sharpdevelop

Working with SharpDevelop

You may be asking yourself what is SharpDevelop, will SharpDevelop is a free open source IDE for the .Net Framework. It will allow you to develop C# and VB.Net and C++.Net applications. So for those of you who don't have the bucks to purchase  VB.Net or .Net Studio and want to lean .Net this is the perfect solution.

At first glance it looks a lot like Microsoft's Visual Studio.Net: it has a Start Page, Solution Explorer, Toolbox, Clipboard Ring, Class Viewer and Task List.

The editor in SharpDevelop supports syntax highlighting for C#, HTML, ASP, ASP.NET, VBScript, VB.NET, XML and code completion for C# and VB.Net. The editor also supports collapsible code regions like VS.Net and SharpDevelop provides a WinForms designer.

Other Features

    * A Windows Forms designer for C# and VB.NET
    * Code completion for C# and VB.NET (including Ctrl+Space support)
    * Function folding
    * Code AutoInsert
    * A C#?VB.NET converter
    * Completely written in C#
    * Compile C#, VB.NET in the IDE out-of-the-box
    * ILAsm and C++ backends
    * Integrated NUnit support
    * Assembly Analyzer ("FxCop on steroids")
    * XML documentation preview
    * Everything templated: add new project or file types, or even compilers to SharpDevelop
    * Write C#, ASP.NET, ADO.NET, XML, HTML code
    * Rich project options
    * Syntax highlighting for C#, HTML, ASP, ASP.NET, VBScript, VB.NET, XML
    * Intelligent braces
    * Bookmarking
    * Code template support
    * Easily extensible with external tools
    * Easily extensible with addins

As with all my Hands On project I will provide links to download the software and links to any other resources.

So lets get started!
I will go through the menu items and discuss relevant items.

File Menu

There are two thing to be pointed out there, the import and export features. import will allow you to import a C# or A VB.Net project form Visual Studio in to an SharpDevelop file. The export will export the SharpDevelop project to a Visual Studio file.

You can also translate whole projects from VB.NET to C# and vice-versa.

View Menu

This will allow you to view the different windows, i.e. properties, project, task list etc.

Project

Run Test - will run the application in test mode

Run VB.Doc - VB.DOC extracts the xml comments in your source code to a single xml file. It can be configured under the Project Options under Configuration tab.

Deploy - This will allow you to deploy your project to the directory you specified in the Deployment options. To set the deployment options click on Projects, Project Options, General, Deploy. There you can specify where you want your project deployed what files to include and how you want it deployed.

Deploy

Generate Documentation - generates class library documentation from .NET assemblies and the XML documentation files generated by the C# compiler (or with an add-on tool for VB.NET).

HTML Export - This will export your project AssemblyInfo and MainForm to html. MainForm AssemblyInfo

Project Options - This will allow you to configure SharpDevelop's project, compile and deploy options. You can also setup the configuration options. http://wiki.sharpdevelop.net/default.aspx/SharpDevelop.ProjectOptions

Ok the first thing we need to do is download SharpDevelop and if you don't have the .Net Framework SDK you will need to download that as well. Just remember that the .Net Framework is a very large file, 108MB I believe. You should also know that SharpDevelop will only work on .Net SDK 1.1, they are in the process of testing it with the new .Net SDK but that's still in the works. You can download both the SharpDevelop and the SDK 1.1 at the link below

http://www.icsharpcode.net/OpenSource/SD/Download/

Instilling is pretty straight forward, during installation make sure that you say yes to generating the code completion database. That database is necessary for the forms editor as well as for code completion.

Once you have installed SharpDevelop its now time to run it. You will be presented with the following screen. Since you have not created any projects your start page will look different.

While that is the default view you can customize the IDE to fit your needs.

The Tools

We are going to take a quick look at SharpDevelop's IDE, first up the "Tools" tab. The tools scouts allows you to insert blocks of text from predefined lists directly into your code. As well as drag and drop controls on to your forms. When SD first starts up you have the following tools available to you. ASCII Table, C# Documentation Tags, Licenses, #develop, XSL-T, General and Clipboard Ring.

