Super Search for Data Dynamics Reports Help

I've found that the best way to search the online help for Data Dynamics Reports is to search it from Google. Incidentally, I've found that is the best way to search the help of any product (especially MSDN). I simply add the site: search operator to my google search to find what I need. Now I've done one better, I have a google custom search for it so I don't have to type in site: followed by the lengthy URL each time. I have also added several other intresting pages about Data Dynamics Reports to it too so it searches the help and other informative pages such as the Frequently Asked Questions. Now I'll share it by embedding it below:

Every child is an artist...

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.

- Pablo Picasso

Note to Self: Use Firefox on Mac not Safari

Approximately once per month I switch from Firefox to Safari for a day or so on my Mac. Safari is sleek (clean, only has the things you need, nothing extraneous), extremely fast, and very pleasant to use. So every time I switch back to Safari within the first several hours of using it I switch my default system browser from Firefox to Safari and think to myself: "I've done this before. I wonder why I stopped using Safari last time."

I've done this again last night and today I know the reason: Stability. Use Safari for about two days instead and you'll find Safari regularly crashes on some sites, and soon when you try to start it again it just immediately crashes. Firefox is not as fast and clean as Safari and uses a lot more memory, but it almost never crashes. There is not a more valuable feature than not crashing.

The SlashDocs C# XML Comment Add In Updated for Visual Studio 2008

Summary: The SlashDocs addin for Visual Studio was updated to support Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008. Go to the bottom to download the latest version.




One of the most useful features introduced with C# and Visual Studio.NET was the embedded XML Documentation Comments feature. Although exactly the same in concept as Java's venerable "JavaDoc" feature C#'s more structured and intuitive XML-based syntax, ability to deploy the standardized "compiled" XML output files, stellar IDE support, and compiler-enforced checking made it a nice evolution of what Java started with JavaDoc.



Few know that there is a way to write the compiler-verified C# XML Documentation Comments could be written in a separate XML file and still linked to the source code with the <include...> element. While not useful in many cases (i.e. when only the programmer writes and edits documentation), for a commercial team like ours at Data Dynamics we produce full production quality class library reference documentation using expert Technical Writers from our User Education (aka UE) team. In the early days of working on ActiveReports for .NET we lightly used these comments to enable the developers to write the class library documentation. Then the UE Technical Writers edited it (fixed spelling, and grammar, added more details, i.e. made it readable :) ). However, we quickly discovered neither the programmers nor UE wanted UE to edit the source code files. As much as you tell everyone "calm down, its just comments, it's okay for them to edit it; trust each other, etc." everyone was still uncomfortable, and what it eventually turned into is developers writing a "first draft" which was quickly abandoned while Technical Writers just started editing their own copy. This left the docs unchecked by the C# compiler and updates from the developers were not pushed back to UE so transparently. What a loss!



So when we started working on Data Dynamics Reports, I was a big advocate of using the <include...> element to enable writing the documentation in separate files from the source. This way dev's could check it and UE could edit it in separate directories from the source code itself. The immediate problem was that there was no IDE support for writing the documentation comments or even to generate the include links. So, like any geek would do, I added it. Back when VS 2003 was cool - I wrote a Visual Studio addin to aid in moving and linking these separate documentation files to the source. You can read more about it and see some screenshots in my original announcement of the project at the following location: http://blogs.pingpoet.com/overflow/archive/2005/11/29/15568.aspx.
Once I made a couple hacks to get it working in VS2005 but didn't publish it. Now I changed the add-in model completely to the new one introduced in Visual Studio 2005 and made it work in Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008. I fixed a couple bugs people reported, but didn't add any new features other than support for VS2005/2008.

Get the latest version by clicking here!