A short thread on our local .Net UG mailing list has prompted me to document why I don’t use ClickOnce and how I do No-Touch deployment of internal applications .  I thought I had blogged about this in the past but I can’t find anything totally relevant.  So, here goes.

ClickOnce v No-Touch

As I see it, the benefits of ClickOnce over No-Touch are as follows:

• You can give the user the choice of upgrading or not.

That’s it.  And really, you can do this with No-Touch also but for internal applications where you have a fast local LAN and complete control of the environment I think ClickOnce just makes this way more complex than it needs to be.   Plus, creating ClickOnce deployments is not an easy thing to do outside of Visual Studio so if you want to automate this you need to learn MAGE.

How I do No-Touch Deployment

Here’s a condensed step by step that may help someone else.

1. Create a virtual directory for your deployment – probably in IIS but other web servers are supposed to work.
2. Make sure the new VDir is configured as an Application in IIS.
3. If you are using IIS 5 (Win 2k) then you probably need to allow .config files to be served.  To do this you need to have a web.config file in the VDir (or it’s parent) that contains this:

   <system.web>
    <httpHandlers>
     <remove verb="*" path="*.config" />
     <add verb="*" path="web.config" type="System.Web.HttpForbiddenHandler" />
    </httpHandlers>
   </system.web>

   This tells IIS to allow any .config file EXCEPT web.config to be served.

4. Copy your client files in the root of the virtual folder – including all DLL’s, EXE’s and EXE.CONFIG files.

5. If your application loads DLL or other files dynamically at runtime then use the VDir url to point to those files.

6. Configure a Security Policy Code Group for the URL – giving full trust or any reduced level you can get away with.

7. Export the Security Policy to an MSI.

8. Provide a web page or something for users that includes a link to the client EXE in the new virtual, plus a link to the .Net runtime installer and the new security policy MSI.

Using IE the users can launch the application once they have installed the framework and configured permissions.  Alternatively you can create a launcher application.

Now you can simply replace the contents of the VDir with new versions and the users will automatically get the updates next time they execute the app.  If you want to have multiple applications or multiple versions of the same application available at the same time, then simply create a new VDir for each app or version.

If you have web services or remoting components that are tied to a particular version of the application then these can live in a sub-directory of the VDir.  For Remoting there are a few extra tricks involved which I have document elsewhere if anyone wants to know.

If you have a database backing the application then you may run into problems supporting multiple concurrent versions of an application accessing the database.  This is probably more trouble than it is worth so I tend to force updates to all users rather than supporting multiple versions.  So you really need to ask users to shutdown while you upgrade the database and VDir deployment.  I don’t see how ClickOnce would make this any easier though.

Enjoy

I made the mistake of telling my boss I didn’t have much to do so I’ve been using Word 07 for a week to create a user guide – gee I love writing manuals :}  Word 07 has made the task a bit more fun – but not much.

Overall, I love Word 07.  The Ribbon Bars do make things a lot more accessible but I’m not sure if it makes things any quicker.  There are a number of small bugs that are a tad annoying (table headers settings don’t stick, style preview sometimes stops working etc) but nothing that has caused me to switch back to Word.old.

It appears as though MS has relented to the pressure from Adobe to remove the PDF support from Office.  Checkout Slashdot if you want the full debate.  If I was a serious Adobe shareholder I’d be wanting someone’s head on an platter for this stupid decision.  What the heck are they thinking?  If PDF is truly an open platform like Adobe says it is then why would they ask the world’s biggest and most successful software company to pull support from one of its’ best selling products?   

Well, I guess it might have something to do with the laser sight that Microsoft have for Adobe at present – e.g. WPF = flash killer, Expression = Dreamweaver and  PhotoShop killers, XPS = PDF killer.  By reinventing the platform (with Vista & Live and .Net / WinFX) Microsoft can drive, or at least, steer users to their own products – the products that actually earn them real money – i.e. Windows & Office.  Personally, I don’t have a problem with this – it’s far preferable to the madness of having a multitude of different interests driving the platform. 

