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Reflections on a Decade of Visual Studio
Last updated: Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Published in: CODE Magazine: 2010 - May/June
Reviewing where we’ve been over the last decade in the world of .NET and Visual StudioAt the brink of a new release of .NET and Visual Studio, you may wonder where all of this new technology is taking us. Not only do we now have a number of new flavors of Visual Studio targeted to release on April 12, 2010, we also get to enjoy a plethora of new technologies such as Silverlight 4 and RIA Services, as well as new hardware platforms to consider, such as Windows Phone 7 Series. Understanding the future usually begins with a reflection upon the past so let’s take a look at how Visual Studio has changed in the last decade.
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Heard on .NET Rocks! Future of Web Development Panel
Last updated: Saturday, January 18, 2020
Published in: CODE Magazine: 2009 - January/February
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A Pragmatic Approach to WPF Accessibility
Last updated: Wednesday, August 31, 2022
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2008 - Vol. 5 - Issue 4 - Windows Accessibility Focus
As is often the case, applications are not typically designed with accessibility in mind.Usually, applications are designed to satisfy business requirements. If those business requirements do not include accessibility, more likely than not, the application as a whole will be inaccessible to important segments of users. There are, however, steps you can take to mitigate this common lack of foresight in requirements analysis.
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Ask the Doc Detective
Last updated: Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Published in: CODE Magazine: 2008 - September/October
Finding what you need in the Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2008 documentation, which has over 200,000 topics, can be a daunting task. The Doc Detective is here to help, utilizing his investigative skills to probe the depths of the documentation.Can’t find what you’re looking for? Just ask-if it’s in there, I’ll find it for you; if it isn’t, I’ll let you know that as well (and tell you where else you might go to find it). Have a question for the Doc? Send your questions for future columns to me at docdetec@microsoft.com.
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WCF the Manual Way… the Right Way
Last updated: Tuesday, February 19, 2019
Published in: CODE Magazine: 2008 - September/October
Visual Studio 2008 as well as the .NET 3.0 extensions for Visual Studio 2005 add several new templates that allow you to quickly create .NET 3.0 items such as WPF forms, Workflows, and WCF services. We’ve used templates such as these since the beginning of time to create traditional application elements such as Windows Forms, Web Forms, and User Controls, so you would think that these are equally great; or would you? Unfortunately, creating WCF projects or project items come with more baggage than you can imagine. They also don’t exactly promote the best practices I feel should be considered when designing WCF services. So if you don’t use the built-in templates to create your services, what do you use? Well keep reading and I’ll show you how to create everything you need manually with ease while maintaining good design and coding practices.
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Heard on .NET Rocks! Andy Leonard on Unit Testing Your Database
Last updated: Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Published in: CODE Magazine: 2008 - May/June
May/June 2008 .NET Rocks! column
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Building WCF Services for Deployment in Transiently Connected Networks
Last updated: Wednesday, August 31, 2022
Published in: CODE Magazine: 2008 - January/February
Distributed applications are now prolific in the enterprise and more and more users are relying on network connectivity both on site and on the go so they can remain productive anywhere and at any time. Since network connectivity cannot always be guaranteed, what happens when the network goes down or a network connection is simply unavailable? How can you provide your users with the best connected experience regardless of the state of the network?
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The Provider Model
Last updated: Tuesday, February 19, 2019
Published in: CODE Magazine: 2007 - November/December
In this article you will learn how to isolate yourself from change by taking advantage of the Provider Model.Designing your applications using the Provider Model will allow you to swap components out at runtime, thus allowing you to upgrade them easily.
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Adding Smart Tags to Windows Forms Controls
Last updated: Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Published in: CODE Magazine: 2007 - July/August
One new features in Visual Studio 2005 is the support for smart tags. A smart tag is a panel that displays next to a control and contains a list of commonly used properties.
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Chapter 3 - The Anatomy of a Visual Basic Project
Last updated: Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Published in: Book Excerpts
Although you can create lots of kinds of projects both for Windows and the Web with Visual Basic 2010, there is a common set of files for each project. In this chapter you learn which files give the structure to each project and how the files influence the building of an application. You also get an overview of references, namespaces, classes, modules, and Visual Basic keywords.
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Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2012: Adopting Agile Software Practices: From Backlog to Continuous Feedback, 3rd Edition - Chapter 2 - Scrum, Agile Practices, and Visual Studio
Last updated: Saturday, January 18, 2020
Published in: Book Excerpts
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The Baker’s Dozen: 13 Productivity Tips for Crystal Reports Redux
Last updated: Wednesday, August 31, 2022
Published in: CODE Magazine: 2007 - January/February
This article presents a follow-up to my January/February 2005 article, The Baker's Dozen: 13 Productivity Tips for Crystal Reports and .NET, where I presented productivity tips for developers who use Crystal Reports for .NET. In this sequel article, Crystal Reports Redux, I’ll offer some changes to the original article and will present some new material for Crystal Reports development. While I’ll focus on the version of Crystal Reports that ships with Visual Studio 2005 Professional, I’ll mention some of the capabilities found in the latest version, Crystal Reports XI.
