Fullsix Blog

Not long ago, Microsoft released WebMatrix, a new development tool that aims to make web development easy. At first, I wasn’t very convinced with it, and I was quite happy with Visual Studio 2010 for my web dev work. Did we really need another development tool for the Microsoft web stack? Visual Studio even has a free express version, so I didn’t quite get why WebMatrix was needed.

This post starts with an introduction to what is WebMatrix and I’ll share my experiences for real world projects with it in the end. And no, I didn’t stop using Visual Studio .

At one of our tech lunches (a regular event at Fullsix Portugal where we get the whole server team together, order great food – and chocolates! – and watch a tech-related video), we watched the CodeMash 2011 Keynote video where WebMatrix was launched.

It blew me away. If you haven’t taken WebMatrix for a spin, watch the video. You’ll find a lot of great demos and get to see some of the coolest features in action. Josh Holmes leads the way (a great speaker) and invites people from DotNetNuke and Joomla to show how you can leverage WebMatrix to get up and running with no time with those platforms. Wait, did I just say Joomla? Yes, it’s not ASP.NET + SQL Server only… Let’s have a closer look, shall we?

When you start WebMatrix, you’re presented with 4 options:

The most interesting, IMHO, is the “Site from Web Gallery”. This lets you choose an open-source web application as the foundation for your website. It can go from CMS systems to e-commerce, forums and more. You’ll find products based on the Microsoft stack like Umbraco, YAF.NET, Kentico and others, but you’ll also find PHP+MySQL stuff like Joomla!, WordPress and Drupal. Choose one and you’re set to go.

How I’m using WebMatrix

WebMatrix takes care of finding all the required dependencies to have your website running, so if that means installing MySQL, then you don’t have to worry about it. It’s all taken care of. There’s a lot more to WebMatrix, like features to make publishing a snap, statistics and more, but the “Site from Web Gallery” is the feature I’ve been using the most.

A lot of the times, I need to have a website up and running in no time. This can be for trying out some things or to showcase some feature at a client meeting, and I don’t have the time to go though all the hassle of creating a web application in Visual Studio, downloading the platform, database, configure everything, etc… With WebMatrix, it really takes a couple of seconds and you’re running. This is what made me a fan of WebMatrix. It’s click, click, choose some passwords for your database, and your site is running in IIS Express. You can now customize anything you want in your website, as you have the WebMatrix IDE with all the files and database tools you’ll need until your project gets big.

After prototyping, we can choose to continue the work in Visual Studio simply clicking a button (Launch Visual Studio). This is how I go when I decide to use the work I started in WebMatrix. I never use the publish feature and I migrate the database to one of our servers, so it’s integrated with our typical ALM process.

And did I mention Razor is fully supported?

Let me know how you’re using WebMatrix.

Until next time.

Nota: Como encontrei pela net algumas pessoas com o mesmo problema sem solução, vou fazer o post em inglês e português, na esperança que possa ajudar quem passar pelo mesmo.

[EN]

After some time working on a Silverlight project, switching between Visual Studio 2008 and Expression Blend 2 SP1, I decided that today was a great day to clean the house a bit – aka Refactoring. Cleaning done, project running without problems until I tried to open it in Blend and get the error “failed to compare two elements in the array”, which made it impossible to open the solution in Blend, but had no problems in VS.

After trying some ideas I’d seen on the web (commenting the code in Page.xaml.cs), looking at the .sln and .csproj files hoping to find some wrong configuration, nothing. Everything remained the same. By unloading all the projects and reloading them one by one, I realized the problem was in a class library where I’d placed a web reference that was, before, in the web application. Hmmmmm… but I really want the web reference in the class library! Yep, but Blend doesn’t want it there! Both the class library and the web app were targeting version 2.0 of the .NET Framework (due to integration requirements with other application, which, in the meantime, was decided that were no longer necessary).

Hmmm… what if it is a service reference? So I converted the class library and the web app to .NET 3.5 and added a service reference to the web service I was calling. Let’s try opening this in Blend…. BINGO! Works! By the way, now that we’re in 3.5, I might as well do some more cleaning and refactor some XmlElement-related code to the wonderful LinqToXml.

Summarizing: It looks like Blend doesn’t like web references. Migrating to 3.5 and to a service reference solved the problem.

[PT]

Depois de algum tempo a trabalhar num projecto em Silverlight, alternando entre o Visual Studio 2008 e o Expression Blend 2 SP1, decidi que hoje era dia de arrumar um bocado a casa – aka Refactoring. Casa arrumada, projecto a correr sem problemas até que tento abri-lo no Blend e depáro-me com o erro “failed to compare two elements in the array”, o que tornava impossível abrir a solução no Blend, mas sem qualquer problema no VS.

