I read that it is possible to host WF4 designer in standalone application outside Visual Studio 2010, in fact I tried it too. But main problem with it is missing intelisence.
Therefore the question:
Does anyone know about whether there are open source (or not OS) projects which add this missing functionality to standalone WF4 designer? Even better if it's a universal ready-to-use application
no, there is no such kind of software.
Yes, there's a way to do this. You need WorkFlowDesignSurface. Checkout some samples here.
Check this tutorial also.
Related
I am trying to find out what is the alternative to using the Web Deployment projects in VS2011 as they do not seem to be supported anymore.
We have a number of projects where we are using them to share .ascx components among different projects.
What is the recommended way to do that now?
We have not yet finalized our plans for Web Deployment Projects for VS 11. We will be working on finalizing those plans in the coming week. If you have a specific scenario that you are trying to unblock I can try and help you. Feel free to send me an email at sayedha {at}[microsoft{dotcom}.
We are using pretty straight-up MsBuild to do stuff. The secret is a hidden target called _CopyWebApplication -- that actually copies the built web application and such to a folder.
I have no idea why something this useful is hidden and undocumented.
Does there exist a fast and light reporting system for projects in Visual Studio for projects in asp .net mvc? Crystal reports is too big and "heavy" and not a good choice for 200+ users who create a PDF report at once.
Thanks for your tips.
I like FastReport. But I just know the Delphi-Version and can't say how mature the .Net-Version is.
The Delphi-version is lightweight, easy to use but with it's scripting-possibilities very powerful.
So I think even the .Net-version should be worth a look.
Take a look into List Label (from combit), too! It has a different approach, a very good designer and direct vendor support. Distribution files are "lightweight" compared to other solutions.
Reporting services is free if you have an sql server license and if you run the reporting services server on the same db server. I consider it pretty lightweight and easy to use.
Try the ItextSharp or the nuget package
We used it's and it was fine!
DevXpress XtraReports allows you to design reports with a good designer then you use them as normal C# classes. I like it very much, you can create reports and export them to pdf file or stream on the server even with no UI at all then you can download the pdf from mvc or store it somewhere. I use it as much as I can.
There is a blog which details about using Active Reports to create reports in a MVC application. You can go through the blog here.
Active Reports is a very flexible and easy to use reporting tool,it is supported on Win Forms, Asp.net, SilverLight and supports data sources like Sql Server, My Sql, XML, Oledb etc.
I am completely new to ASP.NET programming, and was asked to work on a small project involving ASP.NET, VB (which I am new to as well) and Microsoft SQL Server 2005.
Being used to php/java I was hoping to find some kind of similar API to php.net and the javadoc. It would be very useful to have as I would prefer to work with a text editor, instead of using DreamWeaver or Visual Web Developer.
In the project I basically only need to use ASP.NET to read from a SQL 2005 database and write to JSON files. Could anyone please give me some pointers on where to find a clean and decent API to work with? I would also appreciate any input and tips I could get to get started working on this.
I would prefer to work with a text editor, instead of using DreamWeaver or Visual Web Developer.
Imo this is a mistake in .Net. The platform was built with the IDE in mind. You really will be able to get a lot more done, and do it better, if you let yourself learn to use Visual Studio.
That said, the place to look for .Net documentation is, of course, the MSDN Library. Maybe start on this page:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/w0x726c2.aspx
only need to use ASP.NET to read from a SQL 2005 database and write to JSON files
You might want to take a look at ASP.NET MVC.
You controllers can return a JsonReasult which will automatically result in JSON being sent. No need to define any markup.
"Could anyone please give me some
pointers on where to find a clean and
decent API to work with?"
If you want to develop a VB.NET application, you have to use the VB.NET programming language; there are no other APIs available.
Where does javadoc fit into this? That's just markup you apply to your source code to create documentation. .NET has its own system which works in the same way but is built on XML.
