A few days ago I saw a clip of PDC 2008 about MVC .Net which is great concept. It was performed by Phil Haack. In this video Phil shows a trick of Visual studio which is very useful.

Most of the time during application development you want use a class which its name space has not been included. Guess what should you do? Oh yes ! You should type name space completely or leave current line and go to top of class adding appropriate "using" statement get back to your line of code. Surprisingly there is a trick in visual studio 2008 (I tested in visual studio 2008). If reference of class included in project you can Type class name completely at the same time a tooltip bar will be appeared under your class name. At the same time press Ctrl+. (dot). A menu will be appeared which offers you two options. First option will add using statement at the top of code class file. Second option will insert full class name including name space.

Axum has been released in Microsoft DevLabs

What is Axum:

Axum is a language that builds upon the architecture of the Web and principles of isolation, actors, and message-passing to increase application safety, responsiveness, scalability, and developer productivity.

Axum aims to validate a safe and productive parallel programming model for .NET.

you can find more inforamtion about Axum here

And here is Axum blog

This article is an attempt to depict steps may needed to configure IIS for hosting WCF application. An important thing that should be considered  is that all user do not face following situations. First of all I try to create a simple WCF application and then I try to publish this simple WCF simple application.

In order to create a WCF application we just need to know ABC of WCF application which are Address, Binding and Contract. (You can download code from here)

First of all I created a blank solution with Visual Studio 2008 by clicking File > New > Project and selecting Other Project Types > Visual Studio Solutions > Blank Solution

I created solution named AccountSolution. I added new project named Accounting by right clicking on AccountingSolution and selecting Add > New project menu. In the next step I added reference of System.ServiceModel to project references.

I changed name of class1.cs to IAccount.cs and I added new class named AccountService.cs. Here is code for IAccount and AccountService:

IAccount.cs

using System;
using System.Text;
using System.ServiceModel;


namespace Accounting
{
    [ServiceContract]
    public interface IAccount
    {
        [OperationContract]
        int GetBalance(int accountNumber);
    }
}

AccountService.cs

using System;
using System.Text;
using System.ServiceModel;

namespace Accounting
{
    public class AccountService : IAccount
    {
        #region IAccount Members

        public int GetBalance(int accountNumber)
        {
            Random rnd = new Random(1000000);
            return Convert.ToInt32(rnd.Next());
        }

        #endregion
    }
}

I added new web site named WCFServiceAccount and added new project reference of Accounting. Since I added project reference to Accounting project, cs under App_Data folder is no longer needed. So let delete two cs file under App_Data.

I changed Service.svc source to:

<%@ ServiceHost Language="C#" Debug="true" Service="Accounting.AccountService"%>

Setting Service and end points:

In order to set Service and end points I used WCF Configuration option by right-clicking on web.config.

Tip: Sometimes "Edit WCF Configuration" does not appear in right-click menu. Once open "WCF Service Configuration" from tools menu and close it, this cause menu appear next time in right click menu.

I set first service name to Accounting.AccountService by browsing Accounting.dll in bin directory.

And I set first end point contract attribute to Accounting.IAccount and delete second end point.

And at last save the WCF configuration and build solution. Before running web site let set WCFServiceAccount as startup project and set Service.svc as start page. Our web site is ready to be executed. After successful execution let host our website to local IIS. Simply website could be hosted by publishing web site to local IIS. If IIS is installed before visual studio 2008 you may not face with any following errors and simply you can jump next step.

I tried to publish WCFServiceAccount by right clicking on Web site project and selecting "…" then Local IIS but I've got following errors. (My windows was Vista Ultimate)

To Access local IIS Web sites, you must install the following IIS component.