Depois de experimentar algumas ideias que vi pela net (comentar o código do Page.xaml.cs), andar pelos ficheiros .sln e .csproj na esperança de encontrar alguma configuração errada, nada. Tudo na mesma. Fazendo unload de todos os projectos e adicionando um a um outra vez, identifiquei que o problema estava numa class library onde tinha colocado uma web reference que anteriormente estava na web application. Hmmm… mas eu quero a web reference na class library! Pois, mas o Blend não quer! Tanto a class library como a web app tinham como target a versão 2.0 da .NET Framework (devido a requisitos de integração com outra aplicação que, entretanto, se decidiu já não serem necessários).

Hmm…. então e se for uma service reference? Converti a class library e a web app para .NET 3.5 e adicionei então uma service reference para o web service em questão. Vamos lá então tentar abrir isto no Blend…. BINGO! Works! E agora que estamos em 3.5, aproveito para arrumar a casa mais um bocadinho e converter um código XmlElement-related para o maravilhoso LinqToXml.

Resumindo: Parece que o Blend não gosta de Web References. Passar para 3.5 e para uma Service Reference resolveu o problema.

The Microsoft Expression team just released a new version of it’s Deep Zoom Composer tool. You can get it here.

This release fixes some issues, namely high memory consumption and support for transparent PNG (remember to export to PNG and not JPG, if you are exporting as a collection).

The big improvements are in DeepZoomTools.dll. Me and a lot of other people were getting this bug many times, which has apparently been fixed. I tried it with a couple of images which always failed, and they’re now successfully imported.

Read the team’s post here.

Hi everyone. My Microsoft DevDays 09 session about Deep Zoom was great! A lot of fun for me and hopefully for everyone who attended. The whole DevDays was great! Met a lot of people, lots of old friends and some new ones. Learned lots of new stuff on some great sessions.

For anyone that wants to get in touch with me, my email is . Please don’t hesitate to ask questions, show me your deep zoom and Silverlight projects or just say hello.

Now that it’s over, it’s time to start preparing for Mix 09 in Las Vegas, where Microsoft will hopefully present us with stuff they’ve been working on, trying hard to improve all the great products developers use on a daily basis.

Before Mix, it’s time to pick up the electric guitars again and go on a mini tour with my band (guys and red-shoed gal, miss you!) through Spain, which will for sure be fun as hell!

Now the links for the DevDays stuff:

Great DeepZoom websites and projects:

EDIT: http://www.microsoftnatal.com/

http://livelabs.com/seadragon/

http://memorabilia.hardrock.com/

http://www.mojaveexperiment.com/

http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2009/44.president/inauguration/themoment/index.html

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/groups/ivm/HDViewSL/

http://bigpicture.vertigo.com/obama

www.laguna-coupe.com

zoom.record.pt

http://photosynth.net/Default.aspx

http://photozoom.mslivelabs.com/

Jose Fajardo on DG.TV showing killer Deep Zoom ideas (watch this video for awesome deep zoom ideas by Jose Fajardo!)

DeepZoom tools:

Microsoft Deep Zoom Composer

Microsoft Image Composition Editor

HDView / DeepZoom Photoshop Plugin

2nd Factory Jellyfish

DeepZoom links:

Microsoft MSDN Library – Deep Zoom

Microsoft Silverlight Forums

Microsoft Expression Forums – Composer

Jaime Rodriguez – A Deep Zoom Primer

As promised, The Group Photo:

NOTE: This is what happens when your pictures are not so good!

NOTE2: I used Microsoft Image Composition Editor, and all it took was to drag and drop 4 pictures into it and export it as Deep Zoom. Try it yourselves (with higher quality pictures!).

FINAL IMAGE HERE: http://www.fullsix.pt/rfiel/DevDays09/groupphoto/wux209.html

I’ll be posting some more Silverlight/DeepZoom related stuff. Stay tuned.

EDIT: Microsoft ECard Natal was missing from project list.

Cheers.

One issue I’ve seen a lot of people having with MbUnit is one unhandled exception when closing MbUnit GUI: “Could not find a part of the path ‘…….\PreviousState.mbunit”.

To solve this, just create a MbUnit folder under you ApplicationData folder.

Eg: C:\Documents and Settings\rfiel\Application Data\MbUnit

MbUnit will create the file the next time it closes and the exception is gone.

Apparently it is being solved: http://code.google.com/p/mb-unit/issues/detail?id=109