Powertoys WebLog : VS 2005

Consolas - a New Font for the Visual Studio 2005 Editor

saraford — Tue, 09 May 2006 20:16:00 GMT

Consolas, a cleartype font designed specifically for to make code more readable is now available for download for users of Visual Studio 2005 from the Microsoft Download Center.

Consolas is intended for use in programming environments and other circumstances where a monospaced font is specified. All characters have the same width, like old typewriters, making it a good choice for personal and business correspondence. Optimizing the font specifically for ClearType allowed a design with proportions closer to normal text than traditional monospaced fonts like Courier. This allows for more comfortable reading of extended text on-screen.

The package will change the default text face in Visual Studio to the Consolas family.

This package is only intended for licensed users of Microsoft Visual Studio 2005.

Leave any questions or comments on the VSEditor blog.

First set of Power Toys for Visual Studio released by the Developer Solutions team

saraford — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 02:03:00 GMT

Check out the Developer Solutions team's blog for the latest information on Power Toys for Visual Studio.

MSBee

MSBee is an addition to MSBuild that allows you to build managed apps in VS 2005 that target .NET 1.1.

Download MSBuild Extras – Toolkit for .NET 1.1 “MSBee” Beta 1

Managed Stack Explorer

MSE is a lightweight tool for monitoring .NET 2.0 processes and stack traces. Just copy and run. No installation required.

Download Managed Stack Explorer v1.1

TFS Administration Tool

The TFS Administration Tool allows you to manage users on TFS, Sharepoint, and SQL RS through one common UI.

Download TFS Admin Tool Beta 1

HelpStudio Lite to Author Help Content in VS 2005

Powertoys — Sat, 21 Jan 2006 03:59:00 GMT

From the MSDN Forums...

The VS 2005 SDK contains a new tool for authoring Help and integrating it with VS 2005. The tool is called HelpStudio Lite. It is lightweight version of the full HelpStudio product, developed by Innovasys.

HelpStudio Lite is recommended for anyone extending VS 2005 - for example, by creating add-ins, controls, or packages. You will likely also want to author and include Help content with your extensions to VS. You can use HelpStudio Lite to author your content and compile it to the Help 2.5 (hxs) format, so it can be integrated with VS 2005.

The HelpStudio Lite documentation includes details on how to create deployment projects for your content (your hxs files). There are a couple options. One option is to use the Help Integration Wizard to create a VS setup project, which can be compiled into an Windows Installer package (msi or msm). Another option is to incorporate the InnovaHxReg tool (included with HelpStudio Lite) into your setup. You can invoke InnovaHxReg to register your content and merge it with existing VS 2005 content.

If you have existing Help 2.x files for VS 2003, you can upgrade them to work with VS 2005 by importing your collection into HelpStudio Lite and then compiling the HelpStudio Lite project. Similarly, you can import HTMLHelp 1.x (chm) files into HelpStudio Lite projects.

Here are some related links for more information.
HelpStudio Lite Press Release
Visual Studio Extensibility Center
Download the VS 2005 SDK

FlashControl to add Flash in Asp.Net 2.0

Powertoys — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 02:59:00 GMT

From the mailbag...

FlashControl is a simple way to include Flash movies in your ASP.NET 2.0 projects ! This free server control can be added in Visual Studio 2005 Toolbox so you can just drag and drop it in your aspx pages.
FlashControl manage all Flash properties (FlashVars, Loop, Menu, Scale, BgColor, SwLiveConnect, Quality, Play, Base, Align, SAlign, WMode, ...) and has full Visual Studio 2005 designer support (Smart Tag, Custom Designer, Custom Property Editor) !

With FlashControl you can target specific HTML output : Internet Explorer Windows (object tag) and/or Netscape/Mozilla, IE MAC (embed tag) or use Automatic browser detection (FlashControl will automatically choose to render object tag or embed tag depending on browser capabilities).

http://www.flash-control.net/

PageMethods: Well-defined URLs for your ASP.NET sites and applications

Powertoys — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 06:45:00 GMT

Via Fabrice

PageMethods for Visual Studio 2005 has just been released. This version offers the same support as the version for VS 2003, plus some additional features.
PageMethods proposes a new code model that enables well-defined URLs and simplifies working with hyperlinks for your ASP.NET sites and applications.

