It's got some "standard" features but also some pretty cutting edge and pretty cool ones too.

And besides binaries (GNU or LGPLv2), the source for everything is available too!

Sasa

Description

Sasa is a collection of extensions to the .NET framework organized in logical, often standalone assemblies.

Sasa: no deps
* tuples
* IEnumerable extensions
* thread-safe + null-safe events
* numeric extensions
* Option type
* lazy type

Sasa.Binary: -
* low-level bit-twiddling functions
* portable BinaryReader/Writer

Sasa.Collections: Sasa, Sasa.Binary
* purely functional collections, ie. list, dictionary, queue, set, etc.

Sasa.Mime: -
* media types and file extensions

Sasa.Numerics: -
* statistical and numerical functions

Sasa.Net: Sasa, Sasa.Collections
* full MIME message parsing
* POP3 client
* Rfc822 header parsing

Sasa.Contracts: Sasa
* Code Contracts impl.

Sasa.Concurrency: Sasa
* software transactional memory
* Concurrent Revisions fork-join framework

Sasa.Parsing: Sasa
* extensible Pratt parser

Sasa.Dynamics: Sasa
* type-safe reflection

Sasa.Linq: -
* LINQ expression visitors and query providers

...and much more!

To get a real feel for everything that's in this cool collection, check out the doc's, http://higherlogics.net/sasa/docs-v0.9.4/

Source? Yep! (and you can see that it's under active development too

Here's a snap of the binary drop (to highlight the "standalone assemblies" statement):

Want to see more? Check out Sandro's blog posts on Sasa, http://higherlogics.blogspot.com/search/label/Sasa

What kind of Sasa stuff has he written recently?

• Sasa.Strings - General String Extensions
• Sasa.Parsing - type-safe, extensible lexing and parsing framework
• Sasa.Dynamics - type-safe polytypic/reflective programming
• Sasa.Func - Type-Safe Delegate Combinators
• Sasa.Option - Handling Optional Values
• Sasa.Result - Handling Exceptional Values
• Sasa.Numbers - Generic Number Extensions

Hopefully that has wet your appetite a little. Now it's up to you to grab it and start Sasa'ing! (I just like saying, "Sasa..." can you tell?

• [0:40] C# Named Top Programming Language of 2012(Darryl K. Taft)
• [1:52] Introducing PropertyCross – Helping you select a cross-platform mobile framework (Colin Eberhardt)
• [3:03] TypeScript Templates for Windows 8 (Chris Sells)
• [4:19] Windows Runtime–what’s supported where? (Jim O'Neil)
• [5:04] Building a great Windows 8 app Step 6: Which template should you use? (Susan Ibach)
• [6:44] [Windows Phone] Memo ModernUI pour faire de belles applications sur Windows Phone 7 & 8 (Cheat Sheet for Windows Phone Modern UI Design) (Nathalie BELVAL)
• [7:20] Visual Studio 2012 Application Lifecycle Management Virtual Machine and Hands-on-Labs / Demo Scripts (Brian Keller)
• [8:04] Task Parallel Library and async-await Functionality - Patterns of Usage in Easy Samples (Nick Polyak)
• [10:18] .NET Collections: Getting Started with C5 (Ted Neward)

Picks of the Week!

• Brian's Pick of the Week:[11:51] Fun Hack Fully Functional Windows 3.1 Simulator In Browser, http://www.michaelv.org/
• Dan's Pick of the Week:[12:48] Meet Microsoft, the world's best kept R&D secret (Matt Smith)

This episode demonstrates a couple ways to accomplish this basic - but very important - task. I probably should have covered this much earlier on, but better late than never (hopefully).

.NET Debugging for the Production Environment, Part 8

.NET Debugging for the Production Environment, Part 10

In this episode, we'll discuss the different types of CLR threads (.e.g., GC thread, finalizer, etc.) and give a walkthrough of how you can identify each one in a dump file.  Knowing this information can aid in your effort to find root cause - as well as avoid inaccurate reasons - for various application issues.

