Jon Erickson

Automate creation of an empty Visual Studio solution

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 09:30:00 -0800

I am by no means an expert at shell scripting, I use cygwin on my windows machine because I want to force myself to learn a cross-platform console environment. A simple thing that I was able to accomplish, which I am pretty pround of is being able to create an empty Visual Studio solution file from cygwin/bash.

As a prerequisite I have an empty Visual Studio solution, a .gitignore, and an .hgignore file synced in my dropbox folder. I have three functions setup to create a fresh solution, one without version control initialized, one with git initialized and one with mercurial initialized. All functions will create a folder with the first parameter passed in (eg. "new-sln solution_name_here") and under that folder will copy the empty solution with the first parameter as the name of the .sln file.

No version control initialized

new-sln()
{
    slnname=$1
    if [ -n "${slnname}" ]
    then
        mkdir ${slnname}
        cd ${slnname}
        mkdir src
        cp "/cygdrive/c/Dropbox/Environment/dotNET/empty.sln" "${slnname}.sln"    
    else
        Echo "must provide name for solution (eg. new-sln name_for_solution)"
    fi
}

With Git initialization

new-sln-git()
{
    slnname=$1  
    if [ -n "${slnname}" ]
    then
        mkdir ${slnname}
        cd ${slnname}
        cp "/cygdrive/c/Dropbox/Environment/dotNET/empty.sln" "${slnname}.sln"
        cp "/cygdrive/c/Dropbox/Environment/Ignores/.gitignore" .
        git init
        git add -A
        git commit -am "initial commit"
    else
        Echo "must provide name for solution (eg. new-sln-git name_for_solution)"
    fi
}

With Mercurial initialization

new-sln-hg()
{
    slnname=$1
    if [ -n "${slnname}" ]
    then
        mkdir ${slnname}
        cd ${slnname}
        cp "/cygdrive/c/Dropbox/Environment/dotNET/empty.sln" "${slnname}.sln"
        cp "/cygdrive/c/Dropbox/Environment/Ignores/.hgignore" .
        hg init
        hg commit -Am "initial commit"
    else
        Echo "must provide name for solution (eg. new-sln-hg name_for_solution)"
    fi
}

I love being able to automated simple tasks such as this. I hope you can find some of this helpful.

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Setup NLog in 5 minutes

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 06:00:00 -0800

Here is a really easy way to write your first logs to a file using NLog:

Right-click references
Click on Manage NuGet References
Make sure the "Online" tab on the left is selected, and search for "NLog"
Install "NLog Schema for Intellisense(TM)" (this will automatically install an xml NLog.config and the xsd file for xml intellisense support and pull in the references needed for NLog)

Open the automatically created NLog.config file and uncomment the sample target and rule, they should look like so:

<target xsi:type="File" name="f" fileName="${basedir}/logs/${shortdate}.log"
        layout="${longdate} ${uppercase:${level}} ${message}" />

<logger name="*" minlevel="Trace" writeTo="f" />

Now you are all set up to log stuff, with the sample configuration whenever you log something it will append it to a {shortdate}.log file under the /logs directory where the executable is run, so if you did something like:

var logger = NLog.LogManager.GetLogger("SampleLogger");
logger.Trace("Logged Trace");
logger.Debug("Logged Debug");
logger.Info("Logged Info");
logger.Warn("Logged Warn");
logger.Error("Logged Error");
logger.Fatal("Logged Fatal");

You'll end up getting this log file:

NLog documentation can be found on the project's site. Happy logging!

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Null-safe property access with some syntactical sugar

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 08:41:00 -0800

A lot of times you want to ensure that a variable/field is not null, you have probably written code that resembles this:

public class MyClass
{
    IList<object> _myObjects;
    public object MyObjects
    {
        get { return _myObjects; }
    }

    public MyClass()
    {
        _myObjects = new List<object>();
    }
}

But, using some syntactical sugar, I just inline the null-check and initialization of the field right in the getter of the property like so:

public class MyClass
{
    IList<object> _myObjects;
    public object MyObjects
    {
        get { return _myObjects = (_myObjects ?? new List<object>()); }
    }
}

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Configuring MSBuild to Auto Update ClickOnce Installations

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 11:10:00 -0800

When we push an update to our ClickOnce application users would get a notification that the application has an update and are forced to have to click OK to accept the update. We don’t want this dialog box to show because it allows the user to Skip the update and it forces them to have to click OK to receive the update.

So I needed to figure out a way to force the update on our users, in order to do this I needed to set 3 properties when calling msbuild during our continuous integration process.

