Visual Studio Toolbox - Channel 9

Prism for Windows Store Apps

Robert Green — Wed, 08 May 2013 15:54:28 GMT

Robert is joined this week by Francis Cheung and Blaine Wastell of the Microsoft Patterns and Practices team. They show us Prism for Windows Store Apps. This project provides guidance to developers who want to create a Windows Store business app using C#, XAML, the Windows Runtime, and modern development practices. The guidance helps you implement MVVM with navigation and app life cycle management, validation, managed application data, and more. It also provides guidance on testing your app and tuning its performance. Francis and Blaine show how easy it is to get started using Prism in your Windows Store apps.

Additional resources:

Francis' blog
Blaine's blog
Brian Noyes' article Getting started with Prism for Windows Runtime

New Tools for Azure Storage and Diagnostics

Robert Green — Wed, 01 May 2013 15:46:24 GMT

In this show, Robert is joined by Boris Scholl and Merwan Hade, Program Managers on the Visual Studio Azure Tools team. They provide a high level overview of the just announced new tools in Visual Studio for working with Azure Storage and performing diagnostics. These tools are available as part of the Windows Azure SDK 2.0.

Merwan shows how the Table Explorer and Query Builder make it easier for developers to work with Azure storage. He shows adding and querying Azure table entities from Visual Studio. Boris shows how you can take advantage of Diagnostic Configuration and the Diagnostics Summary page to troubleshoot a deployed cloud service application.

For more details on the Windows Azure SDK 2.0, check out Scott Guthrie's blog post and Cloud Cover episode 106.

Visual Studio 2012 Update 2

Robert Green — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 17:00:40 GMT

Starting with Visual Studio 2012, Microsoft has moved to providing updates to Visual Studio on a regular cadence of shorter intervals. The second such update, Visual Studio 2012 Update 2, is now available. In addition to bug fixes, Update 2 contains new features in four areas: agile planning, quality enablement, line of business applications, and developer experience. In this episode, Orville McDonald and Dmitry Lyalin show us some of their favorite new Update 2 features.

For more information on Update 2, check out Soma's blog.

Virtualization for Developers

Robert Green — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 15:13:50 GMT

There's always new stuff to play with, whether a preview version of Windows, a CTP of Visual Studio, or a prerelease of an upcoming version of ASP.NET or Entity Framework. Getting ahead of the curve and learning early sounds great, but how do you do it? You don't want to install these early bits on your production machine and you may not have spare machines lying around.

In this episode, Brian Randall shows us how virtualization provides the solution. Brian demonstrates how to create and manage multiple virtual machines and provides a variety of tips and tricks as well as best practices. If you want to hear from an expert on how virtualization means a better life for developers, check out this episode.

Building Great Windows 8 Apps

Robert Green — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 16:06:52 GMT

In this show, John Papa and Pete Brown join Robert for a freewheeling discussion about building great apps. They cover a range of topics including your icon and tile, how you app looks in the Windows Store, how you display information in an app layout, gestures, design, and more.

Entity Framework Tips and Tricks

Robert Green — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 18:22:36 GMT

In this show, Robert is joined by Julie Lerman, the author of several highly acclaimed Entity Framework books. Julie shares a number of Entity Framework tips and tricks including:

Overriding the DBContext SaveChanges method [02:00]
EntityFramework Power Tools [19:00]
Configuring 1:1 Relationships [27:00]
How to Avoid Accidentally Adding Data [34:30]
Debugging [47:15]

While taping this, Robert's microphone malfunctioned. Fortunately, Julie's microphone picked him up. That is why his sound is not up to the normal quality and level.

Saving and Restoring State in Windows Store Apps

Robert Green — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 17:32:27 GMT

In this show Robert discusses managing state in Windows Store apps. When a user switches away from an app in Windows 8, Windows suspends the app. When the user switches back to the app, it looks like it was running all along. Windows can terminate a suspended app if it needs to free up memory for other apps or if it needs to save power. When the user starts the app again, he or she will want the app to resume where it left off. Robert shows how to accomplish this by saving and restoring state. He shows what code you need for XAML apps to do this and where that code goes.

