I am exploring the possibility of using Visual Studio isolated shell as UI scaffolding for my WPF application. The application will contain custom "document" windows as well as many side tool windows used to display extra information. I need the tool windows and document windows to either be controlled by a main controller or easily communicate with one another.
There are VERY FEW documentations on VS isolated shell and even fewer examples. So I am hoping that someone with previous experience in developing custom apps or IDEs using VS isolated shell can help me with this.
Is it feasible to use VS isolated shell just for its UI scaffolding purposes? If so, how can I essentially erase all of the inherited features from Visual Studio and custom everything from menu bars to document pages? Or is it better to use some other UI scaffolding library, such as AvalonDocks? The benefit of using VS shell is that it's much more stable and I can easily port it into Visual Studio as a custom tool window if I need to.
Much appreciated!
You can have a look at recent samples from the Visual Studio Development team:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vsx/archive/2014/05/30/vs-2013-sdk-samples-released.aspx
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I have developed a WinForms application. Now I want to upgrade my application by adding new features and optimizing it. One way to do this is by just copying the project folder and making changes in that copied project folder. I want to know is this the proper way of version controlling in software development by just copying the project folder for every new version or are there some systematic methods available to manage all the versions of my application. I really want to learn about these things. Please guide me.
Azure DevOps (formerly Visual Studio Team Services, or VSTS for short) is a free* online Microsoft system which incorporates source control, a general overview of it can be found here. There are other systems but I'd highly recommend this as it ties in with Visual Studio nicely.
Specifics on two type of version control Azure DevOps supports are:
Team Foundation Version Control
Git
Git seems to be becoming the preferred system now, it's what Microsoft default to and my workplace has now moved to that setup.
Each system allows you to check-in or commit a code change that you make, keeps a history of these changes and enables you to roll-back to and view previous code.
Once you have learnt those basics start looking at branches/repos, when you start working alongside another developer on the same project I'd recommend doing some more reading to learn how to resolve merge conflicts and best practices to avoid them.
*It's free for up to five developers
Thanks for looking.
I have a need to be able to create new Azure website and database instances from a Windows forms application I have created as an internal-use tool.
I am not sure if there is a C# API for this or if I need to use Powershell or some other CLI, but I would appreciate any advice.
All of the searching I have done on the subject has not turned up a simple, direct explanation as to how to do this or if it is even possible.
Using Azure Resource Manager (ARM) API's is the way to go these days - especially with your scenario. You've probably seen documentation that uses the old Service Management API's to do this. You could still do this, but I would strongly discourage it. ARM is where the investment in automation is landing going forward.
For your particular scenario, there is actually a tutorial here.
If you are using Visual Studio 2013 or 2015, then you can also use the ARM templates that it provides. For example, from Visual Studio, select File > New > Project and choose the Azure Resource Group project template.
The next window in the new project dialog is where you can select from some common deployment templates, such as what you are looking for, which is a Web App + SQL Database.
This project will contain the ARM template that describes your environment and a script that you can use to invoke ARM to deploy it.
To deploy the environment, right-click on the project in Visual Studio and select Deploy. Fill in the parameters that the template provides and you are on your way. If you look in the script that is generated (Deploy-AzureResourceGroup.ps1), you will see at the bottom of the script a call to New-AzureResourceGroup. What this does is basically merge your ARM template and parameters together and then sends them to Azure Resource Manager to provision the environment. In other words, you have everything here to automate this without having to do it from Visual Studio.
Ive got Umbraco 7 installed on my web server with the usual default skins and such and, what I want to do is create my own template(s) to use on the site ill be creating. Now Ive looked at all the documentation in Umbraco and all it really spends its time doing is talking about using an existing template code then adding CSS, Javascript and such. that's all well and good, but I want to use visual studio to develop this site/Application. the problem is that the Visual Studio template developed by Warren Buckley doesn't work on Visual Studio 2013 at all and there's no sign of him sorting this out it would seem...
What I want to do is develop the various templates I need, then add Bootstrap, develop custom menus, Forms for Credit card processing, emailing, etc (Not sure where you do this in Umbraco.. Macros perhaps?) then manage the content only in Umbraco. The developers of Umbraco don't seem to grasp the existence of Visual Studio or updating any documentation concerning Visual studio 2013 or Umbraco 7.