.NET Debugging for the Production Environment, Part 7

.NET Debugging for the Production Environment, Part 9

After watching this video, follow these next steps:

Step #1 – Start Your Free 90 Day Trial of Windows Azure
Step #2 – Download the Tools for Windows 8 App Development
Step #3 – Start building your own Apps for Windows 8

Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes, Zune, or RSS

If you're interested in learning more about the products or solutions discussed in this episode, click on any of the below links for free, in-depth information:

Websites:

• Learn more about Windows Azure

Blogs:

• Brian Hitney’s blog
• Peter Laudati’s blog
• Brady Gaster’s blog

Virtual Labs:

• MSDN Virtual Labs: Windows Azure

Ever have a situation in which your load test isn't passing the SLA, or the test results simply "look wrong"?  Even when your test hardware is exactly like your production hardware?  Is the problem somewhere in the code or... maybe something no one else has considered?  How do you troubleshoot this when - like in the production environment - you can't afford to have invasive troubleshooting tools in place?

.NET Debugging for the Production Environment, Part 6

.NET Debugging for the Production Environment, Part 8

Think it was kind of cool and something you'd like to look see the source for?

MY EVENTS - Sample Modern Application with Visual Studio 2012

The main goal of this sample modern application is to provide a sample app where you can see most of the new technologies related to Visual Studio 2012, in a practical way.

Sample application context and scenarios
This sample application shows most of the new technologies you can use with Visual Studio 2012 in order to build Modern Apps.

The context is about an events/conferences management system called “My Events”.
It is composed by:

• Central Web API Services:
• Global Web-App (ASP.NET MVC4):
• Organizers WPF App (WPF):
• Organizers Windows 8 Store App (XAML/C#):
• Attendees Windows 8 Store App (HTML5/WinJS):

Goals
This global system and the related client apps are highlighting the following points:

• Consumer end-user point of view with the latest UX technologies capabilities, typical of Modern-Apps.
• Enterprise and LOB (Line of Business) point of view, when using a desktop application.
• Cloud friendly. You can deploy very easily all the server assets (Web Api Services and Web app) into the Windows Azure cloud.
• Extensible and open to more complex scenarios. Even though our scenario’s main goal is to ‘keep it simple’, we wanted to be able to leave it open for future extensions and complexity that is usually required when implementing a real production application.
• Multiple technical approaches. We wanted to illustrate how multiple technical approaches can co-exist within the same solution (Web, mainstream-app, CRUD, etc.)
• Easily deployable. The RI is easily deployable so that you can install it and experiment with it.

The selected technologies and frameworks used are the following:

• Core
  • ASP.NET Web-API Services
  • Entity Framework 5 (Code First)
  • SQL Server LocalDB
• Web App
  • ASP.NET MVC 4
  • JavaScript & JQuery consuming Web Api Services
• Windows 8 Store Apps
  • Windows 8 Store App using HTML5/WinJS
  • Windows 8 Store Apps using XAML/C#
• Desktop App
  • WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) App

While this show's off allot...

What this sample application is NOT about
This is not a production application and it is not intended as a guidance for complex scenarios/applications, as it mostly covers CRUD and Data-Driven scenarios, only. If you need guidance for complex scenarios, we recommend to check guidance material from the Microsoft Patterns & Practices group like the ‘CQRS Journey guidance’, which shows a reference application with a related functional domain & scope (Events/Conferences platform) but from a different point of view based on design-patterns and best architectural practices for complex scenarios, covering approaches like CQRS (Command & Query Responsibility Segregation) & DDD (Domain Driven Design).

Ready to build it now?

Building the Sample

Software required:

Visual Studio 2012, Windows 8, BingMaps JavaScript SDK [GD: which you can find here Bing Maps SDK for Metro style apps (Beta)]

Check that you have the dependencies, open the solution and run it. The database will be generated for you using LocalDB and Entity Framework Initializers.

If when running the web client for the first time, you get a runtime error here;

...that it can't find a file in the FakeImages folder, what I did was just copy the folder into the path it thought to find the images. Easier than tweaking code.

