Dot Net Project

Visual LINQ Query Builder - VS 2008 Add-In

2008-04-14T12:22:00.001-07:00

Visual Linq Query Builder helps you create Linq to SQL queries for your programs(Support for C# and VB projects is provided) and demonstrates how to create their own Visual Studio 2008 add-in by using WPF.

Here are some screenshots of Visual Linq Query Builder in designer mode

Download Visual LINQ Query Builder and documentation

Technorati Tags: linq,wpf,ui

JetBrains Omea goes Open Source

2008-03-16T14:02:00.001-07:00

Great news for those of you who are interested in good blog reader

Jetbrains Omea - both source and companion files - is now distributed under GNU GPL v2 License http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html

For technical details, visit the dedicated Confluence page: http://www.jetbrains.net/confluence/display/OMEA/this+link

Technorati Tags: blog,reader,jetbrains

System.Reflection - how to access and invoke private methods,fields or properties

2008-03-12T13:37:00.001-07:00

For demonstration purpose I've created a class that contains only private methods,fields and properties

/// <summary>
/// Holds blog information
/// </summary>
public class Blog
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Gets the posts count.
    /// </summary>
    private static int PostsCount
    {
        get
        {
            return 10000;
        }
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Gets the description.
    /// </summary>
    /// <returns></returns>
    private string GetDescription()
    {
        return @"A weblog dedicated to obsessively profiling 
reviewing new Internet products and companies";
    }


    /// <summary>
    /// Changes the name of the blog.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="newName">The new name.</param>
    private string ChangeBlogName(string newName)
    {
        name = newName;
        return name;
    }


    string url = "http://techcrunch.com";
    string name = "Tech Crunch";
}

To access private fields I used the System.Reflection.FieldInfo class .For private properties I used System.Reflection.PropertyInfo .Note if you want to work with private members you should use System.Reflection.BindingFlags enum as shown in the example below .So for non-static class members the flags should looks like BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance .For static don't forget to add BindingFlags.Static .

class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {



            Blog blog = new Blog();
            Type type = typeof(Blog);
            //create reflection bindings - will be used to retrive private fields,methods or properties
            BindingFlags privateBindings = BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance;

            // retrive private fields from our class
            FieldInfo[] fieldInfos = type.GetFields(privateBindings);

            // retrive private fields metadata
            foreach (FieldInfo fieldInfo in fieldInfos)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(fieldInfo.Name +" "+ fieldInfo.GetValue(blog));
            }


            PropertyInfo [] propertyInfos = type.GetProperties(privateBindings|BindingFlags.Static);
            // retrive private static properties metadata
            foreach (PropertyInfo propertyInfo in propertyInfos)
            {
                // note that no instance need for static property to retrive it's value
                Console.WriteLine(propertyInfo.Name + " " + propertyInfo.GetValue(null,null) );
            }

            // call method using MethodInfo object
            MethodInfo miGetDescription = type.GetMethod("GetDescription", privateBindings);
            object retObj = miGetDescription.Invoke(blog, new object[]{});
            Console.WriteLine(retObj);

            // call method using MethodInfo object with input parameters
            MethodInfo miChangeBlogName = type.GetMethod("ChangeBlogName", privateBindings);
            retObj = miChangeBlogName.Invoke(blog, new object[] { "Yahoo blog" });
            Console.WriteLine(retObj);

            Console.ReadLine();



        }

The console output fallows

Technorati Tags: reflection,dotnet,development

Microsoft® Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition Power Tools

2008-02-26T12:44:00.001-08:00

Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition Power Tools is a set of enhancements and tools that complement and improve the user experience of VSTS Database Edition 2008

