Visio stencils for system architecture - soa

I know there are questions related to mine, but they do not solve my problem and I cannot find anything on the Internet. I want to create a diagram of the system we created. What I need is stencils with icons for:
website
database
webservice
workflow
wcf service (not necessarily different from the webservice stencil)
windows service
Active directory
I would like the webservice to have a gearbox theme in it (something like http://www.coretechnologies.com/images/alwaysup_web_service_logo.gif). Does such set of stencils exist or does everything look like it's from ages ago? (that is what I have found on the net until now)

I ended up creating my own from PNGs found on the internet. It's not a nice solution, because they are not vector graphics, but at least I could make the schemes I wanted...

You might try this large set from MS, as it contains numerous enterprise and Azure related symbols not found in the default set provided in Visio, and not available through the online Visio feature. The set includes SVG as well as bitmap versions. I personally found it while looking for a Cosmos DB stencil: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/confirmation.aspx?id=41937

Related

Creating an image within an .net core api without a graphical interface

OK, I did my share of searching and I have a good memory of what things I would know to hunt down, but have come up empty handed. I have the following:
.net core API on a really nice reliable server
the server is my data source for Open Sim projects
Open Sim servers can take a URL of an image and drop it directly onto the face of a virtual object.
My goal is to use the above to collect information from within the OpenSim (already done) and generate an image (.png is the likely target) using the data. The API is pure REST, but with a command, I'm pretty sure I can write a file to space on the server. But here's where I get stuck:
I know how to create images on a Windows console application and have done so for decades. But I'm not sure how to create a pure memory -> file graphical creation. For that further matter, almost 100% of it will involve fonts. How the heck do you make a .net core Web API aware of fonts? I'm simply not sure where to start. I'll take any advice.

Understanding a Big and Complicated ASP.NET Web Application

You might not like these kinds of questions, but I rely on the professionalism of StackOverFlow.
I have a very big ASP.NET web application, it contains many projects, a container (father) project, and multiple module projects. Obviously it's connected to a big SQL Server database as well.
This application doesn't have a specific documentation.
Is there a way (special tools, advices...) that would help me in understanding the functionality of the application gradually?
I meant by special tools, those that might be representing the structure of the system in diagrams or so.
I cannot find a way to start with.
Note: I'm using Visual Studio 2010, the application is built using .NET 3.5
Thank you for your opinions.
Personally, I usually prefer to start by looking at the database design. Depending on how it was set up, you should be able to create a database diagram which will show you all of the relationships between the tables.
Once you have a grasp of the database design, you should have a basic understanding of what the system is doing, which should give some context to the different processes and work flows throughout the web application.
If the application has a Sitemap, I would examine it throughly, as it should help you to better understand the flow of the application. If available, you should also look at the class diagram to see how the different classes relate to one another.
Without any kind of documentation, you'll probably have to use bits and pieces to understand how the application works. I'm not sure, but there may be some plugins available that can help you with this. Something like CodeRush or Resharper might be helpful. There's also a plugin called GhostDoc that might come in handy too.
Hope this helps.
Visual studio 2010 has architectural analysis it can perform on your projects with the ultimate version. This can help you in understand the app, what crosses layers, etc.
See:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/gg465276
http://www.slideshare.net/bgervin/visual-studio-2010-ultimate-architecture-experience-toronto-code-camp-2010-barry-gervin
You can have a look at this MSDN page, which will show you how to generate a UML diagram from your codebase. This will give you a rough overview of how things fit together, and what communicates with what (I haven't used this tool so I'm unsure of how much information is provided, or whether it is configurable).
Also, make sure you ask your teammates, or anybody else who has worked on this application before (there have to be a few such people around if it's such a huge project). They should definitely make the time to explain things to you, or at least answer specific questions you have.

Umbraco alternative?

