.NET General

CodeRush Intelligent Paste for a Property within a XAF Domain Object

Leon Meijer — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 16:54:59 GMT

If you have installed Developer Express' CodeRush plugin within Visual Studio, you'd probably already know the Intelligent Paste feature. If you don't, let me briefly explain it to you.

The Intelligent Paste let you auto generate the C#/VB.NET code for a property which accesses a member variable. For example, you type:

        1: private string _Name;
  

You select and copy the line to your clipboard and paste it wherever you like. Instead of pasting it 1:1, it replaces the text with the generated property. Like this:

       1:         public string Name

       2:         {

       3:             get { return _Name; }

       4:             set { SetPropertyValue<string>("Name", ref _Name, value); }

       5:         }

Because I'm currently building an application on top of the eXpressAppFramework, I required a Intelligent Paste template that generates properties that will function with the framework's object-relational mapper XPO. XPO requires a customized set-clause with a call to the SetPropertyValue method to flag that an object has been modified (and has to be updated in a DBMS).

Ok, here are the steps:

In Visual Studio, go to the DevExpress menu and choose Options...
In the dropdown box next to the label Level, select Advanced;
In the tree, go to /Editor/Clipboard/Intelligent Paste or type Intelligent Paste in the search box;
Select Property (prefixed field) from the list, right-click it and choose Duplicate;
Give the new template a name, like XPO Property (prefixed field);
In the Replacement text box, type:

    public %StaticModifier1%%Type1% %PartialIdentifier1%

    { 

      get { return «Marker(60)»%FieldVarPrefix1%%PartialIdentifier1%; }

      set { SetPropertyValue<%Type1%>("«?PropertyNameFromField(%PartialIdentifier1%)»", ref %FieldVarPrefix1%%PartialIdentifier1%, value); }

    }

In the list named Use:, scroll down till XAF Business Class. Click on the check box until it gets a green check mark;
See the screen shot below

Again select Property (prefixed field) from the list;
In the list named Use:, scroll down till XAF Business Class. Click on the check box until it gets a red check mark;
Do the same for the Property (prefixed readonly field)
Click OK
See the screen shot below
Press OK in the Options dialog

By selecting and excluding the XAF Business Class, you create a new Intelligent Paste template that will function only in the XAF classes that require custom property implementations. If you don't use XAF and would like to implement the same trick for XPO, select and exclude the In XPO Persistent Class instead.

Hope this helps,

Leon

Visual Studio 2008 SP1 released

Leon Meijer — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:47:47 GMT

Microsoft released SP1 of Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5. You can download it as exe or iso. If you want to upgrade SQL Server 2005 to SQL Server 2008 (also just released!), you are required to upgrade VS 2008 to SP1.

From the MSDN web site:

Visual Studio 2008 SP1 delivers:

Improved WPF designers
SQL Server 2008 support
ADO.NET Entity Designer
Visual Basic and Visual C++ components and tools (including an MFC-based Office 2007 style ‘Ribbon’)
Visual Studio Team System Team Foundation Server (TFS) addresses customer feedback on version control usability and performance, email integration with work item tracking and full support for hosting on SQL Server 2008
Richer JavaScript support, enhanced AJAX and data tools, and Web site deployment improvements

The .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 delivers:

Performance increases between 20-45% for WPF-based applications – without having to change any code
WCF improvements that give developers more control over the way they access data and services
Streamlined installation experience for client applications
Improvements in the area of data platform, such as the ADO.NET Entity Framework, ADO.NET Data Services and support for SQL Server 2008’s new features

I installed the service packs on my machine. The version of Visual Studio 2008 is now 9.0.30729.1 SP and .NET is 3.5 SP1.

AssemblyVersion vs. AssemblyFileVersion

Leon Meijer — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 12:07:16 GMT

Oops. I forgot the difference so I looked for it.

AssemblyVersion: Where other assemblies that reference your assembly will look at. If this number changes, your references have to be updated.

AssemblyFileVersion: Used for deployment. You can increase this number for every deployment. It is used by setup programs.