Beth Massi - Sharing the goodness that is VB : VS2005

History of Visual Studio

Beth Massi — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:07:20 GMT

I just started catching up on a cool series on Channel 9: The Visual Studio Documentary

The documentary kicks off by taking you back to the days of MS-DOS and Alan Cooper who originally sold Visual Basic to Bill Gates back in 1988. It has a lot of BASIC and Windows history and it’s pretty fun to watch. (How the heck did Huckaby get in that video?) ;-) It’s also cool to see the beginnings of how Microsoft fostered the developer community, realizing that it was super-important to create a developer ecosystem and support system. I’m sure glad they did :-). Dee Dee has some funny stories about some of the earliest “geek fests”.

Last time I was up in Redmond I bumped into Rico Mariani, Visual Studio Architect, and he mentioned to me that he had started a series of blog posts on his history building Visual Studio as a follow-up to the documentary that takes a different perspective based on his history working on C/C++. I finally read through all of his posts recounting his memories building developer products at Microsoft. If you’ve ever chatted with Rico, you know what an amazingly personable, excited and approachable person he is and it really shows in his writing. He keeps you laughing and interested the whole time, I highly recommend reading them. Thanks, Rico!

Rico Mariani: My History of Visual Studio

I came from a different background (dbase), and not a Microsoft product until 1990 (they bought FoxPro). Always a data-based programmer I didn’t have much experience with C++ back then, and only a tiny bit of Visual Basic. (Why would I, VFP had LINQ and OOP in 1995 ;-))

I learned a lot about the colorful history of how Visual Studio came to be so if you have some time to spare check it out. And don’t forget to download the latest piece of history -- Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2. ;-)

Enjoy!

Working with a Local Database File in Visual Studio

Beth Massi — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 22:58:00 GMT

In this post and video I’ve shown folks how to work with a local database file (.mdf, .mdb, .sdf) that resides directly inside your project in order to see updates made while debugging your application. If it looks like everything saves fine while debugging, but you can’t see the updates if you look directly in the database, then there’s a simple fix. Today the VS Data Team wrote up a great blog post on this as well so check it out!

In general I prefer to develop against attached SQL Server databases because it’s easier to debug. But if you’re working with SQL Compact or Access databases you’ll need to be aware of how the database file is copied out with your application EXE and what file you are really working with.

Enjoy!

Visual Basic Power Packs also included with Visual Studio 2010

Beth Massi — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 19:56:38 GMT

If you’re like me and used to having line & shape controls, PrintForm and a handy DataRepeater as part of your toolbox then you’ll be excited to know that these controls are also going to be installed with Visual Studio 2010.

On Friday, Yunfeng Dong mentioned on the VS Data team blog that the VB Power Packs 3.0 release was installed by default with Visual Studio 2008 SP1. In the comments of that post someone asks about VS2010 availability and it’s good to know that these controls will also be available in that release.

However you don’t need Visual Studio 2008 SP1 or Visual Studio 2010 to use these controls. If you have Visual Studio 2005 you can download the web release here. (Note that if you are using Express versions of Visual Studio, the controls will not automatically show up in your toolbox. Take a look at the readme on how you can add them.)

Enjoy!

Visual Basic Start Page News Channel in Visual Studio

Beth Massi — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 19:39:59 GMT

I’ve had a couple questions lately on how to change the Visual Studio start page news feed so I thought I’d write a quick post on how to do it. When you open Visual Studio for the first time it will ask you what development environment setting it should use. You can pick Visual Basic, C#, General, Web, etc. Depending on what you pick you will see different news feed in your start page. If you pick Visual Basic, you will see the same news feed that is on the Visual Basic Developer Center which showcases articles, tutorials, videos and other important resources:

You can change the development settings by going to Tools –> Import and Export Settings and then picking a set of default settings. However, sometimes you just want to change the feed and not the development settings. You can do that by going to Tools –> Options then check “Show all settings” at the bottom, expand the Environment node and select Startup. In the Start Page news channel specify: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=96703&clcid=409 which will route you to this feed: http://services.social.microsoft.com/feeds/feed/VB_featured_resources

Of course you can put any RSS feed here and it will display on your start page, but I would recommend staying up to date on Visual Basic ;-). For more Visual Studio tips check out Sara’s blog and book.

Enjoy!

Sara Finishes Her Visual Studio Tips Book

Beth Massi — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 18:51:48 GMT

One of my good friends Sara Ford finally finished her Visual Studio Tips book, based on her super popular tip-of-the-day blog series she started over a year ago when I first started Microsoft.