PageMethods enables reliable URLs.
Linking to a web page is very easy, both in simple HTML and in ASP.NET. Linking to a page that really exists, passing the right parameters, and parsing these parameters, is a bit different.
PageMethods takes care of your URLs. It proposes a solution to define structured URLs for each of your pages, as well as a clean and simple way to call them.
The idea is based on strict page inputs and declarative parameter binding. With PageMethods, each page exposes a set of methods that represent the different ways to call the page. All you have to do to start benefiting from sharp, reliable URLs is to add methods to your pages, and mark these methods with attributes provided by PageMethods.

Here is how you would declare a page method:

[PageMethod]
protected void DisplayCustomer(int customerID)
{
...
}

Here is how you would refer to the page declaring this method:

MyHyperLink.NavigateUrl = MyPageMethods.Customers.CustomerPage.DisplayCustomer(1234);

Check out: http://metaSapiens.com/PageMethods

Snippy - Edit and Create VS 2005 Code Snippets

Powertoys — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 01:51:00 GMT

Via VS Editor Team:

We have released a new powertoy Snippy. It is a Code Snippet editor that will allow you to create new code snippets or modify existing ones. Please let us know if you have any problems installing or using it. There are two versions posted, one for the Beta2 version of the .NET Framework and another one for the current release candidate.

Check out the project hosted on Gotdotnet Codegalleries here: http://www.gotdotnet.com/codegallery/codegallery.aspx?id=b0813ae7-466a-43c2-b2ad-f87e4ee6bc39

Josh

VS 2005 Wish - Use MSBuild for VC++ Projects without VCBuild???

Powertoys — Thu, 29 Sep 2005 04:30:00 GMT

This blog has been pretty quite of late and I would attribute that to many tool vendors ramping up plans around the upcoming release of VS 2005. We at Microsoft are no exception. In the last few days I've heard of numerous "aftermarket solutions"/powertoys that I know you guys are going to love that go on top of our development platform.

One such project has been detailed here. Craig would like to estimate user interest in this idea and collect some feedback while he continues development. Feel free to reply on his blog.

Building VC projects with msbuild (without using vcbuild)

Along with DDCPX engineering improvements, I've begun spending time looking for useful tools for the VS developer community. One project I have begun is msbuild/vcbuild related. For those who aren’t familiar with msbuild, msbuild is destined to be the official build engine for MS. Instead of using makefiles or sources files, msbuild uses XML based configuration files which execute various tasks. The XML format for msbuild is used in the .(vb|cs)proj files produced by Whidbey so msbuild can be used directly with these files for command line builds.

As many people have noticed in the Whidbey betas, C# and VB project files both use msbuild XML elements. However, C++ is not fully integrated with msbuild; there are no cl or link tasks. Instead, executing msbuild blah.vcproj causes msbuild to invoke vcbuild to do the actual processing. Since this will not be changed prior to Whidbey RTM, I am working on a tool that converts .vcproj files to msbuild formatted files. Thus, a user could convert his .vcproj file to a msbuild formatted file that uses cl and link tasks (as opposed to the standard vcbuild task). Passing this file to msbuild would consequently build your C++ project without using vcbuild.

At this point, I'm continuing my prototype while I measure community interest in such a tool. So, if you are interested, please leave a comment or send me an email.

http://blogs.msdn.com/clichten/archive/2005/06/07/Building_VC_projects_with_msbuild_and_not_using_vcbuild.aspx

- Josh

gotdotnet CodeGallery for ongoing Sample Sharing and Development

Powertoys — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 22:39:00 GMT

Via Korby

I am proud to announce the public release of CodeGallery, the newest member of the gotdotnet family. Gotdotnet.com is the community website where professional Windows and .NET developers from around the world can contribute and consume code samples, snippets, scripts, and developer tools, as well as participate in ad hoc collaborative development projects with friends and colleagues. Whether you're new to computers or a hardcore developer, gotdotnet has something for you.

