Going APE for The Asset Pipeline Editor (think an XNA Content Pipeline for the 10's)

The Asset Pipeline Editor

What Is THE APE?

The APE stands for "The Asset Pipeline Editor" created by Pedro Güida -a former MSFT XNA/DX MVP.

(i) Some of its key features:

• It is a highly-customizable tool,
• It eases the task of managing game content throughout the whole development process,
• It helps you build asset files and processes for the platforms you desire, tailoring them for each platform,
• It is a perfect choice not only for solo devs but also for teams, and
• Its GUI is independent from any programming IDE!!!

ii) Build your own import process, the one you dream of, with C# ...

Are you programming your games with C++, Objective-C, C#, Java, Phyton ... <pick your language here> ... and you need a content pipeline? Not using authorware like Unity3D, UDK, CryEngine or others? Have your own game engine? Then the APE will help you (and your team) manage your game assets with ease!

Use the well-known developer-friendly C# language to implement the software elements that will drive the behavior of the APE for your game-dev process.

Why Does APE Exist?

Good question.

(i) The answers ...

• Microsoft decided not to continue developing the XNA Framework any further,
• Many alternatives do not come bundled with a handy content pipeline tool,
• XNA's CP only runs on Windows machines since it uses the MSBuild API,
• XNA's CP GUI has not been updated to work with the latest versions of the Visual Studio IDE,
• Can you use the XNA's CP from within VS 2012 or VS 2013? Nope ...,
• Why non-programmers should use any programming IDE as a CP in the first place?
• XNA's CP only produces binaries targeting Microsoft's platforms.

(ii) Think of the APE as a replacement of XNA's content pipeline "in spirit" since ...

• ... it does not strictly work the same way as XNA's CP did, ...
• ... it does not come bundled with content importers for your game assets, ...
• ... but it could have some importers if the extended goals are reached (wink!).

...

...

While I don't usually highlight projects that in the process of crowd funding, I'm also pretty grumpy with what happen (or didn't) to XNA. So I wanted to make sure and shout-out to this project  from Pedro Güida. Make sure you check out the videos, screenshots and such.

Also of note is that this project has been mentioned by 3D Artist magazine AND Telerik is now sponsoring the campaign with a free license of its WPF controls. It just needs a little backing... :)

Window-Eyes - Free (as in free) screen-reading software from Microsoft and GW Micro

Microsoft UK Health Blog - Free screen-reading software for the visually impaired offered by Microsoft and GW Micro

Accessing technology is a special challenge for millions of people who are blind or visually impaired. Imagine the difficulty of trying to use common productivity programs with limited vision – or the frustration of being unable to use them at all due to blindness. Microsoft and GW Micro are working together to make the benefits of technology more available in hospitals, offices, schools and homes around the world. Anyone using Microsoft Office 2010 or later can now download GW Micro’s popular Window-Eyes software for free. The software is also available for free to Office 365 customers who install an Office client on their machine.

The Windows Eyes software makes programs with graphic interfaces accessible by reading what appears on the screen to the user. The software offers narration in more than 15 languages, allowing it to improve access to technology for millions of people around the world.

Thousands of Microsoft Office users have already downloaded free copies of Windows-Eyes. Join them today – and be sure to check out all other initiatives Microsoft is pursuing to make technology more accessible to everyone.  [Post Leached in Full]

Windows-Eyes for Office

GW Micro, in collaboration with Microsoft, is excited to provide people who are blind, visually impaired, or print disabled with a completely functional* and free license of GW Micro's Window-Eyes screen reader. Microsoft is offering customers who have a licensed** version of Office 2010 or later the ability to download Window-Eyes, a screen reader for Windows PCs, free of charge.

If you are ready to get started, select your preferred language and activate the Download Now button.

Key Features

Supported Operating Systems: Windows 8.1, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP

Supported Windows Servers: 2012, 2008 R2, 2008, 2003

Available in multiple languages

Compatible with Microsoft Office 2010 and 2013

While luckily neither myself or my family needs this, I still think this is easily worth highlighting and sharing.

