Chris May

Too many to list.

Some of my favs are on this list, like Launchy and SnippetCompiler.

Yahoo has released a tool called YSlow that helps developers identify why a specific website is loading slow.

Take a look at this screen cap (click to enlarge):

 

This looks really cool. 

You can download it here for free.

Included Refactorings

		Add Validator			Create Overload			Encapsulate Field
		Extract ContentPlaceHolder			Extract ContentPlaceHolder (create master page)			Extract Method
		Extract Property			Extract Style (Class)			Extract Style (id)
		Extract to User Control			Flatten Conditional			Inline Temp
		Introduce Constant			Introduce Local			Introduce Local (replace all)
		Move Declaration Near Reference			Move Initialization to Declaration			Move Style Attributes to CSS
		Move to Code-behind			Rename			Reorder Parameters
		Replace Temp with Query			Reverse Conditional			Safe Rename
		Simplify Expression			Split Initialization from Declaration			Split Temporary Variable
		Surround with Update Panel

 

UPDATE:  It seems that installing this may have removed some of the features of the old Refactor! that I was frequently using (?).  I used to use the "Surround With-->Region" all the time.  Now that is gone.  I will have to investigate.

nSoftware just released a product called IBiz Integrator for Quickbooks, which is supposed to enable one to integrate their applicaiton with Quickbooks via QBXML.

A comprehensive suite of Internet-enabled components for QuickBooks (QBXML) Integration. Includes easy-to-use components for accessing QuickBooks constructs and automating accounting tasks.

Should be work looking into for QB applications.

Rob McLaws has this cool extension that lets you click on a folder and run a webserver from it.

The article, with some comments on alternative ways to do it, or ways to improve it can be found here.

http://weblogs.asp.net/rmclaws/archive/2005/10/25/428422.aspx

From the page:

I've been doing some web development work again lately, and I haven't wanted to screw with setting up IIS on my virtual machine. The .NET Framework 2.0 comes with a built-in webserver, based on the old Cassini web server. So I wanted to be able to easily set up any directory to have its contents served up on an as-needed basis. The result is an addition to the Windows Explorer right-click menu, as shown below:

This is enabled by a simple modification to the registry. You can take the text below and dump it into a file named "WebServer.reg", and then run it, to immediately get the item in the context menu.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Folder\shell\VS2005 WebServer]
@="ASP.NET 2.0 Web Server Here"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Folder\shell\VS2005 WebServer\command]
@="C:\\Windows\\Microsoft.NET\\Framework\\v2.0.50727\\Webdev.WebServer.exe /port:8080 /path:\"%1\""

There are a couple caveats to this tool, however:

1. The web server does not randomly assign a port number, so it has to be hard-coded into the registry.
2. The web server does not automatically assign a virtual directory, so it will always be "http://localhost:port"
3. A command prompt window will be spawned, and cannot be closed without closing the web server process.

Moving foward, there are a couple of options to fix these issues:

1. Someone who knows more about variables in the registry can help me fix issues #2 and #3
2. I can build a wrapper executable that solves all three problems
3. Microsoft can put in a DCR and fix it before it goes gold in a few days.

#3 is not likely, so I'd love to hear what you think. Hope this trick is useful.

 

This is a well known log analyzer application that can provide a nice web interface for viewing we stats.

http://awstats.sourceforge.net/ 

"Refactor!" has the ability to turn your fields into public accessible properties, but it kinda sucks because 1) you have to do it 1 at a time, and 2) the naming convetion is all wrong. 

For example if you have a private integer called myInt then your property will be MyInt1.  Not exaclty what I am looking for.

So I updated my 2002 macro for creating these properties.  It should allow you to follow a variety of naming conventions "m_XXX", "ciXXX", "strXXX" etc.

Just include the macro below, then just highlight your private fields, and run the macro.

   ' highlight the private properties
    Public Sub AddClassProperties()

        Dim oTextSelection As TextSelection = DTE.ActiveWindow.Selection
        Dim iLinesSelected = oTextSelection.TextRanges.Count
        Dim colPropertyList As New Collection()
        Dim iIndex As Integer
        Dim oStart As EditPoint = oTextSelection.TopPoint.CreateEditPoint()
        Dim oEnd As TextPoint = oTextSelection.BottomPoint

        'Create an Undo context object so all the changes can be
        'undone by CTRL+Z
        Dim oUnDo As UndoContext = DTE.UndoContext

        'Supress the User Interface. This will make it run faster
        'and make all the changes appear once
        DTE.SuppressUI = True

        Try

            oUnDo.Open("Comment Line")

            Dim sProperty As String
            Dim sLineOfText As String

            Do While (oStart.LessThan(oEnd))

                sLineOfText = oStart.GetText(oStart.LineLength).Trim
                '*** do some kind of simple check to make sure that this line
                '*** isn't blank and isn't some other kind of code or comment
                If (sLineOfText.IndexOf(" As ") >= 0 And ( _
                    (sLineOfText.IndexOf("Public ") >= 0) Or _
                    (sLineOfText.IndexOf("Private ") >= 0) Or _
                    (sLineOfText.IndexOf("Dim ") >= 0) Or _
                    (sLineOfText.IndexOf("Protected ") >= 0) Or _
                    (sLineOfText.IndexOf("Friend ") >= 0) Or _
                    (sLineOfText.IndexOf("ReDim ") >= 0) Or _
                    (sLineOfText.IndexOf("Shared ") >= 0) Or _
                    (sLineOfText.IndexOf("Static ") >= 0) _
                    )) Then

                    sProperty = oStart.GetText(oStart.LineLength).Trim.Replace(" New ", " ").Replace("()", "")

                    colPropertyList.Add(sProperty)
                End If

                oStart.LineDown()
                oStart.StartOfLine()

