Just code - Tamir Khason : Visual Studio, Microsoft, VSTS

New year – new blog or how to migrate Community Server to any other engine, supports XML-RPC

Tamir Khason — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 02:33:04 GMT

Please update your bookmarks, because the new url of this blog is http://khason.net/ (you have not update RSS feeds, it will be done automatically). Why I did it? Why I decided to go to “stand-alone”… Well. there are some reasons. Generally, I do not want to explain all those here, but trust me, there are some. The main reason is, that there is no responsible person in charge for this blog platform in Microsoft Israel. This why, if your blog is popular and you have a respect to your blog visitors, you cannot host it here… Take a look into new comments notifications in my inbox. Would you answer your readers with such “small amount” of SPAM and capcha, that cannot be fixed already for three years in this platform? This how my inbox looks like for last three years. So now, you should not ask me, why I not answered your email or comments. Aren’t you? :)

Currently, all comments in this blog are disabled, so if you want to comment, please use new url of posts (this will appear shortly in the beginning of each post). Also, this post will not be syndicated in RSS.

So, this post is the last. I loved this platform, and loved people started it. But, unfortunately, it seemed, that bloggers community is not important enough for new platform managers.

Also, If you want to learn how to use C# and XML-RCP to migrate from CS2007, used in this platform, visit my new home :)

Have a great year and, as always, be good people. This post marked with all possible tags automatically. Sorry.

Silverlight Bidi Controls Library RC0 and movement from Beta 2 to RC0

Tamir Khason — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 16:31:23 GMT

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The new URL of this post is http://khason.net/blog/silverlight-bidi-controls-library-rc0-and-movement-from-beta-2-to-rc0/]

Finally, I got free minute to convert Silverlight BiDi controls from Silverlight beta 2 to RC0 (you can download SL rc0 tools for VS2008 here) and as usual some breaking changes (the full list is here)

Calendar and DatePicker moved from System.Windows.Controls.Extended into System.Windows.Controls – Extended namespace is now deprecated.
CalendarButton is not inside System.Windows.Controls.Primitives
TypeConverter.CanConvertFrom(Type sourceType) was changed and now it has new first parameter ITypeDescriptorContext context
TypeConverter.CanConvertFrom(object value) was changed and now it has new first parameter ITypeDescriptorContext context and second parameter System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture
TypeConverter.ConvertFromString is not virtual anymore
TextDecorationCollectionConverter was removed
generic.xaml should be placed into themes directory (as in WPF)
VisualTransition.Duration is not VisualTransition.GeneratedDuration
ContentPresenter has no HorizontalContentAlignment and VerticalContentAlignment. It has HorizontalAlignment and VerticalAlignment now. Also it has no Background, Padding,TextAlignment,TextDecorations and TextWrapping properties

Those, basically, all changes done in Silverlight RTL support library. So, you can download and use the latest version within Silverlight RC0 version

Have a nice day and be good people.

Arabic and Hebrew languages bidirectional support for Silverlight 2.0 beta 2

Tamir Khason — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 14:27:00 GMT

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The new URL of this post is http://khason.net/blog/arabic-and-hebrew-languages-bidirectional-support-for-silverlight-20-beta-2/]

Those days, I’m, together with guys from Microsoft Egypt and Santeon, finishing development of bidirectional input and output support for Silverlight. I want you to take part in alpha testing of this solution. Please see the test form here and try it.

&lt;noframes&gt;Visit &lt;a href="http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/tamir/archive/2008/07/17/arabic-and-hebrew-languages-bidirectional-support-for-silverlight-2-0-beta-2.aspx"&gt;original article&lt;/a&gt; to test&lt;/noframes&gt;

Also, you can download latest development build or compiled binary version with debug symbols and try it yourself. Please, if you’re in any issue, report it, by using issue tracker in CodePlex.

In order to use it, all you have to do is to use custom namespace within your project and then, you’ll be able to get almost all controls, you know, but with Arabic and Hebrew RTL and LTR support. You have to set one property: FlowDirection to change the rendering method (exactly as in WPF). Here an example of usage.