You can find the sample app Robert used here. He also wrote up this topic on his blog.

Visual Studio Achievements For Windows Store Apps

Robert Green — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 16:33:49 GMT

In this episode, Karsten Januszewski joins us to talk about the latest version of the Visual Studio Achievements extension. Once you install this extension, you can unlock achievements based on things you do in Visual Studio. The latest version adds nineteen new achievements oriented toward Windows Store app development. These new achievements can be earned in JavaScript, C#, VB, and C++. Some examples include: I Like To Move It Move It, which is earned by using the accelerometer, and The Play Is The Thing, which is earned by using the AutoPlay contract.

Designing Windows 8 Line of Business Apps Revisited

Robert Green — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 15:00:39 GMT

In this episode, Robert revisits the Windows 8 line of business app he wrote. This app provides the ability for employees to create and submit expense reports—and for managers to view and approve or reject them. Robert first reviews the app as you last saw it and then discusses what changes he made to the app's user interface and why he thinks those changes resulted in a much better app.

He also announces that the app is now available for your downloading pleasure on CodePlex.

Using Azure Mobile Services in a Windows 8 App

Robert Green — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 16:26:28 GMT

In this episode, learn how to use Azure Mobile Services in a Windows 8 app. Robert shows how to create a new mobile service and an accompanying database as well as how to connect a Windows Store app to the mobile service. He then demonstrates how to query, add, update, and delete items in the database.

You can find the app Robert used here.

Visual Studio 2012 Update 1

Robert Green — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 16:35:52 GMT

Starting with Visual Studio 2012, Microsoft has moved to providing update to Visual Studio on a regular cadence of shorter intervals. The first such update, Visual Studio 2012 Update 1, is now available. In addition to bug fixes, Update 1 contains new features in four areas: Windows development, SharePoint development, agile teams, and continuous quality. In this episode, Brian Keller shows us some of his favorite new Update 1 features.

For more information on Update 1, check out the following:

Soma's blog

Visual Studio 2012 Update 1 Now Available!

Brian Harry's blog

Visual Studio 2012 Update 1 is available

Productivity Power Tools for Visual Studio 2012

Robert Green — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 19:03:21 GMT

The Productivity Power Tools is an extension pack that delivers powerful tools for improved productivity. With 1.5 million downloads, the Visual Studio 2010 version is the second most downloaded extension in the Visual Studio Gallery. The Visual Studio 2012 version was released in early November and in this episode we are joined by Murali Krishna Hosabettu Kamalesha to look into several features added to the extension: Quick Tasks, Power Commands, and Color Printing. Murali also reviews some of the more popular features that are in both the 2010 and 2012 versions.

Sample Browser Visual Studio Extension

Robert Green — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 16:38:58 GMT

Mei Liang returns to the show this week to demonstrate the latest version of the Sample Browser extension for Visual Studio. This extension provides a way for developers to search and download more than 3500 code samples from within Visual Studio, including over 700 Windows 8 samples and more than 1000 All-In-One Code Framework customer-driven code samples. Mei shows us not only the extension, but also the standalone version of the Sample Browser.

Using SQLite in Windows Store Apps

Robert Green — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 23:43:46 GMT

In this episode, Robert shows you how to add SQLite support to your Windows Store apps. SQLite is a free open source library that provides a self-contained transactional SQL database engine. Watch as Robert demonstrates how to setup a project to use SQLite as well as how to query, add, update, and delete items in the database.

Check out Robert's blog post to see how to create the sample app he uses.

Visual Studio 2012 Color Theme Editor

Robert Green — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 16:57:34 GMT

In this episode, Matthew Johnson shows us the Visual Studio 2012 Color Theme Editor extension. With this extension, you can customize the Visual Studio 2012 color palette, choosing from several available themes or creating your own in order to customize colors used for menus, toolbars, tabs, the text editor, and other environment items. Already hugely popular, this new extension is a must have.

Collecting IntelliTrace Data in Production

Robert Green — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 18:47:41 GMT

IntelliTrace is a great tool. It records and traces your app's code execution and stores this information in a trace file. You can open up that trace file later on and figure out why your app isn't behaving as expected. This can save you huge amounts of time during development. But what happens when the app goes into production and issues arise? In this episode, Larry Guger shows us how you can use the free standalone IntellliTrace Collector to gather this information from apps running in production. Larry shows us how to download the tool, configure it to collect data, and then how to analyze that data in Visual Studio.