The amazing thing about the book is that she's dedicating 100% of the profits to create a scholarship at the Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College for anyone living in her hometown of Waveland, Mississippi, which was destroyed during Hurricane Katrina. Microsoft matches any employee's donations to charities so this is a really big help for students in Waveland.

I'm so happy Sara finally finished it! I'm so proud of her. Tonight I'm buying the beer. ;-)

Go Sara, go!

Channel 9 Interview: Refactoring in Visual Basic with Refactor!

Beth Massi — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 04:41:00 GMT

I just released a Channel 9 screencast with Lisa Feigenbaum, PM on the VB IDE Team, where she shows us how to use Refactor!, the free add-in for Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 that provides over 30 refactorings for Visual Basic. Lisa walks us through all the new refactorings that were added for the latest version of Visual Basic 2008. You can download Refactor! here. You can get the demo code she used here.

Enjoy!

New Community Article - Using Business Objects with WCF

Beth Massi — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 22:00:00 GMT

There's a new article up on the VB Dev Center by Rob Windsor, a follow up from his first Getting Started with WCF article, called Using Custom Business Objects with Windows Communication Foundation. Rob explains how to serialize your own custom business objects using WCF DataContracts and what issues you may run into in Visual Studio 2005. Check it out!

Enjoy!

MSDN geekSpeak: Generics in Visual Basic

Beth Massi — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 18:00:00 GMT

Listen to the always entertaining Jim Duffy, Visual Basic MVP, talk about generics and more in Visual Basic on MSDN's geekSpeak. In this segment, Jim answers common developer questions about not only use of generics, but also some language-specific features of VB.NET. Jim, I know you love Rush but do you have to slip them into every demo? LOL.

Also check out more MSDN geekSpeak shows and VB Screencasts on Channel 9.

Enjoy!

Using Data Across Multiple Windows Forms

Beth Massi — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 21:11:00 GMT

Recently I've had more than a few questions about how to handle working with data across multiple forms. If you've watched my Forms over Data video series you know how to create a database, connect to it, save your data properly, and work with data in your code. In this post I'll expand upon those videos and walk through an example of how to create multiple forms that work against the same DataSet. We'll use the Northwind Categories and Products for this example.

There are actually many ways to connect multiple forms to the same DataSet depending on your scenario, but I'll take a common example of displaying editable detail forms from a main form with a grid-style edit like this:

Here we've got a form with two DataGridViews displaying Categories and their related Products. Once you connect to the Northwind Database with the Data Sources Window, you can choose Categories and Products tables and that will create a DataSet and the corresponding TableAdapters for you just like I showed in the One-to-Many video. Once your DataSet is set up then you can drag and drop the Categories and related Products tables from the Data Sources Window to your form. This will set up the two BindingSources and bind the grids properly as well as add a BindingNavigator ToolStrip to the form. Now what we want to do is create a second form that allows us to edit the product details.

First I added a couple lines of code to the TableNewRow event handler on the Categories and Products DataTables so that it would be easier working with the data. In this handler I just set some defaults for the non-nullable fields. To get to the code behind file for your DataSet just right-click on the DataSet in the Solution Explorer and select "View Code". This is where you can add simple validation as well like I showed in the video on adding validation.

Partial Class CategoriesProductsDataSet

Partial Class CategoriesDataTable

Private Sub CategoriesDataTable_TableNewRow(ByVal sender As Object, _

ByVal e As System.Data.DataTableNewRowEventArgs) _

Handles Me.TableNewRow

'Set defaults for non-nullable fields

Dim category As CategoriesRow = CType(e.Row, CategoriesRow)

category.CategoryName = "New Category"

End Sub

End Class

Partial Class ProductsDataTable

Private Sub ProductsDataTable_TableNewRow(ByVal sender As Object, _

ByVal e As System.Data.DataTableNewRowEventArgs) _

Handles Me.TableNewRow

'Set defaults for non-nullable fields

Dim product As ProductsRow = CType(e.Row, ProductsRow)

product.ProductName = "New Product"

product.Discontinued = False

End Sub

End Class

Next I added a new form to the project and again used the Data Sources Window to drag and drop the Product fields I want to edit onto the new form. This time, however, I don't need the BindingNavigator ToolStrip so I just selected that and deleted it and instead added two buttons on the bottom of the form for OK and Cancel.

