BizTalk R2 class with Jon Flanders

by Matt Milner 2. July 2007 09:47
As many of you know, Jon Flanders recently joined us here at Pluralsight.  In just a couple of weeks Jon is going to be delivering our first public offering of the BizTalk R2 class.  If I weren't already committed, I'd be at this course as Jon has some great material on the new features in the upcoming R2 release including the integration with WCF / WF and all the cool RFID stuff.  Be sure to check it out if you are using or plan to use R2. 

Tags:

BizTalk Server | General Musings

Tech Ed Demos for WCF Adapter session and chalk talk

by Matt Milner 9. June 2007 03:21
For those of you who attended Tech Ed and wanted the demos from the breakout and chalk talk about the WCF adapter, you will find them below.  Thanks to all who attended, and enjoy. 
 
Breakout session (445 kb) (Connected Systems application) includes transaction flow example and basic adapter configuration. See the setup folder for db scripts and setup directions.
 
Chalk Talk (5.5 MB) -- includes three demos: BTS as WCF message router, WCF channel extensibilty in BTS (PO + line items = single transaction), and using BizTalk Services in the cloud (multi-cast vendor request).  Each demo should have an installer for the BTS portion and other files to update configuration etc. 
 
any questions, just add them in comments on this blog post, or contact me through this blog. 

Tags:

BizTalk Server | General Musings | Windows Communication Foundation

Our first Applied Windows Workflow Foundation training is coming to London!

by Matt Milner 31. May 2007 16:43
OK, Reading actually, but if you are in the London area and interested in workflow, then this is your chance to get a thorough understanding of not only the how of WF, but the why.  We will look deep under the covers of building WF programs, hosts and activities/components.  Check out the course information for more details and to register. 
 
July 30 - August 2
Microsoft Technology Center in Reading
 

Tags:

General Musings | Windows Workflow Foundation

Workflow Foundation Tracking Birds of a Feather (BOF) at Tech Ed 2007

by Matt Milner 31. May 2007 05:40
I'm excited to be hosting a BOF this year at Tech Ed on the tracking services in Windows Workflow Foundation.  If you are interested in talking about tracking in general, the use of the included SQL tracking and query APIs, or custom tracking services to solve real business problems, then be sure to attend.  I think it will be a lot of fun to see how people use this technology as it is the key piece to real visibility in your workflows.  Hope to see you there. 
 
Session details (check schedules at Tech Ed to verify time and room):
BOF24: Windows Workflow Tracking in Action
Thursday, June 7, 2007 at 4:30 PM
Room S331

Tags:

General Musings | Windows Workflow Foundation

Templates for Windows Workflow XAML activation projects

by Matt Milner 21. May 2007 09:43
One of my frustrations with Windows Workflow Foundation, is that there is no easy way in Visual Studio to create pure XAML workflows.  The tools really drive you toward compiling the XAML into a .NET assembly.  That, to me, defeats the purpose of using XAML.  So I created a bunch of project templates (console/library & state/sequence) that create pure XAML workflows using XAML activation.  This means the workflows are not compiled, the XAML is just copied into the build directory.  The console application project templates are setup in their program.cs to load these XAML files using an XMLReader and activate them that way. 
 
I also started working on XAML item templates so you could add individual items to a project. The problem I am having is I don't think there is a way in the project template directly to indicate that the file should be treated as content type of None and copied to the output.  I might have to write a custom wizard to get that part working.  If anyone has any easier means of accomplishing this, let me know. 
 
[Update]: I've updated the program.cs files in the templates to reflect some excellent feedback from my colleague Jon. The program now has template code to handle common exceptions when processing XAML files and also provides hooks to add types into a type provider.  In addition, I figured out that the wizard for the item templates was only a few lines of code.  To get the item templates working, you'll need to build the solution in the zip file and then either a) deploy the assembly to the GAC or to the VS\Common7\ide folder.  It needs to be in one of these two places for the VS template engine to trust it. 
 
Any feedback or questions, please post them in the comments.
 
Enjoy!

Tags:

Windows Workflow Foundation

Double-clicking to open Visual Studio solution files on Vista

by Matt Milner 21. May 2007 08:11
I got so tired of not being able to double-click my solution files in the Windows explorer that I finally figured out how to fix it.  First of all, I should mention that I'm running with UAC on in Vista and that I have VS configured to run as an admin.  So, I get prompted each time I start it, but that's OK, it’s a good reminder that I am running elevated and should test my code without the admin privileges. 
 
I was trying to figure out why, when my VS is set to run as admin, double-clicking would not work.  The thing that jumped out at me is that VS is not the default program for SLN files.  The Visual Studio Version Selector is the default program.  My first thought was to run that selector as admin all the time, but that didn't work.  So, I decided I don't need a version selector since I only have one version of VS on my machine right now, and mapped SLN files to DevEnv.exe.  Now, when I double click them, I get the UAC prompt and then it opens right up in Visual Studio. 
 
Hopefully this helps someone else with this little annoyance. 

Tags:

General Musings

My Tech Ed Presentations

by Matt Milner 14. May 2007 06:01
I'm excited to be presenting at the upcoming Tech Ed 2007 event in Orlando next month.  I'm doing two different sessions for the Connected Systems Division (SOA track); one on BizTalk R2 and one on Windows Workflow.  If you are heading to Tech Ed, I hope you'll join me if the topics interest you (which presumably they do or you wouldn't be reading this blog!). 
 
SOA317 - Building Connected Systems on the Microsoft .NET Framework Using the Windows Communication Foundation Adapter in BizTalk Server 2006 R2
Tuesday, 8:30 AM
Deep Dive Chalk talk to follow at 10:15 in the Blue Theater
 
SOA223 - Custom Activities with Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation: A Developer's Primer
Monday, 4:45 PM
 

Tags:

BizTalk Server | General Musings | Windows Workflow Foundation

Article on ActivityExecutionContext in Windows Workflow up on MSDN

by Matt Milner 14. May 2007 05:51
The June issue of MSDN magazine is up on MSDN website and for the Foundations column I wrote about the ActivityExecutionContext in WF.  In my opinion, this extremely important aspect of WF gets little attention, yet causes a lot of the developer frustration.  I hope you enjoy and that it is helpful.  Feedback is always welcome. 
 
 

Tags:

Windows Workflow Foundation

MSDN Magazine article on Windows Workflow tracking is live

by Matt Milner 16. February 2007 08:06
My first article in the Foundations column on Windows Workflow Foundation is now live on the MSDN Magazine site.  I find tracking to be one of the most powerful features of WF and easily the most frequently used extension model, outside of custom activities, to solve real business problems.  The article was fun to write and I'm having fun finishing up the next installment on the ActivityExecutionContext.  That one should be published in the June issue. 
 
Enjoy and as always, any feedback is welcome. 

Tags:

Windows Workflow Foundation

New public course RSS feed

by Matt Milner 16. February 2007 03:08
One of my students in the November Windows Workflow class suggested that we have an RSS feed for our public courses so people can easily stay up to date on where and when we are offering courses.  Now you can thanks to Aaron.  You can get to the blog or right to the RSS feed.  These entries will also show up in our Pluralsight aggregated feed, so if you are already subscribed to that, you will get the entries through that RSS feed also.  Other suggestions are always welcome and I look forward to seeing you in a class soon! 
 
Note that right now we have a single class on the feed, my Applied BizTalk Server class coming up in March.  We didn't want to flood the aggregate feed with all of our upcoming classes so we will add them in gradually. 

Tags:

General Musings