<!-- Publish to Daily Build Location -->
<Target Name="PublishDailyBuild">
    <MSBuild Projects="MyProject.csproj"
             Targets="Clean;Publish"
             Properties="Configuration=Release;
                         Platform=x86;
                         PublishDir=$(DailyBuildDir);
                         PublishUrl=$(DailyBuildDir);
                         InstallUrl=$(DailyBuildDir);
                         ApplicationVersion=$(Version);
                         MinimumRequiredVersion=$(Version);
                         UpdateMode=Foreground;
                         UpdateRequired=True;">
        <Output ItemName="OutputFiles" TaskParameter="TargetOutputs"/>
    </MSBuild>
</Target>

MinimumRequiredVersion - Tells ClickOnce that when it updates this application it should update to this version (however this does not force ClickOnce to perform the update). As you can see we set this to the same version number that the ApplicationVersion is set to so that the MinimumRequiredVersion is always the latest version.
UpdateMode=Foreground - Tells ClickOnce to update the application before it is opened.
UpdateRequired=True - Tells ClickOnce to automatically perform the update.

When all 3 properties were set, the next time the user goes to open the application (via the shortcut in their start menu), ClickOnce will check for updates and automatically install the update while showing the progress indicator to the user. This forces the user to receive the updates and gives them visual notification that they are getting the updates.

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Opening Visual Studio Solutions in Cygwin

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 11:17:00 -0700

I needed a quick way to open a visual studio solution file from within cygwin and this is what I’ve been able to come up with.

1 2	export PATH=$PATH:/cygdrive/c/Program\ Files\ $x86$/Microsoft\ Visual\ Studio\ 10.0/Common7/IDE/ alias sln='devenv *.sln & disown'

The first line ensures that the path to Visual Studio is accessible (devenv.exe) and the second line will start devenv with all solutions in the present working directory (I only ever have one solution file per project, if you have multiple for a project this would probably be annoying since it would open them all).

The ‘disown’ part is key, this forces bash to return to prompt without waiting for devenv to ‘exit’

With this set up all that I have to do is navigate to a directory that contains a .sln solution file and type 'sln' into cygwin.

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Getting Date Time information in TeamCity build configurations

Mon, 11 Oct 2010 14:12:00 -0700

We wanted to integrate the datetime into our build numbers and TeamCity does not natively have date and time information available as part of a system property. Luckily there is a plugin that provides some access to this information called the Groovy plugin.

I will quickly go over how to install this plugin and customizing some of the date outputs.

Download latest successful build of the plugin under the artifacts column here. Make sure to grab the groovyPlug.zip and the .jar files under the application_libs folder.
Copy the groovyPlug.zip file into the BuildServer/plugins directory on the server hosting your TeamCity installation.
Copy all of the .jar files that you downloaded from the artifacts into the webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/lib directory in your TeamCity Home location.
Restart the TeamCity Web Server Windows service.
To verify that the plugin was installed successfully go and edit any build configuration in TeamCity and under the General Settings tab, you can click on the icon in the right-hand side of the Build number format textbox to pop open a list of available parameters, and you will see some additional parameters added by the Groovy plugin that allow you to access date and time information.

Now, if you want to customize the formatting of how the date and/or time appears then you will need to customize the following file: BuilderServer/config/__groovyPlug__/GroovePropertiesProvider.groovy

Add your custom formatted date properties to line 75 (inside of the addBuildStartTime method). I've added the following formatted date properties...

parameters.addEnvAndSystem("build.start.year", (new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy")).format(buildStartTime));
parameters.addEnvAndSystem("build.start.month", (new SimpleDateFormat("MM")).format(buildStartTime));
parameters.addEnvAndSystem("build.start.day", (new SimpleDateFormat("dd")).format(buildStartTime));
parameters.addEnvAndSystem("build.start.hour", (new SimpleDateFormat("HH")).format(buildStartTime));
parameters.addEnvAndSystem("build.start.minute", (new SimpleDateFormat("mm")).format(buildStartTime));
parameters.addEnvAndSystem("build.start.second", (new SimpleDateFormat("ss")).format(buildStartTime));

Documentation to see how to format this date/time can be found here

Pretty simple, and now we can include date and/or time in our builds wherever we see fit (we are using them as part of our build number).

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Attending Windows Phone 7 Launch Event

Fri, 01 Oct 2010 13:49:00 -0700

I'll be attending the Windows Phone 7 Launch Day event in Bellevue, WA.