You may be asking where are the Windows Forms and Components? Well don't worry all you have to do is start a new project and click on the "Design" tab then the "Windows Forms" which holds all the controls like TextBox, Labels, Check Box etc, "Data" which allows you to connect to a Database and the "Components" which has the FileSystemWatcher, Event Log, and Timer etc. will be accessible.

New Project

Ok, so its not original, but I cant break with tradition so we have to do the hello world project.

So start up SharpDevelop, Then click on File, New, Combine then click on the VB.Net folder. Select the Window Application icon then type MyTest in the Name text box. You can then set the location where you want the file to be or you can accept the default click on create. Your screen should look like this.

Startup Screen

Now click on the design tab at the bottom left hand portion of the window an lets put some controls on the form. When you click on the Design tab you will notice you have more control tabs on the Tool bar. First we are going to put a command button on the form, so double click on the button control and then click the place on the form you want the button. Or you can click the button control and draw the button on the form.

Next we are going to add a text box so double click the text box and click the place on the form you wish the text box to be. The screen should now look like this.

Main Form

Now comes the coding which of course is very simple, just double click on the button and the code window will appear now all you have to do is type the following code under the ButtonClick event.

Textbox1.Text = "Hello World!"

You will notice that when you type Textbox1. the code completion screen will popup.

Now we are going to build the project, and you have two options to do that. The first is to select the "Build" menu item and select Build Combine or you can click the second blue icon at the top right hand portion of the screen next to the green arrow.

If all went well you should get Build complete 0 errors, 0 warnings in the output window. Now click the green arrow to run the program. You will also notice that you can click the green arrow and it will atomically build and run the program.

That's it our first application built using SharpDevelop!

Build

Build Combines - #develop uses the terms "Combine" and "Project". Briefly, a Project is a collection or source files (i.e. code) and other resources (such as images, icons, etc.) that can be compiled into a .NET Assembly. A "Combine" is a collection (a 'combination') of one or more Projects.

To set your combines options click on Combine AppName and right click and select Combine options.

Rebuild - No need for an explanation there.

Build - Just builds the project.

Rebuild - No need for an explanation there.

Debug - This will debug your project, the debug options can be found by selecting Project Options and Configurations.

Tools

Regular expression tool kit - are used by many text editors and utilities to search and manipulate bodies of text based on certain patterns

Addin Scout - Will allow you to add custom controls to the tools bar.

Notepad - Will launch notepad and copy the source code of the form you are on.

NProf - Is designed to be not only a fully-fledged profiler for .NET applications, but also a complete API that can be used to build other profiler front-ends, as well as extend the default GUI with new visualization tools.

You can see some screen shots here: http://nprof.sourceforge.net/Site/Screenshots.html

IL dasm - intermediate language disassembler, will convert binary format to high-level source codes.

Insert PInvoke signatures - Lets you call one of the many Win32 API functions that are not available directly from the .NET framework. You can find more information regarding PInvoke at the links below.

http://www.pinvoke.net/
http://www.geocities.com/Jeff_Louie/COM_Interop/pinvoke.htm

SharpReport - This will allow you to create repots with in SharpDevelop. It's equivalent to VB's Data Report.

Message Box wizard - Does as it's name applies, it will create a message box for you and add the code to your project.

Quick XML Doc - Turns your source code in to a XML document.

Options - Will allow you to configure SharpDevelop to your liking as well as to your language since it comes with 22 different languages.

Now that we've gone over the some of the features let start using them.

This tutorial is by no means a tutorial on using VB.Net but rather SharpDevelop features and what it can do. So over the next couple of days we will be creating small project with SharpDevelop showing off its built in features that will make developing with SharpDevelop quick and easy.

Since Database programming with VB is important I thought I would provide a simple program that will access a Database and display its contents. You will notice that in ADO.Net the recordset is gone and has been replaced by the Dataset.

So lets startup a new project and name it DBConnect, now add a DataGrid and a button to your project. Now we need to add the dataset to our project, so click the "Data" tab on the tools bar, then double click the "DataSet" icon and click on the main form and the DataSet control will be place in the project. Your program should look like this.

Now the coding behind the button.

Since we are going to be working with databases we will need to import some libraries to our program.

Imports System
Imports System.Drawing
Imports System.Windows.Forms
-------------------------------
Imports System.Data
Imports System.Data.OleDb

We need to add the Data and OleDb the other libraries above the dotted line were automatically added when you put controls on the form.

