DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by traskjd

F# 3.0 type providers - as if by magic.

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 02:10:47 GMT

This post dives into one of the very cool new features that has emerged in the first drop of F# 3.0 that shipped with Visual Studio 2011 preview 1. Type providers in F# eliminate tedious boilerplate code by enabling users to create whole classes in a single line of code.

Polyglot programming - combining functional, dynamic and imperative la

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 01:54:28 GMT

A blog post from Mindscape about the development experience of creating the Web Workbench product for Sass, Less and CoffeeScript in Visual Studio 2010. Like most .NET projects, it contains a fair chunk of C#. But quite a bit of the core is written in F#, and it also invokes a large amount of external Ruby and JavaScript code. While using all these languages definitely made it far easier to develop the product, it did also throw up a few challenges and surprises. This post looks at those challenges and surprises.

Sass, Less and CoffeeScript for Visual Studio 2010

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 08:39:32 GMT

Mindscape have released a 100% free Visual Studio extension that adds support for Sass, Less and CoffeeScript. Making this extension even more powerful is that it includes syntax highlighting, output generation, intellisense, go to definition and much more! Be up and running in with these technologies in Visual Studio in no time!

LightSpeed 4.0 .NET ORM released

Thu, 30 Jun 2011 09:48:33 GMT

The LightSpeed 4.0 ORM has been released and features distributed application support so you can work transparently with entities across a network, and Web enhancements that simplify development and encapsulate best practices in ASP.NET Web Forms and MVC. A huge new user guide and entirely new samples, packed with guidance not just on how to use LightSpeed but also on the best way to work with it in different environments. There is also a new metadata API, auditing capabilities and much much more.

Creating custom node styles for WPF Diagrams

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 03:40:55 GMT

This article discusses how developer can use the Mindscape WPF Diagrams product to create an custom diagram with custom node types. Customizing node types can mean creating normal diagram nodes, but it could be that developers want to build any type of composed surface - a Visual Studio style window designer, visual DSL tools, and anything else you can imagine. This article gets users started on the road to customization.

Mindscape releases WPF Diagrams 2.0

Thu, 05 May 2011 21:26:18 GMT

Mindscape WPF Diagrams 2.0 has been released and adds to the existing product by adding 80+ new shapes out of the box, absolute positioned diagrams, improved toolbox and much more. But it's not all about features - it's about providing a way for developers to easily create 'WOW' experiences for their end users and WPF Diagrams does just that.

Dynamic repositories with LightSpeed - taking dynamic up a level

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 23:01:32 GMT

Ready to think outside the box with the C# dynamic keyword? This post looks at taking the c# dynamic keyword and seeing how much boiler plate code we can get rid of. You'll learn how to take the Repository pattern where developers write a lot of GetFooByName, GetBarByEmailAddress type methods and how to get rid of them - gone, history, finished! Then there's Named Parameters - this post starts looking at how to use them for querying. By the end of this post you'll have a whole new way of looking at things with dyanmic and named parameters!

Crazy delicious: defining LightSpeed entities at runtime

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 23:40:34 GMT

This post looks at creating entities definitions at runtime in your applications: "Ever since JD unleashed LightSpeed.MetaData on an unsuspecting world, we've been inundated by people asking about the possibility of declaring entities at run-time, for example to reflect a database schema that can be modified or extended by users, or to allow common batch actions to be applied to different databases without having to build explicit models for every database."

Mindscape giving away $300k of WP7 control licenses

Sun, 13 Mar 2011 22:11:16 GMT

To celebrate the launch of their WP7 control suite Mindscape are giving away $300k worth of licenses to developers for free. Included in the suite is 20 controls to make WP7 development easier: A high performance and diverse charting library, looping list boxes, color selectors, date & time pickers, gauge and a gesture library are all included. Be quick!

Mindscape releases WP7 control suite

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 20:56:19 GMT

Mindscape have released an extensive control suite for Windows Phone 7 developers. Included is a high performance charting suite of 14 chart types along with standard controls such as time pickers, date pickers, color pickers and much more. This post announces the release and provides a giveaway to get a free license.

Intro to F#: First-class functions in F#, part 0

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 00:40:22 GMT

Have you started looking at F# yet now that it ships with Visual Studio 2010? This post takes a look at the fundamental differences between functions in F# and how delegates work in C#/VB. By the end of this post you'll see why functions are first class in F# and are not in C#/VB and be on your way to better understanding F#.

Mindscape releases Free WPF Controls

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 20:26:58 GMT

Mindscape have released a set of WPF controls that are completely free for developers to work with: WPF Coverflow control for beautiful data presentation. WPF Autocomplete Textbox for slick user interaction and the WPF Prompt Decorator to really make user interaction crystal clear. These controls can be distributed royalty free and fully supported by Mindscape.