Next I deleted ProductsTableAdapter in the component tray and then opened up the code-behind of the detail form. I then deleted the Form.Load handler with the Fill code that was auto-generated for us. This is because we do not want to re-fill the DataSet from the database, instead we are going to pass the data to this form from our main form.

The easiest way to pass the data in this situation is to create a new constructor that accepts the DataSet we're editing on the main form and the primary key of the product we want to edit. Then we can set the ProductBindingSource's DataSource and Filter property on the detail form so that the it displays the selected row. This keeps the main form and the detail form edits in sync. In the details form code right under the class definition type "Sub New" and hit enter to auto-generate the correct constructor call, then change the signature and set the ProductBindingSource properties.

Sub New(ByVal ds As CategoriesProductsDataSet, ByVal id As Integer)

' This call is required by the Windows Form Designer.

InitializeComponent()

' Add any initialization after the InitializeComponent() call.

' Set the DataSource of the BindingSource and then set the Filter

' so that the correct row will be displayed on the detail form.

Me.ProductsBindingSource.DataSource = ds

Me.ProductsBindingSource.Filter = "ProductID = " & id.ToString

End Sub

Then back in the main form I created a button on the ToolStrip that opens this details form. I call ProductsBindingSource.EndEdit() first so that any changes made on the main form are pushed into the DataSet before we attempt to edit the row on the detail form. Then I get the current Product row by casting the ProductBindingSource.Current property to ProductsRow and pass the ProductID to the detail form's constructor along with the reference to the CategoriesProductsDataSet on the main form:

Private Sub ToolStripButton1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, _

ByVal e As System.EventArgs) _

Handles ToolStripButton1.Click

Me.ProductsBindingSource.EndEdit()

If Me.ProductsBindingSource.Position > -1 Then

'Get the current product row

Dim row As CategoriesProductsDataSet.ProductsRow

row = CType(CType(Me.ProductsBindingSource.Current, _

DataRowView).Row, CategoriesProductsDataSet.ProductsRow)

'Open the product detail form passing the dataset and the product ID

Dim frm As New Form2(Me.CategoriesProductsDataSet, row.ProductID)

frm.Show()

End If

End Sub

You can open the details form modal or modeless. Here I'm allowing the user to open as many detail forms as they want but if you want to only open one at a time then just change the frm.Show() line to frm.ShowDialog() instead. This example demonstrates editing the current row and does nothing if there is no product row selected. You could optionally add a call to ProductBindingSource.AddNew() before the EndEdit() call in this scenario if you need to add a row programmatically before the form is opened. (NOTE: It's important that you add defaults for non-nullable fields like I showed above in the DataTable partial classes if you call AddNew() then EndEdit() in succession.)

The last bit of code is on the detail form that calls EndEdit() or CancelEdit() on the ProductsBindingSource depending on if they clicked Cancel or OK on the detail form, or just closed the form without selecting OK. This will either accept or discard the changes made to the product row on the particular detail form.

Private Sub Form2_FormClosing(ByVal sender As Object, _

ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.FormClosingEventArgs) _

Handles Me.FormClosing

Me.ProductsBindingSource.CancelEdit()

End Sub

Private Sub cmdCancel_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, _

ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles cmdCancel.Click

Me.ProductsBindingSource.CancelEdit()

Me.Close()

End Sub

Private Sub cmdOK_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, _

ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles cmdOK.Click

Me.ProductsBindingSource.EndEdit()

Me.Close()

End Sub

I've attached a complete example to this post that works against the Northwind database. It also shows how to properly save related DataTables like I demonstrated in this video and this post. Remember the key to working with data on your forms is to use the BindingSource object as this class really makes working with data and form controls very simple. For more information see the Understanding Data video.

Enjoy!

Binding Multiple Combo Boxes to the Same Data Source

Beth Massi — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 21:03:00 GMT

Recently the VB Team received a customer bug submitted through Connect that had to do with binding multiple combo boxes to the same data source. The customer was reporting that once a selection was made in one combo, the other combos were also changing. The resolution was "By Design" because of the way the customer was setting up the data binding. We thought it would benefit the community if I posted information on how we helped the customer resolve the issue, so let's talk about what was happening and the solution. But first some architectural background on data binding.

