From the Life of A Developing Developer

TextGen v0.2 released: COM interop

2010-11-26T11:12:00.001+01:00

Recently I released TextGen v0.2 on CodePlex.

There are two major things added to this version:

Interface for COM Clients

TextGen now provides an interface for the usage by COM clients.

Since the original public API is partially based on generics, the API exposed to COM had to provide different methods for those parts.

To get started with the API visible to COM, please refer to the Access demo file that is included in the package. Shell scripts to create and register/unregister the TypeLib are included.

Download Package

With v0.2 a zip-file with all necessary files is available. So there’s no need to compile yourself. Just use TextGen from your application.

Have fun and provide feedback!

Podcast “Anwendungsentwicklung mit WPF” veröffentlicht

2010-11-25T14:41:00.001+01:00

(This is a German post since it is about a podcast in German language.)

Mein Arbeitgeber TechTalk bietet unter dem Titel “On TechTalk’s Mind” eine Serie von Podcasts an.

Es freut mich, dass ich den dritten in dieser Serie veröffentlichten Podcast zum Thema “Anwendungsentwicklung mit der Windows Presentation Foundation” ankündigen darf.

In dieser Folge spreche ich mit meiner Kollegin Claudia Oster, Usability-Expertin bei TechTalk und mit meinem Kollegen Stephan Zehetner über die Auswirkungen des Einsatzes von WPF auf das Zusammenspiel zwischen Usability-Experten, Designern und Entwicklern in einem großen Softwareentwicklungs-Projekt. Wir sprechen darüber ob die mit WPF wieder einmal versprochene Trennung dieser Aspekte der Anwendungsentwicklung nun tatsächlich funktioniert.

Die Vorbereitung, Durchführung und Nachbearbeitung dieses Podcasts waren sehr spannend und haben großen Spaß gemacht. Ich habe viel Zeit und Energie hineingesteckt, aber auch sehr viel gelernt.

Die nächste Folge ist in Vorbereitung!

Workshop “Testen in Access”

2010-11-25T14:31:00.001+01:00

(This post is in German since it is about a workshop held in German)

Nach meinen Vorträgen zum Thema “Pragmatisches Testen in Access” auf der diesjährigen AEK freut es mich auch einen Workshop zum Thema “Testen in Access” anbieten zu können.

Dieser Workshop findet am 26./27. Jänner 2011 in Hannover statt.

Themen:

Grobüberblick UnitTesting/TDD

Anwendung testbar machen

Was konkret testen?

Wie testen?

Wie Änderungen implementieren?

Features von AccUnit

Details und Anmeldung sind hier möglich: http://www.techtalk.at/About-us/News/Events/Workshop--Testen-in-Access.aspx

Message from MSTest: No tests were run because no tests are loaded or the selected tests are disabled.

2010-11-25T14:22:00.001+01:00

Today, MSTest annoyed me again, as it did once before (see the post Message in Visual Studio 2010: Changes to your tests are no longer automatically displayed).

When running the test-suite of TextGen, I discovered, that one test was not run at all.

The test seemed to be ok. Neither the test class nor the test method were ignored:

But when I tried to execute the test, Visual Studio issued the following message, and the test was not run:

Message from MSTest: “No tests were run because no tests are loaded or the selected tests are disabled.”

I did not understand that and Google did not provide any satisfactory answers, just some conjectures.

So I played around a bit: If I changed just a single character of the method’s name, MSTest executed the test again. If I renamed that test, but added a new test method with the name in question, it resulted in the same message.

Thus, it’s all about the test method’s name!

Somewhere it must be stored that a test method with that name shall be treated as disabled. Smells like test run configuration, which sounds like the vsmdi-file in the context of MSTest. Doubleclicking my vsmdi-file showed me a list of all my tests (“test list”) – and my test was shown in gray:

But why that?

Now the path left to go was not all too long: Inspecting the properties of the test revealed the guilty, the test was disabled:

I’ve had no idea why this property was set to false, since I was not aware of it’s very existence, but that was the reason.

Again – easy if you know. But one can fall into despair, when you just want to run your neat little test but you can’t.

BTW, ReSharper-test runner for MSTest ran the test nevertheless. But – test first is much faster with the native MSTest test runner.

TextGen 0.1 released

2010-11-16T13:48:00.001+01:00

It is a pleasure to announce that recently I released version 0.1 of TextGen – Another Template Based Text Generator on CodePlex (textgen.codeplex.com).

The main impetus for TextGen was the need to have a library for doing code generation as simple as possible. Since I didn’t like very much what I saw with things like T4, I decided to write my own library.

For the moment it is feature rich enough to provide template based generation of simple classes (a UnitTest for a VB6 class module is included in the sources).

Apropos UnitTests: I did the project almost strictly test-first. “Almost” because there are for example getters in Exception-classes that I wrote (or better: let ReSharper generate for me) because I wanted to have them and that are so trivial to be almost tested by inspection (just kidding).

I will provide additional information in the future. But for now, that’s it for the very first announcement.

Have fun (and give feedback)!

PDF-Export in PowerPoint 2010: Beware of accessibility Option!

2010-10-26T00:43:00.002+02:00

In Office 2010, the export to PDF is included out-of-the-box simply via the Save as feature.

That’s nice and neat, but be aware that by default, the resulting PDF is enhanced by accessibility tags. These tags may result in unwanted tooltip windows on hovering an image in Adobe Reader:

You can overcome this by invoking the Options dialog directly from the Save as dialog:

Here you can deselect the corresponding option:

Unfortunately this has to be done before every export.

Four simple Things to please your Audience when Presenting with Code

2010-10-17T00:17:00.001+02:00

If you have to show source code in a presentation, there are a few easy things you can do to improve your audience’s experience:

Use a larger Font

It’s obvious that for many people reading source code presented with a font size of 10 Pt might be a problem. In mid to large size rooms it will be next to impossible for many of your listeners to decipher it.

Visual Studio 2010 with default font

In my presentation when showing source code directly from some IDE, I use a font size of 14 Pt. Even with large rooms there never was a problem with that size.

Visual Studio 2010 with font in 14pt

Set you Selection Back color to yellow

A typical mistake with novice presenters is to select portions of source when they want to emphasize on that code. What works well on the laptop’s screen turns out to be even counterproductive. For the audience, the typical white letters on darkblue background just produce an unreadable mess of pixels.

Visual Basic for Applications IDE with selected text in default color scheme

When recently watching some video of Roy Osherove I had a real epiphany: when he showed sourcecode in Visual Studio, he highlighted it with a bright yellow background. Not only does this not infer the readability of the code. Moreover it is rather intuitive since we are used to that textmarker-like effect.

Visual Basic for Applications IDE with selected text with yellow textmarker-like selection color

Hide unneeded Tools

Modern IDEs provide a vast amount of features and tools resulting in a number of toolwindows and commandbars. For the purpose of the demo you are doing just a few of the toolwindows in your IDE may be really needed.

Visual Studio 2010 with many open tool windows

Thus, just hide them so that your audience can focus the code you’re showing. I recommend not just to collapse the unneeded tools – also hide the tool’s tabs.

Visual Studio 2010 with almost no tool windows

Use Full Screen Mode

Even after hiding the tool windows there remains a lot of clutter consuming screen real estate, such as the commandbars. If you feel the need to remove that distraction as well, your IDE may provide some full screen mode.

In Visual Studio you can enter the full screen mode by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Enter.

Visual Studio 2010 in full screen mode

I hope I could show you that even when presenting with code directly from you IDE, the usability of your demo can be greatly advanced by considering simple tips.

Commenting with ReSharper 5 and Visual Studio 2010

2010-10-16T18:17:00.001+02:00

No doubt, ReSharper is great. ReSharper 5 for with Visual Studio 2010 is even greater.

Unfortunately with the new default keyboard shortcuts in ReSharper 5 at least one convenient shortcut has been changed.

In previous versions of ReSharper, by pressing Ctrl+7 (not the function key F7!) the current line (or lines if several were selected) have been commented out using the double slash single line comment. If the selected lines already were commented out, that slashes had been removed.

Bookmarking overruled commenting

With ReSharper 5 by default the shortcut Ctrl+7 is assigned to a new feature – bookmarking. To go to a specific numbered bookmark you now can press any the keys 0 to 9 while holding down the Ctrl-key.

So when you first try to use your line commenting feature by pressing Ctrl+7 as you’ve grown accustomed to, you will get that annoying hint:

Could not go to bookmark #7. Bookmark is not set.

If you’re like me you’ll probably like to change that shortcut back to the function it provided with earlier version of ReSharper.

Changing Visual Studio’s keyboard shortcuts

Thanks to Visual Studios extensibility model all the keyboard shortcuts, even those provided by third party addins such as ReSharper, can be manipulated in Visual Studio’s dedicated dialog.

