ISV Community
Since I joined Microsoft Belux last year I've been thinking about moving my blog to MSDN. But ever since I didn't really saw the added value of moving my blog as both sites are using the same platform:
CommunityServer. But since a couple of weeks I've heard a lot of very positive feedback on the recently deployed 2.0 version of
CommunityServer that powers the
MSDN and
TechNet blogger sites. So far the experience is far better than on DonNetJunkies. Today I finally decided to move my blog to
http://blogs.msdn.com/davbosch/. I want to thank
Donny for hosting my blog since August 2004.
So please subscribe to my new blog on the MSDN blogs:
Thanks for reading my blog and I hope you will continue to do so at http://blogs.msdn.com/davbosch/default.aspx!
Already heard of "Crossbow"? If not then you might want to check out the MSDN TV Episode on "Crossbow" - Windows Forms and Windows Presentation Foundation Interoperability.
Mike Henderlight introduces the "Crossbow" technology and describes how you can use it to build hybrid Windows Forms and Windows Presentation Foundation applications. The interop from a WPF application using Windows Forms controls is actally realized by referencing the System.Windows.Forms and WindowsFormsIntegration assemblies. Next you create a WindowsFormHost control that allows you to host a Windows Forms control as an element of a Windows Presentation Foundation page. Add a windows forms control (eg. a button) to the hostcontrol and add the hostcontrol to the WPF window. Running this shows a simple windows forms button displayed on a WPF window. All of this can also be done through XAML.
And of course hosting Windows Forms controls from a Windows Presentation Foundation is possible too. This is realized by using the ElementHost class. This class can be used to host a Windows Presentation Foundation (formerly code-named "Avalon") element.
The latest version of the WindowsFormsIntegration.dll to use is the one of the Cider drop CTP. From Mike's post you can learn why it's important to pick the right version of the WindowsFormsIntegration.dll.
There's also an article that's worth reading on Windows Presentation Foundation Interoperability in Dr. Dobb's.
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After you register, you'll be able to take advantage of special training and certification deals offered by our Microsoft Certified Partners for Learning Solutions. Their Microsoft Certified Trainers will give you expert training that will help put you on the fast track to increasing your skill set, expanding your knowledge base, and passing your exam.
Offer expires June 30, 2006.
I'm snowed under with work for our Belgian Developer & IT-Pro Days 2006, so not a lot of blogging or feed reading lately. But the good news is we're on track with the organization and content of the event. All development related sessions are 100% confirmed. All session abstracts (day 1 & day 2) and most speaker bios can be found on-line. Next thing on the agenda is the review of the slide decks and make them available to the attendees. They should be accessible to the attendees by the end of next week.
In the meantime our Belgian webteam has been working hard on publishing two new articles on the local MSDN site.
The first article is authored by Peter Himschoot and covers "C# 3.0 and LINQ".
Anders Hejlsberg, chief designer of C#, unveiled C#’s newest version at PDC2005. Some of the most notable innovations are extension methods, lambda expressions, anonymous types, type inference, and LINQ (.NET Language Integrated Query). In this article we are going to look at these new features of C#, focusing on LINQ.
The second article is written by Jelle Druyts. Jelle covers "The Command Pattern In Windows Presentation Foundation".
Windows Presentation Foundation (formerly codenamed "Avalon"), or WPF for short, is a brand new Microsoft framework for developing very rich and powerful Windows applications. It will ship as part of Windows Vista, the next major version of Windows that will be released in the coming months, but WPF will also be available on Windows XP SP2 and Windows Server 2003. There is much to be said about Windows Presentation Foundation and its numerous new and enhanced capabilities, but this article will in stead focus on an old trusted friend, who has finally been given a dedicated room in the big house of Windows User Interface development: the "Command" pattern. This design pattern basically abstracts all actions the user can perform in an application into the notion of "commands"; it has been implemented in many different ways on top of various UI frameworks, but now, it has finally made it into the gut of the system itself. Note that this article is based on a public preview of WPF, so it's possible that there are implementation details that will change over time as the product matures into completion.
Both authors will also be speakers at Developer & IT-Pro Days and when you would have questions for them you will be able to find them in the community area during the breaks.
Arlindo Alves recently joined our Belgian DPE team as IT-Pro Evangelist. His first job is definitely a hard one: content owner for the IT-Pro related content on Developer & IT-Pro Days 2006.
To reach out to the Belgian IT-Pro community Arlindo decided to start a blog at http://blogs.technet.com/aralves/default.aspx. Oh, btw it looks he's already enjoying the recent update of CommunityServer, which has quite some fixes I've been told. Even the photo galleries seem to be enabled ...
Anyway, subscribed to the RSS feed!
When talking to developers using Visual Studio 2005 for more than 6 months I got lots of feedback, both positive and negative. When I ask for the negative points - or better, the points that needs improvement - it looks some of them are "just bugs" or open/known issues (TFS related). Now I just came accross this "Servicing" page on MSDN. This page will provide more more information about upcoming and already shipped Visual Studio and .NET Framework software updates. On top of