dwmkerr.com

I have just uploaded the first cut of my mini-project ‘XPath Studio’. This project is a small site that lets you choose a URL to a source webpage, and run any XPath query against it - showing the data that is returned from the query. At the moment this blog has an issue with images so I cannot upload screenshots, but in the next few days they’ll be there. Until then, you can try out XPath Studio by visiting:

[Note: They aren’t bringing setup projects back, see http://www.dwmkerr.com/2013/06/visual-studio-deployment-projects-an-update/] As part of Microsoft’s ongoing campaign to reduce the usability of their tools for anyone who isn’t working in exactly the way they want, Visual Studio 2012 no longer comes with the ability to create setup and deployment projects. This is a pretty serious change. For anyone who is developing client applications, then an installer is pretty critical. Now the feature set in the VS deployment projects was fairly small - they were aimed towards making pretty basic, lean installers.

I run my websites on a Windows Server. Years ago, when I started web development, I ran almost exclusively on LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) setups, which worked great for the sites I was building. As I got more involved in commercial development, most of the sites and services I was working on were C#, ASP, IIS and MSSQL Server focused. This is great for web development too. When I moved onto a new, Windows based server, I decided that as I was running MSSQL Server and IIS on it, I would move my personal blog onto an ASP based platform - for this I chose BlogEngine.

I have started a new project on CodePlex called 'GAC Manager'. This is a project that is in two parts, the first is a simple tool to allow users to manipulate their local global assembly cache, the second is an API that provides the core functionality. Here's a screenshot of the tool in its current state: An article on the project is available on the CodeProject at: http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/430568/A-GAC-Manager-Utility-and-API The project itself is at: https://github.

Moving from SVN to TFS has been an interesting experience. The integration of source control directly into Visual Studio seems like a good thing, but even on a well set up network it can occasionally bring Visual Studio to its knees. And I still don't trust its automerge. Anyway, if you find that the TFS diff and merge tools are just too ugly and odd to work with, there's a great page on the MSDN blogs that describes how to set Visual Studio to use your preferred tool:

Such a useful extension that I just had to big it up - the Go Offline extension adds the following menu item: File>Source Control>Go Offline http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/425f09d8-d070-4ab1-84c1-68fa326190f4?SRC=Home If you use TFS in a big environment, sometimes this can save a stack of time. Thanks to Bernhard Tschirren for taking the time to write this and share it!

In Part 2 of my video tutorial series on using Apex I show you how you can add commands to an MVVM application. Commands let you rapidly add functionality to a ViewModel, whilst still maintaining separation from UI. A CodeProject article to accompany this video will be published shortly.

Create an MVVM application in minutes with the new Apex SDK! The video below shows this in action, see what you think. There is also an accompanying article that describes what's going on. As always, would love to hear feedback! http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/371217/Apex-Part-1-Create-Your-First-MVVM-Application

Loads of developers still use MFC. OK - if you're writing a new project, MFC would not be a great choice. But what if you're maintaining a 1.5 million line MFC app?  MFC support in Visual Studio has barely improved since VC++ 6.0 - in fact its got worse. Their cursory attempt to show an effort by adding support for the Ribbon Control with the MFC feature pack was not enough.

Are you getting the error below when working with Silverlight projects? Could not load file or assembly 'System.Windows, Version=2.0.5.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=7cec85d7bea7798e' or one of its dependencies. It's a bit of an odd one. The solution that works for me is to re-register System.Core and System.Windows in the GAC. Use the commands below. 32 Bit System "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\bin\NETFX 4.0 Tools\gacutil" /i "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Silverlight\4.1.10111.0\System.Core.dll" "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\bin\NETFX 4.0 Tools\gacutil" /i "