So I coping the FakeImages folder from
...\MY EVENTS - Sample Modern Application with Visual Studio 2012\C#,JavaScript\MyEvents\MyEvents.Web\FakeImages
to
...\MY EVENTS - Sample Modern Application with Visual Studio 2012\FakeImages

Then the app ran fine. Once run the first time, you can delete that extra copy if you want, it's only need the first time the app runs, when its building its data store.

Also note: When creating an Event, also make sure to add at least one Session to it. Otherwise the event won't show up in the in a few of the Clients (This had me wondering if something was busted. I could see the event in the Web and Desktop apps, but in none of the Windows Store apps... Adding a Session fixed that. Doh!)

Here's a snap of the Solution;

And some snaps of it running on my system.

Here's the Web app;

The WPF Desktop app;

As a Windows Store app;

Wrap up
Therefore and as previously mentioned, our main objective is to highlight and show most of the new capabilities and technical possibilities offered by Visual Studio 2012 and all its related technologies in order to build Modern Apps.

There's a bunch here to look in this source. From using a Solution wide version assembly file, to Portable Library projects, Windows Store apps, Facebook Integration, Twitter, Maps, MVC4, ASP.Net Web API, Json.Net, MVVM, unit testing the web backend and much, much more.

So I hear some of you asking, "What's new in .Net Framework 4.5?" Wouldn't it be kind of cool if there were an app for our Modern App Monday that provided that information? One that comes with source of course! And wasn't just a simple app, but hooked into a web backend using the Web API, Jason.Net and even Code First Entity Framework?

What's New in the .NET Framework 4.5

The ".NET Feature Catalog" uses .NET 4.5 to build an end-to-end sample from a web backend to a Windows Store app. It allows the user to peruse through some of the features introduced over several versions. This was demoed in TechEd 2012 North America and Europe.

The .NET Framework 4.5 introduces a number of features to help solve the programming problems of today. This sample demonstrates end-to-end how to build a Windows 8 app that connects to a web backend using industry standard REST APIs. If you were at TechEd 2012 in North America or Europe, we showed you how to build this sample from scratch. The app itself is a catalog of some features found in the .NET Framework, so you can learn more about .NET simply by exploring the app.

Description

The sample is best experienced by watching the talk for What's New in .NET 4.5 from TechEd 2012. Click on either of the following to see the presentation given by Brandon Bray or Layla Driscoll respectively.

 

The main features we cover in the sample are:

• WebAPI for building REST based web services
• Entity Framework using Code First and migrations
• Windows Store app using the .NET for Windows Store Apps profile
• Async and await to build a fast and interactive user experience
• HttpClient for an easy way to connect to a web service
• NuGet for acquiring the latest libraries, specifically Json.NET

Here's a brief road map of the source;

Source Code Files

This sample was created with the default project templates for Windows Store Grid App and an ASP.NET MVC 4 Web Application. The files that were edited during the TechEd demo were:

• DotnetCatalog/DataModel/FeatureDataSource.cs - used async, HttpClient, and Json deserializing
• WebBackend/Controllers/FeaturesController.cs - contains the REST APIs for the feature data
• WebBackend/Controllers/FeaturesSummaryController.cs - contains the REST APIs for the feature summary data
• WebBackend/Models/Feature.cs - contains the data model for the feature entity
• WebBackend/Models/FeatureContext.cs - used entity framework
• WebBackend/Models/FeatureSummary.cs - contains the data model for the feature summary entity
• WebBackend/WebAssets - the media and text data transferred from the web backend to the Windows app

Here's a snap of the Solution;

And the app running at 1366x768;

And 2560x1440;

And to just show that it is indeed all running locally, I put a breakpoint in the Features Controller...

If you're looking for even more about what's new in .Net 4.5, check out this MSDN topic, What's New in the .NET Framework 4.5

This episode is the last of a trio which introduces viewers to the topic of troubleshooting memory pressure issues.  This session uses information from the previous two episodes to find root cause (i.e., down to the source code) of our memory pressure problem.

Get your debugging hats on before viewing this one!

