Helpful walkthroughs, labs, and Expression Blend support for the WPF Toolkit

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I’ve already blog’d about the WPF Toolkit & the WPF Ribbon Preview.  One of the things that may not be obvious, is how to get started with the new controls.  Buried inside the October 2008 Release page is a set of links for control walkthroughs, a nice Hands-in-Lab, and a helpful blog post explaining how to turn on Visual State Manager support for WPF in Expression Blend.  They are real easy to overlook.  I didn’t notice them the first time.  They are below the download links, after the release notes.  Yes, I am one of those guys that usually skips over the release notes and documentation and just starts tinkering.  I’ll never learn my lesson:).  I’ve provide direct links to those resources in case you missed them too! 

DataGrid Feature Walkthrough

DatePicker & Calendar Feature Walkthrough

Visual State Manager Overview.

Ribbon Feature Walkthrough

Hands-on-Lab: "What’s coming in WPF: DataGrid, Ribbon, & VSM"

Visual State Manager in Expression Blend

Free Coding Assistance Add-in for Visual Studio Developers

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Here’s a little tidbit I picked up after watching the Microsoft Visual C# IDE: Tips and Tricks session at PDC.  DevExpress hass released CodeRush Xpress for Visual Studio.  From their site:

“CodeRush Xpress is freely available to all Visual Studio 2008 developers and offers a comprehensive suite of tools that enable you and your team to simplify and shape complex code – making it easier to read and less costly to maintain.”

“Supported Features

CodeRush Xpress includes the following features.

  • Duplicate Line
  • Highlight All References
  • Increase or Reduce Selection
  • Smart Clipboard Operations
  • Generate from Using (TDD)
  • Quick Navigation Window
  • Quick File Navigation

In addition, you receive the following refactorings.

…

Add Block Delimiters, Combine Conditionals, Compress to Lambda Expression, Compress to Ternary Expression, Convert to Auto-implemented Property,  Convert to Initializer, Create Backing Store, Decompose Initializer, Decompose Parameter, Expand Lambda Expression, Expand Ternary Expression, Extract Method, Flatten Conditional  Inline, Delegate  Inline Temp, Introduce Local  Make Explicit  Make Implicit, Move Type to File, Name Anonymous Method, Name Anonymous Type, Reverse Conditional, Split Conditional, Use String.Format, Use StringBuilder”

NOTE: I reformatted the list of refactorings to take up less real estate. 

I have been using this add-in for a few days now and I’m already loving the productivity enhancements I am reaping.  Go to http://www.devexpress.com/Products/Visual_Studio_Add-in/CodeRushX/ now and download it!  You can’t beat FREE!

WPF DataGrid, DatePicker/Calendar, VisualStateManager (VSM) and more…

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Good news for WPF developers, the WPF Control Toolkit is evolving rapidly.  The kit is available from the WPF codeplex site (http://www.codeplex.com/wpf).  There’s a brand new release available with v1 of the DataGrid.  There’s also a DatePicker/Calendar control and a preview of VisualStateManager (VSM).  If you are not familiar with VSM, then have a look at this 4 part blog post explaining it.  You’ll also find links to download a few other previews in the WPF Futures section.  The one that caught my eye was the Client Profile Configuration Designer which is “a designer to help you make custom branded installation experiences using the Client Profile.”  Last, but not least, you will find instructions to download a preview of the WPF Ribbon control here.  However, the page says “Coming Soon.”  I tried to follow the instructions, but the download isn’t available yet.

FOLLOW UP: Developer Dinner on ASP.NET MVC

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UPDATE: I had technical difficulties with the recording yesterday.  Therefore, we were unable to record the dinner.  However, I do plan on recording both last night’s presentation and the 3.5 SP1 presentation from the last dinner.  I hope to have them recorded and published some time soon.  Stay tuned.

Thanks to everyone who attended!  You can download the deck and links to the code here:

http://cid-1f72da7294089597.skydrive.live.com/embedrow.aspx/Public/ASP.NET/MVC

You’ll find the code for my ajax samples and links to other samples I showed there.  Normally, I write my own demos and make code code available for download.  However, this time around, most of my demo code was based on the .NET 3.5 Enhancements Training Kit.  I blogged about the kit here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/devkeydet/archive/2008/08/18/free-training-on-net-framework-3-5-sp1-and-asp-net-mvc.aspx

The kit has just about everything I showed in my demos and more!  I did make some updates to the training kit code to reflect ASP.NET MVC preview 5 and my own coding preferences.  However, I need to check with the team that built the training kit before I can share the code. 

I am also keeping a running list of ASP.NET MVC sites/blogs I follow:

http://devkeydet.spaces.live.com/lists/cns!1F72DA7294089597!894/

Although it is already in the list linked to above, I want to call out Stephen Walther’s blog.  If you have a “How do I..” kind of question, chances are Stephen answers it on his blog.  

During the presentation, I called out a few specific urls:

ASP.NET Routing Debugger

ScottGu on ASP.NET MVC Preview 5 (validation is discussed here)

Web Client Software Factory (WCSF) Testability Guidance (for those of who want to stick with WebForms)

MVC Storefront 

Here’s a description of the MVC Storefront from the http://www.asp.net/mvc site:

“The MVC Storefront project documents the building of an Ecommerce application using ASP.NET MVC and Test-driven development. The goal of this starter kit is to introduce the development process of a large-scale application that goes beyond the typical demo or sample application and to create something applicable and reusable in a very open, transparent way.