Features
• ChecksumCondition – You can use this test condition to verify that the checksum of the data set returned by a database unit test matches the checksum of an expected data set.
• ExpectedSchemaTestCondition – You can use this test condition to verify that the column names and data types of the returned data set match expected values.
Data Generator Improvements
• New Data Generator Wizard – This new wizard creates a data generation plan that is configured to copy data from a source database. You can use this wizard when you need to copy most of your data from a live source, but need to make small changes to ensure privacy.
MSBuild Task Improvements
• SqlAnalysis Task – You can use this build task to run T-SQL Static Code Analysis from MSBuild.
TSQL Static Code Analysis
• Static Code Analysis - A precursor to the functionality that will be in future versions of VSTS that will allow you to perform Static Code Analysis on T-SQL code.
Refactoring
• “Move Schema” Refactoring - Allows a user to right click on an object and move it to a different but existing schema
• SP Rename Generation - Generate a new script that will contain sp_renames for all rename refactored objects that the user can then execute.
• Wildcard Expansion - Automatically expand the wildcard in a select to the appropriate columns.
• Fully-Qualified Name Support - Automatically inject fully-qualified names when absent in a script
• Refactoring extended to Dataset - Refactor into strongly typed dataset definitions
MSBuild Tasks
• Data / Schema Compare Build Tasks - MSBuild tasks that can generate scripts as if the user had run the Data / Schema compare UI
Schema View
• API Access to Schema View - Insert / Update / Delete to schema View and list schema objects and their associated files
Dependency Tool Window
• Dependency Tree - Show the dependencies ( incoming / outgoing ) for selected schema objects in a new tool window
Miscellaneous Tools
• Script Preprocessor - Expand SQLCMD variables and include files and command line version (sqlspp.exe) & an MSBuild version ( wraps the command line version )

Download Microsoft® Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition Power Tools

Technorati Tags: microsoft,database,tools,vs2008

LINQ to Objects - 3 basic examples

2008-01-13T13:08:00.001-08:00

The examples below show how you can use aggregate operators in "LINQ to Objects"

// our test data array
string[] names = { "Sara", "Bill", "Alex", "Don", "Tom", "David", "Dana" };

// Find names starts with with character 'D'
int namesStartsWithD = names.Count( name => name.StartsWith("d",
    StringComparison.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase ) );
Console.WriteLine("There are {0} names that start with character 'D' in the name list.", 
    namesStartsWithD);

// Find the longest name
int longestName = names.Max( name=>name.Length );
Console.WriteLine("The longest name is {0} characters long.", longestName);


// Find the first name that starts with  character 'D'
string firstStartsWithD = names.First(name => name.StartsWith("d",
   StringComparison.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase)  );
Console.WriteLine("The first name that start with 'D' - {0}.", firstStartsWithD);

SVN via MS IIS

2007-10-10T07:20:00.001-07:00

SVN-IIS gives access to Subversion via MS IIS
The main goal of this project is to make a direct interface from a SVN repository to WebDav interface running on MS IIS.

Features

Practically no overhead
Tested on IIS5.x and IIS6.x
Tested on http and https (used a test certificate)
Support for HTTP 1.1 Chunked encoding
Runs on Windows XP\2000\2003\Vista
Apache like logging

Prerequisites

.NET Framework
Access from the IIS to a running Apache webserver, interfacing a SVN repository

[Via dotnetkicks.com]

Expression Blend 2 September Preview

2007-09-19T13:09:00.001-07:00

Expression Blend 2 September Preview is available for download

New features

Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 Support
Making Controls from Existing Objects
Split View and XAML Editor Improvements
Storyboard Picker
Storyboard and Keyframe Properties
Vertex Animation
Breadcrumb Bar
Font Embedding and Subsetting
Build Options
Object Manipulation

More details available at the Expression Team's blog.

Visit the Expression Blend 2 September Preview to download and install the latest build.

The set of useful methods that can make developer life easer

2007-09-15T07:44:00.001-07:00

Take a look at a list below and you may find a few methods that save your time.The sources and documentation are here.

Array

GetMissingItems
Gets a list of the items in an array missing from a second array.

RemoveDups
Removes any duplicate items for a list of items.

StringArrayToString
Converts an array of strings into a string.

Collection

CollectionToHtmlTable
Converts a collection to an html string having a table.

Color

ColorToHtml
Converts a color into an html hexadecimal string.

GetColorTable
Get an html table listing color, html hexadecimal, and color name.

GetRandomColor
Gets a random color.

DataSet

ArrayToDataTable
Converts an array of strings to a DataTable.