You can open that dialog via Tools – Options – Keyboard:

If you want to see what commands currently are assigned to a specific keyboard-shortcut, you simple have to set the focus to the textbox labeled “Press shortcut keys:”

Here you see the guilty, the command ReSharper_Bookmarks_GoToBookmark7. Now you might think it should be straight forward to reassign that shortcut to our beloved line comment feature.

But – before you get frustrated mind the following: the currently assigned command is not displayed in a simple textbox, but in a combobox. That gives us the hint that in Visual Studio a single shortcut can be applied to several commands. That means that just assigning another command to a shortcut will in general not replace the old assignment, but add to it.

This feature does make sense to assign a shortcut to several specific commands depending on the context that shortcut is used. That context can be specified by selecting an entry in the drop down “Use new shortcut in:”. By default the entry “Global” is used indicating that the shortcut applies to all kinds of editors, be it text or graphical editors. For example with selecting the proper entry you can constrain the assignment of a shortcut to a specific command for the use in some special editor as the editor for UML activity diagrams, the XML schema designer or just the text editor.

Step by step instructions

So let’s go back to our original intention, restoring the shortcut Ctrl+7 to ReSharper line comment feature:

Remove the current assignment
1. Find the name of the currently assigned command
  Press the shortcut while the focus is on the field “Press shortcut keys:” (Ctrl+7). The current shortcut assignments are shown in “Shortcut currently used by:”
2. Select the currently assigned command in the command list
  Select the command in the command list (ReSharper_Bookmarks_GoToBookmark7 in our case). You might want to use the filter text box to narrow-down the list (for example “rk7”).
3. Select the shortcut to remove
  In the dropdown “Shortcuts for selected command:” select the command you want to remove.
  In our case this is “Ctrl+7 (Global)”
4. Remove the assignment
  Press the button labeled “Remove”
Add the new assignment
1. Select the command to be assigned in the command list
  In our case this is “ReSharper.ReSharper_LineComment”. Use “comment” for filtering to find that entry quicker.
2. Assign the command to the shortcut key
  Make sure the desired shortcut (Ctrl+7 for our case) is still shown in “Press shortcut keys:” and klick the button labeled “Assign”

Hope that helps some needy soul in despair. :)

Technorati Tags: ReSharper,Visual Studio,Usability

About the Value of controlling Word Wrap in a Presentation

2010-09-12T10:01:00.015+02:00

When you create a presentation you want to transport your message as good as possible. On the places where you use text for that purpose it is worth thinking of the graphical layout of your text.

Say you are have a presentation with the title "Pragmatic Testing of Legacy Applications". Depending on the font size this title may be too long to fit on a single line. Surely, your presentation software will wrap the text to fit to the space you have to devoted to the title of the presentation.

So, why care?

There are good chances that your title will be wrapped like this:

Fine. No?

If the text box for the title is smaller, the text may be wrapped like this:

Is fine as well, so why would you want to think more about that?

Let's see what the difference is.

To dive into that, you have to be aware of the three parts of the sentence "Pragmatic Testing of Legacy Applications":

The first part "Pragmatic Testing" is the main part. It's all about testing in a pragmatic way.

The third part "Legacy Applications" determines the specific emphasis of that talk. It's not about testing in well set up project, but about testing in some sub-optimal (or maybe completely ugly) context.

The second part, the little word "of" inbetween the two main parts does not really convey information one would not grasp without it. From what we are interested in, you may consider it as some necessary linguistic glue.

If you compare the visual appearance of the two alternative wrappings, you may get the impression that "of" detoriates that main part of the text it is sharing the line with. But what that also implies is much more important: it leaves the other main part unpolluted, giving it more focus:

Thus, the first version emphasises the pragmatic testing aspect of the title:

The second version on the other hand puts more focus on the fact that the talk is dealing with legacy application with some respect:

You don't care about that all? You think that's just all equal? Leave a comment and let's discuss it!

My battery recreated well while asleep

2010-09-12T05:44:00.007+02:00

Wow! That minute I was impressed how well the battery recreated while my Lenovo notebook was asleep over night:

And it even feels about being able to be double this impressive time!

But, unfortunately, that lasted just a few seconds after wakeup.... ;)

Message in Visual Studio 2010: Changes to your tests are no longer automatically displayed

2010-09-01T11:53:00.021+02:00

Today I had one of these dispensable experiences when working with computers. Things that I've had done again and again before, and knew they usually work, showed weird results.

Every time I made a change in a test (MSTest) in Visual Studio 2010, a message box popped up:

Changes to your tests are no longer automatically displayed. Click Refresh to display your changes in the Test View or Test List Editor.

Yes, thanks. But - why? I've changed tests many times before, but that message was totally new to me.

Additionally, in Test View a new message showed up in the notification area:

Changes were made to the tests, click Refresh to update.

Every time I pressed the Refresh button, the solution was built but the list of tests in the Test View did not always refresh properly.

Moreover, the testrunner in my beloved ReSharper failed on running new unit tests:

That showed the direction to the problem: the new test was written, but the testrunner can't find it? Well, then the test did not make it from the code to the assembly. Looks as if the assembly has not been built properly.

The reason

Looking into the current configuration unveiled the reason: the test project was not configured to be included in the build for the current configuration. So, I could type as many tests I wanted, they never made it to the assembly to be actually run.

The solution

Now the solution was easy. I just had to configure the current configuration to also build the test project.

For that call the configuration manager:

and check the Build checkbox for the test project.

Since I could not find anything on the web regarding that topic, I hope this post can help some desperate minds.

DevTnT 15 – Reflector Power Commands

2009-11-02T18:38:00.001+01:00

Reflector Power Commands is a collection of additional Reflector commands that includes such goodies as “Reorder Assemblies” “Enum Viewer” (with Bit Flag calculator), “Assembly List Import/Export”.

The CodePlex site does a good job of describing all commands. For those who want to dive a bit deeper, there’s a blog post that describes installation and the finer points of usage. The post is written in an Asian-looking language but there are lots of images that tell you all you need to know.

DevTnT 14 – IxEdit

2009-10-16T09:14:00.001+02:00

IxEdit is a JavaScript-based page-plug-in that helps you to design jQuery-based interaction on a web page. Designers (and developers as well) need only have a basic knowledge of HTML and CSS, but no JavaScript experience.

You can design interactions like showing, hiding, or animating (to name just a few) elements based on user actions (like clicking on an element). The design work is done by selecting elements and setting properties for actions, reactions, … The finished script can then be exported for inclusion in your web page.

IxEdit uses Google Gears and local database storage to save you work – that means that you’ll still have your lovingly crafted interactions after the html page is refreshed.

DevTnT 13 – StyleCop for ReSharper

2009-09-25T14:05:00.001+02:00

In my previous post, I talked about StyleCop and how it helps you to enforce a consistent source code style throughout your project. However, StyleCop only flags violations but does not fix them – even though most of the times the fix is trivial.

Enter StyleCop for ReSharper, a plug-in for ReSharper that will show StyleCop violations in real time, and offers a number of quick fixes (light bulbs) for most cases.

StyleCop for ReSharper includes an automatic update detection mechanism and will prompt you if a new version is available.

DevTnT 13 – StyleCop

2009-09-25T13:41:00.001+02:00

Most people agree that having a consistent coding style throughout a solution is beneficial to the development process. In the past it has been difficult to enforce a style, though. StyleCop is one answer to that problem.

StyleCop – the tool formerly known as Source Analysis – is a tool that analyzes C# code and warns about violations against “a common set of best practices for layout, readability, maintainability, and documentation of C# source code.” It can be run from inside Visual Studio, and can also be integrated into MSBuild scripts.

When run inside Visual Studio, StyleCop integrates with the Error List tool window, and double-clicking on a warning will take you to the appropriate spot in your source files.

It is possible to configure which rules StyleCop should check, however it is not possible (yet) to modify existing rules or define your own rules.

StyleCop can also be used as part of your build process using the out-of-the-box MSBuild integration.

DevTnT 13 – GhostDoc

2009-09-25T13:30:00.001+02:00

GhostDoc is a plug-in for Visual Studio that can automatically generate XML comments. GhostDoc uses a configurable rule set to derive meaningful comments for constructors, events, properties and events.

For example: XML comments for constructors should start with “Initializes a new instance of the <classname> class.” GhostDoc can automatically generate that comment.

A method called “button1_Click” will be commented with “Handles the Click event of the button1 control”, complete with comments for the parameters.

A property “NameOfTheUser” will be commented “Gets or sets the name of the user”.

The rules of GhostDoc can be extensively customized, but in my experience this usually isn’t necessary because the default rules are pretty good.