Creepy 3D Printing Project of the Day: Turn a 3D sonogram into a 3D printed baby at 3D-Babies.Com (I kid you not)

technabob - Your Unborn Baby, Immortalized in a 3D Printed Figure

Technology has made it easier for prospective parents to see what their child looks like, even before he or she is born. There’s ultrasound (to get a rough outline), 3D imaging, and even 4D ultrasound so you can clearly see your unborn baby’s face and physical features in real time.

Now there are 3D printed figures of your unborn baby.

...

3D Babies

Imagine holding your baby before he or she is born.

New Years Special!

Use the coupon "30-OFF" to get 30% off the price of your

Halfsize (4 inch) or Mini (2 inch) 3D Baby.

Enough said I think...

Being prepared is easier than you think... Here's a shopping list to get you started

USA.gov - Basic Disaster Supplies Kit

Building an emergency kit is easy. Start with items in your house: flashlight, water and canned foods.

Ready.gov - Basic Disaster Supplies Kit

Recommended Supplies List (PDF)

A basic emergency supply kit could include the following recommended items:

• Water, one gallon of water per person per day for at least three days, for drinking and sanitation
• Food, at least a three-day supply of non-perishable food
• Battery-powered or hand crank radio and a NOAA Weather Radio with tone alert and extra batteries for both
• Flashlight and extra batteries
• First aid kit
• Whistle to signal for help
• Dust mask to help filter contaminated air and plastic sheeting and duct tape to shelter-in-place
• Moist towelettes, garbage bags and plastic ties for personal sanitation
• Wrench or pliers to turn off utilities
• Manual can opener for food
• Local maps
• Cell phone with chargers, inverter or solar charger

...

See, that doesn't look all that hard does it? Buy a little at a time and before you know it you'll have your basic supply kit done!

Process Explorer v16.0 is out and now cooking with VirusTotal!

Sysinternals Site Discussion - Updates: Process Explorer v16.0, PsPing v2.01

Process Explorer v16.0: Thanks to collaboration with the team at VirusTotal, this Process Explorer update introduces integration with VirusTotal.com, an online antivirus analysis service. When enabled, Process Explorer sends the hashes of images and files shown in the process and DLL views to VirusTotal and if they have been previously scanned, reports how many antivirus engines identified them as possibly malicious. Hyperlinked results take you to VirusTotal.com report pages and you can even submit files for scanning.

...

Process Explorer v16.0

Ever wondered which program has a particular file or directory open? Now you can find out. Process Explorer shows you information about which handles and DLLs processes have opened or loaded.

The Process Explorer display consists of two sub-windows. The top window always shows a list of the currently active processes, including the names of their owning accounts, whereas the information displayed in the bottom window depends on the mode that Process Explorer is in: if it is in handle mode you'll see the handles that the process selected in the top window has opened; if Process Explorer is in DLL mode you'll see the DLLs and memory-mapped files that the process has loaded. Process Explorer also has a powerful search capability that will quickly show you which processes have particular handles opened or DLLs loaded.

The unique capabilities of Process Explorer make it useful for tracking down DLL-version problems or handle leaks, and provide insight into the way Windows and applications work.

Nice... Of course a good virus will be cloaked via a rootkit, but still, I think this is pretty neat (especially have just finished Mark's Zero Day novel... ;)

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Disk2vhd turns 2, v2.0 that is, and a few more Sysinternals utility updates
New Sysinternals utility released today, Disk2vhd v1.0 – Yes ...

Mark TechEd's you... See all four of Mark Russinovich's recent TechEd North America sessions
The “Windows Sysinternals Primer: Process Explorer, Process Monitor, and More” from TechEd 2010 North America

"Utilizing SysInternals Tools for Windows Client" - The Seven Part Series..
A "Windows Sysinternals Administrator's Reference" book by Mark Russinovich? You had me a $30 pre-order special price (and Sysinternals... and Mark Russinovich... and... )
Sysinternals 101 – “Notes from the field,” a quick intro to a few Sysinternals utilities (Process Explorer, TCPView, Process Monitor, VMMap)
Hands On Learning How to Use the Sysinternals Process Monitor Utility

