mentas Ribbon

Basic and easy .NET 2.0 control to make your application feel like MS Office 2007 UI experience.

Download mentas Ribbon

Technorati : control, development, gui, toolbar, ui
Ice Rocket : control, development, gui, toolbar, ui

A free charting library for .NET

ZedGraph is a set of classes, written in C#, for creating 2D line and bar graphs of arbitrary datasets. The classes provide a high degree of flexibility - almost every aspect of the graph can be user-modified. At the same time, usage of the classes is kept simple by providing default values for all of the graph attributes. The classes include code for choosing appropriate scale ranges and step sizes based on the range of data values being plotted.

ZedGraph also includes a UserControl interface, allowing drag and drop editing within the Visual Studio forms editor, plus access from other languages such as C++ and VB.

Example charts generated with ZedGraph

Technorati : c#, chart, development, net
Ice Rocket : c#, chart, development, net

TopMost Form

"A topmost form is a form that overlaps all the other (non-topmost) forms even if
it is not the active or foreground form. Topmost forms are always displayed at
the highest point in the z-order of the windows on the desktop. You can use this
property to create a form that is always displayed in your application,
such as a Find and Replace tool window."

The well known issue that the TopMost Form stealing focus ...
The fallowing code can solve the problem.

private const int SW_SHOWNA = 8;
private const int SW_SHOWNA = 8;
[DllImport("user32", CharSet = CharSet.Auto)]
private extern static int ShowWindow( IntPtr hWindow, int nCmd );

public void MakeTopMostForm(Form frm)
{
ShowWindow(frm.Handle, SW_SHOWNA);
}

BytesRoad.NetSuit Library 2.0

BytesRoad.NetSuit Library 2.0 is a free network library for .NET platform distributed under GNU General Public License. The library is written in C# language and source codes are also available.

FTP functionality is exposed by FtpClient class . This class contains high level methods that allow you to communicate with FTP server. Also available SocketEx class. This class may be used instead of the .NET Framework's Socket class wish your application to be able to communicate through the proxies (Socks4, Socks5 etc).

FTP Implementation features

• Fully compliant with RFC 959 (File Transfer Protocol) and related documents
• Comprehensive reference for the component (as compiled HTML file) integrated with .NET Framework SDK v1.1 help
• Support communication with FTP server through the proxies. Following proxies are currently supported:
  • Socks4
  • Socks4a
  • Socks5, username/password authentication method supported
  • Web proxy (HTTP CONNECT method), basic authentication method supported
• All methods requiring networking hava synchronous and asynchronous versions
• Implementation of asynchronous methods follows .NET Asynchronous methods pattern
• Each operation may be configured with required time out period
• "Store unique file" command can be customized by specifying regular expression
• Directory listing parser supports common directory listing formats and can be customized by the user-defined parser
• Exception oriented error handling
• Provide events for monitoring the communication process:
  • Event during data transferring
  • Event during receiving ftp items
  • Event on each FTP command sent
  • Event on each FTP response received
• Supported on .NET Framework v1.0 and later

Sockets implementation features

• Comprehensive reference for the component (as compiled HTML file) integrated with .NET Framework SDK v1.1 help
• Following proxies are currently supported:
  • Socks4
  • Socks4a
  • Socks5, username/password authentication method supported
  • Web proxy (HTTP CONNECT method), basic authentication method supported
• All methods requiring networking have synchronous and asynchronous versions
• Implementation of asynchronous methods follows .NET Asynchronous methods pattern
• Each operation may be configured with required time out period
• Exception oriented error handling
• Supported on .NET Framework v1.0 and later

Download BytesRoad.NetSuit Library 2.0

Technorati : freeware, ftp, open source
Ice Rocket : freeware, ftp, open source

Free SharePoint 2007 Book

"Future or current SharePoint developers should at least flip through the book to build a picture of how MOSS 2007 fits together and what the concepts are -- changes to the security model, site definitions, site features, Content Types, how Workflow is integrated, Excel Services -- there are a hundred small topics, you owe it to yourself to get a handle on the big picture."