One disadvantage of GhostDoc is that there is no official support for documenting an entire class (or project or solution) at once. There is an unofficial Visual Studio macro that does exactly this, though: http://jb-brown.blogspot.com/2008/09/using-ghostdoc-in-macro-to-comment.html.

DevTnT 12 - Firefox Plug-In: MeasureIt

2009-08-28T12:07:00.005+02:00

MeasureIt is a Firefox that enables you to measure the size of parts of the page you are viewing. MeasureIt shows up as a small button in the lower left corner of the Firefox window.

When you click on the button, the browser window will be overlaid with a whitish layer and the cursor turns into a cross. Click and drag the cursor over the area you want to measure.

A floating element will show the size of the select area. Clicking on the red square with the white cross will close the ruler but keep the whitish overlay. Pressing Esc on the keyboard removes the overlay.

DevTnT 12 – Firefox Plug-In: Screengrab

2009-08-28T12:07:00.003+02:00

Screengrab is a plug-in for Firefox that enables you to take a screenshot of (part of) the current web page. You will find Screengrab in the lower right corner of the browser window.

You can either save the screenshot to a file or copy it to the clipboard.

DevTnT 12 - Firefox Plug-In: WCAG ColorChecker

2009-08-28T12:07:00.001+02:00

WCAG ColorChecker is a Firefox plugin that enables you to test the colors of a web page for easy readability with regard to contrast and several Discromatopsia. It installs itself as a button in the lower left corner of the status bar. Clicking on the button opens a side panel. You can select elements or colors on the page using ColorZilla, and ColorChecker will show you its results using either a green check mark or a red cross next to the criteria.

DevTnT 12 - Firefox Plug-In: ColorZilla

2009-08-28T12:06:00.003+02:00

ColorZilla is a Firefox plug-in that enables you to determine which color an element on a web page is using. Click on the Eyedropper tool in the bottom-left corner of your Firefox window. The cursor will turn into a cross and the html element you’re hovering on will have a red border. The color values of the element you click on will be added to the status bar.

ColorZilla also contains a color- and palette-manager. You can open it by right-clicking anywhere on the page, pointing to ColorZilla and selecting either Color Picker or Palette Browser.

DevTnT 12 - Firefox Plug-In: Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant

2009-08-28T12:06:00.001+02:00

Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant is a plug-in that is installed as part of a hotfix for version 3.5 SP1 of the .NET Framework. It enables you to install ClickOnce-applications using Firefox.

Not everybody is happy about this plug-in being installed automatically. In addition the plug-in cannot be easily uninstalled because it is a computer-level plug-in. There is a documented way of uninstalling it, though: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/963707/.

DevTnT 12 - Firefox Plug-In: IE Tab

2009-08-28T12:05:00.003+02:00

IE Tab is a plug-in for Firefox that enables you to display web pages in a Firefox tab using the Internet Explorer rendering engine. This enables you for example to quickly compare different rendering behaviors or run Microsoft Update from Firefox.

Tabs being viewed using IE Tab don’t display the normal favicon of the site but rather the IE logo. In the screenshot below the left tab uses the Firefox rendering engine while the right tab uses the IE rendering engine.

DevTnT 12 - Firefox Plug-In: HttpFox

2009-08-28T12:05:00.001+02:00

HttpFox is a Firefox plug-in that enables you to monitor HTTP traffic made by the page you are viewing in Firefox. Its functionality is similar to Fiddler, but is a “native” Firefox plug-in.

An additional advantage over Fiddler is that HttpFox can watch traffic to localhost as well.

DevTnT 12 - Firefox Plug-In: FiddlerHook

2009-08-28T12:04:00.001+02:00

FiddlerHook is a Firefox plug-in that enables you to use Fiddler with Firefox. You will first need to enable FiddlerHook in Firefox (menu Tools –> Monitor With Fiddler –> Use Fiddler Automatically). Then add a Fiddler button to the navigation bar by right-clicking and selecting Customize. Drag the Fiddler button to the navigation bar, click done and click on the Fiddler button.

HttpFox is similar to Fiddler, and is a “native” Firefox plug-in.

An interesting advantage of using Fiddler through Fiddlerhook with Firefox when compared with Fiddler with Internet Explorer is that you can watch traffic to localhost.

PS: you can use Fiddler in IE if you set Fiddler as proxy for IE.

DevTnT 10 – Copy Work Item in Team Explorer

2009-08-21T15:04:00.001+02:00

In Visual Studio Team Explorer it might be useful to create copies of work items to start with instead from creating a new one from scratch. Especially if you run two parallel systems with similar issues: e.g. a ticketing system for customers and a bug tracking system for the development.

You can by opening the work item in question and then use the Create Copy of Work Item… command in the Edit menu:

or in the context menu of the work item:

After clicking, the Copy Work Item dialog appears and you can determine the team project that you want to copy the work items to.

See further information, especially on the implications of the selected Work item type, here.

DevTnT 10 - CTRL+G in Visual Studio

2009-08-21T14:04:00.001+02:00

Depending on the current view, there are three different meanings of CTRL+G:

in the editor view the Go To Line dialog pops up and you can jump to the entered line number:
when dealing with work items, the Go To Work Item window pops up and you can navigate to a particular issue:
in the source control view, CTRL+G opens the Find Changeset dialog which allows you to query for change sets:

DevTnT 11 - Firefox Plug-In: Current Site IP

2009-08-16T17:56:00.002+02:00

Current Site IP is a Firefox plug-in that shows the IP address of the site you are currently viewing in the status bar. This is especially useful when there are separate development, test, staging and production environment and you have to switch between them using host file entries.

DevTnT 11 - Firefox Plug-In: XPather

2009-08-16T17:54:00.002+02:00

XPather is a plug-in for Firefox that shows you the xpath expression for selecting an element on a web page. You can open it by right-clicking on an element and choosing “Show in XPather”. You can then edit the xpath expression; if the expression matches multiple nodes all those nodes are shown in a table.

DevTnT 11 - Firebug Plug-In: YSlow

2009-08-16T17:53:00.002+02:00

YSlow is a plug-in for Firebug (which is a plug-in for Firefox) that will analyze your web page and make recommendations on how to improve its load time. YSlow is developed by Yahoo and is similar to Google’s Page Speed.

DevTnT 11 - Firebug Plug-In: Page Speed

2009-08-16T17:52:00.002+02:00

PageSpeed is a plug-in for Firebug (which is a plug-in for Firefox) that will analyze your web page and make recommendations on how to improve its load time. Page Speed is developed by Google and is similar to Yahoo’s YSlow.

DevTnT 11 - Firebug Plug-In: FireFinder

2009-08-16T17:50:00.002+02:00

FireFinder is a plug-in for Firebug (which is a plug-in for Firefox) that enables you to enter a CSS selector and will show all items on the page that match the selector in a red or blue border.

FireFinder can use XPath expressions as well. XPather offers much more XPath functionality, though.

DevTnT 11 - Browser Plug-in: Firebug et al.

2009-08-16T17:46:00.002+02:00

Firebug is a plug-in for Firefox that enables you to inspect the DOM of the web page that you are currently viewing. It also enables you to inspect the CSS styles of any given element, and trace those styles back to their definitions in CSS files. There is also a script debugger and a console.

Firebug also comes as a light version for Internet Explorer, Opera and Safari: http://getfirebug.com/lite.html. It is a JavaScript file that you can either include in your html file (if you are developing the html file) or as a bookmarklet if you don’t own the html file.

Other browsers have their own Firebug-like plug-ins of course: Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar for IE, Dragon-Fly for Opera (Menu Tools –> Advanced –> Developer Tools), Chrome (Page button –> Developer –> JavaScript Console) and Safari (Page button –> Develop –> Show Web Inspector).

Note: if there is no “Develop” menu in Safari, you can enable it using Setting button –> Preferences –> Advanced –> Show Develop menu in menu bar.

DevTnT 10 – Who to Blame for Code Changes?

2009-07-31T14:37:00.001+02:00

In Visual Studio there is a feature called Annotate. In the Solution Explorer just right-click on a source code file and select Annotate. The result will be a view of this file where you have meta information for each line of code:

who did the latest change
when was it done
which changeset contains this modification

This can be useful in a code review or other situations where nobody remembers (or wants to remember ;-) who did the modifications.

DevTnT 10 – Debugging Windows Services with .Net

2009-07-31T14:01:00.001+02:00

It depends on your architecture how easily you can debug the code running a Windows Service. Most propably you use a layered architecture which allows you to directly call the code doing the critical work. E.g. by a Winforms test application or via a administrative page in your web application.