In short, All I bloody want to do is develop this Friggin thing in VS 2013, then manage content in Umbraco.. Umbraco is installed and running, VS 2013 sees the file content and can communicate with the web server perfectly..
Any help on this would be hot!!!!
You should consider using NuGet. Just create an empty project in Visual Studio, go to Nuget Package Manager Console and type
Install-Package UmbracoCms
Then it installs everything you need, and once it's done you run the application and it jumps straight into the setup. You can choose a custom setup where you choose DB options and starter kits and so forth.
And it definitely works in Visual Studio, I've done it plenty of times.
First off, I'd recommend buying one month of Umbraco TV and watching the Implementor and Developer track: http://umbraco.tv/
Generally, you can edit css, js, views, and partial views in Visual Studio. You will need to create Document Types in the back-office because they are in the database. That is, unless you want to use a code-first style package like Ditto: https://our.umbraco.org/projects/developer-tools/ditto.
Also, the Templates actually have a record in the database. So you must create them in the back-office if you need to connect them to DocumentTypes / Content. Or you could use code-first.
I am developing a project in Visual Studio 2008 with a team of 5 people. Each of the 5 people develop Windows forms and a repository in maintained on the server. The problem is that I have to individually compile each form manually after opening Visual Studio and adding the forms in the project.
I want to add and compile the forms using a GUI and not Visual Studio as such. Is this possible?
Basically, the solution lies in programmatically adding Forms to Visual Studio Project I am not sure if such an application could be developed. Any help will be highly appreciated.
Thanks!
The problem is that I have to individually compile each form manually after opening Visual Studio and adding the forms in the project.
You can csc.exe which is a commandline C# compiler. Make a script that pulls the code and compiles it.
I want to add and compile the forms using a GUI and not Visual Studio as such
I don't understand .Do you want to add and compile forms using a GUI app or add GUI?
Basically, the solution lies in programmatically adding Forms to Visual Studio Project I am not sure if such an application could be developed
If you had already a project that is set-up (dependencies) is it fairly easy. You have to add C# code to the source code. It depends on the size of a modification, but it should be done with a couple of lines of script.
You could either develop scripts to execute msBuild tasks from the command line (command line reference) and develop a GUI to start a shell to run those, or you can use the csc.exe from a script/command prompt to do the compilation manually.
The MsBuild option will be useful if you have project files you want to build, the csc option is more low level and will require more work but will not require you to have a project file, just the source code files and dependencies.
This sounds like the wrong way to go though. Are you sure that you don't want to develop an application that can have plugins? then you develop each form to an interface and package it up in its own dll, and have the application load the plugin dlls and extract out the forms which implement the particular interface. That way you build the app once, and can add new forms without having to recompile at all...
You might want to consider using a plug-in/add-in framework such as MEF or MAF. Team members can then be responsible for their own forms which are popped into a plug-in for you to use.
Choosing between MEF and MAF (System.AddIn)
Such a thing allows you to dynamically control how forms/controls are displayed at runtime or depending how you implement the plug-in system, allow you to drag-n-drop your layout at design time.
Much like user controls.
I made an application at the office which runs a bunch of ProcessManager objects which themselves run a bunch of Process objects.
I have been thinking in creating a wizard to create automaticly the classes needed, but I want now to create a custom designer for creating and editing the classes. By designer, I mean like the LinqToSql designer and so on.
I wasn't able to find any information about it, or at least clear one. I've been looking at how to create a new editor for vs 2010 or add design-time ability, but none of theses researches helped me.
The ideal would be to have let's say ProcessManagerClass1.cs and ProcessManagerClass1.designer.cs and when opening the first one, it would open the custom designer.
Do you know how to do it and give me some links for tutorials or documentation??
Thank you for your help,
Vincent
I would start with the Visualization and Modeling SDK for Visual Studio 2010, which was formerly known as the Domain Specific Languages SDK. It is the way to create custom designers in Visual Studio. To use it, you first have to install the Visual Studio 2010 SDK (SP1 here, but you may have to run them in order, which means this first, then the Visualization SDK, then SP1)