Now the code that will connect to the database and display the records. Like I said this is not a tutorial on using VB.Net so I have removed all the code excapt the code that is behind the button.click here

When all is said and done when you run the program it will connect to the database and desplay all the employess names. click here

That's it the hardest thing to do was write the code, adding the controls was a snap.

While my example shows you how to connect to an Access database the examples below show you how to connect to a MySQL and SQL server database.

Connecting to MySQL
http://www.lecenio.outsys.net/sharpdev/mysql/mysqlsample.html

Connecting to SQL Server
http://www.lecenio.outsys.net/sharpdev/sqlserver/sqlserver.html

It's really easy to convert a C# project to VB.Net and visa versa. All you do is open the C# project then under "Tools" select the "Convert C# Buffer to VB.Net that's it. If you were converting a VB.Net to C# you would select "Convert Buffer VB.Net to C#.

The code will be converted and place in a new window named, "Generated.VB or CS if it was a VB project that you were converting. The example below converted our, "Hello World" VB.Net to C#. VB - Hello World

This is what your project will look like when the code is converted.

Source code added

This is what the code will look like once its converted form VB to C#.

Converted to C#

Last time we discussed converting your code form VB to C# and visa versa. Today will well discuss importing a Visual Studio project to SharpDevelop project and Exporting a SharpDevelop project to VS. You can find the file that we will be converting here.

Once again this is very easy, to import a VS VB project in to SharpDevelop click on File then, "Import Project". The Import Project dialog box will tell you what type of supported formats it will convert. Now click the box next to the Project to import text box. Find the project you want to convert and click open then click start. Once it's done you will get a message box telling you this. Once you click OK the project will loaded. At first glance you may think that the project did not load, but all you have to do is click on the "Projects" tab on the lower left hand corner of the window. Then double click on the Form1.vb and the source and design windows will appear.

That's it, simple wasn't it? You would do the same thing if it was a C# project you were importing.

By the way that code will limit the number of characters in a multi line textbox, so you if you do program in VB.Net you might want to keep that code for later on.

Exporting is just as easy, you load the project you wish to export, under File select Export Project you will get the following dialog box. Set the location you want the exported files to be and click start.

That's it importing and exporting project is a snap with SharpDevelop.

Over the next few days I will be providing links to videos on some of the features I have discussed in my earlier posts. You will need Microsoft Media Player in order to view these videos.

Here's a little back ground on NAnt: http://nant.sourceforge.net/

NAnt the video 5.52 mins: http://laputa.sharpdevelop.net/content/binary/NAntAddin.wmv

This video shows you how to use the PInvoke feature. If you haven't a chance to take a look do so, it will help in understanding how powerful this feature is.

http://www.pinvoke.net/

PInvoke 1:30 mins
http://laputa.sharpdevelop.net/content/binary/PInvokeAddin.wmv

This video demonstrates how to add web servers to your SharpDevelop projects

This video is 3.44 mins long
http://laputa.sharpdevelop.net/content/binary/WebReferences.wmv

Today we will take a look at the video on XML editing, intellisense, folding and validation that is integrated in to SharpDevelop.

This video is 6:10 mins long.
http://laputa.sharpdevelop.net/content/binary/XmlEditing.wmv

The link below shows you how to use SharpDevelop to develop C++ applicaions.
http://wiki.sharpdevelop.net/default.aspx/SharpDevelop.CppDevelopment

The link below shows you how to debug in SharpDevelop
http://wiki.sharpdevelop.net/default.aspx/SharpDevelop.DebuggingInSharpDevelop

The link below shows you how to embed a file as a resource.
http://wiki.sharpdevelop.net/default.aspx/SharpDevelop.UsingResources

The link below shows you how to develop PocketPC application using SharpDevelop.
http://wiki.sharpdevelop.net/default.aspx/SharpDevelop.CompactFrameworkDevelopment

The links below are SharpDevelop resources links, forums and more tips and tricks.
Resource page - http://wiki.sharpdevelop.net/default.aspx/
SharpDevelop Forums - http://community.sharpdevelop.net/forums/
Keyboard Shortcuts - http://wiki.sharpdevelop.net/default.aspx/SharpDevelop.KeyboardShortcuts1x