But what if you have to find out what is going wrong in the service infrastructure itself? I usually install the service on my local machine directly from my <Service>\bin\Debug folder. Of course you will always have to make sure the service is stopped if you want to rebuild.

When running the service you can attach to the process and hopefully are fast enough to step in at the critical part of your code. Otherwise you can use the Debugger.Launch() method. I would suggest to put this call into the OnStart() of the service or into your Start() block :

When the framework executes the Debugger.Launch() method and prompts you to select the debugger, select the VS instance that shows the service code and continue to run the service under the control of the debugger.

Be careful that the debugger dialog does not show up in a released version. To avoid this you can check with #if DEBUG or use command arguments which you provide in the service properties:

Alternatively implement a while-loop which waits for the debugger to be attached. You can find a code snippet here.

DevTnT 9 – Transpose Functionality in Excel

2009-07-31T11:18:00.001+02:00

In Excel, the Transpose function returns a transposed range of cells. For example, a horizontal range of cells is returned if a vertical range is entered as a parameter. Or a vertical range of cells is returned if a horizontal range of cells is entered as a parameter.

This can be useful especially if you have to copy rows from a database with a large number of fields. The transposed row-oriented result may be easier to read as the default column-oriented view:

Highlight the cells that you want to copy.
Then right-click on the cell where you'd like to paste the values and select Paste Special from the popup menu.
Then select the Transpose checkbox and click on the OK button.

Follow-Up For “A SOLID Audio Rant”

2009-07-15T22:49:00.001+02:00

A few weeks ago I sketched some waves that got high in the community concerning an in the first glance not so friendly episode of the StackOverflow Podcast (see post “A Solid Audio Rant”). Besides other topics, Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood, the guys performing on that podcast, talked about the SOLID principles advocated by Robert C. Martin (aka Uncle Bob).

Now by chance I found a letter that Uncle Bob published on objectmentor.com in reaction to the offensive StackOverflow-Episode: An Open Letter to Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood.

And that letter is really interesting if you just listened to the podcasts I mentioned in my earlier post. Because in that podcasts the climate changed from ranting to an almost esteeming atmosphere. But as we now can read from that letter mentioned above, Mr. Martin’s first reaction was not so friendly by really harnished (up to menacing steps towards legal contention).

So, check it out!

DevTnT 8 - Tools: TotalCommander

2009-07-05T15:12:00.000+02:00

If you're sick of the usual Windows-Explorer and want to try smth new, and in my Opinion smth improved, I would suggest to give TotalCommander a try.

Most of you will recognize the UI of this Tool from way back: like NortonCommander or MidnightCommander but TotalCommander is a really well done Port for the Windows-World and was already available in the Win3.11 times: and this is actually the one and only weakness: it looks rather old :)

Compared to its advantages, you might forget the Surface:

TabStructure: you can save your most used places as tabs and get them everytime the TC starts (lazy loaded for network/external devicec)
Splitted Screen to work with 2 folders in parallel
Queued copy/move for Files: no more blocking/slowing down parallel copyjobs (esp. for network transfers!)
Custom Fileassociations besides "open"
Integrated FTP/WEBDav: no use for special FTP-Software
Copying fully qualified filenames in the clipboard
Integrated RAR/ZIP handler
A large repository of plugins (Filesystems, Tools, etc.)
Showing all files in Subfolders
MultifileSelection via Wildcards/Regex
Multirenaming via Wildcards/Regex and common statements (Date, etc.)
Folder Synchronization
Commandline in the active Folder
File Splitting/Encoding/Hashing
fully customizable hotkeys
and a lot more!

The TC is a Shareware-Tool which is fully functional in the free Version and costs 26€ licenced.

Note: if you want to use it in an 64bit environment, I would suggest to try the current betaversion (7.50 beta6)

DevTnT 6 – ReSharper: Expanding the selection with Ctrl+W

2009-07-03T16:21:00.000+02:00

In a previous post, Sebastian drawed our attention to a nice selection expansion feature of ReSharper. I also think this feature is cool, and want to present it here in more depth.

Visual Studio by itself supports the expansion of the current selection in a text editor window by pressing Ctrl+W.

With this command you can change a current selection like this …

… to a selection of the whole word:

If your existing selection spans several words like this …

… after pressing Ctrl+W you end up with the word selected that is at the end of the selection:

(Funnily, if you made your selection from right to left the left word gets selected:

)

Further pressing Ctrl+W does not do anything more.

Text Expansion With ReSharper

ReSharper has taken that expansion feature to the max (that’s why we love this tool!).

Beginning with no selection …

… by pressing Ctrl+W ReSharper selects the whole word:

But now, you can press Ctrl+W several times more to expand the selection to several areas, one larger than the one before.

From the single word selection you get the selection of the whole string without the quotes:

Then ReSharper selects the string including the quotes …

… then the whole concatenated string from the beginning of the expression …

… and then incrementally the whole string expression line by line:

And so it goes on with every stroke on Ctrl+W until the whole file content is selected:

The whole statement …

… the whole block without the braces …

… the block including the braces …

… the whole member …

… the type’s content without the braces …

… the whole namespace’s content without the braces …

… the whole namespace …

… and finally the complete content of the file:

As you may guess, the whole stuff can be done in reverse order pressing Ctrl+Shift+W.

Good to know!

DevTnT 8 – Defining an Environment Variable as a File Path

2009-07-03T14:15:00.001+02:00

An environment variable is a dynamic value loaded into the memory that can be used by several programms in parallel. In Windows, the environment variables are placed between the "%" character. Thus to display the value of an environment variable, simply type following type of command:

echo %NAME_OF_THE_VARIABLE%

Examples for often used environment variables are: %PATH%, %TEMP%, %USERNAME% and %WINDIR%

For defining a variable as a file path inside a command window you can use the following shell command

set VariableName=value

or use the System Properties for global definition:

You must be an administrator to modify a system environment variable. System environment variables are defined by Windows and apply to all computer users. Any user can add, modify, or remove a user environment variable. The changes are written to the registry, and are usually effective immediately

After applying your changes you can refer to this variable by entering %pp%. E.g.

The only limitation under Windows we know is that file dialogs in SQL Server Management Studio 2005 do not support it.

A nice usage Paul likes: saving downloads from the internet or other temporary files/folders to the sytem temp directory by typing %TEMP%.

DevTnT 8 - WINDOWS key+BREAK: Show System Properties

2009-07-03T13:00:00.001+02:00

I guess there are many others like me who nearly never use the “Break”-key on their keyboard. Today I learned that pressing that WINDOWS key plus the BREAK key opens the System Properties control panel.

A second way to do this would be to hold the ALT key and double click “My Computer” on the desktop.

See a complete list of all shortcuts utilizing the WINDOWS key: http://www.seoconsultants.com/windows/key/

Or the list of all keyboard shortcuts available in Windows XP: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/301583/EN-US/

DevTnt 3 - File Comparer Tools 2 - BeyondCompare

2009-06-21T20:58:00.000+02:00

Here at last the promised post on BeyondCompare.

Download: http://www.scootersoftware.com/download.php
Pricing: $30 Standard Edition / $50 Pro Edition

Pro

Compares directory structures (also over FTP) using powerful filtering options

Compares text files ignoring unimportant differences (configurable)

Compares text files exactly differently coloring important/unimportant differences

Compares pictures

Compares version information of executable files

Also compares binary files in HEX view.
Additional file formats for download include HTML tables, HTML tidied, XML tidied, XML tidied with attributes sorted, INI files sorted, text content of Word, Excel and Powerpoint, ...
Able to save comparison sessions

Con

Costs some money - but not that much
Need some time to find and use all the features

DevTnT 7 – Visual Studio: Double-click in Pending Changes Window

2009-06-19T15:43:00.001+02:00

Double-clicking a file in the Pending Changes Window opens it. Holding SHIFT pressend when double-clicking does a diff with the current Source Control Version of the file.

This may apply to other windows (e.g. View History) as well, but unfortunately in the Solution Explorer it does not.

DevTnT 7 - Using $exception within Visual Studio’s Debugger

2009-06-19T15:22:00.001+02:00

Sometimes our exception handling code makes no use of the exception object that has been thrown. Therefore we do not need to declare a variable to reference it (i.e. the traditional “ex”). However this leads to an issue while debugging. Without a variable there is nothing to mouse over in order to display the exception’s contents once the initial popup has been dismissed.

Instead of doing this you can add the special variable $exception to the debugger’s Watch Window, or query it via the Immediate Window. This variable references the currently thrown exception when located within a catch block.

DevTnT 7 – How to Stop on First Chance Exceptions in Visual Studio

2009-06-19T15:07:00.001+02:00

In many applications you do some exception handling which implies catching exceptions and displaying the error to the user in a proper way or just log it into a file oder database. During the debugging process you might want to jump to the code where the exception was originally thrown (“first chance exception”).