A Sweet Summer Sysinternals Suite Refresh
It's a sweet suite! Windows Sysinternals Suite gets a summer refresh [August 3, 2012]...
Sysinternals Suite 2010 Refreshed - All the latest versions, one 12.4MB zip…
Sysinternals Suite Refreshed – All the latest Sysinternals Utilities, one tiny zip (well 10MB zip…)
Sysinternals Suite (8MB of Complete Sysinternals Goodness)

Mesh'ing Live.Sysinternals.com, using Vista Scheduling and Robocopy|
A handy PowerShell script to keep your Sysinternals Suite up to date
The latest Sysinternals utilities are just a URL away, Live.Sysinternals.com

Use the Sysinternals Utilities? The EULA bug dialog you? Then try this…

More desktops for Windows 8 with Sysinternals Desktops v2.0
It's a sunny day when we get a new Sysinternals utility...
It’s a new Sysinternals Tool Day! RAMMap v1.0 released

"The Robot Operating System (ROS) 101"

Hack a Day - The Robot Operating System (ROS) 101

Ever heard about the Robot Operating System? It’s a BSD-licensed open-source system for controlling robots, from a variety of hardware. Over the years we’ve shared quite a few projects that run ROS, but nothing on how to actually use ROS. Lucky for us, a robotics company called Clearpath Robotics — who use ROS for everything — have decided to graciously share some tips and tricks on how to get started with ROS 101: An Introduction to the Robot Operating System.

...

It appears they will be doing a whole series of these 101 posts, so check it out — they’ve already released numéro 2, ROS 101: A Practical Example. It even includes a ready to go Ubuntu disc image with ROS pre-installed to mess around with on VMWare Player!

...

Clearpath Robotics - ROS 101: Intro to the Robot Operating System

Since we practically live in the Robot Operating System (ROS), we thought it was time to share some tips on how to get started with ROS. We’ll answer questions like where do I begin? How do I get started? What terminology should I brush up on? Keep an eye out for this ongoing ROS 101 blog series that will provide you with a top to bottom view of ROS that will focus on introducing basic concepts simply, cleanly and at a reasonable pace. This guide is meant as a groundwork for new users, which can then be used to jump into in-depth data at wiki.ros.org. If you are totally unfamiliar with ROS, Linux, or both, this is the place for you!

The ROS Cheat Sheet

This ROS Cheat Sheet is filled with tips and tricks to help you get started and to continue using once you’re a true ROS user. This version is written for ROS Hydro Medusa. Download the ROS Cheat Sheet here.

What is ROS?

ROS (Robot Operating System) is a BSD-licensed system for controlling robotic components from a PC. A ROS system is comprised of a number of independent nodes, each of which communicates with the other nodes using a publish/subscribe messaging model. For example, a particular sensor’s driver might be implemented as a node, which publishes sensor data in a stream of messages. These messages could be consumed by any number of other nodes, including filters, loggers, and also higher-level systems such as guidance, pathfinding, etc.

...

Clearpath Robotics - ROS 101: Practical Example

In the previous ROS 101 post, we provided a quick introduction to ROS to answer questions like What is ROS? and How do I get started? Now that you understand the basics, here’s how they can apply to a practical example. Follow along to see how we actually ‘do’ all of these things….

First, you will need to run Ubuntu, and have ROS installed on it. For your convenience, you can download our easy-to-use image here:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/CPR_PUBLIC/LEARN_ROS/Learn_ROS-disk1.vmdk
https://s3.amazonaws.com/CPR_PUBLIC/LEARN_ROS/Learn_ROS.ovf

Login (username): user
Password: learn

Get VMWare Player, and use the virtual disk above. If you don’t want to use the provided image, follow the tutorial here (after installing Ubuntu 12.04): http://wiki.ros.org/hydro/Installation/Ubuntu

Throughout the rest of the tutorials, we will be referencing the ROS cheatsheet available here.
...

If you're looking for something different and cool (and how can playing with a robotics OS not be cool?) check this out. And the VMWare player makes it really pretty easy to get started too!

