Jan Tielens' Bloggings

One of the complaints that I've received about using the Hippo.NET Build tool, is the fact that you manually have to write your own NAnt build file. So one of the features I want to implement in the next release of Hippo.NET, is either generating buildfiles on the fly, or providing  a tool to easily generate buildfiles based on the Visual Studio project file. That's why I've created the Hippo.NET BuildFile Builder (what's in a name ;-). On this site, you can generate NAnt buildfiles, based on a Visual Studio project file. You simply browse to your project file on your local harddisk and press the Generate button and a the contents of a NAnt buildfile are generated.

A few weeks ago, I posted a macro to improve the Intellisense of Visual Studio. This macro automates the lookup of namespaces (AddDirective methode). For example when you type "Dim r As XmlReader", you probably need to add the "Imports System.Xml" (or "using System.Xml;" in C#) statement to your code. This macro helps you by searching for the corresponding namespace and add it to your code automatically. Additional there is a macro function (AddNamespace method) that replaces "xmlreader" with "System.Xml.XmlReader", so it just adds the namespace in front of your type.

Thanks to a tip of Yves Hanoulle, there is now one single function that adds the using/Imports directive for both VB.NET and C#.

The macro works great if you assign a shortcut key to it, you can do that like this:

• Enter or copy-and-paste the macro code in the Macro Editor of Visual Studio.
• Choose in the Tools menu the Customize menu item.
• Press the Keyboard button (below right).
• In the list of the commands, find Macros.MyMacros.TypeFinder.AddDirective, and select it.
• In the textbox "Press shortcut key(s)", press the key combination you want to use. (I use Ctrl+`)
• Change the "Use new shortcut in:" value to "Text Editor"
• Press the Assign button.

Imports EnvDTE

Imports System.Diagnostics

Imports System



Public Module TypeFinder

    Private Function SearchTypeInAssembly(ByVal typename As String _

            , ByVal ass As Reflection.Assembly)

        DTE.StatusBar.Text = "Searching for '" & typename & "' " & _

            ass.GetName.Name & "..."

        Dim t As Type

        For Each t In ass.GetTypes

            If t.Name.ToLower = typename Then

                Return t

            End If

        Next

    End Function

    Private Function SearchType(ByVal typename As String) As Type

        typename = typename.ToLower

        Dim projs As System.Array = DTE.ActiveSolutionProjects

        Dim ass As Reflection.Assembly = _

            Reflection.Assembly.LoadWithPartialName("mscorlib")

        Dim t As Type = SearchTypeInAssembly(typename, ass)

        If Not t Is Nothing Then Return t

        Dim proj As Project

        For Each proj In projs

            Dim o As VSLangProj.VSProject = proj.Object

            Dim ref As VSLangProj.Reference

            For Each ref In o.References

                ass = Reflection.Assembly.LoadFile(ref.Path)

                t = SearchTypeInAssembly(typename, ass)

                If Not t Is Nothing Then Return t

            Next

        Next

        DTE.StatusBar.Text = "Could not find type '" & typename & _

            "' in the referenced libraries. Make sure your cursor " & _

            "is right behind the text (without selection)!"

        DTE.StatusBar.Highlight(True)

        Return Nothing

    End Function

    Public Sub AddNamespace()

        Dim text As TextSelection = DTE.ActiveDocument.Selection

        text.WordLeft(True)

        Dim t As Type = SearchType(text.Text)

        If Not t Is Nothing Then

            text.Text = t.FullName

            text.EndOfLine()

            DTE.StatusBar.Text = "Ready"

        End If

    End Sub

    Public Sub AddDirective()

        Dim text As TextSelection = DTE.ActiveDocument.Selection

        text.WordLeft(True)

        Dim t As Type = SearchType(text.Text)

        If Not t Is Nothing Then

            Dim keyword, suffix As String

            Dim line As Integer = text.AnchorPoint.Line

            text.Text = t.Name

            text.StartOfDocument()

            Select Case DTE.ActiveDocument.Language

                Case "CSharp"

                    keyword = "using"

                    suffix = ";"

                Case "Basic"

                    keyword = "Imports"

                    suffix = String.Empty

                Case Else

                    Throw New System.Exception("Invalid Language: " & _

                        DTE.ActiveDocument.Language)

            End Select

            text.Insert(keyword & " " & t.Namespace & suffix & vbCrLf)

            text.MoveToLineAndOffset(line + 1, 1)

            text.EndOfLine()

            DTE.StatusBar.Text = "'" & keyword & " " & t.Namespace & _

                suffix & "' added to the document."

            DTE.StatusBar.Highlight(True)

        End If

    End Sub

End Module

Recently I added a counter to the Hippo.NET home page. I nifty feature of that counter is that it can track referrers. I discovered 2 articles about Hippo.NET:

A few days ago I asked for some feedback about the Hippo.NET build tool. For now, there are a couple of intresting feature requests and remarks:

Seems MS is a little bit slow with updating the sites mentioned in their press release, but you can download it from this link.

According to this press release, Microsoft will release MSN Messenger 6 preview at 11 am PDT here.

Today I discovered that Patrick Verbruggen has a weblog. Patrick is one of the founding members of the Belgian .NET Usergroup (BENUG) and lives in Belgium. He has even made a list on the BENUG site of Belgian bloggers. So if there are any other Belgian .NET bloggers: please stand up!

The Hippo.NET build tool is available quite some time. I've got some feedback (not very much) and there are some problem reports, mostly due to the rather limited installation manual.