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Fun with RFID
Last updated: Tuesday, February 19, 2019
Published in: CODE Magazine: 2006 - November/December
A Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) system is an identification system that uses radio waves to retrieve data from a device called a tag or transponder. RFID surrounds us in our daily lives-in supermarkets, libraries, bookstores, etc. RFID provides a quick and efficient way to collect information, such as taking stock in a warehouse, as well as tracking the whereabouts of items.
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The Baker’s Dozen: 13 Productivity Tips for Generating PowerPoint Presentations
Last updated: Saturday, January 18, 2020
Published in: CODE Magazine: 2006 - November/December
This installment of “The Baker’s Dozen” finds the Baker expanding from pastries to eye candy: generating PowerPoint output. Many power users build presentations using data from Excel or other data sources. This article shows how to automate Microsoft PowerPoint 2003 from within a Visual Studio 2005 application. The article presents a class called GenPPT, which creates several different types of slides, including slides that integrate tables and charts. GenPPT is written in Visual Basic 2005, and the demo program that calls it is written in C#: this demonstrates using multiple .NET languages in a solution.
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Compilation and Deployment in ASP.NET 2.0
Last updated: Tuesday, February 19, 2019
Published in: CODE Magazine: 2006 - September/October
It’s crucial to understand how your ASP.NET code compiles in order to debug your Web applications effectively. ASP.NET 2.0 has changed the way compilation and deployment works, and in this article I’ll dig in and show you how compilation works now and what has changed from ASP.NET 1.x.
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The Baker’s Dozen Doubleheader: 26 Productivity Tips for Managing Data (Part 2 of 2)
Last updated: Wednesday, August 31, 2022
Published in: CODE Magazine: 2006 - September/October
In the conclusion of this two-part series on managing data, I will focus on .NET generics, the ASP.NET 2.0 ObjectDataSource, and some more T-SQL 2005 capabilities. Regardless of whether you work in C# or VB.NET, or whether you spend more time on the front-end or back-end of an application, the ability to manage data will directly impact your contributions to a project. The new .NET generics classes provide you with near-quantum leap in efficiency by allowing you to write simpler code that accomplishes more. ASP.NET 2.0’s ObjectDataSource class helps you to easily integrate middle-tier data-aware classes to data-bound controls on a Web page. Finally, as you saw in Part 1 of this series (and will see again here in Part 2), T-SQL 2005 provides new language capabilities to help database developers be more productive.
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Visual Studio 2005... That Legacy Software!
Last updated: Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Published in: CODE Magazine: 2006 - September/October
Admittedly, I’m excited about the many new technologies coming out of Microsoft. So excited that I can’t even decide what to play with first! I wrote about this in a previous MVP Corner piece for CoDe Magazine.
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Dissecting and Putting the Visual Studio 2005 Generated Data Access Layer Into Perspective
Last updated: Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Published in: CODE Magazine: 2006 - July/August
Do more with less code is the slogan of Visual Studio 2005.When it comes to reducing the amount of written code, wizards are definitely a viable option. Visual Studio 2005 has a lot of wizardry in it, especially to generate data access code. Any code that gets silently injected in your project follows a strict logic and a well-known design pattern. A full understanding how Visual Studio 2005 does it puts you on the right track to modify and extend the code to build your made-to-measure data access layer. This article dissects the code behind table adapters and binding source components to unveil patterns and best practices.
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Retaining Multiple Sets of User Settings
Last updated: Wednesday, August 31, 2022
Published in: CODE Magazine: 2006 - July/August
Retaining a single set of user settings for your application is easy.Retaining multiple sets of user settings is much more challenging.
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Object Binding Tips and Tricks
Last updated: Wednesday, August 31, 2022
Published in: CODE Magazine: 2006 - March/April
Gaining the full potential of object binding requires more than just dragging and dropping your properties onto forms. In this article I’ll present a few tricks you need to know to get the most from your object binding.
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.Finalize() - My Not-So-Evil Twin
Last updated: Thursday, February 21, 2019
Published in: CODE Magazine: 2006 - January/February
Ken Getz Finalize Column Jan/Feb 2006
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An Overview of Windows Presentation Foundation
Last updated: Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Published in: CODE Magazine: 2006 - January/February
By now you should have heard of several new acronyms that are usually associated with Windows Vista (codenamed Longhorn).