Using Visual Studio .NET, you can configure how the debugger handles first chance exceptions on a per exception basis or for exception families (by namespace and/or runtime). Select Debug – Exceptions (or use CTRL+ALT+E) and now you can enable “Thrown”-checkboxes for exception types you want the debugger to stop immediately.

Note: The same effect for a single exception can be reached by using the System.Diagnostics.Debugger.Break() method.

DevTnT 7 – Turn on/off Message Types in the Output Window of Visual Studio

2009-06-19T14:39:00.001+02:00

To keep the Output Window (Debug - Windows – Output) “cleaner”, you can prevent message types from being displayed. Of course they can be turned on again. When right clicking into the window six kinds of messages are to be configured:

DevTnT 7 - Incremental Search CTRL+I

2009-06-19T14:04:00.001+02:00

Incremental search can also be thought of as live search. The cursor highlights the first finding as you're typing the search term.

Warning: It does not search within collapsed regions (no matter if explicit or implicit regions).

Searching backwards starting by the cursor position can be done by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+I.

CTRL+I - Incremental Search
CTRL+SHIFT+I - Back Search
F3 – Find Next
SHIFT+F3 – Find Previous

DevTnT 7 – ReSharper SHIFT+CTRL+N

2009-06-19T13:46:00.001+02:00

For quickly finding files in Visual Studio you can use SHIFT+CTRL+N. A small dialog pops up where you can enter a pattern (including * as a placeholder) for the file name. Below the list of all matching files in the solution is displayed immediately.

DevTnT 7 – How Does KeyJedi Improve My Presentation?

2009-06-19T13:06:00.002+02:00

KeyJedi is a nice tool that makes keyboard shortcuts visible as you use them. The tool also works if you are remotely connected to a different machine.

But be careful if you hold a presentation and enter your password somewhere ;-).

See the blog of Roy Osherove to find out more about his tool: http://weblogs.asp.net/rosherove/archive/2007/05/29/key-jedi-1-03-renamed-from-shortwatcher.aspx

DevTnT 7 – Web Service Studio and Similar Tools Help To Invoke Web Methods Manually

2009-06-19T10:49:00.001+02:00

Web Service Studio is a free tool to invoke Web Methods interactively. The user can provide a WSDL endpoint. By clicking the button “Get” the tool fetches the WSDL, generates .NET proxy from the WSDL and displays the list of methods available. The user can choose any method and provide the required input parameters. On clicking Invoke the SOAP request is sent to the server and the response is parsed to display the return value.

On the second tab “Request/Response” you can specify an XML message to send to the Web Service. On the third tab “WSDLs & Proxy” you can investigate the proxy code that was autogenerated from the XSD. There is an option to save it into a file.

The tool is very useful for testing your Web Services easily without writing client code. In one of our customer projects we call the Web Services directly for executing some seldom maintainance operations.

See http://www.codeplex.com/WebserviceStudio or http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/webservicestudio20 for download and further information.

soapUI

Similar functionality for WSDL or REST based Web Services offers the free and open source desktop application soapUI. It provides

It can be found at http://www.soapui.org/.

Microsoft’s WcfTestClient.exe

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Test Client (WcfTestClient.exe) is a GUI tool that enables users to input test parameters, submit that input to the service, and view the response that the service sends back. It provides a seamless service testing experience when combined with WCF Service Host.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb552364.aspx

DevTnT 4 - Helpful Side-Effect of Rounded Corners When Running A Full Screen Virtual PC

2009-06-10T23:35:00.000+02:00

One might think that using a non-classic theme under windows XP or higher is just a matter of the look of windows. I thought so for myself until I found a real cool feature just by accident and investigated it a little bit.

Kind Of A PITA: Switching To The Host From Within A Full Screen Virtual Machine

You might know the following situation: You are running a virtual machine in full screen mode because it is your current main occupation. But once in a while you have to switch back to the physical host machine to read your mail or alike.

So, how can you do that?

Correctly. Hopefully you can remember what you host key settings are (I like using the scroll-lock-key because I do not use it for the function it's originally intended), hold it down while hitting the return key. So, the virtual machine window restores and you're back where you wanted to.
Then, when you're done with the tasks on the host machine, you will bring the window running the virtual machine back on top and again maximize it using the host-key together with return.
If you have to do this every twenty minutes or so that can be really unsatisfactory.

But, there may be some light for you at the end of the tunnel.

As the following screenshot proofes, you can bring up windows from the host machine while still running the virtual machine in full screen mode (here a Windows XP in a virtual machine booting on 640x480 fullscreen hosted on Vista machine):

How did that come about?

When restlessy moving around with my mouse I could not see the arrow because I just had a windows in an early stage of the boot process in front of me. But, some times a big arrow flashed up, namely when I hit the left or right top corner of the window. Although I'm not a gamer, I know: "when there's a mouse cursor, I can click.". And so I did.
Meanwhile the desktop of my virtual machine showed up and I tried the task switch (Alt-Tab). And, astonishing, the Vista task switch came up (including the desktop-icon)! So I learned, that even from within the full-screened virtual machine I can put the focus back to host machine by clicking one of the top corners.

Investigating the screen shot of the full screen uncovered the round corners of the not really full screen:

Awesome, isn't it?

And yes - it is about the rounded corners of the desktop theme I used with Vista. A temporary switch back to classic mode proofed that the feature (is that by design?) disappeared.

Here's another evidence, the Vista taskbar and a system dialog in front of the full screened XP in the virtual machine:

Also with this screenshot the rounded corner's show up (but one has to look carefully with my notebooks native resolution):

A Warning

By clicking on the top left or top right corner you just click through your virtual machine onto any window of the host system lying behind it. So, especially with the top right corner be careful not to accidentally close some window you might need. :)

DevTnT 6 - ReSharper CTRL+W

2009-06-05T16:23:00.000+02:00

CTRL+W is a very helpful ReSharper shortcut for refactoring. Based on the current cursor position it marks the current word, sentence, sentence + apostrophe, the parameter, all parameters, statement, line, block, method, class, and so on. This shortcut is very useful when it comes to extract the string literals from your source.

2009-06-05T16:16:00.000+02:00

DevTnT 6 - ALT+Print

With this windows shortcut you can make a screenshot from the current focused window. This is very useful when it comes to document a specific part/window of your application and you just want to have a screenshot of the specific one. With the help of this shortcut you don't have to crop the screenshot anymore.

UPDATE: changed the former shortcut CTRL+ALT+D+Print to ALT+Print.

Blogspot Blogging-Clients: Qumana And w.bloggar

2009-06-05T14:41:00.001+02:00

Since the user interface of blogger.com sucks when it comes to editing larger posts, I looked around for blogging clients (thanks Marcus for the hint).

To let you get an idea of what I mean with "sucks", just look at the preview of this screenshot (no really new information from the full sized version):

I hate applications and sites where the working area is restricted to some extent when I have a 22+ inch monitor in front of me. I want to control the size of my windows and not be restricted by the application! IMHO this is a perfect fail for usability for any application (and there are so many of them out there!). In other words: *grrr*

A second thing that makes editing posts painful with Blogger's Web-UI is working with images. Although there is a nice and functional dialog for inserting (and uploading) pictures from you local harddrive, the problem is that all new pictures are inserted on top of the post. This happens regardless of the current cursor-position or selection. Moreover, it is not possible to move the picture around with drag-and-drop in the editing pane, one has to use cut and paste to shift the picture to the desired position.

A warning

Just in case you're also looking for a free alternative to Blogger's Web-UI, I wrote this post not with one of the tools described below. :(

After some googeling I downloaded two freeware editors to test - Qumana (http://www.qumana.com) and w.bloggar (http://www.wbloggar.com).

Qumana

Positives:

On startup a wizard-like interface asks me questions about my blog and incorporates all blogs available through one account into it's configuration. A really easy startup.
The application has a really nice and lucid user interface.
Qumana provides a Quickpad. That is a little window that can reside anywhere on you primary screen (it is not possible to move it to a secondary monitor). By interacting with this little window you can immediately start blogging or managing your blogs. That surely is a nice feature for power-bloggers (with some sort of verbal incontinence).
Provides for inserting alt-Tags and Titles for images via a dialog.