WAT? I said, Web App Template! (Which helps you Windows Store App your Web Site...)

JohnShew's Blog - Website to App — The Web App Template Simplifies Windows App Development

At BUILD last year, Guggs and I showed how Giorgio Sardo and his team here in DPE have been coding together with great companies — like Khan Academy — to move entire websites into Windows Store apps — more or less effortlessly.

As I showed in the demo, the trick to making this so easy is the new Web control we released in Windows 8.1. The Web control provides an execution environment for Web content that exposes the most essential features of the browser so your Web content largely just works inside the control.

We’ve been very excited about this approach and have been doing a lot of joint projects with developers using this approach. Coming out of this we found an even easier way to port website content.

Rather than requiring developers to recreate the wheel for features such as in-app navigation, charm integration and live tiles, all that functionality is now built into the template and controlled through simple settings in a config file. And with HTML5 as the app platform, there is one seamless development approach across your Web app and your Windows apps, which makes for an easy transition for all Web developers. It really is cool.

Giorgio, Jeff Burtoft, and a handful of other engineers on my team, have packaged these ideas into a nice Web App Template, a tool that makes this approach easy to do for both Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8 apps.

We’ve invested in this project because we think there are a lot of great Web apps out there that will also make great Windows apps. 

...

CodePlex - Web App Template

Web App Template is a tool that uses your Web App as the core for a full featured Store App for Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8. The Web App Template (WAT) is implemented as a Visual Studio template that you install through our one click installer. You can then start a new project type of “Web App Template”. Plug your Web App values into the config file, and hit F5 to see it run.

At runtime, the WAT project will then take your Web App and config data (meta data), and build the Windows Store App:

WAT provides the key features most Web Apps will need to perform as a store app such as back buttons, navigation, Offline support, charm integration and much more.
The Web App Template allows you to use your web development skills and you’re touch friendly, responsive Web Apps to create high quality Windows Apps. Download the installer and get started today.

Source Code

• Browse the source code
• Fork the source.
• Clone the source repository by using git.

git clone https://git01.codeplex.com/wat

Install

In order to install the Web App Template you need to have Visual Studio 2013(Windows Store Express, Pro or Ultimate) or later and a machine or VM running windows 8.1. The Windows Phone 8 template requires that you have the Windows Phone SDK or Visual Studio Express for Windows Phone.

Then, download the installer for the appropriate project type and double click to install. Then choose “new project” from the file menu and select “web app template” from the file types. Note for the Windows Phone tool, an installer is not yet available, so you can instead us the development project as a base project.

Quick Start:

1. Install the template. Note There is not yet an installer available for Windows Phone 8, so use the development project as a base project.
2. In visual Studio, start a new Project and select the project type “Web App Template” under the JavaScript Section.
3. Open the “config.json” file in the config folder, and enter data about your Web App
4. Hit F5 and see you app in Action
5. Update your app images and app details in the app manifest
6. Submit to the store and reach new users

..."

Web Application Template [Docs]

...

What can you do with WAT?

WAT is a very powerful tool and you can achieve many things. Some highlights are:

Live Tiles & Push Notifications

You can configure any RSS feed to update live tiles for your app or easily setup your website to push notifications and update live tiles even when the app isn't running.

Share

You can integrate the share charm so your users can share content just like they would on any other Windows app

Search

You can search WAT-based apps the same way you would in any Windows app - via the search charm. Try it now

Navigation Bars

You can add navigation bars which help users navigation around your app, just like in any Windows app

CSS Overrides

You can embed CSS styles which get inserted over the existing styles on your website. This is great for adjusting the style of the site when it is presented as an app

Hide HTML elements

You can hide name HTML element from your site. Great for removing the top navigation, footers etc which you do not need when the site is presented as an app

Redirects

You can configure which urls remain inside the app and which ones open in the browser

HTML app

The config file is just a starting point. The app is a regular HTML Windows app which you can develop further to meet your requirements.

...

Very interesting project and one I'll be keep a close I on...