I'm pretty excited for this phone to release and to start playing with the dev tools.

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Encapsulating Lists in Entities

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 10:57:00 -0700

Working with Aggregate Roots really helps enforce integrity of your data since data manipulation is modeled as behaviors. Exposing a collection of entities that is being managed by the aggregate can be tricky though...

Let us say that you have an AddressBook aggregate that contains Contacts. You may want to expose the Contacts to a client (via an IEnumerable property) but modifactions to that list of Contacts should only be modeled as behaviors on the AddressBook (ie. the Add method implemented below).

 public class AddressBook
 {
     public IEnumerable<Contact> Contacts
     {
         get { return _contacts; }
     }
 
     public AddressBook()
     {
         _contacts = new List();
     }
 
     private IList<Contact> _contacts;
 
     public void AddContact(Contact contact)
     {
         _contacts.Add(contact);
     }
 }

You may feel that this is enough encapsulation to prevent modification to the list of Contacts, but you can still get access to the list of Contacts. All the client would have to do is cast the Contacts property to an IList<Contacts>, since all we are doing is passing the reference to our internal Contacts list out as IEnumerable.

1
2
3

 var addressBook = new AddressBook();
 // add some contacts...
 ((IList<Contact>)addressBook.Contacts).Add(new Contact("Some", "One"));

A good way to prevent this is to return the contacts from our Aggregate via the yield keyword in C#. This forces the framework to dynamically create a new IEnumerable reference.

public IEnumerable<Contact> Contacts
{
    get
    {
        foreach (var contact in _contacts)
        {
            yield return contact;
        }
    }
}

We can even go a step further by implementing a simple extension method. I called it ToEnumerable<T> as it has a similar feel as ToList<T>.

public static IEnumerable<T> ToEnumerable<T>(this IEnumerable<T> list)
{
    list = list ?? new List<T>();

    foreach (var item in list)
    {
        yield return item;
    }
}

Now our property looks like so in our Aggregate, nice and clean =)

public IEnumerable<Contact> Enumerable
{
    get { return _contacts.ToEnumerable(); }
}

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Domain-Driven Design Resources

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 13:00:00 -0700

The following resources/people have been the largest influence on how I have learned and applied domain driven design in the past year or so.

Blogs & Sites

Source Code Examples

Presentations & Videos

Books

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Visual Studio Theme

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 08:22:00 -0700

I've posted my Visual Studio fonts and color settings over at studiostyles.info and as a bonus I've also exported a registry script (shown in the gist below) that will apply all of these fonts and colors to SQL Server Management Studio.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
 