Negatives:

Qumana does not show posts that are only available as drafts done in the Blogger Web-UI.
On editing an existing post most of the paragraphs doubled, so that I had to edit the post manually in Blogger's Web-UI afterwards.
The WYSIWYG text editor does not support common editing shortcuts such as Ctrl+Arrow or Ctrl+Backspace.
The editor does not support to insert and upload images from my computer. On selecting an image from a local location it displays the images but informs me that it will not be visible in the blog (so what should that be good for?). There is a button labeled "Insert & Upload", but I could not manage to make it enabled.
Although the Post-Editor window of Qumana has a rather large field "Categories" it does neither show previously used labels nor allows it to add new ones. So, how can I add labels (tags, categories)?
Upon trying out Qumana I never got the feeling that I'm sure how, when and how good the synchronization between the application's offline store and the blog works. Not a good feeling

Conclusion
Because of the many problems with central areas of blogging, Qumana is not really an option for me.

w.bloggar

Negatives:

Startup under Windows Vista seems not to work for about one minute, but then, the first window shows up.
In blog-settings wizard (or what the wizard at first startup is called) it is not possible to move between the textboxes for username and password via the tab-key. OMG!
When viewing the recent posts of a blog, the friendly application shows me a list of - stand still - Blog-IDs and timestamps, but no blog title! I have to use the preview-window to determine from the HTML of the blog what post it is. How can one do something like that? See yourself:
w.bloggar provides just a HTML-editor with syntax-highlighting and a preview-tab. There is no WYSIWYG-editing. That may be not the worst, but is not the thing I'm looking for.
w.bloggar seems to totally ignore the titles of posts. Even on creating a new post I found no way to edit the title - it always remained "<>".
Even worse, when I tried to post a one-word test-post I got a NullReferenceException. Oh no, what a piece of software!
So, that's enough, I quit on that tool!

Conclusion
Due to the missing of basic features, I have no animo left to use this tool.

Resúmé

Both tools tested lack of basic features, so I'll contritely stick on Blogger's Web-UI. It's not that bad, as I thought! :)

Do -->you<-- know a better alternative for blogging on Blogger?

DevTnT 5 - SlickEdit Gadgets for Visual Studio

2009-05-22T14:20:00.000+02:00

The SlickEdit Gadgets for VS is a collection of more or less nice to have features the dev guys from SlickEdit give away for free. They integrate with VS 2005 & VS 2008.

It consists of four parts:

Editor improvements

Line ruler - highlights the line where the cursor is.
Indentation guide - a line that highlights the current line's indentation.
Auto-copy selection - allows to auto-copy text selected with the mouse. (as known from irc clients)
Editor graphics - put images and animated graphics as your editor background.

The "Command Spy" tool

Tracks all commands you execute in Visual Studio and lists them with key-bindings configured to the certain command.

The "Data Object Analzyer" tool

Shows the data and data type that is currently "copied" to the clipboard.

SLOC reporting

Generates a Lines-of-Code report indicating the rate between source code, comments and white spaces.

For more information and download go to http://www.slickedit.com/content/view/441

DevTnT 5 - Use the "Terminals" for Working with Several Remote Sessions

2009-05-22T13:50:00.000+02:00

Terminals as the title says allows you to control most of the remote connections i.e. RDP (Microsoft’s Remote Desktop aka Terminal Services), VNC (Virtual Network Computing), VMRC (Virtual Machine Remote Control), RAS (Remote Access Service), Telnet (Telecommunication Network) SSH and ICA Citrix from a Tabbed interface making you task easier by not wasting time on looking which connection is open where. You can manage more than 100 connections of different type without any issues.

It is a open source software developed in CodePlex and is supported for Windows Server 2008 , Windows Vista, Windows Xp. Check out http://www.codeplex.com/Terminals

DevTnT 5 - Multiple Monitors in Remote Session

2009-05-22T11:21:00.000+02:00

We regularly use two monitors at our customer's site, and remote desktop at home or in the office. Some applications, which persistently remember the window location will be hidden on startup because they are off the screen.

The question: how to move one or more window(s) onto the screen? There are several solutions:

If you are using Windows XP, you can CTRL+left click on more than one taskbar button, then right click on one of the selected taskbar buttons to cascade, tile, etc.
Select the application in the taskbar, ALT+SPACE, "m" (for move) and then hold down the right arrow until the desired window appears in the current window.
Disable the second display when you are remoted in and then re-enable it when you get back to the customer. It's not many clicks: show desktop - right-click - properties - display - screen two - uncheck "extend desktop" - Ok.

DevTnT 5 - CTRL+ALT+DEL in a Remote Desktop Session

2009-05-22T10:57:00.000+02:00

The Keyboard option of a Remote Desktop Session controls the Windows shortcut keys (ALT+TAB etc.). This allows you to set how you want the behavior to be while you are connected. You can choose whether to execute the keystrokes for those special combinations at the local computer, the remote computer or only on the remote computer when in full screen mode.

When connecting to the other machine, depending on your settings just about all keyboard actions are transmitted to the remote machine, i.e. pressing Enter, typing, pressing the Windows key, etc. However, that is not the case for some key combinations: so, by default, CTRL+ALT+DEL will only work for the local computer - even in full screen mode.

CTRL+ALT+END – Display the Task Manager (CTRL+SHIFT+ESC is the local command)

There are a bunch of other keyboard shortcuts you can use in Remote Desktop in non-full screen mode:

ALT+INS – Cycle through the programs in most recently used order (ALT+TAB is the local command)
ALT+HOME – Brings up the Start menu on the remote computer
CTRL+ALT+ (+) Plus/ (-) Minus – Minus takes a snapshot of the active window and plus takes a snapshot of the entire remote desktop window.
CTRL+ALT+BREAK: Switch the remote computer between a window and a full screen

DevTnT 3 - File Comparer Tools

2009-05-16T04:30:00.000+02:00

When digging after some changes in a larger software project in your source control system, comparing files is one thing you'll face yourself doing on a regular basis. But also with other tasks the quick and effective comparison of textual content may be helpful.

So, here we present a non-inclusive list of file comparer tools that we use in the company (a separate post on BeyondCompare will follow.)

Note:

All of these tools can be integrated into Visual Studio as tool for compare and/or merge operations (refer to dodo's post on that topic).

Overview

For an overview see the following image:
(Sorry, I did not manage it to fit the HTML table itself into the current blog layout. )

Microsoft DiffMerge (Visual Studio's default)

Download: None (comes with Microsoft Visual Studio)

Pro

It's just there when you use Microsoft Visual Studio

Con

Cannot ignore differences in whitespaces (oh man!)
No font sizing or other change of the font
No highlighting of line differences
No user-interface for choosing files
DiffMerge can only be started from the command line. That is totaly enough for what the tool was made for - as the out-of-the-box tool for comparing text files from within Visual Studio.

WinMerge

Download: http://winmerge.org/

Pro

Can get input via clipboard. With WinMerge, you cannot only compare to files from the file system. You even can paste both sides of a comparison session from the clipboard. Very easy.

Con

A single hit of the ESC-key leaves the application up and running.
If you hit the ESC key only one time after you're done with comparing, this just closes the compare panes within WinMerge, but not the application (WinMerge is an MDI-application). Especially when you integrate WinMerge as tool for comparing files in Visual Studio, you probably will end up with several instances of WinMerge, because you just hit the ESC button once.

Perforce P4Merge

Download: http://www.perforce.com/perforce/downloads/component.html

Pro

Intuitive presentation (it's cool!)
Handy Shortcut Ctrl+1, Ctrl+2 for next/previous difference (left hand only, no wrenching necessary, can keep your right hand on the mouse)

Con

No syntax coloring
No overview
No zooming But you can change the font via the preferences dialog
Imperfect mouse/keyboard cooperation
Clicking somewhere within one of the text blocks to compare does not move the position of the currently selected difference. So, if you scroll down, click somewhere between let's say difference 5 and 6 and then press Ctrl+1 (for "next difference") for the first time you will end up on difference 1, although you maybe would have expected difference 6. That can be very annoying.

PSPad

Download: http://www.pspad.com/de/download.php

Pro

Can extract just the different lines

Notepad++ Compare-PlugIn

Download: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=189927&package_id=244011.
For Notepad++ see dodo's post on file editors.

Pro

Integrates within my favorite text editor :)

Con

Zooming using Ctrl+Scroll does not apply to both sides.
So, although both windows scroll synchronously, the match in the alignment of the lines on both sides gets out of sync the more you scroll down.
Redundant line counter for both files with identical values in all lines wastes horizontal space (but, do you mind that on your super-duper wide screen display?)
No highlighting of line differences
No possibility to switch back from compare mode to normal mode (or am I missing something?)

KDiff3

Download: http://kdiff3.sourceforge.net/

Pro

Can compare/merge up to 3 files
Manual alignment for better comparison results

DevTnT 4 - Copy Path of a File to the Clipboard in Windows 7 or Vista

2009-05-08T13:15:00.000+02:00

All you have to do is hold down the shift key, and right-click the file:

Choose the Copy as Path from the menu. Here's an example of what's on the clipboard after clicking that: "C:\autoexec.bat". This will also allow you to copy the path of a folder to the clipboard.