But now I’m babbling again.

Finally managed to get back to doing some more Wix things this week.  Since the last post I have added components to :

•  Prompt the user for windows groups of valid users (5 of them)
• Create a blank SQL Database
• Add the groups to the SQL Server users
• Add the groups to the appropriate database roles
• Configures the web application for .Net 2

I’ve also added this into my Team Build project so that I get a nice new clean MSI for every successful build.

Today, I’ve extracted a few Wix snippets and I’m making these available to anyone who wants them.  There’s not much in there yet but hopefully it will save someone some time.  Do with them as you will!  If you have more and would like to start building a library of snippets then I’m more than willing to act as a librarian for these – unless someone else has already done this – in which case you can have mine.

Download: Wix_20060526.snippet

Tim & Nic have been having a few thoughts about browsers and home pages of late and it got me thinking about how I do things.  I'm mostly like Nic - I open IE 6 about 20-100 times a day and I often have 4 or 5 instances running.  Yes, I've tried IE 7 but for work it was too unstable.  I've also tried MSN toolbar for tab pages and Google toolbar but all they do is get in the way.  I don't do any web dev work so IE 6 is more than adequate for me. At Home I use IE 7 as I can put up with a few issues there.

My typical usage pattern is to open IE, go to Google and search for something technical about a development problem I'm having. No custom home page is going to make that any easier than Google. I use BlogLines for RSS feeds so that I can read stuff at home and work - I used to use NewsGator but it broke a while ago and I didn't like any of the other aggregators I tried - they were mostly too slow and buggy.

I'm also not very good at saving favorites - mostly because I have too many, it's just easier to search each time.  Sometimes, I wish I had saved a hard to find link in my fav's but usually I just have to repeat the 12 searches it took to find the page the first time.

If I was to have a customisable home page it would have to be:

• FAST.  I mean REALLY FAST - like INSTANT - therefore local and static
• Editable in the browser
• Synchronisable with my other machines

• Email is received.  Receiving server check's it's white-list of senders and finds that the email address is unknown.
• Receiving server pings the senders domain email server and asks it to verify the address.
• If the senders server doesn't respond at all then it's most likely spam and email is gray-listed
• If the senders server responds with an OK response then the email is let through - at least to the next level of checkinig.
• If the senders server responds with an error or BAD then the email if gray-listed or blocked.

• Displays a nice splash page
• Displays a license agreement with a checkbox for confirmation
• Checks for minimum OS version and .Net 2 Fx
• Lets the user choose a Typical, Custom or Complete install.  Under custom they can choose Client and/or server components and specify directories for each.
• Prompts the user to enter config parameters for the client and server and updates the corresponding exe.config and web.config files
• If the server components are installed it creates a virtual directory in IIS

• Use the v 2 latest revision.  I used 2.0.4103.0.  Get the source code and binaries - you'll need the source to create custom dialogs.
• Use the Tutorial.  It's a bit vague in places but just hack something together and you can usually figure out the options.
• Google 'wix anything' and you will find an answer quickly.
• Join the wix-user mail list.  The chaps there are very helpful and friendly.
• Creating a custom dialog is a piece of cake if you follow the tutorial but a GUI tool to create the dialog layouts would be nice.  Maybe there is one ?
• There is a Visual Studio addin for Wix projects but I had problems with this - maybe my fault - so I just used the tried and true command line method and Visual Studio to edit the raw wxs files.  You should add the provided schemas to your VS schema directory and create a CMD or BAT file to compile and link your MSI.
• Updating config / xml files from Wix is easy but you have to escape the xpath expression correctly, e.g.: 

  ElementPath="/configuration/applicationSettings/Airways.SUMS.Properties.Settings/setting[\[]@name='FirstDayOfWeek'[\]]/value"

•  The syntax can be a little wordy in places but in general it all makes sense.  A ComboBox control in a custom dialog looks like this:

