stuart kent's blog : VSTS2010

Extending UML designers in VS2010 Beta2

Stuart Kent — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:37:27 GMT

As mentioned in this post, the UML designers in VS2010 Ultimate now come with a set of APIs that makes them easy to extend. I see that Peter Provost has now posted the first of a series of articles (going by the title of this one) explaining how to get started: Extending Visual Studio 2010 UML Designers – Part 1- Getting Started.

Jean-Marc blogs about DSL Tools in VS2010 Beta2

Stuart Kent — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:31:47 GMT

Back from holiday (in Cyprus, 30 degrees C, very relaxing thanks), and as I suggested might happen in my previous entry, I see that Jean-Marc has blogged about DSL Tools in VS2010 Beta2: We released the DSL SDK for Visual Studio Beta2 this morning.

IMS Locks Sample for VS DSL Tools 2010 Beta1

Stuart Kent — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:47:44 GMT

I see that Jean-Marc has just posted another sample on the DSL Tools Code Gallery landing page, this time about the new IMS Locks capability. This allows you to make some parts of your models read-only, which is good for situations where some users (say an architect) are allowed to make changes to some aspects of the model (say the core architecture components), and other users (say developers) are only allowed to make changes to other aspects (say the properties specifically focused on driving the code generators). As author of the DSL you have complete control in the locking policy used. More details in Jean-Marc’s post.

ModelBus Adapters Project Template

Stuart Kent — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:49:46 GMT

Jean-Marc has just posted a ModelBus Adapters project template on the Visual Studio Gallery. This template makes it easy to a modelbus adapter and adapter manager to your own DSL, which exposes your DSL for reference and access from other DSLs. This compliments the sample recently posted, as described in my last post.

DSL Tools VS2010 Beta1: ModelBus Sample

Stuart Kent — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 01:07:42 GMT

One of the most common asks from customers of the DSL Tools has been support for integrating models and designers, that is the ability to have models of the same or different DSL cross-reference one another, and the ability to write simple code that exploits these cross-references to implement interesting interactions between designers.

In VS2010 we’re providing this support which can now be previewed in VS2010 Beta1 release. Jean-Marc has just posted a sample (StateMachineOverModelBus.zip, documentation) that illustrates how the modelbus can be used to achieve the behaviors described above, and I’ve just posted a short video demonstrating the behaviors and giving a quick insight into what you need to do to realize them in your own designers.

Details on how you can provide feedback can be found on our the DSL Tools Code Gallery landing page. Or by all means provide feedback on this blog.

Much simpler deployment of DSLs in VS2010

Stuart Kent — Sat, 23 May 2009 01:54:51 GMT

In Visual Studio 2010 you’ll find a new extension manager that makes it much easier to package and deploy extensions to Visual Studio. Pedro has more information: Early Buzz on the VS SDK and Extension Manager, Introducing VS Extension Manager.

We’ve exploited this to deploy DSL Tools. Gone has the DSL Setup project which used WiX to create and MSI. Instead, a DSL authoring solution builds a VSIX package and uses that to install the DSL in the experimental instance of Visual Studio. But even better, to install the DSL in the main instance of Visual Studio, all you have to do is open the VSIX file in windows explorer and respond to the prompts. Restart Visual Studio and your DSL is installed! How easy is that?

I’ve captured all this on video.

T4 Roundup

Stuart Kent — Sat, 23 May 2009 00:39:25 GMT

Gareth has been posting a lot about T4 over the past few months. In case you missed it, here’s a roundup of all his posts, in chronological order. Lots there to get your teeth into.

You can now try out the VS2010 features mentioned above with the release of VS2010 Beta1, VS2010 SDK Beta1, and VS2010 DSL SDK Beta1: see Dsl Tools for Visual Studio 2010.

I’ll also add one more link:

http://tangibleengineering.blogspot.com/2009/05/tangible-t4-editor-for-visual-studio.html

As you can see, T4 is getting popular!

And for VS2010 there’s more to come on top of the features that Gareth describes. Not available in Beta1, but in Beta2 we’ll be providing support for accessing models in T4 via the modelbus. This will enable text templates to access models created with the new UML designers in Visual Studio and more enterprise-scale orchestration of code generation.

Migrating DSLs to VS2010 Beta1

Stuart Kent — Sat, 23 May 2009 00:12:31 GMT

When we released DSL Tools for VS2008, the migration story from VS2005 was not great: basically we provided a sheet of manual instructions which led to a fragile and long-winded experience. This time we’ve done a lot better. In the VS2010 DSL SDK Beta1 you’ll find a migration tool that converts your projects and solutions for you automatically. We’ve been using this internally to convert samples, test projects and so on, and it does a lovely job. There are links to a video showing the tool in use, and some documentation on the Downloads tab of the DSL Tools Code Gallery. Life is good.

DSL Tools for Visual Studio 2010

Stuart Kent — Fri, 22 May 2009 13:41:26 GMT

It seems that my blog entries and those of some of my colleagues (Steve, Jean-Marc, Gareth) are like London buses: you wait for ages and then three come at once. And I’m definitely the worst offender – that bus which breaks down all the time.

Anyway, the reason why we’ve been so lax is that we’ve all been desperately busy getting Visual Studio 2010 out the door.

So it’s really exciting to announce the availability of DSL Tools for Visual Studio 2010 Beta1, hot on the heels of Visual Studio 2010 Beta1 itself and the corresponding Visual Studio SDK. Jean-Marc has all the details. We have a page summarizing the new features.

Various members of the team will be following up with blogs and samples, and we look forward to your feedback: the good, bad and ugly (actually, I’m sure you’re all extremely eloquent, so I don’t expect any ugliness). We’ll keep you up to date through the DSL Tools Code Gallery page.