stuart kent's blog : Visual Studio

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.

Back with Team Architect

Stuart Kent — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 20:10:30 GMT

As Cameron blogged in Visual Studio Team System 2010 Architecture: Prologue, the DSL Tools team have recently moved back to Team Architect from the Visual Studio Platform team. We’ve been working increasingly closely with Team Architect since they renewed their focus on building VS modeling tools integrated using the DSL Tools. By moving back to that team we’ll be better placed to focus on three goals:

Evolve the platform to deliver a better experience for users of tools developed on that platform, including seamless integration with other tools used for software development (particularly those in Visual Studio), and rich productivity features for example around linking and transforming models. The experiences Team Architect have in mind will place strong demands on the platform; we can work closely with the teams building those experiences to make sure we get the platform right.
Evolve the authoring tools in the platform to make teams building tools using it more productive. This goes for teams inside Microsoft as much as for customers outside.
Provide a seamless experience for customization of the tools that we ship, from lightweight extensions of UML, through to patterns of integration and transformations layered on those tools, through to the creation of whole new DSLs which can be used in isolation or un harmony with the other tools.

We expect to make progress on all three goals in VS2010.

That said, our sojourn with the VS Platform Team was time well spent. We understand a lot better the technologies and the direction of the core VS platform and, just as importantly, know the people in that team a lot better. DSL Tools is layered on top of that platform and, already in VS2010, we’ll be taking advantage of the integration of the Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) into the heart of VS (see e.g. this post) and the technologies underpinning the Extension Manager.

Teach yourself DSL Tools

Stuart Kent — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:33:43 GMT

Jean-Marc has just posted a lab on code gallery, which provides a fully worked, step-by-step example of creating a DSL from scratch. If you're new to DSL Tools, or want to teach others how to use them, then you may find this useful.

Nearly forgot the link. It's at:

http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/DSLToolsLab

DSL Tools and Oslo

Stuart Kent — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 04:07:26 GMT

The Oslo modeling platform was announced at Microsoft's PDC and we've been asked by a number of customers what the relationship is between DSL Tools and Oslo. So I thought it would be worth clearing the air on this. Keith Short from the Oslo team has just posted on this very same question. I haven’t much to add really, except to clarify a couple of things about DSL Tools and VSTS Team Architect.

As Keith pointed out, some commentators have suggested that DSL Tools is dead. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Keith himself points out that "both products have a lifecycle in front of them". In DSL Tools in Visual Studio 2010 I summarize the new features that we're shipping for DSL Tools in VS 2010, and we'll be providing more details in future posts. In short, the platform has expanded to support forms-based designers and interaction between models and designers. There's also the new suite of designers from Team Architect including a set of UML designers and technology specific DSLs coming in VS 2010. These have been built using DSL Tools. Cameron has blogged about this, and there are now some great videos describing the features, including some new technology for visualizing existing code and artifacts. See this entry from Steve for details.

The new features in DSL Tools support integration with the designers from team architect, for example with DSLs of your own, using the new modelbus, and we're exploring other ways in which you can enhance and customize those designers without having to taking the step of creating your own DSL. Our T4 text templating technology will also work with these designers for code generation and will allow access to models across the modelbus. You may also be interested in my post Long Time No Blog, UML and DSLs which talks more about the relationship between DSLs and UML.

DSL Tools in Visual Studio 2010

Stuart Kent — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 09:27:45 GMT

The first public CTP of Visual Studio 10

Anyone attending or watching the goings on at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference (PDC) will have heard about the next version of Visual Studio.

If you were at PDC, you will have received a VPC containing a Community Technology Preview of Visual Studio 10. If you were not, you might know that you can download it at: Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 CTP.

What about the DSL Tools?

If you are interested in the DSL Tools, and try this CTP, you might be disappointed not to find anything new in DSL Tools. This doesn't mean we haven't been busy. In fact we've been developing a number of highly-requested new features, but unfortunately did not get these integrated into this CTP release. We'll share them with customers in our next preview release.

Also, in the CTP you'll find a suite of new designers from Team Architect, including a set of UML designers. These have all been built using DSL Tools, and some of the new features we're delivering are directly to support this effort.

The new features

So what are the new features then? Below is a summary. They've been driven by a combination of supporting internal teams such as Team Architect, and responding to customer feedback. We'll blog more about these features over the coming weeks, including, we hope, publishing some videos demo'ing them as a taster whilst you wait for the next preview.

Dsl Libraries. Share fragments of DSL definitions between different designers.

Dsl extensibility. Extend the domain model and behavior for a DSL after it's been deployed, including DSLs shipped by a third party.

Readonly. Selectively switch off the ability to edit models and model elements in a designer.

Forms-based UI. Easily bind models to winforms and WPF-based forms UI. IMS now implements the necessary databinding interfaces.

Modelbus. A new piece of platform to support cross-referencing between models and interaction between designers. This has been one of customers' main requests.

T4 precompile. Precompile text templates so that they can be deployed for use on machines that do not have VS installed. (This applies to scenarios where text templates take inputs from data sources other than DSL models. We've had requests from internal teams to use text templates in scenarios which don't use models created from DSLs.)

UI enhancements:

Moveable labels on the connectors (moveably can be activated
Sticky tools in the toolbox
Quick navigation and editing of compartments
Copy and paste of selection as BMP and EMF images
Copy and paste of elements in the same or in different diagrams