Data binding on Windows Forms involves a few different objects depending on where your data is coming from (i.e. an object or the database directly) but we're going to focus on the database scenario. The TableAdapter is responsible for talking to the database and pulling in result sets into DataTables contained in a DataSet and for sending back the updates -- this is referred to sometimes as CRUD -- Create, Retrieve, Update, Delete. The DataSet maintains the client-side representation of that data (and can also perform validation) by placing the data in DataRow objects that are contained in DataTables. The BindingSource is responsible for maintaining currency, that's the position of the DataRow in the DataTable in which the controls are displaying data from. Here's a simple diagram pulled from my How Do I video on Understanding Data.

Once you get your DataSet and TableAdapters set up you're ready to start data binding to your controls. You use the Data Sources Window to drag fields and tables onto your form and I've shown how to do this in many videos in the Forms Over Data series. When you do this, the DataSet and TableAdapters are dropped onto your form and then a new BindingSource object is created for you. It's this BindingSource that is providing the "glue" between the DataSet and your controls.

There's one video in particular that shows you how to create lookup lists. In this scenario, the data binding is a bit more complex. When you bind a textbox to a BindingSource it's a simple binding to a single field in the current row. When you bind a combo box that acts as a lookup list however, you need two binding sources because you need to be able to display the data from one lookup table and place the value into the table that you're editing.

It's very easy to set this up through the Data Sources Window. First drag all the fields you want to edit onto the from from your edit table by selecting the drop down next to the table and choosing "Details". You can change the lookup fields to combo boxes by selecting the drop down next to the fields and changing the control to a combo box:

Once you have the controls bound to your edit table you can easily bind the combo box list with data from your lookup table. Just drag the lookup table from the Data Sources Window directly over the combo box. Repeat this process for each combo box you want to display that lookup data. Then use the property window or the smart tags on the combo boxes to adjust the ValueMember (the field who's value you want placed in your edit table) and DisplayMember (the field who's value you want displayed in the combo) properties.

This will create THREE separate LookupBindingSources, (four total BindingSources once you count the edit table's BindingSource). This is the key to binding the same lookup data to multiple combo box controls. If you use the same LookupBindingSource instance for the combo boxes then you will end up in the same situation as the customer who reported the bug. If you don't use separate BindingSource instances then as a selection is made in one combo, the others also change to that value, and that's probably not the desired behavior you want.

Why this works this way is because each BindingSource object manages it's own position within the data source that is bound to it. If you use one LookupBindingSource in this example for multiple combos, then as one selection is made, the other will also change. (Keep in mind that using multiple LookupBindingSources does not load multiple instances of the LookupTable's data from the database, it just simply creates multiple BindingSource objects.)

So the customer easily fixed this issue and was very happy with the VB Team's quick response.

Enjoy!

Converting VS 2005 Projects to VS 2008 - Enabling LINQ

Beth Massi — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 00:36:00 GMT

So you have an application you've written in Visual Studio 2005 and you want to dig in, convert this baby, and start using LINQ in Visual Studio 2008. In this post I'm going to outline what steps are involved to get LINQ working based on what providers you may want to use.

In Visual Studio 2008 there's a new multi-targeting feature that allows you to work in Visual Studio 2008 but be able to write applications targeting either the .NET 2.0, 3.0 or 3.5 Frameworks. ScottGu has a good post that talks about this and so does Rick Strahl. This means that going forward you won't have to load multiple versions of the Visual Studio IDE onto your machine in order to work on applications targeting previous versions of the framework. (Note: If you are targeting .NET 1.0 or 1.1 frameworks then you'll still have to load 2002 or 2003 IDEs.) This is good news because it not only saves disk space and context switching, it allows you to take advantage of the new IDE tools like debuggers and editors without the risk of upgrading your current projects. However when you do want to upgrade a project to 3.5 to start taking advantage of LINQ, you need to import some of the new namespaces yourself.

When you first open up a project written in Visual Studio 2005 inside Visual Studio 2008 it will prompt you to upgrade the project. What this actually does is update the project (.vbproj) and solution .(sln) files to be compatible with VS 2008. The project file is actually still backwards compatible with VS 2005 so you can still open it there, the solution file however, is just one way. So if you have a team of developers working with a mix of both VS 2005 and VS 2008 IDEs you'll need to keep two solution files, but luckily your project files (which change much more often than solution configurations) can be shared.

Now all this upgrade process does is upgrade your project and solution files, your application will still be targeting the .NET 2.0 Framework. In order to upgrade your apps to use new features like LINQ you'll need to change the target framework and add some references. You'll also want to turn on the new Option Infer feature. This allows the compiler to infer local variable type declarations by evaluating the right-hand side of the expression. This becomes extremely useful when writing LINQ queries. To enable this, double-click on My Project in the Solution Explorer to open the project properties and select the Compile tab. Under Option Infer select "On".