.NET Debugging for the Production Environment, Part 11

This episode is the second of three which introduces viewers to the topic of troubleshooting memory pressure issues.  In the previous episode, we took a high level overview of virtual memory as it relates to troubleshooting these common memory pressure issues.  We'll use information from that episode and apply it here as we begin investigation of a dump file from a process exhibiting memory pressure.  Using windbg and some debugging extensions, we'll see how much we can learn about the source of the memory problem from a single dump file.

.NET Debugging for the Production Environment, Part 10

.NET Debugging for the Production Environment, Part 12

• [0:22] Announcing Windows Azure Mobile Services, Introduction to Windows Azure Mobile Services, Introducing Windows Azure Mobile Services for Windows 8 (David Pallmann), Introducing Windows Azure Mobile Services (Josh Twist), Introducing Windows Azure Mobile Services (Clint Edmonson), Add cloud to your app with Windows Azure Mobile Services (Kirill Gavrylyuk)
• [1:39] Windows Azure Mobile Services - doto sample (Josh Twist)
• [2:54] Building an End-to-End Windows Store App - Part 1, Building an End-to-End Windows Store App - Part 2: Integrating Cloud Services (S. Somasegar)
• [3:36] WP to W8: API Mapping (Jared Bienz)
• [4:44] Evolving the Reflection API (Brandon Bray, Richard Lander, Mircea Trofin)
• [5:41] TFS Shipping Cadence (Brian Harry)
• [7:25] Visual Studio 2012 Application Lifecycle Management Virtual Machine and Hands-on-Labs / Demo Scripts (Brian Keller)
• [8:50] ASP.NET MVC 4 Mobile Websites Succinctly (Free, reg-ware, ebook) (Lyle Luppes)
• [9:15] A guide to asynchronous file uploads in ASP.NET Web API RTM (Filip Woj)

Picks of the Week!

• Dan's Pick of the Week:[11:05] PNGGauntlet [Found Via: John Kurlak's Blog - Awesome PNG Compression Tool]
• Brian's Pick of the Week:[11:50] The History of the Floppy Disk (Steven Vaughan-Nichols)

This episode is the first of three dedicated to troubleshooting memory pressure issues in .NET applications (the kind of troubleshooting Microsoft Support performs in the production environment).  But before we jump straight into the aspects of troubleshooting, it's best to get a good understanding of virtual memory.  Without this background, many of your troubleshooting efforts may lead to dead ends or - even worse - false conclusions.

.NET Debugging for the Production Environment, Part 9

.NET Debugging for the Production Environment, Part 11

• [0:25] Windows 8 has reached the RTM milestone [Brandon LeBlanc]
• [1:48] Visual Studio 2012 and .NET 4.5 Complete! (S. Somasegar)
• [2:34] Introducing HTML & JS Templates for Metro Apps (Caleb McElrath)
• [4:03] Writing a Visual Studio 2012 Unit Test Adapter (Mathew Aniyan)
• [6:09] Windows 8, XNA and MonoGame – Part 1, Overview, Windows 8, XNA and MonoGame - Part 2, Getting Started (Bob Familiar)
• [7:02] Channel 9 Highlight: HTML5 & CSS3 Fundamentals: Development for Absolute Beginners (Clint Rutkas, Bob Tabor, Golnaz)
• [8:15] FoxIE (Christian Heilmann, Rey Bango)
• [9:18] Hidden Gems inside .Net Classes (Dean Hume)
• [10:15] First Release of Factual C# / .NET Driver, About Factual

Picks of the Week!

