Ok, so I'm using Visual Studio 2012, with web essentials 2012, and I just created a new ASP.NET Empty Web Application. I added a LESS file to my styles folder and referenced it accordingly. Now, as it seems, this new ASP.NET Empty Web Application doesn't support LESS compilation right out of the box.
What I wanted to know is if that assumption is correct, and, if so, which is the best option to bring in support for LESS compilation on the server? Less.js? dotLess.js?
I'm still kinda confused when it comes to LESS compilation on the server, because I don't want to compile it on the client, like just adding the less.js script to the HTML file.
Mindscape have a vs plugin which allows support of less files. It's called web workbench
http://www.mindscapehq.com/products/web-workbench
They offer a free version. I've used it in a few projects to good effect.
Related
I have a couple of Projects created in visual basic 6 with oracle databases. I want to upgrade these proejects to visual studio 2012 and use TFS version control. I have read that first I need to upgrade to Visual studio 2008 and then to Visual studio 2012.
Before going ahead with the upgrade ( I need to install Visual studio 2008 as well) I want to make sure this is a realistic approach. So
1. Does converting a vb6 project to VS 2012 ok or I will have to make a lot of changes to make things work?
2. After upgradation would I be able to use TFS for the projects?
TL;DR - yes, you'll need to make lots of changes regardless of how you choose to migrate. TFS question seems irrelevant to me. If you're setup to use TFS for projects, you can use it for these after upgrade as well.
The only reason to consider a 2-step upgrade that includes VS 2008 is that was the last version that included the migration tool built-in (ie, free). As others alluded to, those tools don't make pretty code but a mashup of VB6 and .Net. After trying a few times, I now personally find it simpler and more robust to recreate a new .Net version from scratch, but using the VB6 code as a template. I copy and paste as practical and then do Find/Replace to catch the majority of errors/warnings and then deal with all the others individually. If I have to convert another project, I may use 2008 once just to see what kind of issues the original code had or if there are any unusual situations/controls I'll need to deal with, but I would still start a new 2013 project from scratch. That gives me a better opportunity to improve it as well. You'd be replacing all the connecting code to Oracle anyway. I'd been using OO4O and moved to ODP.NET. If you used 2008, you would have to move to at least 2010 to use the latter in managed mode, which is great not having to load Oracle Client on each machine.
I'd be wary of upgrading VB 6 to VB.net using the automated tools. I did it back in the day (around 2003) when .net was just starting out and my memory is that it wasn't a pleasant experience.
The code produced by the upgrade wizard is a nasty mix of old VB conventions trim, instr and .net conventions. We also had a bunch of weird bugs. Sorry it was a long time ago and I can't remember any details. Only that we did it once for a small number of components, around 6 or 7 activex dll's. That experience was bad enough that we decided it wasn't worth the pain.
We kept the VB 6 code in service until it was re-written as part of a larger push to modernise the codebase.
If you do decide to upgrade then the output is a standard visual studio project that can be source controlled in TFS just like any .net project.
If you reason for upgrading to just to use TFS then take a look at the MSSCCIProvider. This allows you at hook TFS in to the VB6 IDE
I am doing something very similar and did develop a tool to assist with the designer portion of the conversion. It parsers the VB6 file and creates designer code for .NET.
The source is here.
https://github.com/rdejournett/VBtoNET
The only thing I was not able to solve is that controls within tab pages have really wierd X locations like -60000. So I parse those to 0. You'll have to move them to the right place.
I had created (modified an existing project) a server side plugin that has been working (on TFS 2012) for quite awhile. When I upgraded the server to 2013, I copied the .dlls over to the same folder within the 2013 directory structure (Application Tier\Web Services\bin\Plugins), but it no longer works.
I installed remote debugging, attached my debugger to the w3wp.exe process (like here: Problem with Custom TFS Web Service Plugin), and performed check-ins. I'm pretty sure everything was in place because the first time I tried Visual Studio reported that symbols weren't loaded, but after copying up the .pdbs it looked
good. The ProcessEvent method never hit.