Note: In Windows XP there is no built-in functionality for that. But have a look at http://www.winhelponline.com/blog/add-copy-as-path-option-to-the-context-menu-in-windows-xp/, there are two alternative methods discussed how to provide it even so.

DevTnT 4 - Use Custom Tools in Visual Studio

2009-05-08T12:08:00.000+02:00

Have you ever missed you favorite tool for comparing or merging files in Visual Studio? There is a way to tell Visual Studio which tools should be used for these operations:

Select Tools - Options - Visual Studio Team Foundation Server - Configure User Tools... - Add... Then enter the extension for the files to be affected (type .* for all file types), choose the operation (Merge, Compare) and provide the application incl. path.

DevTnT 3 - TechTalk's preferred file editors

2009-04-26T19:20:00.000+02:00

We asked our colleagues for their preferred file editors - here are the results:

Notepad++

freeware
syntax highlighting and auto completion for several programming languages
plug-ins can be installed (e.g. XML Path Plugin: mouse right click shows the path of an XML element, Hex Editor)
multi document
column mode selection
download at http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/de/download.php

Notepad2

freeware
syntax highlighting
different encodings
ligthweight (just the .exe-file)
notepad.exe can be replaced by notepad2.exe (see Omar Shahine's WebLog for further information)
has problems with very long lines
download at http://www.flos-freeware.ch/notepad2.html

Wordpad

ships together with Windows
allows you to open huge files

Ultraedit

license (free trial)
most powerful editor with many features (e.g. provides an ftp-client)
download at http://www.ultraedit.com/

DevTnT 3 - Change Editor for View Source Code in IE

2009-04-24T16:55:00.000+02:00

You can change the IE7 view source editor pretty easily to any of your favorite tools by hacking up the registry. Maybe you want to backup the Windows registry first.In regedit navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE –> Software –> Microsoft –> Internet Explorer and create a new key named "View Source Code Editor". Below this key, create another one: "Editor Name". Double click the default value of the Editor Name in the right pane and enter your tool including the complete path:

DevTnT 3 - Visual Studio: Show active file in solution explorer

2009-04-24T16:05:00.000+02:00

One of the annoying things about Visual Studio default settings is the fact that the Solution Explorer does not track what files you are currently looking at. There is actually a setting in Visual Studio that does this automatically: Tools - Options - Projects and Solutions - Track Active Item in Solution Explorer.

DevTnT 3 - Newbie at ReSharper?

2009-04-24T15:48:00.000+02:00

Are you new at ReSharper and want to get a quick overview about navigating your source code? Have a look at http://www.dimecasts.net/Casts/ByTag/ReSharper for a nice screencast.

DevTnT 3 - Administrating a Group Chat on Skype

2009-04-24T15:11:00.000+02:00

With Skype 4+ you can not only create group conversations but also save them. Contacts - New Group displays a dialog where to create the group. After adding members click on the symbol on the top right in order to provide a name and store it.

Now you have an entry "my group chat" in the contacts list and are able to see the history of this conversation.

DevTnT 3 - Ctrl+Del: Delete to end of word

2009-04-24T14:11:00.000+02:00

In Visual Studio and many other Windows applications you can use CTRL+DEL to delete the word to the right of the cursor. If you’re in the middle of a word, it only deletes the portion that’s to the right of your cursor.

At least in Visual Studio with SHIFT+DEL or CTRL-X the complete line can be deleted. The content is put to the clipboard. CTRL+D duplicates the current line. For cutting a line after the cursor there is no single shortcut: you have to press SHIFT+END for selecting the rest of the line. Then use DEL for deleting the selection.

DevTnT 3 - Delayed delivery in Outlook

2009-04-24T14:01:00.000+02:00

See our previous post http://devingdever.blogspot.com/2009/04/devtnt-2-ctrlenter-send-e-mail-in.html for delaying the delivery of emails.

DevTnT 2 - Sharing or saving ReSharper coding conventions

2009-04-12T10:42:00.000+02:00

The ReSharper coding styles can be exported and imported by ReSharper - Options - Common - Code Style Sharing - Import/Export. (Code inspection severities are said not to be supported by this feature yet.)
This will create a file next to the Solution called project.4.1.resharper. The file has to be added to the source control.

For details on sharing across the team with TFS see the posting from Michel Grootjans: http://geekswithblogs.net/alternativedotnet/archive/2008/10/20/125936.aspx

DevTnT 2 - Sharing or saving Visual Studio settings

2009-04-12T10:09:00.000+02:00

Settings in Visual Studio consist of customizations made to the integrated development environment (IDE) based on different types of development activities and your own customizations.
In Visual Studio use Tools - Import and Export Settings... - Export selected environment settings. For importing an existing profile use the Import option.

The main purposes we collected and which are mentioned by Microsoft as well are:

Create a copy for use on a second machine or if you re-install your system
Share your active settings with a team
Allow all team members to use the same settings in select areas, such as the editor, without removing individual customizations to other areas

Further reading: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/zbhkx167(VS.80).aspx

DevTnT 2 - Refactoring easily applied with R#

2009-04-12T09:24:00.000+02:00

To perform a refactoring, select an object or a code fragment you want to refactor. Then click ReSharper - Refactor - Refactor this or press Ctrl + Shift + R to open the list of refactorings that can be applied to the selected object or code fragment, and then select the necessary refactoring.

See http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/documentation/help20/Refactoring/index.html for further details.

DevTnT 2 - Unlocker helps deleting locked files

2009-04-12T09:09:00.000+02:00

Unlocker application was designed to be a useful Windows Explorer extension allowing users with a simple right-click on a file or folder to easily get rid of error message such as error deleting file or folder, cannot delete folder.

It helps delete locked files with error messages like

Cannot delete file: Access is denied.
There has been a sharing violation.
The source or destination file may be in use.
The file is in use by another program or user.
Make sure the disk is not full or write-protected and that the file is not currently in use.

If the folder or file is locked, a window listing of lockers will appear:

This freeware tool can be found at
http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Miscellaneous/Unlocker.shtml

DevTnT 2 - Ctrl+Enter: Send e-mail in Outlook

2009-04-10T15:22:00.000+02:00

When sending an e-mail in Outlook, don’t bother clicking on that “Send” button — press Ctrl+Enter to send. You’ll need to confirm with a dialog box the first time. The Shortcut Alt-S also works.

Some people complain as they send a vital email by accident before it was ready. Maybe this can be solved by using some built-in features of outlook: You can delay the delivery of an individual e-mail message or you can use rules to delay the delivery of all messages by having them held in the Outbox for a specified time after you click Send. For further details see http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HP012328171033.aspx

DevTnT 2 - How to switch Control and Capslock keys

2009-04-10T14:53:00.000+02:00

The Caps Lock key on most PC keyboards is in the position where the Control key is on many other keyboards, and vice versa. This can make it difficult for programmers to use the "wrong" kind of keyboard. This posting shortly describes how to swap these two keys.

Make a file named (for example) CapsLockIsCtrl.reg with these three lines:
REGEDIT4
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout]
"Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,1d,00,3a,00,00,00,00,00
Double click it from Windows explorer, reboot.

To put it on the Left-Ctrl key use SwapCtrlAndCapsLock.reg:
REGEDIT4
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout]
"Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,03,00,00,00,1d,00,3a,00,3a,00,1d,00,00,00,00,00

Alternatively you can manually manipulate the registry by adding the key "Scancode Map" under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout and enter the hex codes mentioned above:

DevTnT 2 - Why is my harddisk full and wtf is WinDirStat?

2009-04-10T14:33:00.000+02:00

WinDirStat (WDS) is adisk usage statistics viewer and cleanup tool for Windows. It shows disk, file and directory sizes in a treelist as well as graphically in a treemap.

This open source tool can be downloaded for free under http://sourceforge.net/projects/windirstat/

Similar freeware tools are

TreeSize (http://www.jam-software.de/treesize/)

SequoiaView (http://w3.win.tue.nl/nl/onderzoek/onderzoek_informatica/visualization/sequoiaview//)

SpaceMonger (http://www.sixty-five.cc/sm/)

DevTnT 2 - Create a Visual Studio Shortcut for "Open Containing Folder"

2009-04-10T13:52:00.000+02:00

There is something you do a lot in Visual Studio and there is no shortcut for it? Create one. You have to

Choose Tools - Options - Environment/Keyboard
Type in something into "Show commands containing" to get a list of matching commands. If there is already a shortcut for the selected command, it’ll be displayed in "Shortcuts for selected command".
To assign a new shortcut to the selected command, put the cursor in "Press shortcut keys" and press the shortcut key or key combinations desired. E.g. you can want to open the containing folder of the current file in Windows Explorer by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Alt+O?