• Brian's Pick of the Week:[11:43] Outlook.com
• Dan's Pick of the Week:[13:42] Keeping an eye it with an object tracking .Net Gadgeteer robot

• [0:53] Microsoft Surface, Microsoft Surface Keynote, Microsoft Surface Trailer
• [1:42] Announcing Windows Phone 8 (Joe Belfiore), Windows Phone Summit, Windows Phone Newsroom
• [4:12] Windows Phone 8 For Developers
• [5:37] Windows Phone 8 For the Enterprise
• [6:58] TechEd North America 2012,
• [7:52] What is the new Windows Azure? [Poster] (Jouni Heikniemi)
• [8:31] Released : Windows Azure Training Kit June 2012 (Neil Hutson)
• [9:18] Testing for Continuous Delivery with Visual Studio 2012 RC (Paulo Morgado), MSDN (Online), CodePlex (PDF) 
• [10:22] Team Foundation Service Preview is public! (Brian Harry), From Development to Production: Optimizing for Continuous Delivery (Jamie Cool, Chris Patterson)
• [11:45] TFS from the Raspberry Pi (Martin Woodward)
• [12:54] Microsoft .NET Framework Repair Tool, KB2698555
• [13:49] Imagine Cup 2012 Worldwide People’s Choice Award

Picks of the Week!

• Brian's Pick of the Week:[14:58] 2 New Books: Pro ALM with Visual Studio 2012, and Pro TFS 2012
• Dan's Pick of the Week:[15:51] http://europe.msteched.com/

Programming Note: Due to TechEd Europe there will be no show next week (June 29th). If you're there, please make sure you stop by and chat with team.

Also due to the July 4th holiday in the States, there will not be a show the following week either, July 6th.

We'll be back from our little summer break the second week of July. See you then!

The Metro interface has the potential to change how a lot of people use computers. You've started seeing it in the Windows Phone. More if you have downloaded the Windows 8 consumer preview. In this session, we will demonstrate how the power exposed by Metro (through live tiles, push notifications, immersive user experiences, etc.) can be harnessed to provide a usable and intuitive application.

This Session's Experts

Atley Hunter (Twitter, LinkedIn, Blog)

This session was recorded live at ObjectSharp's annual "At The Movies" event - May 1, 2012, Scotiabank Theatre, Toronto, Ontario.

• [0:41] Announcing MSDN Profile Integration (Geoffrey, karstenj, Mike Sampson)
• [1:26] .NET 4.5 Improvements for Cloud and Server Applications (Soma Somasegar)
• [2:27] My Favorite Features: Improved Tooling in Visual Studio 11 for JavaScript Developers (Jason Zander)
• [5:29] Microsoft Visual Studio 11 Beta SDK
• [5:50] ASP.NET Web API: Introducing IApiExplorer/ApiExplorer (Yao)
• [7:23] Being productive when your Win8 Metro app is offscreen (Hari Pulapaka)
• [8:58] Windows 8 Camp in a Box, Consumer Preview Edition, http://devcamps.ms/windows 
• [10:12] Array Visualizer VS Extension (Amir Liberman)
• [11:39] Microsoft Research Face SDK Beta for Windows Phone [Found Via: Alvin Ashcraft's Morning Dew - Dew Drop – May 16, 2012 (#1,328)]

Picks of the Week!

• Brian's Pick of the Week:[12:35] Pixar studio stories - The movie vanishes (full)
• Dan's Pick of the Week:[13:54] Building Battling Bots with DumbBots.Net

From a slide deck and great link round-up my Pete Brown, to watching him geek out for an hour to a getting started with FEZ Hydra Basic Kit post by Ian Lee, Sr. it's all here. If at the end of this, your "I wanna build something" itch isn't asking for attention...

The .NET Micro Framework and .NET Gadgeteer

At the South Florida Code Camp last week, I presented the ".NET Micro Framework and .NET Gadgeteer". The primary demo was the Gadgeteer diaper monitor, but I also showed off hardware, wired some LEDs to the Netduino etc.

Pete Brown Geeks out on .NET Gadgeteer and Netduino

This past week, my friend and fellow Microsoftie, Pete Brown, ran a neat online symposium for the Microsoft Patterns & Practices group. As part of the event, Pete did an hour-long session introducing the .NET Micro Framework, and many of the cool things you can do with the various devices in the NETMF ecosystem, including Netduino, Netduino Go, and .NET Gadgeteer boards like the FEZ Spider. He was even kind enough to do a demo of the Meeblipiator project I put together using his Gadgeteer MIDI module (the demo is at around 45 minutes in). Here's the video…enjoy!