Getting Started with Windows Azure

Robert Green — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 14:07:23 GMT

There have been a lot of recent developments in the Windows Azure world and those developments are what we've lately been covering on this show. In this episode, however, Dennis Angeline joins us as we take a step back and focus on how Visual Studio developers can get started using Windows Azure. Tune in as Dennis takes an MVC app and shows us how to extend both the app and its data to Windows Azure.

Windows Azure Mobile Services

Robert Green — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 15:56:28 GMT

In this episode, Josh Twist and Nick Harris introduce us to Windows Azure Mobile Services. This makes it incredibly easy to connect a scalable cloud backend to your client and mobile applications. It enables you to easily store structured data in the cloud that can span both devices and users and integrate it with user authentication as well as send out updates to clients via push notifications. Josh, with assistance from Nick, shows how to add these capabilities to any Windows 8 app in minutes.

Windows 8 and the .NET Micro Framework

Robert Green — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 15:56:28 GMT

In this episode, Pete Brown (Windows Developer Evangelist and XAML and Gadget Guy) shows us how to write Windows Store apps that use the .NET Micro Framework and advanced socket networking to talk to devices like robots.

Building Office and SharePoint Apps with "Napa" and Visual Studio

Robert Green — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 15:01:37 GMT

In this episode, Jim Nakashima and Saurabh Bhatia show us how to build Office and SharePoint apps using "Napa" Office 365 Development Tools and Visual Studio. If you have an Office 365 account, a browser, and "Napa" you can build apps for Office documents, mail items, and SharePoint. Jim and Saurabh walk us through several examples and then show how to open and deploy Office app projects using Visual Studio.

CSLA.NET

Robert Green — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 15:44:26 GMT

In this episode, Rocky Lhotka joins us to talk about CSLA.NET. CSLA is a software development framework that helps you build a powerful, maintainable business logic layer for Windows, Web, service-oriented, and workflow applications. Its primary goal is to help you implement, manage, and reuse business logic. Rocky introduces CSLA.NET and then shows us how the upcoming version supports async programming and Windows 8 apps.

OData Support and HTML Clients in LightSwitch

Robert Green — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 15:40:04 GMT

In this episode, Beth Massi joins us to demonstrate some cool new features in LightSwitch. First, she shows us how LightSwtich now has built-in support for OData. Then, she shows us how to use the LightSwitch HTML Client Preview to build a cross-browser, mobile web client.

Designing Metro Style Line of Business Apps

Robert Green — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 19:53:07 GMT

In this episode, Robert reviews a Windows 8 app he built. This line of business app provides the ability for employees to create and submit expense reports, and for managers to view and approve or reject them. Robert is joined by Nadine Fox of Macadamian, the design firm that helped create the app's user interface. Robert and Nadine cover a variety of topics, including navigation patterns, the use of app bars (including what buttons go where on the app bar), modal vs non modal data entry screens, notifications, and more.

Visual Studio Toolbox: Interview with Billy Hollis

Robert Green — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 15:12:51 GMT

In this episode—taped at TechEd North America—Robert chats with Billy Hollis, a consultant and trainer who is a widely recognized expert on XAML and design. Robert and Billy have a freewheeling discussion that focuses mostly on the design of Windows 8 apps.

Visual Studio Toolbox: Interviews with Jay Schmelzer and John Papa

Robert Green — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 15:24:53 GMT

In this episode, taped at TechEd North America, Robert chats with Jay Schmelzer, a Principal Director of Program Management at Microsoft, and John Papa, an independent consultant, speaker, and trainer for Pluralsight.

Jay's team owns the business application tooling in Visual Studio. He and Robert discuss what's new in Visual Studio 2012 for LightSwitch [01:00], Azure [12:30], and SharePoint and Office [16:00].

Robert and John used to work together, and after catching up John offers his opinion on XAML developers making the move to Windows 8 [21:00] and developing with JavaScript [27:00].