November 2002

.NET GUI Bliss: Streamline Your Code and Simplify Localization Using an XML-Based GUI Language Parser

While Windows Forms in .NET has lots of cool features, if you're used to MFC, there are a couple of things you'll find missing, like doc/view, command routing, and UI update. The .NET answer to this is a code generator that writes new code for every single element. But there's a better way. In this article, Paul DiLascia shows how to develop an XML-based GUI language parser for .NET that lets you code resources, menus, toolbars, and status bars in XML instead of with procedural code. He also shows how a user interface based on XML can easily be localized using standard .NET techniques, and introduces his very own library, MotLib.NET, with lots of GUI goodies for your programming pleasure. Paul DiLascia

Wireless Web: Microsoft Mobile Internet Toolkit Lets Your Web Application Target Any Device Anywhere

If you've built Web sites using ASP.NET, you'll welcome the Microsoft Mobile Internet Toolkit (MMIT). MMIT extends the Visual Studio .NET IDE you already know by providing new controls for handheld devices letting you easily develop applications for wireless devices. This means you can write less code while adapting it to more devices. Not only does MMIT integrate with Visual Studio .NET, it extends ASP.NET as well. This article gives you the background you need to write, test, and deploy a site with MMIT and make all your code able to target specific devices for a custom fit. Paul Yao and David Durant

SQL Server: Build Apps that Provide Real-Time Information and Customized Content Using SQL Server Notification Services

The adoption of wireless devices continues to spread unabated, and organizations are looking for new ways to get in touch with customers through these new mobile devices. In the past, unsuccessful ideas such as push technology were used to send targeted information to customers. Now, SQL Server Notification Services uses the SQL Server 2000 database engine and the .NET Framework to promote a new breed of notification applications that will allow relevant, consensual communications to be sent to any subscriber device.Here the author provides an architectural overview of the core features that make up SQL Server Notification Services. Along the way he discusses how they can be used for pushing Web content. Mark Brown

CLR Debugging: Improve Your Understanding of .NET Internals by Building a Debugger for Managed Code

With the release of .NET, the Microsoft scripting strategy has evolved. Script engines can now compile or interpret code for the Microsoft common language runtime (CLR) instead of integrating debugging capabilities directly into apps through Active Scripting. With that change comes a new set of published services for including debugging functionality in a custom host application. You'll see how to use the debugging services published in the .NET Framework to create a full-featured CLR debugger that allows you to set breakpoints, view call stacks, browse variables, view processes, enumerate threads, and perform other important debugging tasks. Mike Pellegrino

.NET Exceptions: Make the Transition from Traditional Visual Basic Error Handling to the Object-Oriented Model in .NET

If you're used to Visual Basic 6.0 and you're making the transition to Microsoft .NET, you will find that error handling is quite different from what you've used for years. Visual Basic .NET uses a more object-oriented solution to signaling and responding to unexpected problems while your program is running. This approach, called structured exception handling, has a number of advantages over the On Error statements provided in previous versions of Visual Basic. For instance, exceptions give you lots more information about exactly what went wrong in your app. To help you take advantage of this modern error handling paradigm, this article will show you how to raise and respond to exceptions, as well as how to create your own custom exception classes. Jesse Liberty

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