Table of Contents

• Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
• Building Solutions with Office SharePoint Server 2007
• Building a Basic SharePoint Site
• Organizing List and Documents with Site Columns and Content Types
• Working with Features in Windows SharePoint Services
• Windows SharePoint Services Core Development
• Creating Workflows: The Missing Piece of Office Productivity
• Introducing Excel Services
• Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007 and Microsoft Office Forms Server 2007
  

Download

[Via Roy Osherove's Blog]

Technorati : book, free, microsoft, sharepoint
Ice Rocket : book, free, microsoft, sharepoint

Creating clonable menu items in .Net 2.0 ( Implementing CloneMenu method )

In Windows Forms FAQ( .Net 2.0) I found that the CloneMenu method is not implemented ...:-(

"With the entire ToolStrip family of controls we do not have an integrated commanding
architecture nor do we support cloning of items to appear in multiple places.
We do support reusing the same ToolStripDropDown or ContextMenuStrip in multiple places (non-nested).
We understand this may require more state management and maintenance code and are looking
at ways to improve this in the future.
Erick Ellis, 6 January 2005 # (MS)"

Here's "fast and dirty" solution:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;

namespace WindowsApplication66
{
class CloneToolStripLabel:ToolStripLabel
{
public CloneToolStripLabel( string text )
: base(text)
{
}
public CloneToolStripLabel CloneMenu()
{
return ( CloneToolStripLabel )this.MemberwiseClone();
}
}
}

Usage:

CloneToolStripLabel menuItem = new CloneToolStripLabel("Kuku");
toolStrip1.Items.Add(menuItem);
toolStrip2.Items.Add(menuItem.CloneMenu());

Also you can read this post

Technorati : dotnet, ms, toolstrip, winforms
Ice Rocket : dotnet, ms, toolstrip, winforms

Save and restore the size,location and state of a Windows Form in .NET 2.0

The fallowing example saves the properties (location, size and windows state) of a form to app.config
when the form is closed and restores the form state when it is loaded.

Create three properties called Size ,Location and WindowState in project settings dialog as shown in picture:

Modify Form.Load and FormClosing methods (Use DesktopBounds (instead Form.Location and Size)
to place form correctly on a multi screen desktop )

private void Form1_Load( object sender, EventArgs e )

{

// restore location and size of the form on the desktop

this.DesktopBounds =

new Rectangle(Properties.Settings.Default.Location,

Properties.Settings.Default.Size);

// restore form's window state

this.WindowState = ( FormWindowState )Enum.Parse(

typeof(FormWindowState),

Properties.Settings.Default.WindowState);

}

private void Form1_FormClosing( object sender, FormClosingEventArgs e )

{

Properties.Settings.Default.Location = this.DesktopBounds.Location;

Properties.Settings.Default.Size = this.DesktopBounds.Size;

Properties.Settings.Default.WindowState =

Enum.GetName(typeof(FormWindowState), this.WindowState);

// persist location ,size and window state of the form on the desktop

Properties.Settings.Default.Save();

}

Technorati : c#, dotnet, microsoft, winform

PowerShell Editor and IDE.

PowerShellIDE is the PowerShell Editor and IDE.

It is a graphical user interface that helps explore and exploit the vast power available with PowerShell. It contains a debugger, lets you step through PowerShell scripts, explore variables as you run your scripts and also supports many Intellisense-like functions.

Download PowerShellIDE

Technorati : ide, microsoft, monad, powershell
Ice Rocket : ide, microsoft, monad, powershell

MSBuild Sidekick

MSBuild Sidekick is a GUI application for creating and editing build project files for Microsoft Build engine. The application provides full-fledged graphic user interface as alternative to editing build project files by hand. The full range of MSBuild schema elements is supported.

MSBuild Sidekick features:

• Load and modify any file complying to MSBuild schema
• View build project structure in a tree view that displays tasks used in build, property groups and properties, item groups and items, targets and targets tasks and imported build projects.
• Show or hide presentation of imported definitions in a project tree view
• View MSBuild project raw XML source as you modify the project
• Modify project default targets
• Add or remove tasks used in build project from external assembly
• Add, remove or modify property groups
• Add, remove or modify properties in property groups
• Add, remove or modify item groups
• Add, remove or modify items in item groups
• Add, remove or modify targets
• Add, remove or modify selected target's tasks, tasks order
• Modify selected task properties (including output properties specification)
• Import or remove external build projects
• Open any imported project from the loaded project

Download MSBuild Sidekick

[Via Larkware News]

Technorati : dotnet, microsoft, msbuild, vs2005
Ice Rocket : dotnet, microsoft, msbuild, vs2005

How to prevent the UserControl class to appear in the Visual Studio toolbox

You can prevent the UserControl class to appear in the Visual Studio toolbox by adding fallowing attribute to it

[System.ComponentModel.ToolboxItem(false)]

Remember that this attribute is inheritable ,so derived UserControls must place have a System.ComponentModel.ToolboxItem(false) attribute if they want to be available on the Visual Studio toolbox .

