Orange bug: “Quadrant” & Expression Blend

Orange bug is not a bug :) I’ve tested icon customization in “Quadrant” and my icon has bug shape! How assign “Oslo” model with icon? It’s very simple.

First, you create XAML GeometryPath. For this purpose you can use Microsoft Expression Blend.

 

Next, you define Viewer Hint with “M”. Compile it and deploy to “Quadrant” repository (details:  Help –> Quadrant Repository Connection).

Finally, you restart “Quadrant” and you see the icon with the type you set in Viewer Hint.

I have defined “Quadrant” extensions for Form instances in my last example: User interface modeling with simple DSL.  You can download  it here.

"MGrammar" XAML Samples & Ultra Flexible Event Pattern Mesh Sample – my versions compatible with May CTP

There’re many samples which work with the newest “Oslo” May CTP on the Oslo Developer Center, but not all.  I’ve successfully tried to make my versions of two samples ("MGrammar" XAML Samples, Ultra Flexible Event Pattern Mesh Sample) compatible with new SDK . 

Running MWindow application in the first example was the most difficult thing.

You should change version of Xaml assembly from 1.0.0.0 to 3.0.0.0 otherwise you get exception at runtime.

File/assembly	Class	Method	Line	Code
MWindow.cs	MWindow	CreateLabelMap	92	var clrTypeResolverType = Type.GetType("System.Xaml.ClrTypeResolver, Xaml, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35");
MWindow.cs	MWindow	CreateLabelMap	96	var nsRecordType = Type.GetType("System.Xaml.ClrTypeResolver+XamlNamespaceRecord, Xaml, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35");

Old MGraph API still works,  but MGraphXamlReader produced bad nodes, so  bad XAML and bad tree of objects were generated. I debugged application and compared results with the program running with previous Oslo SDK on second computer. I detected code with different behavior:

File/assembly	Class	Method	Line	Code
ContentEntry.cs	ContentEntry	button1_Click	72	xamlReader.ReadToEnd()
MGraphXamlReader.cs	MGraphXamlReader	GetReader	434	GetNodes(this.root, true)
MGraphXamlReader.cs	MGraphXamlReader	GetNodes	343	if (this.graphBuilder.IsEntity(node))
GraphBuilder.cs	MWindowGraph Builder	IsEntity	299	EntityStencil.IsEntityBase(this, value)
System.Dataflow.dll	EntityStencil	IsEntityBase

Method IsEntityBase in class EntityStencil has different implementation and returns now false for MWindow application nodes:

• “Oslo” January SDK :  System.Dataflow.dll (1.0.0.0)  ->  EntityStencil.IsEntityBase –> true
•   “Oslo” May SDK :  System.Dataflow.dll (3.0.0.0)  ->  EntityStencil.IsEntityBase –> false

When I created own IsEntityBase  method with old implementation and called it instead of  EntityStencil.IsEntityBase, MXamlReader produced good nodes as with previous SDK.

You can download my versions of samples compatible with new SDK below.

"MGrammar" XAML Samples

Ultra Flexible Event Pattern Mesh Sample

User interface modeling with “Oslo” – my two samples with new CTP

This post will be about my two “Oslo” samples which I refreshed yesterday.

Sample One:  User interface modeling with simple DSL

I’ve defined model and DSL. Sample usage below.

I’ve written simple Silverlight runtime, too. It reads “Oslo” repository and generates user interface.

 

With “Quadrant” you can view and visually edit model instances.

Sample Two:  User interface modeling with Visual Basic DSL

I’ve created more advanced GUI DSL with Visual Basic syntax and references. Language has custom compiler which creates .mx image.   I’ve used some patterns included in Spork sample.

You can download my “Oslo” samples here: