April 2005
Wrappers: Use Our ManWrap Library to Get the Best of .NET in Native C++ Code
By now you're probably used to reaching into the .NET Framework using Managed Extensions with your C++ code. But what do you do if you have legacy apps that use older versions of the compiler, or if you want to avoid some of the CLR requirements? Well, you can wrap Framework classes in a native way so you can use them in any C++/MFC app without /clr. Paul DiLascia shows you how. Paul DiLascia
Security: Unify Windows Forms and ASP.NET Providers for Credentials Management
The .NET Framework 2.0 provides custom credentials management to ASP.NET apps out of the box. Using it, you can easily authenticate users without using Windows accounts. In this article the author presents a set of helper classes that let a Windows Forms application use the ASP.NET credentials management infrastructure as easily as if it were an ASP.NET application. Juval Lowy
Speed: NGen Revs Up Your Performance with Powerful New Features
In the .NET Framework 2.0, NGen has been greatly improved and offers a number of compelling new features to make it easier and faster to deploy high-performance managed applications. This article introduces some of these new features and explains how and when you should use NGen to improve the performance of your apps. Reid Wilkes
Escape DLL Hell: Simplify App Deployment with ClickOnce and Registration-Free COM
DLL Hell that results from versioning conflicts is generally not a problem in .NET because components do not require registration, and are either totally isolated to an application or are managed in a well-defined side-by-side way with the help of the Global Assembly Cache. But if you're still using COM, wouldn't it be great if you could deploy your existing COM components using a model similar to the .NET Framework? In Windows XP, you can, and this article explains how. Dave Templin
Flex Your Data: Teach Old Data New Tricks with the Fully Loaded Advances in ADO.NET 2.0
ADO.NET 2.0 will streamline your data access development efforts. Its new features let you work better with XML and SQL Server, and they offer lots of other improvements as well. This article takes a detailed look at some of the more interesting enhancements and focuses on performance and flexibility. Julia Lerman
Team Up!: Get All Your Devs in a Row with Visual Studio 2005 Team System
Visual Studio 2005 Team System includes tools to help project managers, architects, developers, testers, and even development managers. In this article, the author provides an overview of Team System using the Visual Studio 2005 December Community Technology Preview, shows you how to set up a development project, and explores the typical development process, from inception through testing. Chris Menegay
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Columns
| Editor's Note: 20 Years and Still Going Strong!
Microsoft Systems Journal (MSJ) was founded in 1986. At the time, no other publication focused specifically on the needs of programmers who were using Microsoft tools and technologies. Two issues were produced in the first year, each with five articles.
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New Stuff: Resources for Your Developer Toolbox
DbNetGrid. Net 2. 71 by DbNetLink Limited, is a Web-based grid component that works with DHTML behaviors that support both ASP and ASP. NET. The integrated DbNetGrid GUI designer application lets you create your grids without writing any code. Marnie Hutcheson
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Web Q&A: Get Authentication Type, Get Screen Resolution, and More
Edited by Nancy Michell
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| Advanced Basics: Remembering User Information in Visual Basic .NET
Many applications need to store user-specific settings to be persisted between sessions. But how do you go about saving and restoring these settings in your Microsoft® . NET Framework-based application? It's not all that easy to find the correct answer. Duncan Mackenzie
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Cutting Edge: A New Grid Control in Windows Forms
Grid controls are essential in many of today's apps. Until now, though, most developers using Visual Basic® have had to buy third-party components to get an effective, easy to use grid component. The Windows® Forms DataGrid turned out to lack too many features for the average developer. Dino Esposito
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Test Run: Lightweight UI Test Automation for ASP.NET Web Apps
The release of ASP. NET revolutionized Web development and made it easy to create full-featured Web applications. Visual Studio® 2005 and ASP. NET 2. 0 will let you add even more functionality to your applications, but the more features a Web application has, the more important testing becomes. James McCaffrey
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| Service Station: Developing .NET Web Services with Beta 2
Version 2. 0 of the Microsoft® . NET Framework makes numerous improvements at various levels in the Web services protocol stack. In addition, better tool support and an increased focus on interoperability make your life easier. Aaron Skonnard
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.NET Matters: ICustomTypeDescriptor, Part 1
Stephen Toub
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Pure C++: Generic Programming Under .NET
Visual Studio® 2005 brings the type parameter model of generic programming to the Microsoft® . NET Framework. Parameterized types are, of course, standard fare for C++ programmers. So, for those who are unfamiliar with them, I'll give a brief introduction to generic programming in my next few columns. Stanley B. Lippman
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| C++ at Work: Form Validation with Regular Expressions in MFC
I thought I'd use this month's column to describe an interesting app I built using the RegexWrap library described in my article "Wrappers: Use Our ManWrap Library to Get the Best of . NET in Native C++ Code" in this issue. Paul DiLascia
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{End Bracket}: Creating a Custom Metrics Tool
Metrics play an important role in our lives. Even if we don't realize it or characterize it as such, many daily activities have the potential to be quantified to some degree. So it's not surprising that metrics play an even greater role in the workplace, where there are goals and a bottom line and where much of a day's activity can be summarized in numbers. Stephen Toub
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