Technorati : c#, code, component, dotnet, vs
Ice Rocket : c#, code, component, dotnet, vs

Free Ebook about Windows PowerShell

Download a free Ebook about Windows PowerShell( An Introduction to Microsoft PowerShell by Don Jones )

[ Via Anderson Patricio Blog ]

Technorati : ebook, microsoft, powershell, windows
Ice Rocket : ebook, microsoft, powershell, windows

SQL Prompt

SQL Prompt provides Intellisense® style auto-completion for Microsoft SQL Server editors. It will tell you the exact formatting you should use for your SQL commands, while you are writing them and will therefore help you write fast, perfectly formatted SQL statements. SQL Prompt improves the productivity of all SQL script creation. SQL Prompt can be downloaded free until 1st September 2006.

SQL Prompt simply sits behind the scenes and provides unobtrusive help when you press Ctrl-Space or when you type "." after a table/view/alias name.

Features:

• Table/View name completion
• Column name completion
• Stored procedure name completion
• USE completion
• JOIN/JOIN ON completion
• Auto-uppercasing of keywords
• Auto-popup after keywords

SQL Prompt works with Microsoft Query Analyzer, SQL Server 2005 Management Studio, Visual Studio 2005, Visual Studio .NET 2003, SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Manager, UltraEdit32.

Get Free Copy Of SQL Promt

Technorati : database, intellisense, sql, tool
Ice Rocket : database, intellisense, sql, tool

{smartassembly}

{smartassembly} is an innovative all-in-one improvement and protection tool.

Features:

1. Merges your Application dependencies with your main Assembly.
2. Automatically Detects and Removes the non-useful code and metadata.
3. {smartassembly} is a smart Obfuscator, which automatically detects which code can or can't be obfuscated. {smartassembly} also encodes the strings in order to improve protection.
4. The combination of the previous features leads to an improvement of your Application's performances.
5. Automatically adds missing exceptions handling, and Reports these exceptions with detailed snapshot information to the developer.
6. One-stop Improvement and Protection tool in one single post-compilation process.
   

{smartassembly} is available in 3 editions:

The Standard edition is perfect for a small and simple project.
The Professional edition, thanks to its advanced debugging capabilities, enables to improve and protect larger and more complexes projects.
The Enterprise edition, thanks to its customization capabilities, enables to improve and protect your enterprise projects.

Download {smartassembly}

[Via Larkware News]

Technorati : development, protection, reporting, tool
Ice Rocket : development, protection, reporting, tool

Front-end application for ILMerge

Gilma is a front-end application for ILMerge: Microsoft's command-line utility that can be used to merge multiple .NET assemblies into a single assembly. ILMerge is freely available from Microsoft's web site. ILMerge's license does allow commercial usage.

[Via Larkware]

Technorati : dotnet, microsoft, tool

An easy way to find out if an application will cause troubles on Windows Vista

The Standard User Analyzer helps developers and IT professionals diagnose issues that would prevent a program from running properly without administrator privileges. On Windows Vista, even administrators run most programs with standard user privileges by default, so it is important to ensure that your application does not have administrator access as a dependency.

Using the Standard User Analyzer to test your application can identify the following administrator dependencies and return the results in a graphical interface:

• File access
• Registry access
• INI files
• Token issues
• Security privileges
• Name space issues
• Other issues

This tool also complements the Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) 5.0. ACT 5.0 will include a User Account Control agent that you can deploy to user desktops to identify applications that require administer privileges. The Standard User Analyzer is designed to be run on the developer or tester's workstation to test and troubleshoot a specific application. Issues identified with the Standard User Analyzer can also be entered into you ACT 5.0 database so you can track the application compatibility across your environment.

Download Microsoft Standard User Analyzer.

Technorati : analyze, microsft, tool, vista, windows

Live Gadget SDK version 0.5 (Beta)

The Windows Live Gadget SDK provides everything you need to get started with developing Gadgets that run on Live.com.

The Windows Live Gadget SDK consists of the following:

• Windows Live Gadget Developer's Guide If this is the first time you are developing a Live Gadget, we recommend that you start here.
• API Reference Documentation on the complete the Windows Live Gadget API that you can program to.
• Gadget Design Guide Guidelines to help you with building a beautiful Gadget that will follows our guidelines.
• Windows Live Gadget Project Template A project template that you can install into Visual Studio 2005 or Visual Web Developer Express 2005 to make Live Gadget development much easier!
• Additional Samples Extra samples to show you how to write code to accomplish certain tasks.
• Developer FAQ Answers your most frequently asked questions.
• Development Resources Other resources to help you be successful with building that awesome Gadget! Includes Community resources, references and tutorials on JavaScript & DOM, HTML & CSS, and much more!

