In a recent project I was required to alter my web application to make it more compatible with small devices (such as PDAs and cellphones). I attempted to add a mobile web form and found that no such template was available.
After a bit of searching I found out that Visual Studio 2005 SP1 removed this capability for web application projects (it was last present in Visual Studio 2003). Thankfully the Visual Studio Web Tools group posted the templates here as an optional download.
Showing posts with label Visual Studio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Visual Studio. Show all posts
August 04, 2007
October 13, 2006
Windows Vista as a Development Platform
As Windows Vista RC2 hit last week I've come across several mildly disturbing articles regarding the integrity of Vista as a development platform. First off was the announcement of SP1 Beta for Visual Studio 2005 on Somasegar's blog. Sounds like good news, right? Well, further down he also reveals that Vista will not support Visual Studio 2002 or Visual Studio 2003. In addition, he admits that Visual Studio 2005 will most likely suffer from compatibility issues beyond those addressed in SP1. In my mind this doesn't communicate strong support for what is supposed to be Microsoft's flagship development platform. I imagine this issue could easily stop most developers from trying Vista anytime soon due to the fact that they still need to continue supporting older applications via older versions of Visual Studio.There have also been rumors going back and forth debating Java's ability to keep up with the new "Aero" look and feel in Vista. Thankfully, it appears as if this will only be an issue for older versions of Java.
On a positive note, IIS 7 in Vista will finally elevate PHP to a first class citizen. The newest version of Microsoft's webserver is on target to introduce a FastCGI host. Such a change will honor the single-process-per-request execution model of PHP, but do so much more efficiently than traditional CGI. For more information check out this blog entry by Mike Volodarsky (member of the IIS team).
June 24, 2006
Getting Visual Studio 2005 and IIS 5.1 to Play Nice
The other day I installed Visual Studio 2005 on one of my workstations and proceeded to create an ASP.NET web service. For the most part the Casinni webserver that's built into Visual Studio served my testing needs. But I eventually reached a point where I wanted to run the application on IIS just to make sure it encountered no problems in the target environment.
So I installed IIS 5.1 on my Windows XP box and created a virtual directory containing the project. I set IIS to run it as an ASP.NET 2.0 application and was greeted with this error message when I browsed to the .asmx file:Failed to access IIS metabase.
The process account used to run ASP.NET must have read access to the IIS metabase (e.g. IIS://servername/W3SVC).
I was referred to a Microsoft Knowledge Base article. The problem supposedly happened because the ASP.NET worker process didn't have permissions to the mystery that is the IIS metabase. My guess is that this ocurred because I installed IIS after I installed Visual Studio. Microsoft recommended running the following command line as a remedy:
aspnet_regiis –ga [WindowsUserAccount]
I substituted ASPNET (the ASP.NET account on Windows XP) in for [WindowsUserAccount]. Unfortunately this did not solve the problem and I continued getting the same error mentioned above.
After searching some forums I found others who had encountered this issue who advised reinstalling the .NET 2.0 Framework. I went ahead and did this as follows and it resolved the incident:
- Run the Visual Studio 2005 Disk
- Select "Change or Remove Visual Studio 2005"
- Choose Repair/Reinstall
October 08, 2005
Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2
For the past several months I've been evaluating the "Web Developer Express" flavor of Microsoft's Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2. So far, my experiences have been quite positive.
Although not unfamiliar with .NET, up until this point it just hasn't been much of a priority for me to consider this proprietary solution, especially given the outrageous price points on MS SQL Server, Windows Server 2003 and Visual Studio 2003. PHP does all I need for small to mid-sized projects, for the appealing price of free. To quote a famous muppet, "C is for cookie - is good enough for me." As you can imagine, I approached this new release with some hesitation, but was encouraged by the results.
First of all, Visual Studio 2005 loads up much faster compared to older versions. Additionally, old versions of Visual Studio required developers to have IIS installed on their local machines in order to be able to test their web applications. The 2005 version has thankfully done away with this requirement, so ASP.NET applications can now be tested directly from the IDE via an integrated test server. This time around they have also added an FTP utility to the Solution Explorer. Though unessential, it's a nice touch.
The 2.0 version of the Framework is filled with many more choices. To start with ASP.NET now has over fifty new controls! The Toolbox is packed with additional data model components, navigation tools, login controls, webparts and more. Some, such as the login controls, should really help speed up development of sites requiring authentication. Likewise, many of these new controls seem to be focused on saving time and making it easier for developers to achieve functionality that has required a good amount of coding in the past.
If you're anything like me, you probably feel most comfortable in the source view of your .aspx pages. Visual Studio 2005 now respects your style of coding. Changes in design view will not equate to massive reformatting in source view. Additionally, the HTML that is rendered by your work will now emit standards compliant XHTML. Finally!
The main item that disappointed me is the new ASP.NET Configuration Tool. It seems like a nice concept to be able to have one central area where you can manipulate application settings, security settings and provider models...but it just feels like a glorified web.config editor that was tacked on as an afterthought. I think this tool has potential, but it might take another release or two for it to fully mature.
However, when all is said and done, Visual Studio 2005 is shaping up to be a nice product. The "Express" family will be available for $49.00 and includes a stripped-down free version of MS SQL server. So much for using the cost barrier as an excuse to ignore .NET...
Feel free to dig in and evaluate it for yourself:
http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/vs2005/
Although not unfamiliar with .NET, up until this point it just hasn't been much of a priority for me to consider this proprietary solution, especially given the outrageous price points on MS SQL Server, Windows Server 2003 and Visual Studio 2003. PHP does all I need for small to mid-sized projects, for the appealing price of free. To quote a famous muppet, "C is for cookie - is good enough for me." As you can imagine, I approached this new release with some hesitation, but was encouraged by the results.
First of all, Visual Studio 2005 loads up much faster compared to older versions. Additionally, old versions of Visual Studio required developers to have IIS installed on their local machines in order to be able to test their web applications. The 2005 version has thankfully done away with this requirement, so ASP.NET applications can now be tested directly from the IDE via an integrated test server. This time around they have also added an FTP utility to the Solution Explorer. Though unessential, it's a nice touch.
The 2.0 version of the Framework is filled with many more choices. To start with ASP.NET now has over fifty new controls! The Toolbox is packed with additional data model components, navigation tools, login controls, webparts and more. Some, such as the login controls, should really help speed up development of sites requiring authentication. Likewise, many of these new controls seem to be focused on saving time and making it easier for developers to achieve functionality that has required a good amount of coding in the past.
If you're anything like me, you probably feel most comfortable in the source view of your .aspx pages. Visual Studio 2005 now respects your style of coding. Changes in design view will not equate to massive reformatting in source view. Additionally, the HTML that is rendered by your work will now emit standards compliant XHTML. Finally!
The main item that disappointed me is the new ASP.NET Configuration Tool. It seems like a nice concept to be able to have one central area where you can manipulate application settings, security settings and provider models...but it just feels like a glorified web.config editor that was tacked on as an afterthought. I think this tool has potential, but it might take another release or two for it to fully mature.
However, when all is said and done, Visual Studio 2005 is shaping up to be a nice product. The "Express" family will be available for $49.00 and includes a stripped-down free version of MS SQL server. So much for using the cost barrier as an excuse to ignore .NET...
Feel free to dig in and evaluate it for yourself:
http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/vs2005/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)