Searchable WPF MVVM happy Treeview

CodeProject - Searchable WPF TreeView

In this article I will demonstrate a WPF way of how to create a tree view to which filtering can be applied as a way of searching for a particular node or item in the tree. Using filtering to prune or limit a tree view is something I find very useful and it really bugs me when I can't for example use it to quickly find the option I want to change in the Visual Studio Options. I usually know roughly what I am looking for and it's often faster to type a portion of that than to visually inspect the entire tree, the Window 7 start-menu or the Windows 8 UI are fine examples of this approach being put to good use.

This is obviously not a new problem nor is the internet lacking in example implementations, this article is based on something I did for a friend and I got several requests for the source code after posting it on YouTube so here it is.

Because the subject matter is fairly limited, this will be a relatively short article.

Using the code

Two archives are provided, one for C# and one for VB.NET, so that each can read the sources in the language of their choice.

For the article, since there is so little code involved I've decided to have both the C# and VB.NET code present.

Requirements

When my friend requested this to be implemented he gave me a short list of requirements that it needed to fulfill:

• 1. It needs to be based on a System.Windows.Controls.TreeView.
• 2. Tree view should, when not filtered, behave like a normal tree view.
• 3. A text input field should accept input that prunes the tree view in real time (by real-time he meant there should be no need to hit Enter or something like that for the filtering to occur).
• 4. The filter conditions should be remembered so that they could easily be re-used (personally, I think this is a bit superfluous as this type of control become really useful when the criterion one enters for the filtering are simple enough to be easily remembered).
• 5. The text input field should not occupy too much screen real estate, whilst at the same time being obvious enough for a first time user to find and understand.

Further, the components of the implementation should lend themselves to MVVM approach as it's likely that the visual appearance would be changed by the UI designers.

...

I don't know about you, but WPF treeviews have been one of my WPF learning speed bumps. I'm starting to grok it now, but it's taken me a bit. And now I need a treeview that is not only searchable, but filterable too... Something just like this project! :)

And kudo's to the author for providing both C# and VB.

Blast from the Past - 'The XML Diff and Patch GUI Tool'

I needed to diff some OPML files today and came across this project. Even through it's 10 years old, it still mostly worked and the best part is it's a source distrib... :)

The XML Diff and Patch GUI Tool

Amol Kher
Microsoft Corporation

July 2004

Applies to:
   the XML Diff and Patch GUI tool

Summary: This article shows how to use the XmlDiff class to compare two XML files and show these differences as an HTML document in a .NET Framework 1.1 application. The article also shows how to build a WinForms application for comparing XML files.

Contents

Introduction
An Overview of the XML Diff and Patch API
XML Diff and Patch Meets Winforms
Working with XML DiffGrams
Other Features of the XML Diff and Patch Tool

Introduction

There is no good command line tool that can be used to compare two XML files and view the differences. There is an online tool called XML Diff and Patch that's available on the GotDotNet website under the XML Tools section. For those who have not, you can find it at Microsoft XML Diff and Patch 1.0 [GD: yes, this link is busted... you can download it below]. It is a very convenient tool for those who want to compare the difference between two XML files. Comparing XML files is different from comparing regular text files because one wants to compare logical differences in the XML nodes not just differences in text. For example one may want to compare XML documents and ignore white space between elements, comments or processing instructions. The XML Diff and Patch tool allows one to perform such comparisons but it is primarily available as an online web application. We cannot take this tool and use it from command line.

This article focuses on developing a command-line tool by reusing code from the XML Diff and Patch installation and samples. The tool works very similar to the WinDiff utility; it presents the differences in a separate window and highlights them.

The XML Diff and Patch tool contains a library that contains an XmlDiff class, which can be used to compare two XML documents. The Compare method on this class takes two files and either returns true, if the files are equal, or generates an output file called an XML diffgram containing a list of differences between the files. The XmlDiff class can be supplied an options class XmlDiffOptions that can be used to set the various options for comparing files.

...

Microsoft Downloads - XML Diff & Patch GUI Tool

Winforms application that can be used to compare 2 XML files.

Version: 1.0

Date Published: 7/14/2004

xmldiffgui.msi, 278 KB

This code sample shows how to build a Windows forms application that utilizes the XML Diff & Patch library to show the difference between 2 XML files.