My boss, Sandy Khaund broke the news about the launch of CodeGallery on his blog. He writes, "[CodeGallery is] focused on the experience of community feedback. While Workspaces concentrates on the joint development of code and code check-in process, CodeGallery limits code activity to upload and download and instead orients the collaboration around idea sharing and feedback from members about the uploaded items. Each CodeGallery project is a “micro-community” on GotDotNet that is focused on collaborative feedback and code, documentation and idea sharing. To support this, we [provide] customization, message board creation, online reporting, bug tracking and message boards that enable members to work together in evolving a project whether it is code, documentation or conceptual."...

CodeGallery--Continuous Feedback-Driven Development
As mentioned, this is the newest member of the gotdotnet family. At CodeGallery, you can download an application, its source code, or both. You can evaluate the application, discuss the latest online version with its creator and other users, as well as create bugs that the owner can fold into the next version of their application. CodeGallery is a great place to see how some of the best developers in the world develop software, find useful utilities and take advantage of reusable code.

Check it out today and feel free to leave Korby and the team feedback.

VS Content Installer Power Toys

Powertoys — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 20:25:00 GMT

Via Craig

The first release of the VS Content Installer Power Toys are now available. You will need a recent build of VS (I tested with the August CTP, but the July version may also work) to use these tools. Remember, they are still a beta build, so not everything will work as expected. But here is what is available:

Content Builder - easily create VSI files with an easy to user wizard interface
Content Uninstaller - remove content installed through the Content Installer
Code Library Installer - install libraries for use within the Add Reference dialog box
Debugger Visualizer Installer - install debugger visualizers (both in DLL and CS form)
Help Installer - install help topics which are automatically included into the MSDN help browser
Samples Installer - install samples
Snippet Directory Installer - an extension of the the snippets installer, but gives you a bit more control in how the files are installed

The content installer also has 4 starter kits (2 for C#, 2 for VB) to help you create your own custom installers. There is also a starter kit (in C#) that will help create plugins into the content builder to automatically upload content to content hosting web sites. Unfortunately, there are no content hosting web sites that support automatic upload yet, but I am working on that - I am currently working on a starter kit to create web sites that host VSI content, just run the starter kit template and you have a full web site that supports uploading, downloading, content rating, etc. More information on this in the next few weeks.

This MSI will also place IntelliSense XML files for programming the Content Installer, unfortunately, because of a recent change in VS, this may not work as it should. But you should be able to move the xml file yourself to the correct location.

I plan on making the source code available to these tools soon.

You can download the msi to install the power toys at http://www.gotdotnet.com/workspaces/workspace.aspx?id=6b1aceda-e613-4dac-beeb-0cd8ad8f2d41

VC++ Powertoys from GDN

Powertoys — Mon, 15 Aug 2005 20:19:00 GMT

I don't know how I missed these, but there exists a collection of VC++ powertoys on the GDN site. The full descriptions are found in this document, but I've copied them down here as well.

Name - Description

Delta - Watch a directory (either local or remote) and see when items in it get changed.
FindDir - Find a directory on a server
Windows Installer Log Parser - Graphical Viewer for log files generated from Windows Installer Setups (verbose log file). Also has a quiet mode to generate an HTML page that annotates the log.
Depends - Scans a Windows Module and builds a hierarchical tree diagram of all dependant modules
Window Control - COM Object allowing simple manipulation of windows via scripting languages. Eg setting window text, moving, clicking, activating and showing / hiding windows
SpCheck - Service Pack Checker will check the origin of many different components on a system
Err - Lookup Error Constants in a number of NT Tables
ProcWait - Waits for 1 or more processes to terminate and inherits their return values. Useful for synchronization scripts
C++ IFilter - C++ IFilter for Indexing Service. Makes searching C++ code extremely fast (usually used in conjunction with a search utility such as ci.exe or srch.exe provided)
Ci - Command-line search tool for Indexing Service (see C++ IFilter)
Srch - Graphical search tool for Indexing Service (see C++ IFilter)
Wear - Reports all matches for an exe in the path
JumpWin - Move an application from 1 monitor to another (when using multimon) at the touch of a key.
Remoted - Software Switchbox. Control multiple computers by moving your mouse to the edge of a screen.
Backinfo- Generates a wallpaper with System Data (eg machine name)
KAPIMon - This does not work on XP (will crash the machine). Debugging Framework based on Kernel and User API Hooks.
SmartAny - Never leak a resource again! This template library for generic resource management makes resource management a breeze!