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ClickOnce: Bringing Ease and Reliability to Smart Client Deployment
Last updated: Wednesday, August 31, 2022
Published in: CODE Magazine: 2006 - January/February
Who said client deployment has to be difficult? Many developers would love to leverage the rich UI, high performance, and offline capability offered by smart client applications; however, they’ve been turned off by the high TCO caused by client deployment headaches. The advent of ClickOnce client deployment technology in the .NET Framework 2.0 heralds a new era where client deployment takes on the ease and reliability of Web deployment.
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New Features In Visual Studio 2005 Windows Forms
Last updated: Tuesday, February 19, 2019
Published in: CODE Magazine: 2006 - January/February
“Don’t do it! Don’t do it!” the little voice in my head shouted as I contemplated using the worn out cliché “Good things come to those who wait” to describe the experience of designing Windows applications with Visual Studio 2005.However, that cliché accurately communicates the idea that building Windows Forms applications in Visual Studio 2005 is better, makes you more productive, and provides you with more fun than doing the same in Visual Studio 2003, not to mention VB6!
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The Baker’s Dozen: 13 Productivity Tips for ADO.NET 2.0
Last updated: Tuesday, February 19, 2019
Published in: CODE Magazine: 2006 - January/February
This installment of “The Baker’s Dozen” presents a variety of tips and techniques to become productive with data handling techniques using ADO.NET 2.0 in Visual Studio 2005. ADO.NET 2.0 is faster than the first version of ADO.NET; in some instances, significantly faster. While many view ADO.NET 2.0 as more evolutionary than revolutionary, it provides many functions to give developers greater control over data access and data manipulation. It also leverages the new database capabilities in SQL Server 2005. In addition, ADO.NET 2.0 simplifies the creation of multiple-database solutions.
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The Baker’s Dozen: 13 Reasons for Upgrading to Visual Studio 2005
Last updated: Saturday, January 18, 2020
Published in: CODE Magazine: 2005 - November/December
This installment of “The Baker’s Dozen” covers some of the major features in Visual Studio 2005. Visual Studio 2005 offers language, data handling, and development environment enhancements that are sure to please many developers. Programmers who are currently using Visual Studio .NET 2003 will find many ways to write more efficient code and increase their overall productivity. In addition, programmers who are new to .NET will find the migration to Visual Studio 2005 a bit easier than the migration to the first version of .NET. While it’s not possible to talk about every new feature in Visual Studio 2005, this article will cover many of the primary changes and enhancements.
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.Finalize(): Seek and Ye Shall Find: AutoComplete in Windows Forms 2.0
Last updated: Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Published in: CODE Magazine: 2005 - September/October
Finalize Column Sept/Oct 2005 Ken Getz
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What's New in Visual Basic 2005?
Last updated: Wednesday, August 31, 2022
Published in: CODE Magazine: 2005 - May/June
If you have been a hardcore VB6 programmer and you've hesitated about switching to Visual Basic .NET, Visual Basic 2005 will change your mind and you'll want to take the leap forward to move to .NET.The common complaint that people who have made this leap already often hear from programmers who are reluctant to move to VB .NET is that it is not VB-like, and moving to .NET means you have to unlearn many of the things you have painstakingly mastered in VB6.
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Creating Debugger Visualizers with Visual Studio 2005
Last updated: Wednesday, August 31, 2022
Published in: CODE Magazine: 2005 - March/April
One of the very many cool new features in Visual Studio 2005 is the debugger visualizer.With debugger visualizers, developers are able to define what information they would like to see about a particular .NET class or even one of their own classes during debug mode. And as the name suggests, you can also choose how you would like to visualize these details.
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What's New in the Visual Studio 2005 Toolbox for Windows Applications?
Last updated: Tuesday, February 19, 2019
Published in: CODE Magazine: 2005 - January/February
All developers always welcome new controls and components.When a big new development tool ships (say, one as big as Visual Studio 2005) many developers look at what's missing in the toolbox even before they take a thoughtful look at what's in. Frankly, the toolbox for Windows Forms applications was already pretty rich in Visual Studio .NET 2003, but it will be even richer when the next version ships. In this article, I'll take you on a whistle-stop tour of the new controls slated for Windows Forms 2.0 to make writing code more productive and pleasant than ever.
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Drag Once DataBinding with Custom Controls
Last updated: Wednesday, August 31, 2022
Published in: CODE Magazine: 2004 - November/December
Visual Studio 2005 will ship some great new controls, but suppose you want your own control to play in the Data Sources Window?In this article, I'll explain how the Data Sources Window in Visual Studio 2005 will enable you to extend the list of controls supported for Drag Once Databinding. I'll show you how to create a PhoneBox control and an AddressBlock UserControl.
