August 2006 - Posts

• Intellisense in VS

  If you would like to edit XML files in Visual Studio and use intellisense, this is what you have to do: Locate your schema, then copy it to C:\Progam Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Common7\Packages\schemas\xml. Then open your XML document and reference the schema by its namespace URI in the root element. If you want to automate the update of your schema files the use scripting on the Visual Studio's OnStartupComplete event.   Posted Aug 22 2006, 01:53 PM by Mrojas with no comments

• Virtualization

  Some people here in Artinsoft is doing a great deal of work around virtualization. You should check out their posts. I was preparing a test environment for an application and I needed to run my check in tests in several versions of windows and I found this article Program Customized Testing Environments Without Trashing Your Machine  which has been of great help for me in setting up a virtual test lab. I really recommend it. After you read it you will figure out great new test environments. Like database tests. where you setup a virtual disk with your database, or diferrent images with diferent driver versions. Good Luck! Posted Aug 07 2006, 03:53 PM by Mrojas with 1 comment(s)

• AS400 from .NET

  You might encounter certain scenarios where you have either VB6 applications that used information from an AS400 box or new .NET applications that need to get information in or out the AS400 box. Usually this is done by creating RPG programs that generate plain text files that are transfered to PCs and processed by the VB6 or VB.Net application. But would't it be great to access the AS400 directly, perform queries, execute programs, even use the AS400 users print jobs and other services. IBM has a project call JTOpen, this is an open source java implementation of objects that allow you to access the AS400 box.  http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserver/iseries/toolbox/downloads.html So why is this useful to you? This is in Java, what help could it give you? Because there is another interesting project called  IKVM. I already posted about this project see  my post on IKVM  for more details. With IKVM you can generate an assembly and use it in your projects. You can start using this functionality directly in any of your VB.NET or C# projects. If you have a VB6 applications, what are you waiting for: upgrade it now to VB.NET or expose this functionality thru a simple COM object and use it in VB6. I'll post about this technique one this days. And now enjoy accessing your AS400 from .NET Regards Posted Aug 04 2006, 12:19 PM by Mrojas with 1 comment(s)

• Taken Advantage of Java Open Source in .NET

  We must recognize that there is a great amount of Java Open Source projects. It would be great to have access to all that code also in .NET but sometimes the migration of that functionality can take a while and you just need it right away. For simple things you can use the J# implementations, and share your assemblies with C# and VB.NET applications. For medium things you might also think in using the JLCA so you will get a C# implementation ;) but some big projects could take more time that what you have available or taking a long time just does not worth it. Well some guys have an superinteresting project. It is called IKVM. It allows you to compile your Java projects for .NET. IKVM.NET is an implementation of Java for Mono and the Microsoft .NET Framework. This is an extract from their site http://www.ikvm.net/index.html: Use Java libraries in your .NET applications IKVM.NET includes ikvmc, a Java bytecode to .NET IL translator. If you have a Java library that you would like to use in a .NET application, run ikvmc -target:library mylib.jar to create mylib.dll. For example, the Apache FOP project is an open source XSL-FO processor written in Java that is widely used to generate PDF documents from XML source. With IKVM.NET technology, Apache FOP can be used by any .NET application. Develop .NET applications in Java IKVM provides a way for you to develop .NET applications in Java. Although IKVM.NET does not include a Java compiler for .NET, you can use the open source Jikes compiler to compile Java source code to JVM bytecode, then use ikvmc -target:exe myapp.jar to produce a .NET executable. You can even use .NET API's in your Java code using the included ikvmstub application. So if there was a Java Project that you were crying to use, stop now, wipe your tears and start using IKVM now. Regards Posted Aug 04 2006, 11:56 AM by Mrojas with 2 comment(s)