Getting Started With a FEZ Hydra Basic Kit

I’m teaching a NETMF Gadgeteer lab for the Nashville .NET User’s Group this week. Our gracious sponsors have purchased several FEZ Hydra Basic Kits made by GHI Electronics that we’ll be using to introduce everyone to the Gadgeteer world.

The FEZ Hydra Basic Kit consists of:

• FEZ Hydra Mainboard
• USB Client SP Module
• LED7R Module
• Joystick Module
• LightSense Module

So, the challenge is what can we build with just these components?

THE PLAN
We’re going to build a simple project that will use the green LEDs on the outer ring of the LED7R module as a gauge to show the light level that is reported by the LightSense module. In the center of the LED7R module is a bright red LED. I’m going to use the Joystick module to vary the brightness of this LED.

...

Run the program and now when you move the Joystick up & down you should see a slight variation in the brightness of the red LED in the middle of the LED7R module.

Surely, you’re having fun now???

You may be asking yourself why we used Timers instead of just putting a loop in our ProgramStarted() event. This is one area where Gadgeteer is very different than traditional NETMF projects. Read this blog post for an excellent explanation and you’ll save yourself some frustration down the line.

WHAT NEXT?
Well, that’s up to you! I’ve given you a simple example of a couple things you can do with the FEZ Hydra Basic Kit. Now, take this example and improve it or come up with something better (a game maybe?). Be sure to leave a comment on this post and tell me what you did or even better post a link to a video.

Have fun!

Download the complete project source here.

Indiefreaks Game Framework

The Indiefreaks Game Framework or IGF is a set of .Net libraries compiling a few years of experimenting and prototyping design patterns developing games for Microsoft Xna Framework using the SynapseGaming SunBurn graphics engine.

The goal here is to share with the community what I consider as best practices so they can avoid going through the same steps as I did. The Indiefreaks Game Framework is totally free (like in free beer) to use but it still requires you to acquire a SunBurn engine license (learn more here).

Core Features

• Target Platforms: The Indiefreaks Game Framework works on Windows Vista, Windows 7, Xbox 360 and Windows Phone 7.1 platforms.
• Application Framework: One of the core features of the Indiefreaks Game Framework is to provide a full application life cycle framework to ease the creation and maintenance of games splitting logically how games are generally developped.
• Smart Content Management: IGF encapsulates the Xna ContentManager class to load content as WeakReferences avoiding therefore the developer the need to manage Content memory. You can also easily asynchronously preload content while rendering a custom thread safe loading screen.
• Input Management: InputManager handles GamePad related XBLIG requirements through a set of Connection, Disconnection events and a LogicalPlayerIndex enumeration you can use to know which PlayerIndex is in your game. Also includes a Virtual GamePad using Keyboard & Mouse or WP7 touch mapping to buttons and sticks.

2D & 3D Rendering

• SunBurn Rendering: The Indiefreaks Game Framework implements Forward and Deferred rendering using the core SynapseGaming SunBurn engine rendering capabilities. (Deferred rendering requires a SunBurn engine Pro license and isn't available on WP7)
• Easy Hardware Instancing: Save your game framerate using the builtin InstancingManager to render hundreds of similar meshes using 10 lines of code while keeping direct control on each instance world transforms.
• Cameras: The framework includes a set of 2d & 3d cameras easily extendable (static and controlled by input) that plug nicely to the SunBurn engine using a CameraManager residing inside the SunBurn SceneInterface Managers.
• Sprite System: The Indiefreaks Game Framework extends SunBurn 2d features with a Sprite system enabling developers to benefit from the SunBurn rendering as well as 2d world transform and collision.
• GUI & Menu System: Adding a Main Menu, Pause Menu, a Heads Up Display (HUD) or any other Graphical User Interface for your game is now easy, expendable and framerate friendly thanks to IGF. Thanks to IGF Smart Input System, it supports both GamePad and Mouse+Keyboard input devices switching 2 properties.
• Particle System: Through Mercury Particle Engine integration as SceneEntity instances, IGF lets you emit & trig particles with a few lines of code & movable within SunBurn Editor.
• Post Processing Effects: Add Depth Of Field, God Rays (under development), SSAO (under development), Motion Blur (under development) post processing effects to your games simply adding them to your SunBurn PostProcessorManager instance and setting a few properties that can be tweaked at runtime. (requires SunBurn Pro).