There's a bug somewhere in it in that it was giving me an error when trying to load the HTML into an IE window, but that's likely a path thing. In the end, it executed and diff'd the two XML files. And since we do have the source... :)

 

Another blast from the past is that this was available on the old GotDotNet site. I miss that site... :(

Cloud Design Patterns (24 design patterns, two primers, eight guidance topics and 10 sample applications)

Dan on eScience & Technical Computing @ Microsoft - Cloud Design Patterns now available

Great news for folks looking for guidance on developing apps for the Azure Cloud – take a look at the Cloud Design Patters – it includes the following

• Twenty four design patterns that are useful in cloud-hosted applications. Each pattern is provided in a common format that describes the context and problem, the solution, issues and considerations for applying the pattern, and an example based on Windows Azure. Each pattern also includes links to other related patterns.
• Two primers and eight guidance topics that provide basic knowledge and describe good practice techniques for developing cloud-hosted applications. The format of each primer and guidance topic is designed to present this information in a relevant and informative way.
• Ten sample applications that demonstrate the usage of the design patterns described in this guide. You can use and adapt the source code to suit your own specific requirements.

...

Cloud Design Patterns

This guide from the Microsoft patterns & practices group, produced with the help of many people within the developer community, provides solutions for common problems encountered when developing cloud-hosted applications.

The guide:

• Articulates the benefit of applying patterns when implementing cloud applications, especially when they will be hosted in Windows Azure.
• Discusses the problems that the patterns address, and how these relate to Windows Azure applications.
• Shows how to implement the patterns using the features of Windows Azure, emphasizing benefits and considerations.
• Depicts the big picture by showing how these patterns fit into cloud application architectures, and how they relate to other patterns.

The majority of topics described in the guide are equally relevant to all kinds of distributed systems, whether hosted on Windows Azure or on other cloud platforms.

Cloud Design Patterns – Sample Code

The example applications for use in conjunction with the Cloud Design Pattern guide. It consists of 10 samples to show how to implement design patterns using the features of Windows Azure.

Version: 1

Date Published: 1/27/2014

Cloud Design Patterns Examples.zip, 1.9 MB

The example applications for use in conjunction with Cloud Design Pattern guide. It consists of 10 samples to show how to implement design patterns using the features of Windows Azure.
See the Readme for information about the sample code. Each sample has a corresponding readme for information about how to run the sample.

Note: The samples are simplified to focus on and demonstrate the essential features of each pattern. They are not designed to be used in production scenarios.

I've said this before and I'm sure I'll say it many times again, I really need that UTB (USB To Brain) Interface installed... ;)

Visual Studio Add-In of the Day: File Nesting Extension

Introducing File Nesting extension for Visual Studio

Download the extension: File Nesting on the VS Gallery

Source code: https://github.com/madskristensen/FileNesting

Visual Studio Gallery - File Nesting

File Nesting for Visual Studio makes it easy to nest any file under another file in Solution Explorer. You can both nest and un-nest any file with ease.

File Nesting also gives you the option to automatically nest based on file naming rules. You can then apply those rules to any files, folders or entire projects. Here's a screenshot of that:

File Nesting has these features:

1. Manually nest files
2. Manually un-nest files
3. Auto-nesting based on naming conventions
4. Option to enable auto-nesting when files are added or renamed
5. Options to specify which naming conventions to apply

While you can do this manually, doing it more than a few times would make your brain explode. It's awesome see how Mads has wrapped this up into such an easy to use package. And the source is available too... Mads, you're making us normal humans look bad. :P

Microsoft Press Free eBooks now have a home in the Microsoft Virtual Academy

Microsoft Press - Free ebooks: Now on the Microsoft Virtual Academy site

No doubt, our blog is a great site for announcing new books and other quick bits of news; however, we really needed a great landing page to host our free ebooks in an elegant, easy-to-browse way. Our coworkers at the Microsoft Virtual Academy provided the solution. It’s a perfect place to land, since many of you already consume the Jump Start sessions, live events and archived courses from MVA.

