IUpdateable from Eric Nelson

Fix to blank LightSwitch app bug with Visual Studio 2012

ericnel — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:25:35 +0000

I needed to populate a database I’m designing with some test data and thought to myself “LightSwitch will be ideal to knock out some screens”.

One hour later I got a LightSwitch screen to actually display! Until then all I got when running it in Desktop mode (the default) was a blank window hosting Silverlight (right click to verify)

After lots of searching and playing around I found the answer near the end of this very long thread.

Navigate to the Client.Properties folder inside your project
Open OutofBrowserSettings.xml
Change to
And you may also want to then make the file readonly

Now, when this happens again I will be able to find my own post to resolve it! Enjoy!

P.S. This isn’t specific to Visual Studio 2012 … but the post title corresponds to how I was searching

Blend for Visual Studio 2012 nice touch #2

ericnel — Tue, 21 May 2013 15:32:25 +0000

Following on from nice touch #1…

I disliked the way old versions of Blend relied on something as a subtle as a few pixels of colour to tell you something relatively important.

Circa 2010

Circa 2013

although admittedly this doesn’t appear to be universal across all properties.

Thank you.

Blend for Visual Studio 2012 nice touch #1

ericnel — Tue, 21 May 2013 15:00:03 +0000

[Really I’m just testing out twitterfeed which has failed for me… but I needed something to post on ]

I’m just skimming through some blend tips by Mike from 2010 and spotted a nice touch in Blend for Visual Studio 2012 I hadn’t noticed before (amongst no doubt hundreds of improvements )

When working with grids and rows (or columns) you now get a lovely visual indicator with in place editing, rather than needing to visit properties.

circa 2010 (from this post)

circa 2013

Accessing SharePoint from the browser…

ericnel — Sun, 19 May 2013 14:28:03 +0000

SharePoint was created by Microsoft when a) Internet Explorer (IE) was by far the most widely used web browser on Windows PCs (I was at Microsoft during the “browser wars” which lead to IE being dominant in 2001 when SharePoint emerged) and b) people pretty much only ever used PCs to browse the web. Oddly enough for many years, SharePoint worked great when accessed from a Windows PC using IE and … sometimes was simply impossible to use when you strayed too far away from this pairing.

Roll forward 10+ years and things have changed significantly. In the course of their day to day lives people use many devices and many browsers. Across my tablet, phone, desktop development pc, laptop and gaming pc I use at least 5 different browsers.

The good news is the SharePoint development team were well aware of this change and in recent versions and updates have worked hard to allow SharePoint to be used from a variety of browsers.

Last Friday this topic came up at the Back to basics with SharePoint session held at my office in Durham. Which caused me to have a look for a succinct summary of cross browser support across different versions of SharePoint. My timing was spot on. Joel has just published a blog post which contains his SharePoint Browser Comparison Report Card. Screenshot here – but really just to encourage you to visit his post.

Thanks Joel.

Back to basics with SharePoint event in Durham, Friday 24th May

ericnel — Sun, 19 May 2013 14:04:55 +0000

At Microsoft (not surprisingly ) we used SharePoint extensively to support the work of individuals, teams, groups and organisations. It was simply how we got things done. How we managed complexity, how we collaborated, how we remained productive.

What did we do before SharePoint? Well, we used a lot (and I mean a LOT) of server shares. Yes, you can get stuff done but it isn’t efficient, it isn’t fun and it is fraught with dangers. Unfortunately many companies still operate this way. Indeed many companies that have SharePoint are barely using the capabilities it offers to help run their businesses.

Which is why I am pleased to see the bespoke development team in my new company taking time out from coding to run a series of events which are “code free” but look at how organisations can benefit from adopting (and better still embracing) SharePoint. If your company is based near Durham then they are most definitely worth checking out.

Next session is:

Back to basics with SharePoint: Supporting business processes using SharePoint >>>
11.45am, Friday 24th May, Waterstons Durham office

P.S. And the ginger cake they serve up at these events is fabulous!

I have a permanent desk and a shiny development pc :-)

ericnel — Tue, 07 May 2013 22:07:49 +0000

Day one back at work. My first permanent desk in 13 years and first works desktop pc (mini-tower to be exact) in 16 years. Complete with two shiny new monitors and a first aid kit for the car.

Things do not get better than this

T-1 day and counting – I’m back (nearly)

ericnel — Mon, 06 May 2013 10:38:20 +0000

After 4 months away from work, tomorrow I set out boldly from the Yorkshire Moors to Durham to find a desk at my new company, Waterstons – who I am really chuffed to be joining.

“Normal” service will be returning to this blog in due course…

Hope you all have had a wonderful 2013 so far. For me it has been excellent – the four months have flown by with the time filled with setting up a new home in Yorkshire, family, holidays and diy. But I am excited (super excited – MS joke ) to be heading back to work, especially in a development centric role.

So long, and thanks for all the fish

ericnel — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 10:19:10 +0000

After 16 great years with Microsoft, Friday 21st is my last working day. I am spending it in our new home in the chilly North York Moors with the company of sheep, rabbits, grouse and a rather fine bottle of Yamazaki Whisky bought by my friends in Microsoft DPE. The Whisky apparently has the subtle taste of peach, cookie and vanilla – which should be easy to identify when I consume it as a chaser to the cider with a sherry top also bought for me

A massive thank you to everyone who made those 16 years so much fun. I will miss so many of you. The good news is I will be keeping this blog going … hence I won’t really have gone far

Have a wonderful Christmas and a fun 2013

…which is certainly my plan.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Related Links:

1996 to 2012 – still no evidence… I give up!

Windows 8 – a small demonstration :-)

ericnel — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 14:22:14 +0000

Smile … then chuckle at the last 10 seconds

Windows 8

Live streaming 13th and 14th Dec – Windows Store App Development for iOS Developers

ericnel — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 10:44:56 +0000

During the last 6 months I have been working with iOS developers building the first wave of Windows 8 applications for the Windows Store. Pretty much all of them have told me that they enjoyed making the transition to XAML/C#/.NET and Visual Studio 2012.

I have previously posted Resources for iOS developers but today and tomorrow there is something special going on. The Big Nerd Ranch and Microsoft have joined together to deliver two days of training designed to jumpstart your Windows Store app development.

It will be streamed on Channel 9 and The Verge from 4pm UK time.

Don’t miss it.