Code – Page 17 – Chris F Carroll

Asp.Net MVC Project Guids

The famously unhelpful Visual Studio error message 'The project type is not supported by this installation' usually means that there is something you don't have installed. But it doesn't tell you what.

You can work out what you're missing if you know the Guids to look for in the project file. Look for a line near the top of the file something like this:

<ProjectTypeGuids>{E53F8FEA-EAE0-44A6-8774-FFD645390401};{349c5851-65df-11da-9384-00065b846f21};{fae04ec0-301f-11d3-bf4b-00c04f79efbc}</ProjectTypeGuids>

After which you can decode the Guid using either the table here:

Guid	Tools Needed to Open Project	Build references
{E53F8FEA-EAE0-44A6-8774-FFD645390401}	Asp.Net MVC 3	System.Web.Mvc 3.0.0.0
{E3E379DF-F4C6-4180-9B81-6769533ABE47}	Asp.Net MVC 4	System.Web.Mvc 4.0.0.0
{349c5851-65df-11da-9384-00065b846f21}	Web Designer

Or the more extensive list at http://www.mztools.com/articles/2008/mz2008017.aspx. If you're stuck try http://google.com/search?q=visual+studio+project+type+guid+list

Adaptable Design Up Front

ADUF: Adaptable Design Up Front
Adaptable Design Up Front: A term to describe the idea of (1) avoiding Big Design Up Front (2) doing Enough Design Up Front and (3) recognising that for agile development that up-front design must very specifically be a design that caters for future change. First coined as far as I know in a blog post by Hayim Makabee.

Doing Architecture with Agile Teams

Alan Gawthorpe & I a talk last month on doing architecture with agile teams:

Doing Architecture with Agile Teams IASA UK Summit 2013 from Chris Carroll

We did the session agile-style: We had cards for our topics, and the 'customers' in the audience prioritised. I think it worked okay, it would probably go smoother doing it a second time. Some of the significant books & articles that went into the slides were:

Visual Studio 2012 Command Prompt Here

Something I always want with VS projects: The 'Command Line here' menu option within Visual Studio; and the 'Visual Studio Tools Command Line here' option in Windows explorer. So here they are for VS2012.

NB: that the Explorer right-click works when you right click on a folder icon but not, sadly, when you right click on empty space. If anyone has a solution for that I'll be glad to know.

Windows Explorer "VS2012 Command Prompt Here" Right-Click Menu Item

To add a Visual Studio 2012 Command Prompt Here to your Explorer Right-Click menu, save this as a .reg file to your desktop, and then run it:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Folder\shell\Command Line VS2012]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Folder\shell\Command Line VS2012\command]
@="cmd.exe /k echo on & pushd \"%1\" & \"C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\\VC\\vcvarsall.bat\" x86"

If you have 64-bit Windows, you might want:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Folder\shell\Command Line VS2012]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Folder\shell\Command Line VS2012\command]
@="cmd.exe /k echo on & pushd \"%1\" & \"C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\\VC\\vcvarsall.bat\" x64"

Visual Studio 2012 External Tools Command Prompt Here Menu Item

In visual studio choose TOOLS - External Tools. Press Add to add a new command with fields as follows:

Title: Command Line Here
Command: %COMSPEC%
Arguments: /K "%VS110COMNTOOLS%\VsDevCmd"
Initial Directory: $(ItemDir)

i.e.:

Sorted. You can add shortcut key to via TOOLS - Customize - Keyboard and setting a shortcut key for Tools.ExternalCommand{X} ... but you have to work out by counting what number your {X} is.

Agile Methodologies for the Enterprise

What does a technical architecture for agile look like?

The further reading list

Windows Explorer "VS2012 Command Prompt Here" Right-Click Menu Item

Visual Studio 2012 External Tools Command Prompt Here Menu Item