Habib Heydarian's Blog @ Microsoft : DinnerNow.net

A few facts about the DinnerNow.net 3.1 sample application

habibh — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 11:31:00 GMT

Now that the DinnerNow.net 3.1 sample application has been released, I thought I'd share some information about the project to help developers learn more about DinnerNow.net and what they can expect after downloading it.

The following table summarizes the artifacts (source code, images, et.c) that make up the DinnerNow.net 3.1 sample application.

DinnerNow Artifact	Count
Number of solutions (including master solution)	12
Number of projects	37
Number of C# source files (*.cs)	356
Number of C# LOC (Lines Of Code) excluding comments	32,245
Number of ASPX/ASCX pages	12
Number of WCF services (*.svc)	9
Number of databases	3
Number of WPF forms (*.xaml)	15
Number of HTML pages (*.htm)	19
Number of CSS files (*.css)	10
Number of images (.gif, .jpg, *.png)	248

In a follow up post, I will discuss the overall architecture of DinnerNow.net and the structure of the solutions.

Habib Heydarian.

DinnerNow.net 3.1 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 released

habibh — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 10:03:00 GMT

DinnerNow.net 3.1 follows in the footsteps of the 3.0 release of DinnerNow.net by adding support for new Microsoft operating systems and platforms. New in DinnerNow 3.1 is support for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Also, DinnerNow 3.1 adds support for 64-bit operating systems and SQL Server 2008. For a complete list of new features in DinnerNow 3.1, see the sections below. To learn more about he DinnerNow sample application, visit the DinnerNow website.

You can download DinnerNow.net 3.1 from here.

1) Support for new Microsoft operating systems and technologies

DinnerNow.net 3.1 adds support for the following releases from Microsoft.

Windows 7 RTM (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows Server 2008 R2 RTM (64-bit only)
Windows PowerShell 2.0
64-bit support for Windows Vista SP2 and Windows Server 2008 SP2
SQL Server 2008 Express Edition Service Pack 1 (32-bit and 64-bit)

NOTE: In version 3.1, support for SQL Server 2005 Express has been replaced with SQL Server 2008 Express SP1.

2) Bug fixes

DinnerNow 3.1 fixes the following issues.

Priority	Title
1	Detection logic for PowerShell installation is broken on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2
1	Fix setup to support installation on 64-bit
1	Windows Server 2008 R2: Dependency Checker crashes on startup.
1	64-bit: IIS Manager crashes when opening the Image Copyright control panel
1	64-bit: Images don't show up on the DinnerNow website
1	64-bit: In the AliasDatabaseServer project, some project references are broken
1	System.InvalidOperationException: The type '"DinnerNow.Services.OrderService', provided as the Service attribute value in the ServiceHost directive could not be found.
1	Build break: In SQL Server 2008, the type Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.Wmi.ServerAlias has moved from Microsoft.SqlServer.Smo.dll to Microsoft.SqlServer.SqlWmiManagement.dll
1	Windows 7: IIS Worker Process (w3wp.exe) doesn't have access to the DinnerNow.net databases.
1	Windows Server 2008 R2: Registering with CardSpace crashes the DinnerNow website.
1	DinnerNow 3.1 needs to support SQL Server 2008 Express Edition SP1
1	Windows 7: IIS installation script doesn't work
2	Unit Test "DinnerNow.Tests.MenuSyndicationServiceTest.GetRestaurantAtomTest" fails with System.Net.WebException
2	TestOrderProcessWorkflow: Unit Test fails with System.InvalidOperationException
2	GetRestaurantRssTest: Unit Test fails with System.Net.WebException
2	GetRestaurantCategoriesWCFTest: Unit Test fails with System.InvalidOperationException

As always, your feedback is welcome.

Habib Heydarian.

How to install and configure the DinnerNow.net 3.0 sample application [Video]

habibh — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 10:02:00 GMT

About two weeks ago, version 3.0 of the DinnerNow.net sample application was released and I covered the release in this blog. Since then, there have been close to 800 downloads of the application. To help people ramp up on DinnerNow, I've created a short video that shows how to install and configure DinnerNow.net 3.0.