DataTable2ExcelString
Coverts a DataTable into an Excel string.

DataTableToArray
Creates a string array from a DataTable.

DataTableToString
Converts a DataTable to a string with an html table.

FilterSortData
Filter and sort a dataset.

DateTime

CountWeekdays
Counts the number of weekdays between two dates.

CountWeekends
Counts the number of weekends between two dates.

IsDate
Checks whether an object is a date.

IsWeekDay
Returns true of day is weekday, otherwise false.

IsWeekEnd
Returns true of day is weekend, otherwise false.

TimeBreakdown
Returns a string that enumerates years, months, days, etc.

File

ArrayToFile
Saves a string array as a text file.

FileToArray
Converts the contents of a file to a string array.

GetDirectoryFileInfo
Gets information about the files in a directory and puts it in an array of strings.

GetDirectoryInfo
Gets information about a directory and puts it in an array of strings.

GetFileInfo
Gets information about a file and puts it in an array of strings.

ReadFromFile
Reads from a text file, puts the contents of the file in a string, and returns the string.

WriteToFile
Writes the passed in string to a file.

Forms

SetCheckboxesSelect
Adds a check to the checkboxes whose values are passed in.

SetComboSelectedIndex
Sets which item is selected in a DropDownList.

Math

Triangulate
Sums the numbers from 1 to n.

UnTriangulate
Undoes the Triangulate method.

Network

DNSLookup
Gets DNS information about a url and puts it in an array of strings.

GetHttpHeaders
Gets Http Headers and puts them in an array of strings.

GetImages
Gets the images from a webpage.

GetLinks
Gets the links from a webpage.

GetServerVariables
Gets the ServerVariables and puts them in a string.

ReadWebPage
Reads a web page and returns a string with the contents.

SendMail
Sends an e-mail message.

SendNetSend
Sends a net send message.

Numbers

GetDoubles
Gets an array of double values from the start value to the end value.

GetInts
Gets an array of int values from the start value to the end value.

GetRandomNumber
Gets a random number.

IsNumeric
Check whether an object is numeric.

Stats

GetAvg
Gets the average of an array of doubles or an array of ints.

GetCorrelation
Gets the Correlation between two arrays of numbers.

GetStandardDeviation
Gets the standard deviation of a list of numbers.

Strings

CountStrings
Count how many times a string appears.

GetASCII
Gets a string with ASCII characters.

ProperCase
Converts a string to proper case.

RemoveWhiteSpace
Remove extra white space in a string.

Manage your Subversion(SVN) Repositories & Server conviently and effectively

2007-08-21T13:01:00.001-07:00

This utility provides you with the ability to completely manage your Subversion(SVN) Repositories & Server conviently and effectively without the hassle of command-line tools.

PainlessSVN compliments your current SVN Client and Server software, and is easily deployable.It doesn't require any time at all to setup for your current environment.

Features

Create and Delete Repositories
Create and Delete Directories
Create and Delete Users
Create Dump Files
Create Hot Copies
Manage access to repositories
It can manage repositories even when svnserve is not running
No command-line switches to remember
Ability to add repositories that reside in different directories.

Download PainlessSVN (beta)

SketchPath-XPath development and XML analysis tool

2007-08-21T12:42:00.001-07:00

SketchPath is an XPath development and XML analysis tool. It provides an integrated graphical environment for viewing XML files , developing XPath expressions against them and managing the expressions in file libraries.

File libraries of XPath expressions can be saved and loaded as .NET DataTable XML serialized objects. SketchPath supports XML Packages as used by Open XML and ODF.

This .NET tool was originally designed to assist XSLT developers at all levels, but should equally suit any developers or analysts who currently work with XPath 1.0 or who would benefit from using it to exploit XML.

