Wednesday, May 26, 2004 - Posts
Just saw a presentation on WinForms updates in VS 2005. Here are some highlights:
New menu and tool bars - Much more professional looking than the ones available in WinForms up to now. They can handle embedded drop-downs and such. They are dockable, floatable and overflowable (is that a word?). COOL FEATURE ALERT: There is a “Renderer” object that you can specify to give the bar a different look and feel. It's like a custom paint handler for the control. Options are system, office, etc. and ROLL YOUR OWN. He showed a sample. It's only a few lines of code to do some really nice effects.
New Layout Controls - There are new panel controls that allow you to handle control alignment in the same way as in web applications. There is a FlowLayoutPanel that flows side-to-side like a web page and also up and down. There is a TableLayoutPanel that allows you to layout your controls as though you are using a <table> on a web page. I can see this being huge for multi-language apps where the text in a label may get significantly longer or shorter from one language to another.
New One-Click deployment - Apparently this is an evolution of the Updater Application Block. I have implemented real apps with that block. If this has smoothed out the rough spots, this could change the way we distribute desktop apps. There is another presentation on this Friday. I will try to make it.
Here is a quote from Jeff Wierer:
“We're finalizing some content that we'll make generally available closer to RTM as the content today is very specific to a build we used for training. There is no problem in distributing the material, though it won't work with the HIPAA accelerator which cannot be generally distributed at this time.”
The “content” he is referring to is training material, NOT the final product itself. The Accelerator itself is still going to RTM in July apparently.
Microsoft is a little schizophenic (sp?) when it comes to delivering the HIPAA Accelerator version 3 (BTS 2004).
I spoke to Jeff Wierer a little while ago. He is the Microsoft Program Manager in charge of all BizTalk Accelerators. According to him, the RTM has been pushed to mid-July.
Then, I got a message from someone I worked with in a previous life who says that it goes to RTM in 3 DAYS. He also says that the “airlift” event already happened.
Everytime I ask someone about this I get a different answer!!!!!! I will post whatever I find out.
I have been attending several of the BizTalk 2004 sessions here at TechEd.
I was a big BTS 2000/2002 user, but I haven't had the opportunity to use 2004 yet in a project. (That is about to change.) I got really excited about BizTalk 2004 at last year's TechEd but when I got the Beta home and played with it, I couldn't really get it to do anything. Part of the problem was that the docs are copious, but not informative (common problem for MS, IMHO). Only now, after the final release, are any good BizTalk books nearing publication.
A few tidbits I have heard that I like:
- BTS 2004 is now envisioned as the component that glues together the services in a Services Oriented Architecture. BizTalk has historically suffered from a disorganized feature set because it is so complex. “Yeah, it can do this and this and this, but what is it really FOR?”
- Orchestrations seem to be much better in this version. In previous versions, they were more trouble than they were worth. I am still not fully sold on their usefulness, but at least now they aren't so annoying that I don't care how useful they are.
- Most of the tools for developing BizTalk solutions are now hosted within Visual Studio, not separately: BizTalk Editor, BizTalk Mapper, BizTalk Messaging Manager, Orchestration Designer, the new Pipeline Designer [very nice].
- The new messaging system (radically different from before) now makes more sense to me since they are presenting it as a Publish/Subscribe system instead of as just a “Mailbox”.
Sadly, the HIPAA Accelerator I need for a client is still being referred to as a “summer” release.
Saw a good session on the new test framework in VS 2k5 this morning. This is a real improvement over...well...nothing.
Unit Tests - Auto-generated VB.NET or C# unit test code. NUnit users will find this VERY familiar.
Web Tests - Recordable, automated web UI test scripting. Can simulate IE or Netscape browsers. You can bind form fields to a data source rather than using the same values over and over again.
Load Test - This is a container for any combination of Unit and Web tests. You can specify the number of users to simulate and a bunch of other stuff. It can collect performance counters and such. VERY COOL.
Manual Test - This is weird. It is managed just like any other test in the system, but the script to “run” the test is just a text or Word document. You then select “Pass” or “Fail” from a dialog box. It seems odd by itself but the cool thing is that the results are integrated with the bug tracking and other functionality of Team System just as though it was an automated test.
The Missing Test - Still no WinForm / GUI test automation in the product. MS had to bring in CompuWare to keep this from looking like a big hole.