• IIS 6 Metabase and IIS 6 Configuration Compatibility
• ASP.NET
• Windows Authentication

Configuring IIS to publish a web site (Specially WCF web site):

To rectify mentioned errors I've found a document in Technet for installing IIS6 Metabase and IIS 6 Configuration

To install the IIS 6.0 Management Compatibility Components by using the Windows Vista Control Panel

1. Click Start, click Control Panel, click Programs and Features, and then click Turn Windows features on or off.
2. Open Internet Information Services.
3. Open Web Management Tools.
4. Open IIS 6.0 Management Compatibility.
5. Select the check boxes for IIS 6 Metabase and IIS 6 configuration compatibility and IIS 6 Management Console.
6. Click OK.

Pasted from <http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb397374.aspx>

Following image shows how to install "IIS6 Metabase and IIS 6 Configuration ". Surprisingly you can set other option such as Installing ASP.NET and Windows Authentication.

Alternatively, For installing ASP.NET you can use visual studio command prompt and running aspnet_regiis with -i parameter:

aspnet_regiis -i

Publishing WCFServiceAccount to local IIS:

1. Right click on WCFServiceAccount select publish from menu
   
2. Select local IIS option
3. Select create new application icon
4. Type web application (e.g. WCFServiceAccount)
   
5. Now open a browser to test your application "http://localhost/WCFServiceAccount/Service.svc"
6. Then select Open button

If you get following error:

Line 101:		</handlers>
Line 102:	</system.webServer>
Line 103:	<system.serviceModel>
Line 104:		<services>
Line 105:   <service behaviorConfiguration="ServiceBehavior" name="Accounting.AccountService">

OR

You should register service model according to following steps:

1. Run a Visual studio Command prompt

2. Enter "cd c:\windows\Microsoft.Net\Framework\v3.0\Windows Communication Foundation\" And press enter

3. Run "servicemodelreg -i"

During developing applications we have always use unwritten rule in programming or if it is written in design documents user should consider them in development. For example if developer wants to call a method which has an integer parameter and this parameter is used as an index of array he should be aware calling that method with negative value or greater than array lenght. Calling method with negative value causes runtime error.

There are lots of contracts that a developer should consider during development. Recently I came across new concept (However it is in research phase) named CodeContracts which is really wonderful. It seems that this concept will be in VS 2010. CodeContracts will organized all written and unwritten rules & contract in development. In order to clarify CodeContract usage imagine following code:

static void Swap(string[] arr, int itemIndex1, int itemIndex2)
{
	string temp;
	temp = arr[itemIndex1];
	arr[itemIndex1] = arr[itemIndex2];
	arr[itemIndex2] = temp;
}

What are possible errors when we want to call Swap method?

• None of itemIndex1 and itemIndex2 could be negative (both should be positive)
• None of itemIndex1 and itemIndex2 could be greater than arr.length
• Array arr should be not null

Before code contracts developer should always consider possible situation and avoid breaking rule. But CodeContracts provides rich methods by which you can add your Code Contracts to your method and after compiling application Contracts checker will warn about breaking rules. Let see how it should be implemented with CodeContracts

static void Swap(string[] arr, int itemIndex1, int itemIndex2)
{
	Contract.Requires(arr != null);
	Contract.Requires(itemIndex1 >= 0);
	Contract.Requires(itemIndex1 < arr.Length);
	Contract.Requires(itemIndex2 >= 0);
	Contract.Requires(itemIndex2 < arr.Length);
 
	string temp;
	temp = arr[itemIndex1];
	arr[itemIndex1] = arr[itemIndex2];
	arr[itemIndex2] = temp;
}

I added five contracts to this method which mean this method needs not null array as first parameter, second and third parameter (itemIndex1, itemIndex2) should be greater or equal to zero and should be less than array length.

In the next post I will show how to implement this with CodeContracts

But now I want to introduce some resources:

• Microsoft Research - Code Contracts home page
• Tutorial Video in channel9
• Contract Checking and Automated Test Generation with Pex

Graffiti CMS express edition is popular amid developers as well as Community Server. At the moment I wanted to decide between Graffiti And Community Server  I couldn't made my mind. Blog subsystem of community server has a simple theme which is similar to MSDN blog theme (Like current theme). This theme was inducement of community server. Finally, I used graffiti because of simplicity, anyway , Recently I decided to convert simple theme of community server 2008 to graffiti CMS theme.