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Shell\FontAndColors\{A27B4E24-A735-4D1D-B8E7-9716E1E3D8E0}]
"Colorable item format version"=dword:00000008
"Plain Text Foreground"=dword:00e0e0e0
"Plain Text Background"=dword:00303030
"Plain Text FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"Selected Text Foreground"=dword:00000000
"Selected Text Background"=dword:00c0c0c0
"Selected Text FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"Inactive Selected Text Foreground"=dword:02000000
"Inactive Selected Text Background"=dword:02000000
"Inactive Selected Text FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"Indicator Margin Foreground"=dword:0100000b
"Indicator Margin Background"=dword:00404040
"Indicator Margin FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"Line Numbers Foreground"=dword:00adadad
"Line Numbers Background"=dword:00303030
"Line Numbers FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"Visible White Space Foreground"=dword:01000009
"Visible White Space Background"=dword:02000000
"Visible White Space FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"Bookmark Foreground"=dword:0100000b
"Bookmark Background"=dword:00f9d2bf
"Bookmark FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"Brace Matching (Rectangle) Foreground"=dword:02000000
"Brace Matching (Rectangle) Background"=dword:00949494
"Brace Matching (Rectangle) FontFlags"=dword:00000001
"Code Snippet Field Foreground"=dword:02000000
"Code Snippet Field Background"=dword:00004000
"Code Snippet Field FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"Collapsible Text Foreground"=dword:0100000b
"Collapsible Text Background"=dword:01000003
"Collapsible Text FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"Comment Foreground"=dword:0000fc7c
"Comment Background"=dword:02000000
"Comment FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"Compiler Error Foreground"=dword:0000ffff
"Compiler Error Background"=dword:02000000
"Compiler Error FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"Current list location Foreground"=dword:0100000e
"Current list location Background"=dword:01000007
"Current list location FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"Definition Window Background Foreground"=dword:01000002
"Definition Window Background Background"=dword:0100000a
"Definition Window Background FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"Definition Window Current Match Foreground"=dword:01000000
"Definition Window Current Match Background"=dword:02000000
"Definition Window Current Match FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"Identifier Foreground"=dword:00c0daed
"Identifier Background"=dword:02000000
"Identifier FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"Keyword Foreground"=dword:00ffc440
"Keyword Background"=dword:02000000
"Keyword FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"MDX Function Foreground"=dword:01000004
"MDX Function Background"=dword:02000000
"MDX Function FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"MDX Property Foreground"=dword:01000004
"MDX Property Background"=dword:02000000
"MDX Property FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"Number Foreground"=dword:02000000
"Number Background"=dword:02000000
"Number FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"Other Error Foreground"=dword:0000ff00
"Other Error Background"=dword:02000000
"Other Error FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"Read-Only Region Foreground"=dword:01000002
"Read-Only Region Background"=dword:00303030
"Read-Only Region FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"Smart Tag Foreground"=dword:0000ffff
"Smart Tag Background"=dword:02000000
"Smart Tag FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"SQL Operator Foreground"=dword:00c0c0c0
"SQL Operator Background"=dword:02000000
"SQL Operator FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"SQL Stored Procedure Foreground"=dword:0000ffff
"SQL Stored Procedure Background"=dword:02000000
"SQL Stored Procedure FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"SQL String Foreground"=dword:00ff80ff
"SQL String Background"=dword:02000000
"SQL String FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"SQL System Function Foreground"=dword:0000ffff
"SQL System Function Background"=dword:02000000
"SQL System Function FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"SQL System Table Foreground"=dword:0000ffff
"SQL System Table Background"=dword:02000000
"SQL System Table FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"SQLCMD Command Foreground"=dword:01000002
"SQLCMD Command Background"=dword:0100000a
"SQLCMD Command FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"String Foreground"=dword:02000000
"String Background"=dword:02000000
"String FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"Task List Shortcut Foreground"=dword:01000002
"Task List Shortcut Background"=dword:0100000f
"Task List Shortcut FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"Template Parameter Foreground"=dword:01000009
"Template Parameter Background"=dword:02000000
"Template Parameter FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"Track Changes after save Foreground"=dword:02000000
"Track Changes after save Background"=dword:0100000d
"Track Changes after save FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"Track Changes before save Foreground"=dword:02000000
"Track Changes before save Background"=dword:0100000e
"Track Changes before save FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"Warning Foreground"=dword:00008000
"Warning Background"=dword:02000000
"Warning FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"XML Attribute Name Foreground"=dword:0100000c
"XML Attribute Name Background"=dword:02000000
"XML Attribute Name FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"XML Element Name Foreground"=dword:01000004
"XML Element Name Background"=dword:02000000
"XML Element Name FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"XML Tag Delimiter Foreground"=dword:00ffc440
"XML Tag Delimiter Background"=dword:02000000
"XML Tag Delimiter FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"FontName"="Consolas"
"FontPointSize"=dword:0000000c
"FontCharSet"=dword:00000000
"Brace Matching (Highlight) Foreground"=dword:004080ff
"Brace Matching (Highlight) Background"=dword:02000000
"Brace Matching (Highlight) FontFlags"=dword:00000001
"Breakpoint (Disabled) Foreground"=dword:00ffffff
"Breakpoint (Disabled) Background"=dword:00303030
"Breakpoint (Disabled) FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"Code Snippet Dependent Field Foreground"=dword:02000000
"Code Snippet Dependent Field Background"=dword:02000000
"Code Snippet Dependent Field FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"Disassembly Symbol Foreground"=dword:00c0c0c0
"Disassembly Symbol Background"=dword:02000000
"Disassembly Symbol FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"Memory Changed Foreground"=dword:004080ff
"Memory Changed Background"=dword:02000000
"Memory Changed FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"Refactoring Background Foreground"=dword:01000002
"Refactoring Background Background"=dword:00303030
"Refactoring Background FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"Refactoring Current Field Foreground"=dword:02000000
"Refactoring Current Field Background"=dword:00ff8080
"Refactoring Current Field FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"Refactoring Dependent Field Foreground"=dword:000000ff
"Refactoring Dependent Field Background"=dword:02000000
"Refactoring Dependent Field FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"Stale Code Foreground"=dword:00fb00fb
"Stale Code Background"=dword:02000000
"Stale Code FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"XML Attribute Foreground"=dword:00c0daed
"XML Attribute Background"=dword:02000000
"XML Attribute FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"XML Attribute Quotes Foreground"=dword:00ff80ff
"XML Attribute Quotes Background"=dword:02000000
"XML Attribute Quotes FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"XML Attribute Value Foreground"=dword:00ff80ff
"XML Attribute Value Background"=dword:02000000
"XML Attribute Value FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"XML CData Section Foreground"=dword:00adadad
"XML CData Section Background"=dword:02000000
"XML CData Section FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"XML Comment Foreground"=dword:0000fc7c
"XML Comment Background"=dword:02000000
"XML Comment FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"XML Delimiter Foreground"=dword:00ffc440
"XML Delimiter Background"=dword:02000000
"XML Delimiter FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"XML Keyword Foreground"=dword:00ffc440
"XML Keyword Background"=dword:02000000
"XML Keyword FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"XML Name Foreground"=dword:00ffc440
"XML Name Background"=dword:02000000
"XML Name FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"XML Text Foreground"=dword:00ffffff
"XML Text Background"=dword:02000000
"XML Text FontFlags"=dword:00000000
"XSLT Keyword Foreground"=dword:00ffc440
"XSLT Keyword Background"=dword:02000000
"XSLT Keyword FontFlags"=dword:00000000