Rob Conery has documented the development process on his blog and created a video series for many of the development steps. During the process Rob has solicited feedback from members of the community and also held design sessions with prominent Microsoft MVPs. The Project is ongoing and will update with each change in the MVC Framework.”

Tonight’s dinner in Reston, Va will be recorded.  I will try to make the recording available by Friday.

MUST HAVE: XAML Power Toys

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Depending on how many blogs you read, you’ll be seeing a barrage of “Silverlight 2 released” posts today.  If you haven’t seen it already, make sure you check Scott Guthrie’s post about the release at http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/10/14/silverlight-2-released.aspx. 

Karl Shifflet just updated his XAML Power Toys to support the Silverlight 2 release.  If you are doing any WPF or Silverlight development, then I HIGHLY RECOMMEND downloading the power toys.  They greatly enhance the developer experience inside of Visual Studio.  Here’s the first paragraph from Karl’s page:

“XAML Power Toys is a Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Multi-AppDomain Add-In that empowers WPF & Silverlight developers while working in the XAML editor.  Its Line of Business form generation tools, Grid tools,  DataGrid and ListView generation really shorten the XAML page layout time.”

PARTNER DEVELOPER DINNER: Introduction to ASP.NET Model View Controller (MVC)

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Microsoft Developer Dinner Series for Partners

Presenting

Introduction to ASP.NET Model View Controller (MVC)

The "Same Event" on different days in DC and Virginia, pick one!

Where

Date/Time

Registration Link

Address

DC

Wed. October 15th

(6:30-8:30PM)

Register for DC

Microsoft DC Office

5335 Wisconsin Ave., NW,

Washington, DC 20015

(Metro Red Line Stops below building, Parking under the Microsoft building will be Validated)

Virginia

Thurs. October 16th

(6:00-8:00PM)

Register for Reston Virginia

Microsoft Innovation and Technology Center

12012 Sunset Hills Road, Reston, VA 20190

Topic:

Introduction to ASP.NET Model View Controller (MVC)

Presenter:

Marc Schweigert

Developer Evangelist

Microsoft Public Sector Evangelism Team

Background:

ASP.NET MVC enables you to build Model View Controller (MVC) applications by using the ASP.NET framework. ASP.NET MVC is an alternative, not a replacement, for ASP.NET Web Forms that offers the following benefits:

  • Clear separation of concerns
  • Testability – support for Test-Driven Development
  • Fine-grained control over HTML and JavaScript
  • Intuitive URLs

What you will learn:

This session will be demonstration focused covering the fundamentals of the ASP.NET MVC framework.  You will learn how ASP.NET MVC differs from the current ASP.NET Web Forms framework.  Through a series of demonstrations, you will also see how ASP.NET MVC provides you with fine-grained control over HTML and JavaScript.

Who should come:

This is an opportunity to get ahead of the curve before ASP.NET MVC is released.  If you are someone who builds, architects, or manages development teams building Web Applications, this presentation is for you.

Attend this event for your chance to win an Xbox 360

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Xbox 360 will be raffled at the conclusion of the dinner.

Your Opportunity to Provide Feedback!

If you are a developer or technology professional who works either directly or indirectly for the U.S. Federal, State, Local governments and educational institutions, please

read on.

Are you interested in sharing your thoughts regarding free Microsoft Public Sector developer online technology presentations? If so, please take 2-3 minutes to provide feedback regarding the type of application development oriented technical training that would be beneficial to you and your organization. Please click here to provide feedback.

Your feedback is highly valued. Thank you for your time.

RELEASED: Virtual Earth JavaScript Intellisense Helper for 6.2

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Thanks to the quick effort from Chris Pietschmann, I am happy to announce that we have an updated version of the Virtual Earth JavaScript Intellisense Helper that is in sync with the update Virtual Earth Map Control 6.2.  You can learn more about what’s new in 6.2 at http://blogs.msdn.com/virtualearth/archive/2008/09/24/announcing-the-virtual-earth-web-service-and-virtual-earth-map-control-6-2.aspx. 

UPDATE: I wanted to also mention a special thanks to Nicolas Boonaert.  Chris wrote the updates, Nicolas performed QA/testing, and I packaged up the release.

If you aren’t familiar with the intellisense helper, here’s our description from CodePlex:

“The purpose of this project is to fully enable JavaScript Intellisense for the Virtual Earth Map Control inside of Visual Studio 2008.

Creating Microsoft Virtual Earth mashups and applications just got a whole lot easier. This JavaScript library enables Intellisense for the Microsoft Virtual Earth 6.2 (current release) AJAX control in Visual Studio 2008.”

vejs1.png

You can download the helper at http://www.codeplex.com/VEJS/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=17699.

Virtual Earth, SQL 2008, & GeoJSON

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I’ve been chatting with Vish over email.  He made me aware his approach to getting SQL 2008 & Virtual Earth to play well together using GeoJSON.  I actually didn’t know about GeoJSON.  Thanks Vish!  Check out his post explaining the approach:

http://viswaug.wordpress.com/2008/06/02/sql-server-2008-virtualearth-made-easier-and-building-a-rest-api/