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A Look Under the Hood of Windows Forms Data Binding
Last updated: Tuesday, February 19, 2019
Published in: CODE Magazine: 2004 - September/October
Many developers have a dream: easy and efficient data binding.To be really quick and profitable, RAD (rapid application development) tools and techniques must be strong in data binding. They must provide a programming interface that is both easy to use and effective. Easy design-time composition of user interfaces; effective support of complex scenarios of interrelated data, dependencies, and filtering. In Windows Forms, the data binding machinery is highly sophisticated and designed to meet common needs of former client/server applications, now migrating to the more modern .NET multi-tier design. This article reviews common Windows Forms data binding techniques and provides answers and explanations.
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Data Validation Using .NET and External Metadata
Last updated: Tuesday, February 19, 2019
Published in: CODE Magazine: 2004 - September/October
Using .NET reflection and external metadata makes it easy to add data validation to your objects.Nearly every application that collects data, whether from a Windows- or Web-based form or from a file, needs to validate that the data is in the correct format.
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Drag-Once Databinding
Last updated: Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Published in: CODE Magazine: 2004 - September/October
Using the new Data Sources Window in Visual Studio 2005, developers can now drag columns of their typed DataSets or properties of their own business objects directly to their form. Visual Studio 2005 will create, name, and label controls for each bound property. For those that prefer to lay out the forms with the toolbox, developers can use "Connect the Dots DataBinding" to drag and drop from the Data Sources Window onto their existing controls.
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Oh My!! - A Look at the My Namespace in Visual Basic 2005
Last updated: Wednesday, August 31, 2022
Published in: CODE Magazine: 2004 - September/October
Productivity is one of the major goals of Visual Basic 2005 and with "My" Microsoft may just have hit a home run.Although Visual Basic .NET is just as powerful as C# for building business applications, it did not get the initial push that C# did back at PDC 2000 when Microsoft unveiled .NET. This was not meant to slight Visual Basic and Visual Basic developers, but rather represented the state of the Visual Basic .NET language which was not as far along in the development process as C#. Opponents to the Basic syntax took this and ran with it. Microsoft has tried to attack this misconception but has also caused some of the problem, initially by pushing .NET for Web services development so hard that many developers and managers incorrectly got idea that .NET was primarily for Web services. With Visual Basic 2005 the power of the .NET Framework is fully exposed and the true power of Visual Basic is once again starting to take form and that power is productivity. Whereas C# is about language first and foremost Visual Basic is about language and tools to make the development process faster.
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Visualize Your Code with the Class Designer
Last updated: Tuesday, February 19, 2019
Published in: CODE Magazine: 2004 - September/October
The Class Designer feature of Visual Studio 2005 allows you to visually manipulate your classes.A picture is worth a thousand words, as the saying goes. The new Visual Studio 2005 (Whidbey) Class Designer provides a visual design environment that allows you to visualize and manipulate your classes. Being able to see your classes and work with them using a visual designer can significantly increase your productivity.
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20 Cool Visual Studio .NET IDE Features
Last updated: Wednesday, February 23, 2022
Published in: CODE Magazine: 2002 - March/April, Markus Egger Talks Tech
For the first time ever, Visual Studio has a language independent Integrated Developers Environment (IDE), which includes a number of new productivity enhancements. However, many of the most powerful features are not obvious.
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Deconstructing Add-In Architecture in Visual Studio .NET
Last updated: Wednesday, August 31, 2022
Published in: CODE Magazine: 2003 - November/December
Visual Studio .NET provides an incredible leap forward from its predecessor in terms of functionality, but eventually, every developer finds a sought-after feature that just seems overlooked. VS.NET provides great features and capabilities, from intelligent wizards to very useful drag-and-drop functionality such as that provided by the Server Explorer tool window. If there's a problem, it could be one of too much success. A simple stroll through the IDE reveals feature after productivity-inducing feature, providing the developer with a high set of expectations. Eventually, you may find that an expected feature is missing. Fortunately, Microsoft included a very powerful extensibility model, allowing integration of new, custom features directly into the IDE.
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The Enterprise Instrumentation Framework
Last updated: Tuesday, February 19, 2019
Published in: CODE Magazine: 2003 - November/December
We've all faced those irritable questions about our applications running in production. Typically a system administrator will spring one on you on a Friday afternoon just when you're finishing out the week with a game of foosball. Why did this request fail? What is causing so many disk IO spikes? What requests are failing as a result of this error? Why is the application running so slowly? Why are all the resources being gobbled up on the Web server? These questions often make us stare blankly for a while, mumble something, and then scramble back to our cave (or server room) for hours on end trying to provide answers,
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Some Pitfalls of Inheritance
Last updated: Thursday, December 9, 2021
Published in: CODE Magazine: 2000 - Summer
Inheritance is one of the fundamental facets of object-oriented programming. In this article,Steve looks at inheritance, and in particular some of the mistakes that many developers make when applying inheritance.