            Loop

            If colPropertyList.Count > 0 Then

                For Each sProperty In colPropertyList
                    Call InsertProperty(sProperty)
                Next

            Else
                MsgBox("You must select the class properties")
            End If

        Catch ex As System.Exception

            Debug.WriteLine(ex)
            If MsgBoxResult.Yes = MsgBox("Error: " & ex.ToString & vbCrLf & "Undo Changes?", MsgBoxStyle.YesNo) Then
                oUnDo.SetAborted()
            End If

            Return
        Finally

            'If an error occured, then need to make sure that the undo context is cleaned up.
            'Otherwise, the editor can be left in a perpetual undo context
            If oUnDo.IsOpen Then
                oUnDo.Close()
            End If

            DTE.SuppressUI = False
        End Try


    End Sub

    Private Sub InsertProperty(ByVal sProp As String)
        Dim oTextSelection As TextSelection = DTE.ActiveWindow.Selection
        Dim sMember As String = sProp.Substring(sProp.IndexOf(" ")).Trim
        Dim sDataType As String
        Dim sName As String
        Dim i As Integer
        Dim iAscVal As Integer

        i = sMember.IndexOf("(")
        If Not i = -1 Then
            sMember = sMember.Substring(0, i)
        End If

        i = sMember.IndexOf("=")
        If Not i = -1 Then
            sMember = sMember.Substring(0, i)
        End If

        sDataType = sMember.Substring(sMember.IndexOf(" As ") + 1)

        For i = 0 To sMember.Length - 1
            'iAscVal = Asc(Mid(sName, i, 1))
            iAscVal = Asc(sMember.Chars(i))
            If iAscVal > 64 And iAscVal < 91 Then
                sName = sMember.Substring(i)
                Exit For
            End If
        Next i

        sName = sName.Substring(0, sName.IndexOf(" As ") + 1).Trim

        If sName.Length = 0 Then
            MsgBox("Unable to process the class property: " & sMember & ".  This is usually caused by an incorrect naming convention (e.g. not cxName)")
            Return
        End If

        sMember = sMember.Substring(0, sMember.Length - sDataType.Length).Trim

        With oTextSelection
            .MoveToPoint(.ActivePoint.CodeElement(vsCMElement.vsCMElementClass).GetEndPoint(vsCMPart.vsCMPartWhole))
            .LineUp()
            .EndOfLine()

            .Text = "Public Property " & sName & "() " & sDataType
            .NewLine()
            .Text = "Return " & sMember
            .StartOfLine(vsStartOfLineOptions.vsStartOfLineOptionsFirstText)
            .StartOfLine(vsStartOfLineOptions.vsStartOfLineOptionsFirstColumn, True)
            .Copy()
            .LineDown(False, 3)
            DTE.ExecuteCommand("Edit.Paste")
            .Text = "Me." & sMember & " = Value"
            .LineDown(False, 2)
            .NewLine(2)

        End With

    End Sub

 

 

Update1: When using code that you cut and paste from here, you might need to first paste it into Word or Wordpad.

Update2: When using this macro, you need a space (new line) between the last private field variable and your end of class line.

I was just reading this site:

http://www.bearcanyon.com/dotnet/#AssemblySettings

I downloaded the sample code (link below).  It is supposed to allow you to have a config file per assembley e.g. MyAssembly.dll.config. 

I haven't looked at the code, but I guess you would just write something that uses reflection to find the assembly name, and then look for an xml file to read.

AssemblySettings.zip (10.5 KB)

 

This will provide the necessary functions to implement ICloneable as well as a type specific Clone method.

        
        Public Function Clone() As ClassName
            Dim bFormatter As New System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.BinaryFormatter
            Dim stream As New System.IO.MemoryStream()
            bFormatter.Serialize(stream, Me)
            stream.Seek(0, System.IO.SeekOrigin.Begin)
            Dim newClone As ClassName
            newClone = CType(bFormatter.Deserialize(stream), ClassName)
            Return newClone
        End Function
        Private Function ICloneableImplementation() As Object Implements System.ICloneable.Clone
            Return Me.Clone
        End Function

I wrapped this into a snippet that you can import into Visual Studio 2005.

Implement ICloneable.snippet (1.84 KB)

AcctSync is a .NET SDK for integrating stuff into quickbooks.

Update: I first made this post in 2003, but I have another client that is going to be looking to do something with Quickbooks.  Might want to revisit this component in the near future.

This whitepaper: Troubleshooting .NET Applications - Knowing Which Tools to Use and When talks about different methods for debugging .net applications, and talks about the various tools available to aid in the debugging efforst.

NUnit is good, but I think something that is more focused on Acceptance Testing or Functional Testing would be better suited.

TestComplete and to a possibly lesser extent, WebKing seem to focus on these more.

In addition, I might be able to use the MS ACT for this.
This guy thinks that FIT(.net version?) and the FitNesse framework are the ways to go.

Microsoft has it's own Testing Patterns and Practices section.

If all else fails... here are tons of links about functional testing.

NUnit is supposed to help with TDD and writing test scripts. I also found a link to ASP.NET addin which I guess I'll need for working with ASP.NET.(?)

Here is another MSDN article... but there is a newer on in the lastest MSDN magazine... but I guess that isn't online.

Here it is.

Here is an article that I would have loved to have read like a year ago.

nTierGen is another data access layer generator, but it generates a bunch of SPs as well as the DAL.