GRETA - This is a great regular expression library that supports full Perl 5 syntax.

Remoted and JumpWin are my personal favorites.

Download the package today: http://www.gotdotnet.com/team/cplusplus/powertools/powertools.zip

Enjoy,

josh

DPack 2.2.0 - Global Bookmarks, Improved Code Browsing, Code Stats, etc

Powertoys — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 19:29:00 GMT

Via TECHQUICK

My buddy Sergey has released a new update to DPack.

Here’s what’s new and changed in this release:

Added global bookmarks option to Numbered Bookmarks feature. Global bookmarks work on the whole solution as oppose to individual files, and allow one to quickly navigate from file to file.
Updated bookmarks icons to make it easier identify bookmark numbers.
Modified Code Browser to no longer treat code model related errors as fatal ones. Previously Code Browser would close its dialog if it failed to retrieve file’s code model. Now it would display an error in the dialog’s status bar and empty members list without actually closing the dialog. This should allow one to bypass the troublesome file and move onto another file.
Added “Properties Only” menu item to Code Browser’s Tools main menu. New command is accessible via Shift-Alt-P keyboard shortcut.
Various Code Browser usability improvements.
Added “Files to ignore” configuration option for Solution Backup feature.
Assigned “Ctrl-K, ?” shortcuts to all Surround With commands.

It also comes with July VS 2005 CTP support!

Visual Studio 2005 beta cleanup tool

Powertoys — Thu, 05 May 2005 18:49:00 GMT

Need to spread the word about this. - josh

Wow, did you know that there is a Visual Studio 2005 cleanup tool that is suppossed to help cleanup any types of leftover "stuff" from a previous install of a beta or CTP of Visual Studio 2005? I just ran across this on Aaron Stebner's blog. Thank you Aaron!

Link to the download.

Link to instructions.

Wally

[Via Weblogs @ ASP.NET]

VS Editor Font Zooming like Word

Powertoys — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 23:49:00 GMT

Via http://blogs.msdn.com/saraford/archive/2005/02/14/372645.aspx

"A very big thank you to Henrik Stuart for writing this VS Editor Zoom control and updating it for Whidbey. "

"Just like Word’s zoom control, adjusting the value of this control will increase or decrease the font size in the Visual Studio Editor "

Josh

Cool New Whidbey File Commands

Powertoys — Sat, 05 Feb 2005 00:35:00 GMT

These all look pretty cool and I really like what Gaston did earlier for the VS 2003 file tab commands. Enjoy - Josh

In the context menu of the project we have:

Collapse all projects
Open Project Folder
Visual Command Prompt Here

In the context menu of the text views we have:

Demo Font

Additionally to the old commands I implemented 2 new commands:

Copy File

Sometimes I need to copy the working file to some place in the net because somebody wants to take a look of it.

Is like a "save as" but you continue working with the same file.

Send by Mail

Select some text in a document right click and choose send by mail. I found this useful a lot of times. Hope this help somebody else.

CoolCommands.msi

Requirements: Whidbey beta 1

Xaml Viewer for Whidbey

Powertoys — Wed, 24 Nov 2004 20:36:00 GMT

Gaston Milano posted a VSIP based Xaml viewer for Whidbey.

"Features:

Right click in xaml files to call to the viewer.
Switch from viewer to associated file
Show errors in output window and task list, so you can go to the line with double click.
Call the viewer directly from View\Other Windows\Xaml Viewer
Text to Xaml, sometimes I need to transform just a text fragment, so you can paste the text in the text view and refresh the viewer in order to see the result. "

People working on Avalon took notice:

Chris Anderson: "I love it when folks in the community do a better job than us! <G>"
Rob Relyea: "Screen shots look great!"

Enjoy!

Josh