Features

Easy to install: A single 350KB .EXE file (Needs .NET 2.0 Also)
XPath Location Step-Tracer - Predicate tracing
Auto-Generate XPath Locations by selecting from
XPath Result list
Regular Expression Result list
Element Tree View
Element Nodes List
XML Text Editor
XPath Variables List
XPath Step Tracer
Save XPath expressions for re-use as variables
Import XPath Expressions from an XML source (eg. XSLT)
Manage Xpath variables lists in groups
Save and load XPath variable groups in library files
‘As-You-Type’ bookmarking of nodeset results in Element Tree View
Manage Xpath environment
Manage Namespaces
Set the Context Node
Select the group of XPath variables required
Auto-Complete ('Intellisense') uses 'Look-Ahead' to list available location and value nodes when typing
An XPath 'Assist Pane' provides quick access to all XPath Nodes/Axes and Functions
Syntax checking and colorizing of XPath expressions
Uses .NET System.XML.XPath namespace to evaluate expressions
All XML panes synchronized, viewable panes & behavior controlled by modes
Use Regular Expressions (Regex) to resolve XPath locations
Simple User-Interface with just 3 main toolbars with minimal icon-clutter
Package Inspection feature for ZIP compressed XML file structures, support includes:

Word 2007 docx format
Excel 2007 xlsx format
Powerpoint 2007 pptx format
XML Paper Specification xps format
OASIS Open Document Format (ODF)

Fast XPath location generation usin an optimized 'Element Index' (updated as you type)
Free-flow XML Source Editor Pane with well-formedness checking

Download SketchPath

Watch Flash Demo of SketchPath

[Via Larkware News]

Refactor! For ASP.NET was released as free download.

2007-08-13T13:17:00.001-07:00

DevExpress has announced that Refactor! For ASP.NET is free for download.

Features

Add Validator
Extract ContentPlaceHolder
Extract ContentPlaceHolder (and create master page)
Extract Style (Class)
Extract Style (id)
Extract to UserControl
Move to Code-behind
Move Style Attributes to CSS
Rename Style
Surround with Update Panel

You can find more details on each refactoring from Mark's post.

Make sure to check out the informative 12 minute screencast on the ASP.NET refactoring.

Cyclomatic complexity measurement tool

2007-07-23T08:06:00.003-07:00

ccm is a tool that analyzes C/C++ and C# code and reports back on Cyclomatic Complexity.Cyclomatic complexity is computed using a graph that describes the control flow of the program. The nodes of the graph correspond to the function of a program. A directed edge connects two nodes if the second function might be executed immediately after the first function. This technique is useful to determine how complex the function of code is.

ccm is a command line tool that accepts the path to directory you want to analyze. Using an /XML switch it will output the result as XML, making it easy to integrate with other tools, such as CruiseControl.NET, etc.

Usage

Running ccm without any parameters tells you about the available switches.

C:\Dev\ccm\bin>ccm
Missing parameters.

Usage:
ccm directory [/r] [/xml] [/n:x] [/e:folderlist] [/v]
   switches:
     r            - act recursively on folders
     xml          - output into xml
     n:x          - list n-number of metrics (defaults to 30)
     v            - verbose
     e:folderlist - comma-separated list of folders or paths to exclude

ccm.exe ..\..\relativepath-to-sources /n:15

Download ccm

A list of programs for keyboard maniacs

2007-07-09T01:37:00.001-07:00

A list of programs for keyboard maniacs - they helps you rapidly find programs or documents from within the depths of the start menu (or other directories).