I put first version of simple theme here

SQL Server 2005 is installed without any samples - at least versions I installed don't contain Northwind and pubs databases -. However Microsoft put SQL Server 2005 Samples and Sample Databases in Codeplex, light version of these two sample databases were always famous in a way that you can find one of them in most database related samples with high probability.  You can find SQL Server 2000 Sample here. After installation file is downloaded take following two steps:

1. Install msi file. Some files will be copied in C:\SQL Server 2000 Sample Databases
2. Attach Northwind.mdf file which is located in C:\SQL Server 2000 Sample Databases. Repeat this step for pubs mdf file.

Informing user about application state is one of important aspects in user experience. In windows applications mouse icon indicates one of great application states. When an application is busy mouse icon should be changed to wait cursor mode or hourglass icon. In windows application you can achieve this by changing Cursor property of any Control, Usually by changing "this.Cursor" which "this" is current form in application. See example:

this.Cursor = Cursors.WaitCursor;

Since control class in compact framework does not have Cursor property, not only developer could not change every control cursor icon but also he could not change form cursor property. So what should developer do in order to indicate application state?

There is a static class in System.Windows.Forms named Cursor and it has a property named "Current" which developer should set it to an appropriate cursor based on application state.

System.Windows.Forms.Cursor = Cursors.WaitCursor;

Or

System.Windows.Forms.Cursor = Cursors.Default;

After long absence I'm back now. Recently I wanted to develop an application for windows mobile with .Net Compact framework. In this application I need to measure elapsed time in millisecond resolution. First of all like everyone I tried to use Millisecond property of DateTime.Now static class. But it won't work at all in .Net Compact framework even in version 3.5!

If you want to use a timer with millisecond resolution you have to use TickCount property of Environment class.

//Will be zero.

lblMillisecondVal.Text = DateTime.Now.Millisecond.ToString();

//Total milliseconds elapsed since the system started.

lblTickCountVal.Text = Environment.TickCount.ToString();

Here is an example of using TickCount Instead of Milliseconds

Currently, I'm working on Pocket PC development. During last week I've found interesting resources about windows mobile development with .Net compact framework. first of all Windows Mobile Team Blog would be a sophisticated resource. Moreover you could find other useful links in this weblog.

Other blogger's web site would be good resources, like Chris Craft's Blog. CJ's weblog contains a series of posts for a month. For each day he wrote a post about windows mobile programming. It would be a good starting tutorial for beginners.

Another web site that could be useful is www.dotnetfordevices.com .

However, I'll post related news and experiences during windows mobile development

Embedding other resources like Cascade style sheets and images is possible as well as JavaScript file. I wrote "How to embed JavaScript file in an assembly" in previous post. For embedding images you have to do same way with minor changes in accessing resource. You should add you file into your project and

change the value of "Build Action" property to "Embedded Resource".  In Assembly info file you should add following line for images into AssemblyInfo.cs file:

[assembly: System.Web.UI.WebResource("EmbededJSControl.Logo.GIF", "img/gif")]

And following line for css file:

[assembly: System.Web.UI.WebResource("EmbededJSControl.Stylesheet.css", "text/css")]

To use image resource in your pages you should add following code. In case you use resource in same project you could use this.GetType() as first parameter otherwise you should create an instance of control from project in which you included resource and get type of that control.

Image img = new Image();

img.ImageUrl = Page.ClientScript.GetWebResourceUrl(this.GetType(), "EmbededJSControl.Logo.GIF");

For including stylesheet use following code:

string cssLink = "<link rel='stylesheet' text='text/css' href='{0}' />";

string location = Page.ClientScript.GetWebResourceUrl(this.GetType(), "EmbededJSControl.Stylesheet.css");

LiteralControl css = new LiteralControl(String.Format(cssLink, location));

Page.Header.Controls.Add(css);

Complete sample code is available here