I can't find any new documentation on this stuff, guess this is just desperation, does anyone know what to do to make my plugin load?
You need to recompile the plugin against the 2013 assemblies (there are tricks using binding redirects, but if you have the sources, please just recompile). And you need to set the .NET framework version to .NET 4.5 in order for the solution to compile (the TFS 2013 binaries target that framework version, so your plugin must target either 4.5 or higher in order to reference these assemblies).
I'm new to VS, coming from the Mac where I used the excellent CodeKit for LESS compiling. I've installed the Web Essentials add-on, so I have basic LESS support and compiling.
The major shortcoming with this plugin is when saving files that are imported into a main.less file, the main.less file does not compile unless I open it specifically and save it.
I'd prefer a solution like CodeKit, which would compile the parent file if any of the children are modified. Are there any other plugins, even commercial ones, which do this?
There's an option in Web Essentials to "compile all LESS files", which would almost do what I want, but it throws an error:
In WebEssentials there is an option (tools>Options>WebEssentials>Less) to Compile all files on Build, which you'll probably do before publishing anyway. You might want to add your votes to the UserVoice ticket for this issue.
BundleTransformer allows you to have ASP.NET do the transformations on the fly (at runtime), having it compile, minify and compress all in one go. You won't have to recompile your files inside Visual Studio itself. You can keep using WebEssentials for intellisense.
And then there is the Mindscape Web Workbench which provides similar functionality as Webessentials. Their Pro edition ($) can also compile files on save & build.
I personally prefer http://wearekiss.com/simpless You can use it even in Express edition since it's not integrated inside VS.
Just open the Simpless drag and drop the file and it will compile your file automatically when they has been modified from your VS (or any of editor).
Web Essential is also have suggest in someone answer.
Today I stumbled over the Application Builder for CE 2013 in Microsoft's download center. As of the description, with this pack I should be able to develop apps that target Windows Embedded Compact 2013 with Visual Studio 2012.
After downloading and installing the Application Builder I found the new framework assemblies in C:\Program Files (x86)\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\WindowsEmbeddedCompact\v3.9, but there are no project templates targeting Embedded Compact 2013 in Visual Studio 2012.
I tried to create a blank WinForms or WPF project and to retarget it to 3.9, but that doesn't seem to be possible as well. There are no online templates that could be installed.
How do I create a CF 3.9 application using Visual Studio 2012?
All I can do here is sigh. Here's the state of things as of this writing (Mid May, 2013) and it could change in the coming weeks and/or months.
The Application Builder does not ship with device templates. Templates, instead, are shipped with the device SDK. Yes, this is different than in the past. It means that to do any device development, you'll need an SDK.
Windows Embedded Compact 2013 is currently not publicly available, so no one can currently ship an SDK. The net effect of this is that, for now, for the general public, the Application Builder install is completely useless.
Once WEC 2013 is public, I don't believe Microsoft will be shipping any "generic" SDKs. I very likely will. Once we have SDKs in the wild, you'll have templates and be able to build projects.
I also downloaded the Application Builder, and found it quite useless, hey where are the compact project templates! (thanks for the confirmation ctacke) after reading this today and discovering the .net assembly folder posted by Gene, I figured I at least try to use the object browser - and found you can browse the objects by using the Windows Embedded Compact 3.9 filter - figure others might want to at least look at what's new like I am attempting to do..
It is possible to create new SDKs from OS Design projects.
Create one from CEPC.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj584864(v=winembedded.70).aspx
Microsoft recently released Web Tools 2012.2. The release notes state that it supports
LESS editing and compiler support to enable building dynamic CSS using LESS.
but when I save a LESS file, it doesn't output a corresponding CSS file like it used to with Web Essentials. How do I get it to do that?
The problem is that the LESS Processor isn't supported in the free versions of Visual Studio. But there is a good LESS processor for free in Web Matrix (also free). Not a great solution, but it works.