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The applications I install on my machine

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 09:19:00 -0700

For those interested in seeing what I use on a daily/weekly basis in terms of installed applications.

Applications

7-zip - zip file management
AutoHotkey - custom windows automation scripting
Chrome Dev channel - my default web browser
CutePDF Writer - print to pdf
DisplayFusion Pro - multiple monitor management w/ taskbar on each monitor
Dropbox - cloud file sync (has iPhone app)
Evernote - cloud note sync (has iPhone app)
FileHippo Update Checker - helps keep my applications up-to-date
FileZilla FTP Client - ftp
Firefox - web browser (use for development because nothing beats firebug)
Folder Size - quickly scan hdd to see what files and folders are taking up the most space
iTunes - necessary evil because I have an iPhone
KeePass - password management (I sync the password database w/ dropbox)
Launchy - customizable application launcher
Notepad Replacer - allows me to set notepad++ as the default notepad (so when I double-click a *.txt file it opens in notepad++)
Notepad++ - my favorite alternative to notepad
Office Standard - just need word, excel, and outlook
Paint.NET - easy to use free image editor
PureText - allows you to paste without formatting (win+v), so useful
Screenpresso - screenshot utility w/ a good set of features
Speccy - quickly scan hardware specs on a machine
Sumatra PDF Reader - lightweight pdf reader
Trillian Astra - im client
TweetDeck - twitter client
uTorrent - best torrent client (I automatically set up my HTPC to load torrents from a dropbox synced folder so I can start torrents from any PC at home)
uTorrent Web - web application to access uTorrent on my HTPC remotely
Virtual Clone Drive - mount iso images
VLC Media - best media player
WinSplit Revolution - allows me to position windows in customized tile format
Xobni - outlook plugin

Development Specific

Beyond Compare - 3-way diff/merge tool
ColorPic - get rgb/hex color code of pixel under mouse
Console2 - best windows console replacement
Fiddler2 - http traffic inspection
Firebug - inspect/analyze/log websites, invaluable development tool
Hg / Git / SVN - primarily use mercurial, but install all 3 so that I can pull source-code from repositories
RegexBuddy - build and test regular expressions
ReSharper - visual studio productivity enhancement
SQL Server Management Studio - manage SQL server instances
SSMS Tools Pack - plugin for SQL management studio, has some useful features
Visual Studio Ultimate - primary IDE
VisualHg - visual studio plugin for mercurial, just use it for the icons in visual studio, I use CLI in Console2 for all Hg commands.

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Screenshot Tools

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 10:17:00 -0700

Anna asked me the other day about the best way to take screenshots in Windows 7. There is a not-so-well-known tool that Windows 7 comes with called the Snipping Tool, that should be more well known.

Personally though, I used a great (and free) alternative called Screenpresso.

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The surprising truth about what motivates us...

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 22:45:00 -0700

This video was linked off of Jeff Atwood’s blog entry posted earlier today. It is an amazing video that explores what motivates professionals.

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SSD

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 22:37:00 -0700

I’ve just installed an 80gb Intel SSD in my MBP that I got off of Newegg. I’ve been using an SSD at work for the past 6 months and I don’t think I can go back to a mechanical drive.

As a side note, I admire Apple’s attention to detail in designing their products, the insides of a MBP are as nice as the outside.

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