There's many reasons why you'd want to find out what object is referencing, like suspected memory "leaks".

With Visual Studio (and MDbg) you can use a tool called SOS (or Son Of Strike). This is included in the .NET installation. To use SOS you first need to enable unmanaged debugging in your project (Project\Properties, Debug tab, check "Enable unmanaged code debugging" in the "Enable Debuggers" section). Once unmanaged debugging is enabled you can then debug your application. To use SOS once debugging, you need to load the extension (every time a new debugging session is started). Once a breakpoint has been hit, open the Immediate Window and type .load sos which should result in the following:

.load sos
extension C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\sos.dll loaded

With SOS loaded, you can find out if any objects of a particular type are currently in memory with the "dumpheap -type" command, for example:

!dumpheap -type NamespaceName.TypeName
Address       MT     Size
012b2db8 009159c4      328
total 1 objects
Statistics:
      MT    Count    TotalSize Class Name
009159c4        1          328 NamespaceName.TypeName
Total 1 objects

This lists all objects of the requested type, their address, their MethodTable (MT), and the count of each object per MethodTable.

Once you have the object's address you can then find out what objects are referencing that particular instance. This is done with the gcroot command:

!gcroot 012b2db8
Note: Roots found on stacks may be false positives. Run "!help gcroot" for
more info.
Error during command: warning! Extension is using a feature which Visual Studio does not implement.

Scan Thread 4756 OSTHread 1294
ESP:12f0dc:Root:012b2db8(WindowsApplication1.Form1)->
012bb104(WindowsApplication1.Form2)->
012bb254(System.Collections.Generic.List`1[[NamespaceName.TypeName, WindowsApplication1]])->
012bc178(System.Object[])->
012bc16c(NamespaceName.TypeName)
Scan Thread 3496 OSTHread da8

In this particular example, the above tells us that our object (012bc16c(NamespaceName.TypeName)) is referenced by an Object array (012bc178(System.Object[])), which is referenced by a List<T> object (012bb254(System.Collections.Generic.List`1[[NamespaceName.TypeName, WindowsApplication1]])), which is referenced by Form2 (012bb104(WindowsApplication1.Form2)), which is referenced by a Form1 object(ESP:12f0dc:Root:012b2db8(WindowsApplication1.Form1)).

Run IT on a Virtual Hard Disk

BrianMadsen — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 05:00:00 GMT

I don't know how often i've had to delay playing with a new piece of released technology, just because I was in the middle of another set of tests and simply didn't have the time to create my own virtual server environment again to accommodate the platform i want to test.

Here's a bit of good news - Microsoft VHD (www.microsoft.com/vhd) is a set of virtual hard disks available for download which already has the necessary bits installed.

Currently there's a range of virtuals available:

Biztalk Server 2006	System Center Essentials 2007
Exchange Server 2007	System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007
Exchange Server 2007 SP1 Beta 2	Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite
ISA Server 2006	Visual Studio 2005 Team System
Microsoft Office 2007 Professional	Windows Server 2008 Beta 3
Office Sharepoint Server 2007	Windows Server 2003 R3
SQL Server 2005	Windows Vista
SQL Server 2005/Exchange 2007

Just download either Virtual PC or Virtual Server 2005 (which is free btw), and you're ready to go!

Disappearing Visual Studio 2005 Menu Items

Anonymous — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 05:00:00 GMT

If you're like me and installed SQL Server 2005 Business Intelligence Development Studio after installing Visual Studio 2005, you might notice some menu items like Debug > Attach to Process are mising. I found the fix to this issue in this KB article.

Defy All Challenges - Microsoft Visual Studio

BrianMadsen — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 05:00:00 GMT

I caught a glimpse at this ad today on one of the sites i frequent when i'm terribly bored. It looked pretty cool and eventhough i'm rarely in the habit of clicking on ads i just had to check it out - so, mission accomplished for the marketing department ;)

What it brought me to was somewhat of a surprise:

Without revealing all too much (you have to see this to make your own judgement..seriously) there's quite a few videos on the site..so go, have a laugh.

Granted, it's about Visual Studio...and yes, i'm a VS-tart big time...and yes, it's MSFT...hmm ok i'm biased but it still rocks!!

One of the features i will reveal is the ability to view and rate videos on the site - which pretty much is showed to you in a futuristic "gaming" style UI..you can pan around, when you choose a feature you're moved across the landscape..all in all it's a very pretty (and addictive) site.

One thing though - and here i'm going to smack the marketing department...it's a great looking site, seriously...but Flash?? maybe using another technology would have been more..errr...suitable? a damn good job is done with the site..seriously it's got eye-candy and i'm a sucker for it...but...you...are...showing...off...the...wrong...technology!!!

It pretty much shows how big MSFT really is...a keyword has been forgotten here...it's called (Yes, spell it with me!!) C-O-M-M-U-N-I-C-A-T-I-O-N...somebody should probably have checked out what's on the horizon in terms of technology before decking out and showing how great a site you can make...with....Flash :(

Defy All Challenges - Microsoft Visual Studio