WPF Elements 4 released by Mindscape

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 03:25:42 GMT

WPF Elements 4 has been released - 35+ WPF controls including a range of great new charting components. Get everything in one collection: Charting, line of business controls, themes - everything to make your WPF applications great. Support for many different chart types is now included along with a strong focus on performance - charts with millions of data points can be handled without breaking a sweat.

Mindscape releases Free Silverlight controls

Wed, 02 Feb 2011 06:22:12 GMT

Mindscape has released three Silverlight controls free of charge for developers to work with! The Book control which allows for beautifully animated page turning, virtualized pages, pagination and custom content. Their Coveflow control for representing visual data in an elegant manner for end users and their Expander control for making it easier to free up valuable UI space by collapsing elements away. This post digs into the controls more and gives a link to download them now.

5 features you didn't know existed in the LightSpeed ORM Designer

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 03:05:30 GMT

The LightSpeed Designer is the most powerful domain modelling surface for Visual Studio but that sometimes means users don't uncover some of the goodies baked into it. This post takes a look at 5 often overlooked features of the designer that can make .NET development easier and more enjoyable.

Efficient entity data loading with named aggregates

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 04:09:33 GMT

Controlling when and how much data is loaded is something developers have to keep in mind when building any modern data driven application. This blog post looks at an advanced feature in LightSpeed that helps hand the power back to developers: named aggregates. Dive deep into how you can make your applications blazingly fast!

Mindscape releases LightSpeed 4 beta

Wed, 12 Jan 2011 02:49:32 GMT

Mindscape has release LightSpeed 4 beta for customers to start testing with. The big improvements in LightSpeed 4 focus on improving distributed solutions and allowing LightSpeed to make working with large scale distributed solutions easier. Along with the core distributed entities improvements, support for RIA Services, DTO improvements and many other new features will be making their way out to customers as part of the nightly builds for LightSpeed 4 Beta over the coming weeks.

The in's and outs of the code contract static checker

Wed, 05 Jan 2011 02:19:33 GMT

This post will cover the options available when enabling static checking of your project, and a very basic overview of how static checking is achieved. Code contracts give us the ability to contractually define invariant conditions which must be meet during the lifetime of messaging between two pieces of code. What this means is when Object A calls a method on Object B, A agrees to ad hear to any contract requirements defined by B. To get compiler assistance for breaches of defined contracts, static checking must be enabled. First ensure that you have installed the code contract tools as per Part 1 of this series.

Migrating a standard ASP.NET Website to N2CMS on EC2

Thu, 16 Dec 2010 03:56:31 GMT

This post reviews a recent site migration that Mindscape undertook - moving from a standard ASP.NET solution to the great N2CMS open source CMS using ASP.NET MVC. It looks at the challenges and solutions that were found as part of the migration to make it smooth and improve site performance for website visitors.

Creating attractive bar charts in Silverlight

Sun, 14 Nov 2010 21:22:33 GMT

This post looks at how to create attractive bar charts in Silverlight - both style and code wise. It also examines some of the features of Silverlight Elements and how they can be used to further enhance the style of your bar charts.

Mindscape's free developer book promotion is now on

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 03:05:33 GMT

Mindscape are offering free books with purchases until the 23rd of November - primarily UX and Silverlight books to celebrate the release of their Silverlight Elements 2.0 control suite.

Silverlight charts from Mindscape: A look at the performance

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 03:14:33 GMT

With the new charting capabilities with Mindscape Silverlight Elements, line charts and area charts could easily handle more than a million data points. For those who are interested, this blog post dives deeper into the implementation details that allow for this level of performance. Overall it is very simple and works by only needing to manage a few hundred data points at a time. Click through to read more.

Charts, books and free controls - Mindscape Silverlight Elements 2.0

Tue, 09 Nov 2010 04:20:34 GMT

Mindscape have upgraded Silverlight Elements with a stunning charting library for line of business applications. A unique feature of the charting library is its special support for huge data sets. The suite contains over 30 controls including three new controls that have been released free. Plus, for a limited time, all new customers get a free copy of "Silverlight 4.0 Unleashed"!

Creating sexy pie and doughnut charts with Silverlight

Wed, 03 Nov 2010 21:54:21 GMT

This post looks at how developers can create some stunningly attractive pie and doughnut charts for Silverlight. It digs in deep to show what code and mark-up is required to express data in a rich and interactive manner for end users. These are just some of the charting options coming in Mindscape Silverlight Elements.

Thoughts on Silverlight: From a Silverlight controls vendor

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 11:58:14 GMT

As many of you will be aware, Microsoft's PDC event this year occurred last week and with it came a comment from Bob Muglia that "our strategy has shifted" in relation to Silverlight. This post shares some views from Mindscape - a company that develops a suite of Silverlight controls as well as other products for .NET developers.