<UserControl x:Class="BidiTest2.Page"
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
    xmlns:l="clr-namespace:System.Windows.BidiControls;assembly=BidiControls">
…
<l:TextBlock FlowDirection="LeftToRight" Text="שלום עולם"/>

<l:TextBox FlowDirection="RightToLeft" Text="{Binding Text, Mode=TwoWay}"/>

That’s all. Thank you for your cooperation.

Action required: Smart client users group

Tamir Khason — Fri, 23 May 2008 01:44:00 GMT

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The new URL of this post is http://khason.net/blog/action-required-smart-client-users-group/]

Recently I browsed INETA to seek for some group and was really surprising. There is no Smart Client user group registered there. Maybe there is a reason? Let’s understand what Smart Client is?

According wikipedia, the term "Smart Client" is meant to refer to simultaneously capturing the benefits of a "thin client" (zero-install, auto-update) and a "fat client" (high performance, high productivity). However, I think, that this term is much wider. It is not only thin-fat client application, it’s also most of applications we’re using today.

Thick Client

We always want to provide our users with best experience and increase their performance. However we are (as developers) want to avoid complicated development and deployment. This why we should know as much as possible about user’s system, when users do not want to have real footprint in their systems. That’s dilemma. Is it possible to solve it? Let’s look deeper…

Are we really need installation? Most of old software installations put things in registry. It because you were never sure what client has in his system and were our application can put files or temporary data. Today, when we have local application or user isolated storage, so we not really need to use registry. Maybe only for our own ego – this is cool to have something like “HKLM/Software/MYNAME” in 1,000,000 user’s computers…

No installation is good, but what to me with maintenance. We want our system connected…

Thin Client

Could you imagine your user to visit product site twice a week to see what’s going on? I can not. However I know, that if I’ll ask him first about automatic updates and he’ll agree to forget about application maintenance, his experience will be much better.

So,we are connected. What now? I want to make time reporting system. Web service? Maybe some kind of distributed application. Maybe, even Twitter? This way we can be sure, that our data is safe and if user reinstall whole system, he do not really need to care about backups.

But users not always have internet access. Sometimes they are offline. How to solve the problem of occasionally connected users? I do not want him every lunch want for two minutes, until I realize, that there is no internet connection and will not even give him a chance to use the application?

So, we also want our system to be useful offline. But what’s up with Web 10.0? We want millions. We want very broad reach for our application. Also we want to be able to manage application updates remotely?

Let’s take a look into other pan of application development. Do you like JavaScript? I do not! I think it’s too complicated to develop things for web. We should invest into at least 50% of coverage and integration tests, while giving customers pretty poor user experience. What is we want to provide the same look and feel everywhere? In web, desktop, mobile and other devices? Our customers want the application everywhere?

Summary

This is exactly what Smart client designed for. Technologies such as .NET, WPF, Silverlight from Microsoft, Flex, Thermo from Adobe and others tries to make you to be there with your application. But how to do it? How to answer all those hard questions, I asked?

I want to announce new (currently virtual) user group, dedicated to Smart Client development. I do not want to restrict this group geographically, due to fact, that current infrastructures allows us to forget about distances and be together. Join today “Smart Client development” user group.

In order to join, just send me an email to tamir [at] khason.biz with information about you. I put the request to create this user group in INETA. Once it will be opened, I’ll send everyone email to register and connect them selves to this group.

Be in touch.

What’s new in MSDN Downloads?

Tamir Khason — Tue, 20 May 2008 18:02:41 GMT

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The new URL of this post is http://khason.net/blog/what%e2%80%99s-new-in-msdn-downloads/]

Just look how many new releases those days in MSDN Download web site.