Technorati : gadget, microsoft, sdk, windows

NUnit 2.4 alpha has been released

NUnit 2.4 Alpha Release

General

• The source code directory structure has been reorganized to separate NUnitFramework and NUnitCore.
• A new nunit.common assembly isolates core interfaces.
• The following assemblies are now strongly named: nunit.mocks, nunit.core.extensions and nunit.framework.extensions
• NUnit may now be installed by non-administrators, subject to any security restrictions imposed by the particular site.
• The .Net 2.0 builds of NUnit are now called "NUnit for .Net 2.0"
• The NAnt build script has been simplified and now consists only of the nunit.build and nunit.build.include files.
• The NAnt build script now has a target for building under the Mono 2.0 profile.
• NUnit is now been built and tested using both Microsoft .Net (1.0, 1.1, 2.0) and Mono (1.0 and 2.0 profiles).

Core

• When multiple assemblies are loaded, they may use a single AppDomain, as now, or a separate AppDomain for each assembly. The new option provides greater isolation of the tests and allows use of separate config files for each assembly.
  
  Note: In the Alpha release, separate config files are required when this option is used, even if an NUnit project is loaded.
• The automatic creation of test suites for each namespace is now optional. When the creation of these suites is suppressed, the fixtures are loaded as a simple flat list, without any hierarchy imposed.
• When multiple assemblies are loaded, the tests may optionally be merged. If automatic namespace suites are enabled, namespaces are merged across assemblies. This option is only available if a single AppDomain is used.
• The fixture object is created for the life of the test run and is no longer reused on subsequent runs. If the object implements IDisposable, Dispose is called before destroying it.
• The current directory is set to the location of the test assembly before running each fixture. This change facilitates running fixtures in any order and eliminates interference between fixtures that change the current directory.
• Non-public fixture classes are treated as non-runnable and display a warning message rather than being silently ignored.
• A new SetUpFixture allows one-time SetUp and TearDown at the level of a NameSpace or for an entire assembly.
  
  
• The TestRunner no longer passes "live" tests back to the gui or console. Instead, a data class that encapsulates the info about the test is sent.
• Registry settings are now stored under nunit.org. Old settings are migrated automatically when the application is first run.
• When the default config for a test project is set to "NUnitAutoConfig" the configuration of the current NUnit build is automatically selected for the tests, if available. This is intended for use by NUnit developers.

DebuggerDisplayAttribute

The DebuggerDisplay attribute (System.Diagnostics.DebuggerDisplayAttribute) controls how a class or field is displayed in the debugger variable windows. This attribute can be applied to:

• Classes
• Structs
• Delegates
• Enums
• Fields
• Interfaces
• Properties
• Assemblies

The following code example shows how to use DebuggerDisplay

namespace ConsoleApplication11

{

[DebuggerDisplay("OnlineResource: {_Url} {_Port}.")]

public class OnlineResource

{

public string _Url;

public int _Port;

public OnlineResource(string url,int port)

{

this.Url = url;

this.Port = port;

}

public string Url

{

get

{

return _Url;

}

set

{

_Url = value;

}

}

public int Port

{

get

{

return _Port;

}

set

{

_Port = value;

}

}

}

}

Invasion of the Robot Context

Microsoft is challenging developers worldwide to create conversational robots, or BOTs, for MSN® Messenger and Windows Live™ Messenger. The most original, useful robots collect $40,000 in total prizes.

Robots or "BOTs", are software programs that you can add to MSN® Messenger and Windows Live™ Messenger. If you add a robot to your contact list, it can chat, give you customer service support, perform searches, make suggestions, play games and more.

Registration is open until September 15, 2006

PHLAT

PHLAT is a new interface for Windows Desktop Search (enabling search through a user's own email, files, and viewed web pages). PHLAT lets you easily specify queries and filters, attempting to integrate search and browse in one intuitive interface. In addition, Phlat supports a unified tagging (labeling) scheme for organizing personal content across storage systems (files, email, etc.).

Click here to read more about PHLAT!

Technorati : labeling, search, tagging, windows
Ice Rocket : labeling, search, tagging, windows