Is it feasible to display the object values or collection of object values in tabular format similar to DataTable in visual studio debug visualizer? By writing a custom visualizer?
I feel this will give a quick glance of all values at once instead of expanding each item to see its values.
Is this technically achievable or are there any constraints that stops objects to be displayed in tabular view?
How I would like to see the above "Results View" is
I can understand it can be challenging if object/collection is too big but atleast this helps in majority of cases.
This feature is built into OzCode, a commercial extension to Visual Studio I co-created.
Here is the basic premise
And here is an instructional video
I found something that does this kind of job
https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/1181451/Visual-Studio-Collection-Visualizers?msg=5383746
http://rapiddevbookcode.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=EnumerableDebugVisualizer (Looks good but buggy with other tabbed features)
Related
I am running Visual Studio Community 2019 version 16.11.3, and I am having a problem with the data source controls (both SqlDataSource and ObjectDataSource).
Neither control shows up in the Data tab of the toolbox, yet when I use the "Choose Items..." option they are both checked. I have gone so far as to uncheck them, save the changes and then came back in and re-checked them, but that didn't work either. Even if I use the "Show All" option they don't show. Can anyone shed some light on this?
I have tried the suggestions from other posts, including resetting the toolbox, adding a custom tab, and then resetting again, but nothing seems to work. I even switched to an older version of the framework (4.6) to see if this might be the issue, but nothing works.
Any suggestions?
According to Jim's comment, I compiled the answer.Just for helpling others to solve a similar issue.
SqlDataSource and ObjectDataSource are used in ASP.Net, not Windows Forms.
Generate a source of data using whatever means necessary, whenever needed.
Use Visual Studio's Tools to handle a Project data source, through the Designer. -- Note that this object doesn't have any connection to a View, it doesn't need to handle states.
To have a functionality similar to what you're probably used to, you also need a DataAdapter (working with DataTables) or a similar connector provided by an ORM. -- A BindingSource only handles notifications that are generated by the objects it's bound to and doesn't offer any data update feature.
When I think of reports I think of banded reporting. Tools like Microsoft Access, Crystal Reports, SSRS and even VisualFox use this. Dynamic behavior must be anticipated in advance and is controlled through conditional fields, subreports and parameters. These reports are perfect for financial reports or lists of things where anytime you run this (typically between some date range) the look and feel is predetermined and expected by the user.
However our company requires a solution where any user should be able to change any aspects of the report. Fields, formatting and layout are all changed anytime a report is run. It's not a traditional "report" if you will since it's not a somewhat static output.
Resorting to banded reporting in this case would banish some developers to the world of crystal reports since we generate 2-6 reports on any given day. I can't imagine a typical user being happy with having to learn how to use crystal report designer either.
What are some alternative reporting solutions that allow you to build reports without being at the whim of learning an entire reporting suite such as Crystal Reports? I've added an answer of my own to show a great alternative that we're currently using and hope to get some good input for future use. The point of this post however is to collect some alternative solutions to the one proposed.
DevExpress Snap
With some digging we discovered DevExpress Snap which allows you to build reports using a Word Processor much like Microsoft Word by dragging fields from a fields toolbox right into the document! It feels exactly like Microsoft Word with data field drag and drop capabilities. Fantastic!
We've already created a Template structure so users can save their predetermined layouts as "general" templates to start work off of but nearly every report generated contains different fields and formatting. Sometimes even images are dropped into the document to illustrate a point.
Now I don't have to be banished to the land of SSRS! This is an amazing solution though I still generate certain reports (P&L for example) through SSRS since it should be a pre-set reporting style, with it's fields and design locked away from the user.
The other solution I found that looks pretty powerful and easy to use is Windward Autotag. It's an actual plug-in for Word that just adds an extra tab at the top of the ribbon for all your report options. So you can literally design all your reports right in Word. You put your data wherever you want by going to the Autotag tab added to the ribbon and clicking a button to insert your data where you want it. I haven't tried it yet, but the website and demo video look pretty impressive.
I created a form in WPF and it looked great. When I opened it in Visual Studio 2010, it look alot different than what I created.
Any ideas why this would happen? Should I ignore how it shows up in VS? This makes me wonder if either is how the user will actually see it.
Any suggestions?
Thanks again!
Eroc
The Visual Studio view of your WPF form is the designer view. Designer views of WPF forms, or really any other design of a UI component, will often differ in dislpay vs. the actual running component. Some of these differences are intentional to make design easier and some are just limitations of not having the WPF element actually running in a program (lack of certain runtime data bindings for example).
I wouldn't worry about it unless it starts looking incorrect when running.
I'm using winforms. I spend a lot of time drawing forms (maybe not a lot, but it is a boring task).
To sum up... I want to develop a simple aplication that connect to a sql server database, let the user to select a table, and put the controls in a form for me (generate the designer code), based on the tipe of each column. Then my app will name each control like the column of the table, set the maxlengh property (if the type is varchar), and create a label with the same text near the control. If the column is a FK, then the app will draw a combobox and so on. I saw that Telerik Open ORM make something like this, but I only need a simple app for the IU Generation.
If the same day I finish my little application I discover a tool that make the same... I will feel myself stupid :D
Are there any tool out there that do this work for me?
You can just drag DB columns from the Server Panel and drop them on the Form. This will generate TextField, CheckBoxes and other UI elements for you.
You can also drag the entire table and drop it on the form. Same thing will happen: all fields will get generated.
This is using plan Visual Studio 2008 IDE.
Take a look at DevExpress - they have a number of ways to do exactly this. (We're a happy user of their product.)
Take a look at Microsoft lightswitch. I had posted a similar question as yours and stumbled upon it by accident. Devexpress also has an orm like Teleriks http://www.devexpress.com/Products/Index/Frameworks.xml. I am using Lightswitch for form gen. good luck
We are trying out Visual Studio 2008 and Expression Blend on a new project. The goal is to clearly define the role of the developer and designer as separate, but reap the benefit of the developer being able to directly consume the XAML produced by the designer.
For the most part this has worked great, and I really like the possibilities. One difficulty we have come across though is designing against DataBindings. In many cases, the GUI does not populate rows, or other data structures unless the application is run, and a database call is made. Consequently the designer does not have access to the visual layout of the GUI.
What I would like to do, is somehow create some simple stubbed or mocked data that the designer can use to work on the design. The big goal is to have that stubbed data show up in Expression Blend, but then be applied to the real collection at runtime.
Has anyone found a solid method of doing this?
I would suggest reading this blog. The final method seems to work well, your test data shows up in Blend very nicely. Just keep in mind that you have to compile the DLL before it will display the data.
I would look into creating XML data islands which emulate the structure of the objects you will eventually bind the UI to. This way your designer can bind the root element of the page (or user control, etc.) to the top level of your fake XML data island and all the relative paths will stay the same when you swap that data island out for the real DataContext binding.
there will be some degree of refactoring to attach to the real object when you are ready, but that is why your developers should at least know enough XAML to know how to modify the bindings properly.
it looks like the commenter above me has a link to an example of this.