So, check it out here. As each new book is released, we’ll add it to the page.

Microsoft Virtual Academy - eBooks Landing Page

While I like community driven lists, it's nice to now have an official site for these great eBooks.

Now if there was only a RSS feed for the page so I could easily see new additions... (sigh)

Community Driven XNA Game Studio Installer for VS 2012 and soon VS 2013

CodePlex - XNA Game Studio

Project Description
Support for XNA Game Studio until Microsoft will restore support.

Project which continue support to Microsoft XNA Game Studio for Windows.

Now we released XNA Game Studio Extension for Visual Studio 2013 as a VSIX package. We will upload this on Visual Studio Gallery in 9th February 2014.

Of note on the Documentation tab

How install XNA 4.0 on Visual Studio 2012
How install XNA 4.0 on Visual Studio 2013

How install XNA 4.0 on Visual Studio 2012

1. Download XNA 4.0 Refresh (Visual Studio 2012)
2. Unzip archive
3. Install DirectX from the archive
4. Install Xna Framework 4.0 Redistribution from the archive
5. Install Xna Game Studio 4.0 Platform Tools from the archive
6. Install Xna Game Studio 4.0 Shared from the archive
7. Install XNA Game Studio 4.0 (2012).vsix from the archive

While I think this is pretty cool, REMEMBER THIS IS UNOFFICIAL. You're going to assume 100% of the risks in doing this and YMMV.

Still I applaud these guys for doing this. I hate having 3+ versions of VS installed just so I can fallback to a version that supports a given no longer supported project type (cough... XNA... cough... Setup and Deployment... cough).

.toolbox is .going, .going, soon to be .gone... (.toolbox was a site to help you learn how to build Silverlight apps... so yeah)

.toolbox

As of February 28, 2014, we'll be shutting off the lights here at .toolbox...

 

overview

Welcome to .toolbox, a fun online learning environment, where you will learn basic design concepts and how to apply them, as well as the fundamentals of creating Silverlight applications using the Expression Studio tools. .toolbox features two learning options: Courses and Tutorials.

Makes sense, in that I don't think I've heard much about this since I first blogged about it in 2010... Given it was to help you learn how build Silverlight app's I'm surprised it has lasted this long. OMG, does this Silverlight is dead?!  :/

 

Related Past Post XRef:
.toolbox Free online Silverlight/Blend and/or Design training (or the “I’m a developer, can you teach me how to design?” site )

Happy 40th D&D!

TechCrunch - Happy Birthday, D&D

On January 26, 1974 the world changed. A panoply of creatures popped into existence – Owlbears lumbered out of the woods while Bullettes snuffled out of caves, blinking in the sunlight. Adventurers donned metal plate armor and led their ambling pack horses into darkened dungeons. Traps sprung, capturing teams of dwarves in iron nets while gold glittered tantalizingly close to a shambling skeleton. For some, the ’70s were an era of free love. For others they were the era of untrammeled adventure.

...

D&D created nearly everything we hold dear. The games we love today – from Skyrim to Halo – all owe gratitude to the sweeping expanse of D&D gaming. Western fantasy is basically one long D&D game played solo while even the team structures and hierarchies we’ve come to use in business – from black belt consultants to agile teams – owe something to the camaraderie of kitchen-table dungeon crawls and the language of the Internet (arch, knowing, snarky, and at the same time earnest and obsessive) is the language of the RPG gamer.

It is hard to overstate how culturally important D&D was. It made us nerds powerful, and gave us a sword, a shield, and a dragon to slay in some dark corner. Like Bilbo tasked with robbing Smaug, we take the lessons of D&D and make beautiful art, conduct business, and interact as humans. It’s something we need and I’m glad it was born.

Wow, D&D is 40 years old? That makes me... even older... sigh...

Visual Studio Add-In of the Day - Inline Guid Generator

CodePlex - Inline Guid Generator (Visual Studio Add-In)

I wrote a Visual Studio Add in that makes it possible to generate inline GUID's with Keyboard Shortcuts without opening the GUID tool true: Tools > Create GUID. There are tons of examples on how to create one yourself, but there was no downloadable solution. So I've added this project to save you some time.