AutoHotKey - http://www.autohotkey.com/ - excellent Open Source (!) tool with support for scripts and hotkeys. Two scripts add similar start menu searching functionality, Seek and 320mph. More info can be found on their forum.
Tray Command Line - http://traycl.chat.ru/ - shareware, $10 Very nice, *tiny* application - the inspiration for this program; does not search for files, but allows you to manually create aliases to launch from they keyboard.
Key Launch - http://software.xfx.net/utilities/kl/index.html - shareware, $12 Similar to this program, incrementally searches through the start menu. Felt a bit clunky to me, and short on configuration options.
RunIt! - http://keleos.h11.ru/ - now freeware! Very good program - has similar search functionality as Find and Run Robot and additional features for terminating apps, etc. Runs as a toolbar.
ShellSearch - http://www.harmonyhollow.net/ss.shtml - freeware Very similar in spirit to Find and Run robot, but not quite as fast to use. Free though, and lots of nice other apps by this developer too.
WinConsole - http://galan.dogmalab.ru/index.php?lang=eng&look=soft&item=winconsole - shareware $10 Similar to Tray Command Line, with support for hotkeys and lots of options.
Meta Launcher - http://www.codesector.com/commandline.asp - shareware $15 Nice looking app which also comes with a startmenu replacer and app launch bar type feature
OpenExpert - http://www.baxbex.com/openexpert.html - freeware Adds context menu to open files with a menu of applications.
LaunchItNow - http://www.gemiscorp.com/english/launchitnow.html - freeware Launch bar type app.
Stargate Link Boss - http://www.lincolnbeach.com/stargate.asp - shareware $20 Launch panel app.
Shell Search - http://www.harmonyhollow.net/ss.shtml - freeware Similar to find and run robot.
MCL - http://mlin.net/MCL.shtml - freeware Similar to Tray Command Line but with some nice addons.
CMDBar - http://www.pitrinec.com/pcb_index.htm - shareware Persistent bar on screen that lets you type commands and has other functions.
Smart Launch - http://www.pxcompany.com/en/sl/index.shtml - shareware $18
1st TurboRun - http://www.turborun.com - shareware $25
CrossLaunch - http://methodik.pixelarmy.org/readme.html - freeware
JetStart - http://www.codesector.com/jetstart.asp - shareware $19.95
ESP - http://www.espsw.com/index.php - shareware $10 - very close in functionality and approach.
SlickRun - http://www.bayden.com/SlickRun/ - freeware
Run! - http://crimsonfan.altervista.org/ - freeware
AppRocket - http://www.candylabs.com/approcket/ - shareware (.net) $18
QuickFind - http://mitglied.lycos.de/quickfind/ - freeware
Rock-It-Launcher - http://www.brunswim.com/RIL/
PC-Com - http://www.boletrice.com/pccom
Ava Find - http://www.think-less-do-more.com/avafind/
Luanch-n-go - http://www.tethyssolutions.com/launch-n-go.htm - shareware
FileTracer - http://www.filetracer.com/ - shareware
Task Tracker - http://tasktracker.wordwisesolutions.com/index.html - shareware
Instant Document Search - http://www.sowsoft.com/document-search.htm - shareware
Getchoo - http://alilm.needlemen.com/drupal/?q=node/2 - donationware
CuteType - http://www.tooto.com/cutetype/ - shareware
RunFast - http://www.idiogensoftware.com/runfast/index.htm - freeware
ZenKey - http://www.camiweb.com/zenkey/index.htm - freeware
KbStart - http://www.kbstart.com/ - shareware
Mayk - http://www.beotel.net/~darkdst/ - freeware
Locate - http://locate32.webhop.org/ - Freeware
FastFind - http://www.guyswithtowels.com/dev/apps/fastfind.html - Freeware
99 Useful Run Commands - http://www.fixmyxp.com/content/view/20/42/
Type and Run - http://galanc.com/index.html?page=5&lang=en - Freeware
Filehand - http://www.filehand.com/
Trip - http://trip.glenmurphy.com - freeware
Launchy - http://www.launchy.net/
VistaGlance - http://www.vistaglance.com/vg_screenshots.html
Triniaut - http://trininaut.sourceforge.net/
Faster Than Ever - http://www.yazalim.com/products/fte/index.htm - freeware
yubnub - http://www.yubnub.org/ - free web service
Semex - http://smx.wickedorange.com/?page_id=3
Direct Access - http://www.nagarsoft.com
FindOnClick - http://www.2brightsparks.com/foc/index.html
http://www.zchromosome.com/

Kill specific tasks from MsBuild

2007-07-02T07:15:00.001-07:00

This is an example that presents the way - how to kill the processes in MSBUILD script.It's very useful when you need to shutdown some application or services - to prevent the script from failing because the running processes are locked .I use well known OS command "Taskkill" with two arguments /F (Specifies to forcefully terminate process) and /IM (Specifies the image name of the process that has to be terminated. Wildcard '*' can be used to specify all image names).