Virtual PC 2007 SP1 – download and release notes
Scriptomatic 2.0 - download (uses PowerShell 1.0)
Windows PowerShell V2 CTP2 - download
Office Live Update 1.1 - download
.NET Framework 3.5 SP1 beta – download
Visual Studio 2008 SP1 beta - download
Microsoft Expression Blend 2.5 March 2008 Preview - download
Microsoft Office for MAC SP1 – download
Windows XP SP3 – download as ISO or as NEP + release notes
Symbols package for Microsoft XP Service Pack 3 – download
Outlook 2007/2003/2002 Add-in for Personal Folder Backup – download
XNA Game Studio 3.0 CTP – download

Too much – too cool. Turn your download managers on

Have a nice day

Localization fix for SAP ES Explorer for Visual Studio

Tamir Khason — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 01:21:00 GMT

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The new URL of this post is http://khason.net/blog/localization-fix-for-sap-es-explorer-for-visual-studio/]

A couple of days ago, new great product [PDF] was released by SAP together with Microsoft. It named SAP Enterprise Services Explorer for Microsoft .NET (you can download sneak preview for free). It come to exchange SAP.NET Connector and enables to use SAP Enterprise Services as regular Web references or WCF services. This product still in beta, however there is already major issue - it does not work in localized version of Visual Studio. Neither 2005 nor 2008. Why this happens? The reason is simple. Visual Studio always asks for localized resources for addins and there is no way to work around it.

From one hand, it's bad, that such global company as SAP does not want to localize it's products. From the other hand, there are very few developers, who working with localized versions of development environment. Anyway I started to look into the product to understand what has been done by developers. Oh, my god. They put resources into GAC. How to get them out there?

Actually, GAC is regular windows directory, that exists in %windir%\assembly\GAC\ or %windir%\assembly\GAC_MSIL\. But smart Windows replaces regular Explorer view by customize ActiveX. This does not mean, that you cannot pick files from there. To prove it map GAC folder to another disk. From command line run following command "subst z: %windir%\assembly\GAC_MSIL\". Now you have your GAC mapped to network virtual drive Z

So, if it is regular directory, you can get files from there and put it into any place you want. But why copy it if we can use hard links?

What's the hell are "hard links"? Hard links are symbolic links or symlinks, we know from Unix environment. Yes, you ca ln -fs in Windows :) To do it, you should use file system utility, named fsutil. Actually, those only pointers to real files in your file system. So, "fsutil hardlink create <copy> <original>" will do the work.

Now, when we know where to get those files and how to make symbolic links to them, we should know what versions of Visual Studio we have installed and what are languages of those products. To do this, we have to make a small trip into registry and look into HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DevDic\VS\Servicing. There we will find node 8.0 if VS2005 installed and 9.0 if VS2008 installed. Actually, we can pick all necessary information there. Let's see. This key build according following pattern: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DevDiv\[Product Family]\Servicing\[Product Version]\[Product Edition]\[Product Language]. That's exactly what we need. But what are possible values?

Product family

URT - .NET framework
VB - Visual Basic Express
VC - Visual C++ Express
VCS - Visual C# Express
VJS - Visual J# Express
VNS - Visual Web Developer Express
VS - Visual Studio (all versions)
VSTF - Visual Studio Team Foundation Services

Product version

8 (or 8.0) - 2005
9.0 - 2008

Product Edition

VSTD - Standard
PRO - Professional
VSTS - Team System

Product Language

Integer of Culture identifier (or other words LCID)

Now, when we know what versions and what languages are installed we should detect where Visual Studio is installed. In this case, we'll need another registry key "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\". Under this node we'll find again 8 or 9 and then value "InstallDir", that, actually, tells us where the current version of Visual Studio is installed.

Last thing to remember, that Visual Studio looks into it's root directory (that we detected in previous step) for directory with two letter ISO language code and resources there.

At this point we know all necessary information in order to work, so we have our program ready. You can, even download and use it :)

So, after running and clicking "Apply fix" button (if possible - you have SAP ESA Explorer and localized version(s) of Microsoft Visual Studio), we can start using this great product in any available version of Visual Studio. In English of cause)

Have a nice day and do not forget, that not everyone work with English version of development tools.