This inline generator is very handy for SharePoint Development or solutions where developers have to generate quite allot of GUID’s throughout our solutions.

You can simply install this VS 2012 addin by downloading true this link: GuidGenerator.zip

After installation, you can setup a Shortcut true: Tools > Options > Environment > Keyboard.

Lookup GuidGen and set the Shortcut. I'd used Ctrl + N, Ctrl + G

This is one of those little things that seems so simple but really can make you development easier and quicker a few clicks at a time...

Can you script table data, not schema but actual data as insert statements, directly from native SQL Server Management Studio? (Tip, yes)

Dirk Strauss - Script Table Data In SQL Server Management Studio

Script Table Data – I have used other tools to do this for ages. I can’t believe that I never knew that it existed in SQL Server Management Studio. Well ok, in my defence it isn’t quite the most ‘In-your-face’ setting. Nevertheless, it is very convenient and best of all, you don’t need to leave the IDE to script table data. So where is this function? Why, under Tasks of course.

Script Table Data With Generate Scripts

Well, I guess we all know and have used the Generate Scripts function in SQL Server Management Studio before. But with this, you can do so much more in fact. So right click on your Database and select Tasks -> Generate Scripts…

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Well the option to script table data still isn’t screaming at you from this screen either. Under the General section, select the last option ‘Types of data to script’ and choose one of the options from the dropdown menu. For my purposes, I only want the data in the table so I selected ‘Data Only’. You might want the schema and data, but the important thing is that you have a choice

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After you click ok, you can choose to script all the objects to one single file or split them up into a separate file for each object. This is obviously a decision you need to make according to your preference. I prefer to have a script per object. So yeah, that’s it! As I said, I never knew this option existed until I went exploring around the settings a bit. Any comments (nice ones) are always welcome.

Not like this option/feature wasn't burred deep enough or anything... :/

I wonder how long this has been around (probably knowing my luck, like the better part of a decade..lol )

SharpDevelop 5 goes MIT and Beta 1 too!

SharpDevelop Community - Christoph Wille - License Change for SharpDevelop 5

With commit hash 1300bac39c (corresponding to build number 5.0.0.3652, our Beta 1 release) we have switched the license for SharpDevelop from LGPL to MIT. (SharpDevelop 4.x and older remain LGPL licensed)

This means one very important thing: You can use our source code in your projects (not only the assemblies).

As a user of SharpDevelop, nothing really changes. You still can build applications of any license flavor.

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SharpDevelop Community - Christoph Wille - SharpDevelop 5 Beta 1 Available

Finally.(Download)

It has been (too) long in the making, but our major rearchitecting of SharpDevelop is close to being done, with only a few functional areas not in this Beta release:

• EnvDTE.FileCodeModel is missing, thus our custom NuGet packages will be broken (T4MVC, MVCScaffolding and EF)
• Code Quality Analysis and SharpDevelop Reports are missing (due to a rewrite of SDR)

Please note that Beta 2 is not too far off, and these will be in Beta 2.

As pointed out in the blog post SharpDevelop 5 C# Tech Preview, we are still shipping with C# only in SharpDevelop 5 – and this will most likely remain true for RTM too. (VB.NET will compile, but it won’t have code completion nor refactoring) SharpDevelop 5 installs in parallel to older versions, and if you have the patience: give it a dry run with a copy of an existing project (at least backup and/or use source control before you let a beta IDE touch your source code).

For further information on what’s new, please consult this list of select blog posts from the team members (I'll be doing a few "What's New" blog posts in the coming days, because obviously these are only a few big-ticket items - check back!):

• What's New in Class Browser
• Go To Definition Improvements
• Search Grouping
• The new addin manager and info on how to publish your own addin
• ILSpy Debugger Integration

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It's darn nice to see SharpDevelop still kicking. I've been following them for about 10 years, imagine the projects that have come and gone in that time, so seeing that this has stood the test of time, let alone improved with age like a fine wine... well that makes this a happy Monday indeed!

 

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