As those who grace my blog regularly will know I’m not a developer but I have recently been tinkering. I’m working a simple ink-enabled blog client I’m calling BlogPad. I’ve blogged about the concept and my progress thus far. Tonight I thought I’d blog about some of my experiences. This is largely due to my lack of further progress. Curses to my day job and my annoying requirement to sleep.
My Pedigree as a Developer
Just to be clear I make no claims to being a developer. I work in the IT industry as an infrastructure consultant with a mobility bent. I’ve done a fair bit of VBscript work and the like and I have in the past tinkered with VB6 an VBA, though nothing major. As such I would describe my developer pedigree as being the illegitimate love child of a code monkey and a scripter.
The Express Editions
What are they you ask? The same question appears in the FAQ on the Express Editions Home page on the Microsoft website. Here’s what they have to say:
“The Express products are an expansion of the Visual Studio product line to include lightweight, easy to use, and easy to learn tools for hobbyists, students, and novice developers who want to build dynamic Windows applications, Web sites, and Web services. The Express products consist of:
· Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition, a lightweight tool for building dynamic Web sites and Web services
· Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition, Visual C# 2005 Express Edition, Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition, and Visual J# 2005 Express Edition, targeted programming tools for students and hobbyists who wish to learn the fundamentals of Windows programming
· SQL Server Express Edition, an entry-level database tool based on SQL Server 2005”
They are currently in Beta (I’m using Beta 2 of VB Express) and available as free downloads. When they are finally released they are going to available for a nominal fee (~US$50) per express product.
My Initial Experiences with VB Express
The VB Express is very, very cool because it is so easy to get up and running – even a novice like me. When you launch the application you are greeted by the start page shown below in the centre pane. This includes your recent projects, some advice to get you going and – best of all – the latest from the relevant MSDN newsfeed. There is often some very interesting and educational stuff in that column.
The Workspace
The development environment is quite easy to find your way around. The main window is quite customisable but mine looks like this most of the time (I sometimes close panes to make a bit more room in the middle).
The visible panes are:
1. The toolbox – drag and drop controls from here to the form you are working on.
2. The edit window, which is tabbed. I remember when I tinkered with VB6 and the like it was always a real pane switching between design view and code view. This makes it really easy, I love it.
3. The solution explorer – you can double click on an item to open it in the edit window.
4. The properties of the currently selected object.
5. The error list. My best friend. Checks your code as you right it and lists the errors (there are usually some there). Double click on an error and jump to that bit of code to correct it. You soon get into the habit of making sure there are none here before you hit the build button.
It is also easy to add new components to your project. I added an “About” dialog box in all of two seconds. Just select Project > Add Windows Form… and select the About Box as shown below:
That gives you a nice pretty About box like this one!
Writing Code
OK – you do still have to do some of this – it’s not all drag and drop. That said the coding environment makes it very easy.
Two things I have found that make this a bit easier:
- The real time code validation is not limited to the error list window – there is word like “grammar checking” in the code editing window as well. In the image below the variable has a green squiggly line under it because it has been declared but not used. A similar thing happens if you use one without declaring it.
- You can right-click on an object in the code – e.g. Microsoft.Ink.InkEdit – and select Go to definition. This opens the object browser and focuses on that object so you can poke around it’s methods and properties. Very handy.