Download Localization fix for SAP ESA Explorer for Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 (no installation needed - just unzip and run) >>

Some new post-mix downloads

Tamir Khason — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 14:01:44 GMT

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The new URL of this post is http://khason.net/blog/some-new-post-mix-downloads/]

Today is download day at MSDN. There are some very interesting things published.

New release of Windows SDK (new classes for WPF 3.5, bugs fixes, and enhanced support for Windows Server 2008, including speech, error reporting and UAC). Download it here. For more information, visit SDK blog
Windows XP SP3 RC2 (it's not final release), but if you want to try it (not in production environment) download it here. As well as if you are ready to harm your system. Give a try to Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 for XP (or for Vista/Home Server 2008, or Windows Server 2003 SP2).
There are some fixes for Microsoft XNA Game Studio 2.0 (make sure, that you know what is it. If not, come to see my TechEd session). Also, you can download Games for Windows - LIVE redistributable .
If you are lucky Zune owner, you can download PC software 2.3 for it
If you Virtual Earth fun, add realistic 3D capabilities to use online Live Search Maps.
If you still have no Silverlight Tools for VS2008, be sure to download it (this is not chained installer, tools only)

Enough for this morning. Warm up your download machines and start downloading.

How to merge help files to appear inside Visual Studio?

Tamir Khason — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 17:08:18 GMT

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The new URL of this post is http://khason.net/blog/how-to-merge-help-files-to-appear-inside-visual-studio/]

How many times after an installation of some SDK, you saw, that nothing has been merged into Visual Studio help. You press F1 and nothing happens? What to do? Actually, the answer is really stupid. You should go into Visual Studio Documentation (Programs->Visual Studio [number]->Visual Studio [number] documentation), go to Index and set filter by property to (unfiltered) and then look for collection manager->help

There you will find all help files installed in your system and now, you can merge (or unmerge) them manually by marking relevant checkboxes and clicking "Update VSCC" button.

This is really simple, but for me it looks a bit strange, that in order to do it, you should not go to any of options, but search into help context. However, this is the real live :)

Declaimer: this is not internal or private information of Microsoft Corporation. You can reference to online MSDN library to find small information pieces about this issue. Here one of such pieces (look for note section)

A couple of updates - mega update post

Tamir Khason — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 15:37:55 GMT

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Today, only updates

Yahoo finally releases Yahoo! Messenger for Vista - this was one of very first prototypes, shown in Mix last year. I did not install it, however, here a couple of review Erik Burke, Tim Sneath and Ryan Stewart. As for me, they lost "wow effect" last year

Microsoft Expression Blend 2 - December Preview. What's new? VS2008 integration, inheritance, no SL2.0 support (strange, maybe, because of breaking changes toward near beta)

Vista SP1 RC1 available for MSDN subscribers (via Nick Whites). Nothing special, 40 minutes of installation, profile information loss and performance fixes

Office 2007 SP1 is expected to ship 10-December week. This time it is not RC or Beta, but final product (via Mary Jo Foley). Great work.

Windows XP SP3 is very close to RC1, but nothing about public beta yet.

Starting today, you can configure Messenger presence. Some cool features become available (via Angus Logan). Here is how.

PDC 2008 (canceled last year) will be on October 27-30 in LA (hello, Peter). It promised to be great event about the company's emerging services platform efforts, .NET, Windows and Mobile technologies.

A little about mobile devices, while waiting for my new mega-device (more information soon): Dell is about to enter mobile phone industry in 2008, Opera compiled their browser for Brew platform (hello, Pelephone), while Google create their mobile version for IPhone. Windows Mobile 6.1 is going to be cool. Here screenshorts. Meanwhile, you can update your Mobile Office to version 6.1 for free or your Nokia (N-series) with Internet Radio application. As for me, 8 hours speak time and 30 days standby, quad-band. Those are features, that you need from your handy.

Well, that's it for now. Have a nice weekend.

Now I have a question for you. What do you think, about such format of posts? Should ?I go on with it or continue to write post-per-event?

Thank you