Now to change the target framework, click the "Advanced Compile Options..." button and you can change the target in the dropdown:

Select the 3.5 Framework, click OK, and the project will be closed and reopened. If you open the project properties again and look on the References tab you'll notice that the System.Core.dll version 3.5 is now being referenced automatically for you. However, in order to start using LINQ you'll need to import a couple namespaces and add a couple more references depending on which LINQ providers you want to use. To enable pure LINQ to Objects, on the References tab under Imported Namespaces select System.Linq. You'll now be able to write queries that work over objects like:

Dim currentFiles = From File In My.Computer.FileSystem.GetFiles(CurDir) _

Select My.Computer.FileSystem.GetFileInfo(File)

In order to write queries that work over DataSets you'll need to add a reference to System.Data.DataSetExtensions then you'll need to re-run the Dataset generator on the DataSets you want to write LINQ queries over. Just right-click on the DataSet and select "Run Custom Tool". This will regenerate the DataSet code so that the DataTables now inherit from a LINQ-ready class called TypedTableBase which is in the System.Data.DataSetExtension namespace. You'll now be able to write queries that work over typed DataSets. For instance, you can now write:

Dim total = Aggregate Products In Me.CategoryProductDataSet.Products _

Where Products.CategoryID = 1 AndAlso _

Products.Discontinued = False _

Into Sum(Products.UnitPrice * Products.UnitsInStock)

If you want to start using the LINQ to XML provider you'll need to add a reference to System.Xml.Linq.dll and import the namespace System.Xml.Linq. You'll now be able to write queries that work over XML like:

Dim survey = XElement.Load(CurDir() & "\questions.xml")

Dim questions = From q In survey...<question> Select q

Finally, if you want to start using LINQ to SQL classes in your newly upgraded project, it's really easy. Just right-click and select Add New Item and select the LINQ to SQL classes template which opens up the new O/R designer and automatically adds the reference to System.Data.Linq.dll for you. This allows you to write queries like this (against SQL-server):

Dim countryList = From Customer In Db.Customers _

Where Customer.Country <> "" _

Order By Customer.Country _

Select Customer.Country Distinct

So I hope that clears up how to get started with LINQ in your current applications that you're bringing into VS 2008. So what are you waiting for? ;-) Happy LINQing.

Enjoy!

Line and Shape Controls For Visual Basic Just Released

Beth Massi — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 02:52:00 GMT

The VB Team just released an updated version of the Visual Basic Power Packs on the VB Developer Center that includes a new set of controls for Visual Studio 2005 that allow you to draw lines, rectangle and oval shapes on your Windows Forms. These controls encapsulate many of the graphics methods that are contained in the System.Drawing namespace. This enables you to draw lines and shapes in a single step without having to create graphics objects, pens, and brushes. Complex graphics techniques such as gradient fills can be accomplished by just setting some properties.

I don't know about you but I've been really looking forward to this release!

Enjoy!

Forms Over Data Video Series - Two More Videos Released

Beth Massi — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 02:34:00 GMT

I just released two more videos (#15, #16) in the Forms Over Data video series. One is on understanding data binding and how it works from database all the way to the controls you see on forms. We talk about the relationship between the TableAdapter, the BindingSource and the DataSet and I show how to work with data in your code.

The second one explains how to update related data tables like I explained in this post. This video doesn't go into how to set up the transactions but you can read about how to do that here. I've also attached the code from the videos here.

Enjoy!

Object Binding Series - Just Added One More!

Beth Massi — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 02:30:00 GMT

I just added a new video (#4) to the Object Binding Series on filtering your custom objects -- based on customer request -- so keep them coming! The code is also attached.

Enjoy!

More Visual Basic on Channel9

Beth Massi — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 19:43:00 GMT

I just posted Cameron McColl's Channel9 video where he talks about the performance improvements made in VS 2008. Check it out!

In this in interview Cameron McColl, a Developer on the Visual Basic Team, shows us what kinds of performance improvements were made in Visual Studio 2008. He walks us through a set of scenarios that suffered from performance issues and then shows us the same scenarios in Visual Studio 2008 describing what was happening and how they fixed the issues.

Stay tuned for more videos every week. And here's the link for all the VB.NET screencasts. Also check out Kathleen's blog.

Enjoy!