I've been trying to learn how develop websites with ASP.NET as well as setup a personal website to use as a online porfolio/resume. With my website I've decided to not try to reinvent the wheel and thus decided to use a premade ASP.NET based CMS.
After reading a lot of reviews I settled on Umbraco, but now I'm seeking out alternatives. I like Umbraco a lot but I keep running into problems. Since installing it on my host I haven't made any changes through the file system, or database directly. All changes have been through the admin site. Yet somehow I kept getting it into some state where I could not delete a datatype, and now I'm having problems removing or renaming one of my templates. I've searched for Umbraco forums for solutions and usually find that I have to run some SQL script workaround on the database to clean things up. This kind of thing is really not something I want to fiddle with for my personal site.
Has anyone else had a lot of problems with Umbraco like I have? Are there other free CMS systems out there that are more reliable, yet similar to Umbraco? Specifically I really like how Umbraco gives me total control over the HTML generated by my site. Simple is also better in this case. I'm not trying to create some kind social network/community portal/forum/blog site. There won't be multiple people logging onto this site or anything like that.
I've been reading a bit about N2, which I'm now starting to consider. I like that it's more developer based and that you setup page types through real .NET classes in Visual Studio. Again I don't want to attempt to build my own CMS from scratch, but at the same time I really don't like how hard it is to see what's going on under the hood with most other CMS systems.
I haven't used N2 so I can't comment on that, but alternatives you can consider are Orchard or FunnelWeb, both are on MVC 3 and Razor.
If you're wanting a blog that is mostly just a blog then FunnelWeb is a good option.
I'm currently writing a comparison between Orchard and Umbraco if you're interested as well.
I think you'll be happy you stuck with Umbraco. I was so frustrated with Umbraco when I first started working with it for the exact reasons you stated above. The issue with not being able to delete data types could mean that it's connected to something (IE: document or media type) somewhere and if you force delete it (IE: via the db) you could really mess up your install. <- speaking from experience.
I'm absolutely in love with Umbraco now though. I am completely confident that I can build just about anything I need with it now.
I think that my best piece of advice I can pull from my own experience is make sure that you've got your site architecture planned out thoroughly before starting to build it out in Umbraco. You don't want to be fiddling around in there afterward changing things and that's where you can really get yourself into some hot water.
Have fun!
if you want a minimal .net mvc4 cms with good performance check out puck https://bitbucket.org/yohsii/puck/overview
it adds very few concepts on top of what you need to know for .net mvc but it does require .net4.5 (and therefore VS2012) to work with.
it also uses localdb out of the box but if you don't want to install that just attach the database mdf file to regular sql server and change the connection string

Is it possible to automate Visio with ASP.NET?

My clients are trying to revive an ASP.NET 1.0 application (yes, you read that right) that generated data-driven Visio Gantt diagrams. I have access to the code (VB.NET), but there are no notes, comments, or documentation, and no employees from 2003 still around. Compounding the issue, I'm pretty new on the scene (ASP.NET 3.5+ only), so the project structure looks very foreign to me (.resx files?).
I've tried including Visio Interop libs with little success. I tried following this article , but when adding the MS Visio 12.0 type library reference to the project solution in VWD Express 2010, I get an error that reads, "A reference to "Microsoft Visio Viewer 12.0 Type Library" could not be added. Converting the type library to a .NET assembly failed. No process is associated with this object." I don't know what that means but I sense it'll be a huge headache to resolve.
At this point I'm stuck and considering porting this feature to more a current platform. Can anybody suggest anything?
Visio has an xml format (.vdx)
If you don't need Visio to help you with layout or connections, you might be able generate the xml files, then have your ASP app serve them up as consumable Visio files.
If you need Visio's Gantt-chart add-in features, or Visio's export to web or image features, then this might not be the way to go. But if you only need to place shapes on a page, set text and other data fields, and have a fairly simple layout and simple connecting lines, you should be able to go this route.
The last download link in this article is for a presentation on Visio and XML that I gave a while back:
http://www.visguy.com/2006/11/30/visio-and-xml-conference-resources/
You should not access the automation API of any Office program from ASP.NET or any other server environment. It is unsupported, will fail at random, and may cause you to violate the terms of your license with Microsoft.
Tell them "no". You'll be much happier.
Well, you may download and use Aspose.Diagram library. It works with Microsoft Visio files without the installation of Microsoft Office Visio. Developers can create, open and manipulate the elements of diagrams and export to many other supported file formats. Based on your scenario, you may get details from a database backend and then create Visio diagrams. It is achievable using Aspose.Diagram API. Please refer to the technical resources of Aspose.Diagram for .NET API.
I work as a Developer Evangelist at Aspose.

is there an SQLite-based wiki?

I would like to find out if there is wiki software that runs on SQLite.
Sure is.
Instiki
Instiki (What Is Instiki) is a basic
Wiki clone so pretty and easy to set
up, you’ll wonder if it’s really a
wiki. Runs on Rails and focuses on
portability and stability. Supports
file uploads, PDF export, RSS,
multiple users and password
protection. Some use Instiki as a CMS
- Content Management System because of its ability to export static pages.
Fossil, which is a DVCS with many other features (including a wiki) is built on top of Sqlite (in face, made by D. Richard Hipp who wrote Sqlite ). It can be found at: http://www.fossil-scm.org/index.html/doc/tip/www/index.wiki
According to the SQLite Users Page, the CVSTrac program is using SQLite as its internal database structure (you have to follow the link to the CVSTrac site to see the details). I'm sure there are others by hunting around the site.
Wiki::Toolkit can use SQLite as its database.
Mediawiki does, but it is only in the development stage.
Any of the Django ones should be able to, because Django is flexible about which Database backend it uses and SQLite is one of the options.

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