Physics & Collisions

• BEPUPhysics v1.1.0.0 integration: IGF allows you to replace SunBurn's default CollisionManager with the impressive BEPUPhysics system. It supports:
  • Dynamic & Static Box Colliders
  • Dynamic & Static Sphere Colliders
  • Dynamic & Static ConvexHull Colliders
  • Static Mesh Colliders

Game Logic

• Abstract Network System: IGF comes with an abstraction layer for networking concepts. It allows the developer to make single or multiplayer games without caring much how the network calls, client & server concepts are implemented.
  • Xbox Live: As part of the Abstract Network feature, IGF fully implements the Xbox Live features provided within the Xna framework (as well as Games For Windows Live).
  • Lidgren Network Library: Since Xna doesn't support Games For Windows - Live except for development purposes, IGF comes with an equivalent implementation using the Lidgren Network Library (Only for SinglePlayer & Local Area Network for now).
  • Local Session: If you want to make a single player game, the Local session system will be your best choice as it provides much of Xbox Live features (Player Identification, Game session management, ...) for a single player game. Moreover, it eases a lot moving your game from Single Player to Multi Player using any of the network library implementations above.
• Logic Components & Behaviors: Ease your game logic implementation with Player & Non Player Agents that accept your own Behavior scripts written in C# and plug them to any SceneObject or SceneEntity in your scene. Moreover, they work seemlessly with any of the above Network implementations letting you code once your game logic and play it on Local session, Xbox Live or any other network implementation.
  • Steering Behaviors: IGF implements Steering Behaviors for Autonomous Agents that can be applied to 2D or 3D game entities independently. Easy to setup and configure Seek, Arrive, Flee, Evade, Pursuit, Obstacle Avoidance, Cohesion, Alignment and much more…
  • Finite State Machines: Create your desired game entities states and add them to IGF Finite State Machine system using a simple enumeration. Simply add a StateMachineAgent component to your SceneEntity or SceneObject instances and they’ll get a brain.
  • Goal Driven AI: For more complex AI entities, IGF provides a Goal Driven system that can be applied to your game entities. Define their goals, implement the desirability computation and add them to the GoalBrain SunBurn Component and you’ll see your game entities make smart decisions!

Development Requirements

• Microsoft Xna Game Studio 4.0 refresh
• SynapseGaming SunBurn Engine Indie or Pro editions
• Windows Vista­® (x86 or x64) with Service Pack 2 - All editions except Starter Edition
• Windows 7® (x86 or x64) - All editions except Starter Edition
• Object Oriented Programming concepts
• C# programming
• Microsoft Xna Framework
• SunBurn Engine for advanced rendering

So that sounds great, but how do you get started with it? Check out this eight part video tutorial series on building a game with IGF;

Ace on Steroids

Ace on Steroids is a game project using the Indiefreaks Game Framework which purpose is to demonstrate how to use the framework to make a full 3D game through a set of live development recorded videos.

This is an experimental tutorial process and hopefully will satisfy your needs.
Feel free to share your feedback about these with us in the Comments of each video.

• 01 - Getting Started
• 02 - Adding a custom Splash Screen
• 03 - Add a Start Screen
• 04 - Add your Game Title & a Root Main Menu
• 05 - Adding Keyboard and Mouse support And Gameplay GameState
• 06 - Player Physics & World Transforms
• 07 - Wrapped Screen Behavior
• 08 - Asteroids & Collisions

So lets take a quick peek at the IGF Solution.

That's the collapsed to the project level...

BTW, the project source shown in the tutorial is also available.

