Mark Monster

After working with Workflow Foundation at a customer I had to admit: I hate DependencyProperties. Yes I hate them. They exist because Workflow Foundation, Windows Presentation Foundation and now also Silverlight needed some way to add features to properties. I must admit I would have liked a different approach by using some kind of Aspect Orientation with PostSharp or so. But I still have to make use of them, so let’s make the creation of DependencyProperties easier, an Resharper Live Template. Just a few words (Property Name, Property Type, Activity Type and PropertyDescription) and you’ll have a full DependencyProperty. I made the Live Template start with word "dprop" and also made the Activity Type be selected by the containing class type.

 1 public static DependencyProperty $PROPERTYNAME$Property =
 2     DependencyProperty.Register("$PROPERTYNAME$", typeof ($PROPERTYTYPE$),
 3                     typeof ($ACTIVITYTYPE$));
 4 [Description("$PROPERTYDESCRIPTION$")]
 5 [Browsable(true)]
 6 [DesignerSerializationVisibility(DesignerSerializationVisibility.Visible)]
 7 public $PROPERTYTYPE$ $PROPERTYNAME$
 8 {
 9     get { return ($PROPERTYTYPE$) GetValue($PROPERTYNAME$Property); }
10     set { SetValue($PROPERTYNAME$Property, value); }
11 }

Have fun with it.

I just came across a three part article about creating a custom Launchy clone in .NET and WPF. Launchy is very nice application launcher I talked about in the past. The article is very detailed, I like it. And for all Launchy is very feature-rich, but I only use it for launching applications that are in my Start menu. Take a look at it for yourself.

• Building a simple Launchy clone in WPF (Part 1/3: Blend)
• Building a simple Launchy clone in WPF (Part 2/3: Visual Studio)
• Building a simple Launchy clone in WPF (Part 3/3: Tying things together)

Maybe I build my own Launchy clone. A good start to get to know WPF a little better, practice the Model View Presenter pattern and more.

Microsoft published a white paper about Microsoft Visual Studio 2008. I read it and discuss it in a brief summary. The white paper discuss the different customer experiences that Visual Studio 2008 delivers through seven different technology areas.

1. Develop Smart Client Applications
2. Create Microsoft Office Applications
3. Build Windows Vista Applications
4. Handle Data More Productive
5. An Improved Developer Experience Overall
6. Enable New Web Experiences
7. Improve Application Life-cycle Management (ALM)

Read the rest of this entry »

SOA in the Real World is a book that introduces a set of SOA capabilities and explores them. You can download this book for free from the Microsoft site. I think this is the ideal time for me to get to know SOA better and how it can be applied in the Real World.

I thought it was time to start trying out some Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). So I downloaded the latest VPC with Orcas CTP (June 2007) and Expression Blend 2 (May Preview). But starting the Expression Blend 2 setup gives an error about the .NET 3.0 framework that needs to be installed. After some research I found out .NET 3.0 SP1 is installed on the Orcas VPC. Some more research gives the following solution.

You can fool the Expression Blend 2 setup by changing a registry key. Follow the steps:

• Search for the “HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v3.0\Setup\Windows Presentation Foundation\ProductVersion” registry key
• My original ProductVersion value is: 3.0.04506.577
• I changed it to ProductVersion: 3.0.6913.0
• I ran the Expression Blend 2 setup
• And changed the ProductVersion back to: 3.0.04506.577

Now let’s play with WPF.