As Joel says, Visual Studio has everything you need. It features a visual editor but also gives you access to all the source code.
you will need to have the IDE to develop ASP.Net application. It will be much easier using it. You can find docs and articles on developing on ASP.Net in this site. its a nice one.
https://web.archive.org/web/20211027112438/https://aspnet.4guysfromrolla.com/default.aspx#Tools2
https://web.archive.org/web/20210513213529/http://aspnet.4guysfromrolla.com/articles/042705-1.aspx
https://web.archive.org/web/20210802161558/https://aspnet.4guysfromrolla.com/articles/110905-1.aspx
work on a small project involving ASP.NET, VB (which I am new to as well) and Microsoft SQL Server 2005
It might not be VB, it might be VB.Net?
We are developing a CMS in ASP.NET. We love the idea of add-ons (like in Wordpress, where any developer can add a menu button or a widget) and would like to enable developers to do the same with our system.
However I think that the fact that C# is a compiled language is an obstacle in the way of add-ons.
Am I right? Or is there a way to create add-ons for a ASP.NET application?
The fact that C# is a compiled language isn't a problem at all. In fact the .NET framework should make it relatively easy to load other code (just as Java does, for the same reason). Look into the Managed Extensibility Framework, which is all about loading Add-Ons in managed code.
It's not an obstacle at all. MEF has already been mentioned, you could also use:
System.Addin
Mono.Addins
I'm not sure for ASP.NET specifically, but in the only compiled programming language I know (Objective-C/Cocoa), there's the concept of Bundles that can be loaded dynamically. I'm not sure how that works on the backend, but I'd guess that there is some similar system for C#/ASP.NET.
I don't know how it's done in Wordpress, but there should be many ways. You can allow developers to upload their assemblies with compiled code or you can allow them to upload code in C# or IronPython or anything that supported and compile it dynamically. Maybe you can use WebParts for your task.
Microsoft has created the Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF), specifically for this problem: providing .NET plugins for .NET applications. It is the framework that (future versions of) Visual Studio use for writing managed plugins.
However, please consider using a dynamic scripting language for this! Problems like this are exactly what they are specifically designed for. If you host the Dynamic Language Runtime in your application, it not only means that your users can extend the application in a scripting language, but even in any dynamic language (scripting or otherwise) for which a DLR implementation exists: Ruby, Python, Smalltalk, Scheme, JavaScript, PHP, you name it. Biggest disadvantage: the DLR hasn't been released yet.
In C#, you can create any assemblies, link them as DLL files and then do whatever you want.
The usual case would be to define some kind of Plugin Interface which must be implemented by all the plugins.
Then you can load all plugins from the filesystem (by iterating over the plugin DLLs), find the class inside which implements the interface, instantiate it and work with it.
If you want to provide plugins with unloadability and security, you could create an application domain and load the plugins to that, increasing complexity, but also increasing stability (a bad plugin won't crash your app).
Please ask more specifically if you want a specific answer :-)
It's not too difficult to put hooks in place. You have to define in advance where the add-on features will appear. For example: when drawing a menu you can use reflection to search other dlls (with specific names and locations) for a "BuildMenu" function. You'll be defining the API for this function signature. It may have to return a list of items to be added to the base menu items collection.
Is there a source code readily available for commonly used controls (say found in the toolbox) for ASP.NET 2.0?
The level of detail that I want its that I need to know the internal workings of the control.
Yes, Microsoft has actually released the Source code for the System.Web assembly, amongst others.
It is intended to make it possible to debug the built-in classes, so you as a developer have a better chance of understanding why a specific class behaves as it does. You can make Visual Studio download the source on-the-fly, when you try to step-in to a function with the debugger.
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/10/03/releasing-the-source-code-for-the-net-framework-libraries.aspx
If you would like to read / browse the source code; you can also download it all using the NetMassDownloader project from CodePlex.
ASP.NET QuickStart Tutorials best fit for your needs.
Here you can access : Standart Toolbox Control Tutorials
EDIT : You edited your post to get resource for inner workings of server components.
Here is my another suggestion : Nikhil Kothari's Developing Microsoft ASP.NET Server Controls and Components is the best resource on components and inner workings.
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The quick way to look at the source code of controls or any other class libraries is to use disassembler, for example .NET Reflector link text
They are all documented on MSDN. Get started at the ASP.NET Developer Center, and at http://asp.net.