There are basically four steps to setup DinnerNow.net 3.0:

Step 1: Download and install DinnerNow.net
Step 2: Configure and Build DinnerNow.net
Step 3: Open the DinnerNow.net solution inside Visual Studio
Step 4: Verify that the DinnerNow application works

The following video walks through the steps above and discusses the areas to watch out for.

If you run into any issues installing DinnerNow.net 3.0, feel free to send feedback via the Discussion forum on the DinnerNow web site.

Habib Heydarian.

DinnerNow.net 3.0 for Visual Studio 2008 SP1 and .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 is here!

habibh — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 20:40:23 GMT

It's been a very long time coming but the next version of DinnerNow.net is finally here! In case you haven’t heard of DinnerNow, it is a fictitious marketplace where customers can order food from local restaurants for delivery to their home or office. DinnerNow is designed to demonstrate how you can develop a connected application using several new Microsoft technologies. It is an open source sample that you can download from codeplex.

You can download the new version of DinnerNow.net from here.

What’s new in DinnerNow.net 3.0

The 3.0 release of DinnerNow.net is primarily about adding support for new Microsoft updates, bug fixes and some clean up work. Here is a summary of the changes. You can read about these changes in more detail in the following sections.

Support for new Microsoft updates and service packs
A single master solution that contains all of the DinnerNow files
Bug fixes

1) Support for new Microsoft updates and service packs

DinnerNow.net 3.0 supports the following updates from Microsoft.

Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 and .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1
Windows Vista Service Pack 2 (32-bit)
Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 (32-bit)
SQL Server 2005 Express Service Pack 3 (32-bit)
Internet Explorer 8 (32-bit)

2) A single master solution that contains all of the DinnerNow.net files

By far, the biggest change in this release is that there is now a single master solution that contains all of the DinnerNow projects and supporting files. DinnerNow is made up of 31 projects and all up, contains over 500 files. In the previous release of DinnerNow (version 2.5), there were eight separate solutions in different directories. This made navigation and searching difficult because you had to open the solutions separately. It was also difficult to get a sense of overall structure of the application, not to mention having to use command line builds. But what made things really cumbersome is that none of supporting files, i.e. the build scripts, SQL files, etc. were part of any solution. Therefore, the only way to view and edit those files was to go outside Visual Studio. The screenshot below shows what the structure of version 2.5 of DinnerNow looks like.

In DinnerNow.net 3.0, all projects and supporting files are in one solution which makes it significantly easier to navigate, search and build the solution. The interesting thing is that in order to combine all the existing solutions into one master solution, I didn’t have to change any of the existing solutions or projects. I took advantage of Solution Folders and Visual Studio's ability to add one solution to another. Note that you can still open the individual solutions separately. Read my previous blog on how to combine separate Visual Studio solutions into one master solution. The screenshot below shows the new solution structure in Solution Explorer.

3) Bug fixes

DinnerNow 3.0 fixes the following bugs.

Reason	Priority	Title
Fixed	1	When opening the Kiosk app, the Order Map widget fails to display with the error: 'VEMap' is undefined
Fixed	1	Fix broken unit test: DinnerNow.Tests.TestOrderProcessWorkflow
Fixed	1	Fully qualify Microsoft.ManagementConsole.Action due to ambiguity with System.Action
Fixed	1	Error when running RunMe.bat: Cannot find type [Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.Wmi.ServerAlias]: make sure the assembly containing this type is loaded.
Fixed	1	Prevent code loss: In the Delivery project, move custom code out of files that were generated by NetCFSvcUtil.exe
Fixed	3	Rename "Start Here for DinnerNow" Desktop shortcut to "Configure DinnerNow.net 3.0"
Fixed	1	Error when running RunMe.bat - Start-Sleep : A parameter cannot be found that matches parameter name '?seconds

I hope you'll find version 3.0 of DinnerNow.net helpful. Looking forward to your feedback.

Habib Heydarian