  <Control Id="FirstDay" Type="ComboBox" X="115" Y="70" Width="190" Height="15" TabSkip="no" Property="CC FIRSTDAYOFWEEK" ComboList="yes" Sorted="yes">
   <ComboBox Property="CC FIRSTDAYOFWEEK">
    <ListItem Text="Sunday" Value="0" />
    <ListItem Text="Monday" Value="1" />
    <ListItem Text="Tuesday" Value="2" />
    <ListItem Text="Wednesday" Value="3" />
    <ListItem Text="Thursday" Value="4" />
    <ListItem Text="Friday" Value="5" />
    <ListItem Text="Saturday" Value="6" />
   </ComboBox>
  </Control>

• You can edit the supplied Bitmaps to include your product or company logo.  In fact you can customise everything.

1. Download and install the DNN 4 Starter Kit.
2. Create a VB Web Site project in VS05 (Express or other) and select the DNN Project.
3. You MUST specify and HTTP web site - don't use FILE - Cassini is not up to it.
4. Add the new database.mdf to the App Data directory (or create on elsewhere and change the config files connection string).
5. Give Network Service or ASPNET Modify rights on the new web site folder.
6. Rename release.config to web.config.
7. Run

• Don't create modules in C#.  You are supposed to be able to and I did manage to create one once, but the 2nd time around it gave me all sort of stupid errors.  Just accept that DNN is VB and your modules should also be VB.  (It's not that bad really :)
• Use SQL Express if you can.  The integration with VS05 is fantastic.
• Make sure you have a decent machine to develop on.  My notebook is a 3 gig P4 but it only have 500mb RAM and VS05 grinds like a meat mincer full of concrete.

Rod just blogged that ERWin was recently (?) purchased by CA.  What a shame!  I never actually used ERWin in anger - I'm a code first, diagram later kind of guy - but it looked good. 

Does anyone remember Nantucket Clipper?  In the late 80's and early 90's it was THE database development language for DOS (a lot of FoxPro users may be laughing about now).  Nantucket created some wonderous stuff that we have only recently seen in Windows tools - things like code blocks,eg:

    LOCAL block := {|var1, var2| DoSomething(var1, var2) }
    LOCAL res
    res := ExecThing(block)

    ? res

    FUNCTION ExecThing(block)
      LOCAL v1 := 1, v2 := 2
      return eval(block, v1,v2)

    FUNCTION DoSomething(x,y)
      return x + y

It also included the best preprocessor I have ever seen, you could create user define statements to the extent that you could create your own language.  Very cool and very dnagerous.  I once heard someone describe Clipper 87 as a tool that let you shoot yourself in the foot and Clipper 5 as a tool that would let you shoot yourself in any part of the body you wanted. 

Anyway, Clipper still lives on - I have one customer that I still support with 12 year old code.

But I digress.  CA purchased Nantucket not long before they were due to release the long awaited Windows version of Clipper.  And that was about it.  CA did ship Visual Objects and a small upgrade for Clipper 5 but essentially CA killed it. 

So, if you like ERWin, then be warned.

Here's the code for the tasks from my Team Build pressie at Code Camp.  JonesieMSBuildTasks.zip (7.64 KB)

There's 4 custom tasks in the zip.

• CreateVDir: Create a Virtual Directory in IIS.
• ModifyXMLNode: Modify an element or attribute in an XML (.config) file.
• AddListItem: Add an item to a sharepoint list.
• ExecuteSQL: Execute some SQL.
  

If you find any bugs or make some enhancements then please send then to me and I'll incorporate the changes for all.

And here's the references from the slide deck.

TS Home:   http://tinyurl.com/n5zf5
TN_1600:   http://tinyurl.com/mxqpj  The TechNote detailing how to alter you SLN files.
TF Blog:   http://tinyurl.com/ryp52
MSBuild Blog:  http://tinyurl.com/pv9z9
ScottGu:   http://tinyurl.com/syjcw 
Forums:   http://tinyurl.com/n8shm