A final bright spot is that there is a free version of the SunBurn engine, but it's a version behind the commercial release, which IGF is dependent on. Why is that a bright spot? Because once the free version makes the jump to v2, Philippe plans on making sure IGF supports it too.

If you're already a SunBurn engine user, then this project looks like it's easily worth a bit of time to check out. If you're on the fence about using SunBurn, then maybe work like this is all you need to help you make the decision. Even if you are not in either camp, but are still looking at learning from the hard lessons of others... well here you go.

• [0:28] Visual Studio 11 User Interface Updates Coming in RC (Monty Hammontree)
• [2:05] Announcing Portable Library Tools 2 Beta for Visual Studio 2010 [Mircea] (BCL Team)
• [3:57] Check out Hilo for Windows 8! (Thomas Petchel), http://hilo.codeplex.com
• [4:56] Converting to Windows 8 from Windows Phone | Looking back–what would we do differently (12 of 12) (Andreas Hammar, Håkan Reis and Peter von Lochow)
• [6:09] .NET 4.5 Baby Steps: Series Index (Robert MacLean)
• [7:13] Visual Studio 2010: Version and update information tool, VersionInfo (Terje Sandstrom)
• [8:07] Scott Guthrie on Cloud-Powered Revolutions (Jonathan Rozenblit and Scott Guthrie)

Picks of the Week!

• Clint's Pick of the Week: [9:06] Wolfenstein 3D Turns 20, iD Showers Gamers With Gratis Goodies
• Dan's Pick of the Week: [9:50] 'TeleHuman' taps Kinect for 3D holographic videoconferencing

Some exceptions don't cause your application to crash.  Some do.  Either way, developers should work to rid their applications of exceptions for both stability and performance reasons.  Special guest Mario Hewardt joins us as we discuss how to detect the presence of these exceptions, how to gather vital data on them in a relatively non-intrusive fashion, and how to find root cause.  And since this is all done in the production environment, we won't have Visual Studio available.

.NET Debugging for the Production Environment, Part 5

.NET Debugging for the Production Environment, Part 7

If you've spent any time developing applications, it's likely you've encountered a high cpu hang at some point.  Troubleshooting this problem in the dev environment is one thing, but how do Premier Field Engineers troubleshoot this problem in a customer's production environment when Visual Studio isn't an option?

.NET Debugging for the Production Environment, Part 4
.NET Debugging for the Production Environment, Part 6

"I got my first dump.  Now where do I begin?"

I get this question a lot from customers and fellow Premier Field Engineers who are learning how to debug post-mortem dump files of problematic .NET applications.  In Part 4 of our series, we cover some of the more common commands (not all are from psscor2/psscor4) used by Microsoft Support when debugging hangs, exceptions/crashes, and performance problems.

 
.NET Debugging for the Production Environment, Part 3
.NET Debugging for the Production Environment, Part 5

Ever try to load SOS/psscor into your debugging session and get a "Failed to load data access dll" error?  It's not uncommon, especially when you first start debugging .NET applications.  Join us for a brief introduction to Windbg before we discuss the most common causes for this error, and what are oftentimes simple solutions.

NOTE: At 4:55, it insinuates that psscor4 works with .NET 4.5.  This is not the case.  As of the time of the recording of this video you will need the SOS from the 4.5 install directory to debug a 4.5 app.

 
.NET Debugging for the Production Environment, Part 2
.NET Debugging for the Production Environment, Part 4

Performance Monitor is oftentimes an overlooked tool when troubleshooting application issues.  But in the production environment, it can be invaluable to helping you determine just what kind of application issue you have.  Perfmon has a lot to offer, so we dedicate Part 2 of this series to this simple – but vital – tool.

.NET Debugging for the Production Environment, Part 1
.NET Debugging for the Production Environment, Part 3

You can't troubleshoot a problem effectively until you first know what the problem is.

When applications encounter stability or performance issues in the production environment, obtaining an accurate problem definition is a key first-step to reducing Time To Resolution.  Learn how Microsoft Support leverages various tools & techniques to help customers define the problems plaguing their production applications.

.NET Debugging for the Production Environment, Part 2