DevTnT 2 - Ctrl+Backspace: Delete to previous word

2009-04-10T13:04:00.000+02:00

If you’re typing (in Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, and many other text entry programs) and you use the wrong word, a quick way to delete the entire word is Ctrl+Backspace. If you’re in the middle of a word, it only deletes the portion that’s to the left of your cursor.

A SOLID Audio Rant

2009-04-01T17:30:00.000+02:00

There are two podcasts I am listening to on a more or less regular basis: Scott Hanselman's Hanselminutes and the StackOverflow Podcast with Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood.

Besides all the most of the time interesting stuff both of the podcasts circumvent, there has been an interesting mixup between those podcasts (see detailed chronology below).

It all started when Scott Hanselman had a talk with Robert C. Martin (aka "Uncle Bob") about the SOLID principles in Hanselminute Show #145.

Two weeks later, Joel Spolsky refered to that Hanselminute episode including some personally offending comments towards Mr. Martin (StackOverflow Podcast episode 38). In short, he said something similiar to "I have the feeling that people that state such principles cannot have written much code.". Hard stuff.

After that episode the forum for the StackOverflow Podcasts were flooded with comments regarding principles in software engineering in common and specially the SOLID principles.
That wind in the community brought Jeff and Joel to invite Mr. Martin for a follow up episode of their StackOverflow Podcast. In Episode #41 Mr. Martin and the hosts had a rather friendly talk about the arguments pro and con principles, TDD (test driven development) and other software related topics.
Concluding that series, Scott Hanselman again had a talk to Mr. Martin in Hanselminute Show #145 where they resumed about the discussions of the weeks passed.

I can recommend listening to those podcasts on that topic since four guys, each with a strong opinion about their profession, discuss topics of the software engineering.

The Chronology

Remark: The citations are copy pasted from the respective podcast's websites.

The Initial Interview

2009-Jan-05: Hanselminutes Show #145

Scott sits down with Robert C. Martin as Uncle Bob helps Scott understand the SOLID Principles of Object Oriented Design.

The Rant

2009-Jan-20: StackOverflow Episode 38

Joel and Jeff discuss YSlow optimizations for large websites, the value of unit testing, and the hidden pitfalls of asking questions to programmers.

If you want to go directly to the topic, you can skip the first 45 minutes.
Listening to that podcast, one gets the feeling that Spolsky intentionally is misinterpreting the SOLID principles as discussed in Hanselminute #145. The examples he gives are definitely not what Mr. Martin meant it to be and are really horrible. Listen yourself!

The Friendly Discussion (After Apology)

2009-Feb-11: StackOverflow Episode 41

Joel and Jeff sit down with Robert Martin aka "Uncle Bob", and discuss software quality, the value of software engineering principles, and test-driven development.

The resumee

2009-Feb-18: Hanselminutes Show #150

Uncle Bob Martin responds to the hullabaloo around the SOLID principles from Show 145, his time on the Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky StackOverflow podcast, and offers his reasoned response. Is it time for a Software Apprenticeship Program? Other possible titles for this show: "He's back and he's pissed." "Bob's your Uncle." "Joel Who?" "SOLID State" "I got your tests right here!" "Smack Overflow" "Pay Attention This Time: Bob Martin on SOLID" (No, Bob's not pissed. We're just having a laugh.)

New: Tag Cloud

2009-03-27T23:18:00.001+01:00

I just added something I like in every blog I am reading: a tag cloud. I used the label-cloud widget from phydeaux3 and made some minor modifications.

BTW, I don't like the notion "label", but would like to use "tag" instead. Does anyone know how to customize the word "label" on the bottom of each post?
If you can help, please leave a comment. Thx!

Edit: Found out. On the template section - page elements you can click edit on the blog posts element. That opens a popup window where you can edit several aspects of the post appearance.

DevTnT 1 - ReSharper 4.5 Beta

2009-03-27T17:20:00.000+01:00

Just a note: ReSharper 4.5 Beta is out now.

The major highlight is the tight integration with the MSTest unit test framework. Check it out!

Again: ReSharper rulez!

DevTnT 1 - Open Containing Folder in Visual Studio

2009-03-27T17:18:00.001+01:00

To open the windows explorer and show the folder containing the current source file, select the tab and right click for the context menue. Then choose "Open Containing Folder".

DevTnT - Team Project Available on TFS

2009-03-27T14:41:00.000+01:00

For our DevTnT-related codes and demos we now have a team project on TFS: TechTalk.CCDev.DevTnT

All members of the development group have access to it.

DevTnT 1 - Source Control Explorer: Local Path As Link

2009-03-27T13:28:00.002+01:00

The Source Control Explorer in Visual Studio shows the locally mapped path of the current item's containing folder (if already downloaded). But, the actual features of that control changed with the version of Visual Studio and if you have the Team Foundation Power Tools installed:

Visual Studio 2005: Local Path Is Just A Label

In Visual Studio 2005, the local path is just a label with interaction at all.

Visual Studio 2008: Local Path Is A Readonly Textbox

With Visual Studio 2008 the label got a textbox. Better! Now we can select the text and copy it to the clipboard.

When we do afterwards Windows-R for explorer's run command and paste the path there, a windows explorer window opens at that specific location.

Visual Studio 2008 With TFS Power Tools: Local Path Is A Link

If we have also have installed the Team Foundation Server Power Tools, the textbox becomes a hyperlink. Much better!

Now we can open an explorer window immediately.

DevTnT 1 - Bulk Download Source Code Of The .NET Framework

2009-03-27T13:28:00.001+01:00

Over a year ago, Microsoft integrated a download feature for debug versions of the .NET Framework source code in Visual Studio (for a detailed description refer to Shawn Burke's post).

Since this features works on a file-by-file basis, some smart guys developed a mass download tool.

Cool stuff!

DevTnT 1 - Enable/Disable Debugging of Source Files in Visual Studio

2009-03-27T13:27:00.000+01:00

Solution Property Pages Dialog Box - Common Properties - Debug Source Files

Do not look for these source files
Enter the names of any files that you do not want the debugger to read. If the debugger finds one of these files in one of the directories specified above, it will ignore it. If the Find Source dialog box comes up while you are debugging and , you click Cancel, the file you were searching for gets added to this list so that the debugger will not continue searching for that file. Remove an entry if you want to debug a particular file again (for instance, in the meantime you have got the proper file version).

DevTnT 1 - Mouse Wheel Closes Tab

2009-03-27T13:19:00.000+01:00

This works in many Window applications (e.g. IE, MSSQL, VS.Net). To close a tab just place your mouse cursor on a tab and click with the scroll wheel. This is more convenient and faster than clicking the small cross on the tabs (IE) or do this via context menue, especially when you want to close several tabs.

DevTnT 1 - ReSharper: Filter On Find Usages

2009-03-27T13:10:00.000+01:00

ReSharper's Find Usages tool (Alt-F7) has a nice filter feature. For example if you are currently inspecting the usages of a property you can filter for read and write access:

You can access the filter settings via the drop down of the local menu or via the dedicated toolbar buttons to the left.

ReSharper rulez!

Dev TnT - It's About Your Knowledge!

2009-03-20T14:25:00.000+01:00

At the company I am working at (TechTalk) we are about 40 Developers with a broad band of knowledge, skills and interests. Several efforts to spread knowledge about development skills, know how about upcoming technologies and alike exist within the company. Especially, every now and then we have internal Developer Meetings and budget for external trainings as well.

But, what there is still missing is a somewhat "little form" of knowledge transfer where all of us can contribute, from the just hired juniors to our experienced veterans.

So, Dodo, a fellow colleague, and me are proud to announce Dev TnT (short for "Developer Tips and Tricks").

Dev TnT - The Vision

What's our vision about it?

Raise the efficiency of our coding
Have even more fun (and comfort) while working
Provide a pool for a all the little bits and pieces of tips and tricks that make our work more comfortable
No barrier for contribution, every little tip is explicitly welcome!
Got a cool shortcut for Visual Studio? - You're our man (or girl - welcome Margit!)!
Cultivate that we all can learn from each other. Learning is no one-way road.

How will it work?

Takes place every second Friday, starting with March 27th, 2009
Duration exactly from 11:45-12:00
We will not wait on anyone or anything - no video conferencing :)
Attentendance is voluntary
Results are blogged immediately (on this one or on any contributors own blog)

What you can rely on:

It will take place
You are welcome
It will be on time
Every contribution is welcome
It's about your knowledge

So, fellow Techies, check out DevTnT 1 coming up next Friday (March, 27th)!