Free Powershell book with examples

2007-06-14T12:11:00.001-07:00

MS offers PowerShell book for free.The book can be used with or without the demo files available at Frank Koch's(MS Technology Advisor ) blog.The book introduces you a short articles with many examples about the interaction with Windows PowerShell as well as some hints how to use other objects like WMI, .NET or COM objects like Excel or IE.

Technorati tags: book, microsoft, powershell

A new beta of JetBrains refactoring tool is available for download

2007-05-31T11:45:00.001-07:00

Now providing unparalleled support for C#, Visual Basic .NET, XML, XAML, and ASP.NET, including comprehensive cross-language functionality.

New Features

Unit Test Explorer
Go To Symbol
To-do List
XML and XAML Support
- Various quick-fixes and context actions in XML
- Code completion in XML
Code Analysis for C# Code

ReSharper 3.0 Beta is only a pre-release build of ReSharper 3.0. The final version 3.0 release is scheduled for the end of June, 2007. If you purchase ReSharper for VS .NET 2003 or ReSharper for VS 2005 now, you will qualify for free upgrade to version 3.0 when it becomes available.

Download Full Edition

Download C# Edition

Download Visual Basic Edition

System.Reflection - FieldInfo class

2007-05-30T12:54:00.001-07:00

A FieldInfo class provides detailed information about a single field of a class or an interface. The reflected field may be a static field or an instance field. The FieldInfoSpy example shows how to obtain the field information of a class including the access modifiers, type etc:

using System;
using System.Reflection;

namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
internal class FieldInfoSpy
{
private static void Main(string[] args)
{
    Type type = typeof (Car);

    //query type 
    FieldInfo[] fieldInfos = type.GetFields(
        //Specifies that instance members are to be included in the search. 
        BindingFlags.Instance |
        //Specifies that non-public members are to be included in the search. 
        BindingFlags.NonPublic |
        //Specifies that public members are to be included in the search. 
        BindingFlags.Public |
        //Specifies that static members are to be included in the search. 
        BindingFlags.Static); 


    foreach (FieldInfo fieldInfo in fieldInfos)
    {
        Console.WriteLine(
            "Name:{0},Type:{1},Public:{2},Static:{3},Readonly:{4}",
                          fieldInfo.Name,
                          fieldInfo.FieldType.FullName,
                          fieldInfo.IsPublic,
                          fieldInfo.IsStatic,
                          fieldInfo.IsInitOnly
            );
    }

    Console.ReadLine();
}
}

internal class Car
{
public bool broken;
private static string vendor;
public readonly string owner;
private int age;
protected string name;
}
}

A sample of the output follows:

Name:broken,Type:System.Boolean,Public:True,Static:False,Readonly:False
Name:owner,Type:System.String,Public:True,Static:False,Readonly:True
Name:age,Type:System.Int32,Public:False,Static:False,Readonly:False
Name:name,Type:System.String,Public:False,Static:False,Readonly:False
Name:vendor,Type:System.String,Public:False,Static:True,Readonly:False

New open source .NET blogging platform - BlogEngine.NET 1.0 Released

2007-05-24T10:26:00.001-07:00

Open source .NET blogging platform with nice set of features is available for download here

Variety of widgets
Commenting system
Syndication support (RSS, Atom, and Feedburner)
Support for Metaweblog API
Support for Trackbacks / Pingbacks
Blog search
Referrer stats
Theme creation

BlogEngine.NET Documentation Wiki

[Via Al Nyveldt blog]

A Spy++ like utility for WPF applications

2007-05-14T15:12:00.001-07:00

The nice tool called Snoop that I found useful while developing and debugging WPF Applications.

Features

Browse the visual tree of running WPF applications.
Inspect properties of elements at runtime.
Edit properties of elements at runtime.
Inspect RoutedEvents that are occurring, including the elements that handle them.
Magnify sections of the User Interface.
Locate and debug binding bugs.

