Oren Ellenbogen's Blog - Friday, July 22, 2005 - Striving for agile development

Friday, July 22, 2005

Add Virtual Directory programmatically, for easy "new-box" deployment.

I'm always trying to make my project deployment as easy as possible.

One of the "problems" I've encountered is keeping my solution structure, that is:

- MySolutionDirectory

- MyWebProject

- MyBusinessLayerClassLibrary

- MyDataAccessLayerClassLibrary

- MyEntitiesClassLibrary

- etc.

This is hard to do, especially when the "Add Web Project" creates a virtual directory in

my wwwroot directory by default which breaks my desired structure.

When I want to initialize the Solution or to pull the entire solution from the

VSS (e.g - on a new programmer station) I need to take these steps beforehand -

Create the directory [solution-path]\[web-project\webservice name]
Go to my IIS and add the required virtual directory which will redirect to step 1 path.

Otherwise, the VS.NET will create the web folders in my wwwroot automatically, which will again break my preferred structure.

In addition, in some of my solutions, I have more than 1 web project\webservice and repeating these steps can get very annoying.

So, after reading about IIS API, I've created an IIS helper utility for creating virtual directories by

demand in one-click EXE.

The configuration file is quite simple:

<VDSettings>
    <Directories>
        <Directory>
            <DirectoryPath>C:\Projects\MySolution\MyWebProject</DirectoryPath>
            <VirtualDirectoryName>MyWebProject</VirtualDirectoryName>
        </Directory>
        <Directory>
            <DirectoryPath>C:\Projects\MySolution\MyWebShareProject</DirectoryPath>
            <VirtualDirectoryName>MyWebShareProject</VirtualDirectoryName>
            <CreateUnder>MyWebShareProject</CreateUnder>
        </Directory>
    </Directories>
</VDSettings>

This sample demonstrates how to add "MyWebProject" Virtual Directory and create another

Virtual Directory, under "MyWebProject", named "MyWebShareProject".

* 2 Notes:

You can create the virtual directory under a WebSite by using "WebSiteName" element under the "Directory" element.
If the "DirectoryPath" doesn't exist - the utility will create it before setting the Virtual Directory path.

Now, when a co-worker in my company is trying to deploy my solution on his station, all he needs to

do is to run VDCreator.exe and he can continue the deployment via VS.NET -> "Open From Source Control..." option.

That's what I call "child's play" deployment.

The files:

VDCreator bin1.zip (4.62 KB) (EXE & config file only)

VDCreator Source.zip (9.64 KB) (Source files included)

.NET | Build & Deployment

Posted by Oren Ellenbogen
22/07/2005 12:38, Israel time UTC+03:00, Comments [1] |

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Congratulations, you've installed dasBlog!

After logging in, be sure to visit all the options under Configuration in the Admin Menu Bar above. There are 26 themes to choose from, and you can also create your own.

dasBlog

Posted by Oren Ellenbogen
20/07/2005 09:00, Israel time UTC+03:00, Comments [0] |

Sunday, July 17, 2005

Improving your Vocabulary

My friend Moran sent me a great link which will improve your vocabulary for sure.

Come on, give it a try.

@ff Topic

Posted by Oren Ellenbogen
17/07/2005 10:07, Israel time UTC+03:00, Comments [0] |

DOs and DONTs - Adding a Solution to VSS

Add a new Solution and Projects to the VSS:

DONT -

Count on the VS.NET => "Add Solution to Source Control..." to add your solution

and projects to the VSS.

It will create such a mess in the VSS, a mess you'll find difficult to clean up later on, that you'll be

sorry for the moment you've chosen this option.

In addition, it will not give the desired (and recommended) structure:

MySolution

- MyWebProject

- MyClassLibrary1

- MyClassLibrary2

- ...

DO -

Follow the steps in this great post. I truly believe this link is a MUST

for every developer who's working with VS.NET and VSS on a daily basis.

I hope this will help you all...

.NET | VSS

Posted by Oren Ellenbogen
17/07/2005 09:42, Israel time UTC+03:00, Comments [2] |

Saturday, July 16, 2005

Freeze ! Put your hands on the keyboard !

I'm one of those guys who likes to use shortcuts for saving myself the honor of

remembering the path of every single program I use...

Problem

So here is my every day scenario (tell me if it sounds familiar) -

I'm looking for "Internet Information Services" in order to customize my Virtual Directory.

I'm starting to look at my "Programs" menu, but damn, I have only 3 programs there !

Oh yes, I need to click this ugly

button to view all the programs.

OK, done that, now I'm searching for my Administrative Tools menu, but I can't seem to find it.

Yes, I remember, I need to check "Display Administrative tools" in order to see this, SHI$ !

Finally, I'm able to view this menu and here I go, mission completed...

I bet that this case is quite familiar to you as well; So I've added the IIS shortcut to my taskbar to shorten this process a little.

The main problem is that my taskbar needs place, place I prefer to "waste" on my VS.NET instead

of 3-4 lines of programs shortcuts.

In addition, I don't like to leave the keyboard and messing around with the mouse (sounds dirty, I know, let it go) !

Solution

I'm glad to introduce to you - SlickRun !!

This devil has a "magic keywords" mechanism which is absolutely brilliant !

In short, every magic keyword is a shortcut - to a site, to a document, to a program, ANYTHING !

Here are some shortcuts which I'm using for my every day work:

ggl [your search sentence here] - search in google.

iis - open Internet Information Services.

vss - well, need I say more ?

cs\vsnet - open vs.net

events - open the event viewer.

codesmith - open CodeSmith studio.

n2 - open notepad2.

msdn - open my latest version of MSDN.

regulator - open Roy Osherove's Regulator.

ie - open internet explorer window.

mssql - open SqlServer 2000 Enterprise Manager.

reflactor - open Lut's Reflector tool which I love (a MUST tool when working with CodeSmith 2.6)

lnbogen - opens my site ! COOL !

[myprojectname] - open the directory of my project (it's much faster than writing Run->c:\path-to-my-project\ & Enter).

[company documentation] - the main directory which keeps your company[->application->] customer requests, application structure, code guidelines and every other thing you think is "every day" search program\directory\document etc.

[projecttodo] - my personal TODO.xls file (for every project).

Here is my taskbar (some of it anyway):

All you have to do is to create a magic keyword and with a single Ctrl+Q and your magic keyword - your shortcut is running.

The greatest thing is that my hands don't leave the keyboard, which I find a lot faster

than moving the mouse, clicking on the keyboard, moving the mouse again, clicking the keyboard etc.

I can hear you till here - "this is a nice feature but certainly not a big time saver".

Let me refresh your memory; Try to count the number of times a day your hands leave the

keyboard and wasting time searching this or that application\document and multiply this number by 15.

You'll get a good evaluation of the number of seconds you're wasting

every day for SEARCHING instead of DOING,

on trying to REMEMBER paths instead of being FOCUSED on the "real" work.

Even more - you can export\import your shortcuts, and share these definitions between

your home\work computers or even

between your teammates (assuming the installation paths are the same, of course).

This will keep your "easygoing" work environment in each computer you'll use.

I'm hooked, tell me if you are also (share your every day magic keywords with us!).

Self Debug

Posted by Oren Ellenbogen
16/07/2005 09:25, Israel time UTC+03:00, Comments [0] |

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Add Virtual Directory programmatically, for easy "new-box" deployment.

Congratulations, you've installed dasBlog!

Improving your Vocabulary

DOs and DONTs - Adding a Solution to VSS

Freeze ! Put your hands on the keyboard !