Documentation
Download

Technorati tags: WPF, XAML, dotnet

Rhino Mocks 3.0 is available for download

2007-03-28T15:48:00.001-07:00

A dynamic mock object framework for the .Net platform. It's purpose is to ease testing by allowing the developer to create mock implementations of custom objects and verify the interactions using unit testing.
Rhino.Mocks is an attempt to create easier way to build and use mock objects and allow better refactoring support from the current tools. It's a hybrid approach between the pure Record/Replay of EasyMock.Net's model and NMock's expectation based model. Rhino.Mocks originated from EasyMock.Net and attempt to improve on their model to create easy to use and power mocking framework. It's free for use and modification for open source and commercial software.
Licensing: Rhino Mocks is Free Software which is released under the BSD license.

New features:

Generic Methods (at last!)
Support arrays of value types as out parameters
Support non-CLS Compliant value types such as UInt64
Better error messages when using generic delegate methods on generic types
Generally faster
Using Dynamic Proxy 2 - better performance, better code-base, full support for wierd generic scenarios.
Text.* constraints can now be used to evaluate non strings as well, by calling the ToString() method. Useful for things such as the Criteria API in NHibernate.

Download binaries and code

S3 Change Explorer

2007-03-13T11:30:00.001-07:00

Solidcore S3 Change Explorer is a change tracking and data analytics tool for your desktop. It keeps track of all changes on your system, and provides detailed analysis of those changes, including who made them, when, and how.

[Via Larkware News]

A collection of Microsoft.NET class libraries that implement web content syndication specifications

2007-03-06T13:30:00.001-08:00

Argotic is a collection of Microsoft.NET class libraries that implement common web content syndication specifications such as RSS 2.0 and ATOM 1.0. With the Argotic components, consuming syndication feeds or generating your own custom feeds has never been easier. Argotic has been designed to provide developers with a flexible provider model for storing and retrieving syndication feed information to and from the back-end database of their choice. Argotic also provides an extensible framework that allows developers to easily handle the large number of extensions in use by today's syndication specifications.

Features Overview

Complete implementation of the RSS 2.0 specification.
Complete implementation of the ATOM 1.0 specification.
Implements a provider model for storing/retrieving syndication information to your back-end database of choice.
Provides an extensible framework for processing any syndication specification extension.
Natively handles the RCF822 and W3C DateTime structures.
Support for auto-discovery of syndication feeds for a given web site.
Supports consumption of secure/authenticated syndication feeds.
Implementations of the most common syndication specification extensions.

Download Argotic

Propertygrid: How to show only specific file extensions?

2007-02-04T14:32:00.000-08:00

Use Editor Attribute

[DisplayName("Resume")]
[Description("Resume File Name")]
[Editor(typeof(DocFileEditor), typeof(UITypeEditor))]
public string ResumeFile
{
    get
    {
        return _ResumeFile;
    }
    set
    {
        _ResumeFile = value;
    }
}

Override InitializeDialog method and provide Filter string that describes allowed file extensions

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Windows.Forms.Design;

namespace WindowsApplication1
{
class DocFileEditor : FileNameEditor
{
    ///<summary>
    ///Initializes the open file dialog when it is created.
    ///</summary>
    ///
    ///<param name="openFileDialog">The <see cref="T:System.Windows.Forms.OpenFileDialog">
</see> to use to select a file name. </param>
    protected override void InitializeDialog(OpenFileDialog openFileDialog)
    {
        openFileDialog.CheckFileExists = false;
        openFileDialog.Filter = "Doc files (*.doc)|*.doc|All files (*.*)|*.*";

    }
}
}

PropertyGrid: How to make specific property read only ?

2007-01-27T16:22:00.000-08:00

Use ReadOnly attribute or remove set accessor ...

[ReadOnly(true)]
public int Age
{
    get
    {
        return _Age;
    }
    set
    {
        _Age = value;
    }
}

source(russian)

PropertyGrid: How to group properties by category?

2007-01-27T16:17:00.000-08:00

Use Category attribute .Note that properties without the attribute will be shown uder category named "Misc"

[DisplayName("First Name")]
[Description("First Name of the person")]
[Category("Personality")]
public string FirstName
{
    get
    {
        return _FirstName;
    }
    set
    {
        _FirstName = value;
    }
}


[Category("Specific")]
public Color HairColor
{
    get
    {
        return _HairColor;
    }
    set
    {
        _HairColor = value;
    }
}

source(russian)