I just saw a post by Chris Howie on glueless javascript calls into Gecko#, and over a couple of my revision breaks I modified JSCall# to use this technique. The new completely managed code version is now in SVN, and I'll make a proper 0.0.3 release when I've written some docs.
Now that Ubuntu Edgy has gone final, and I'm no longer tracking the beta, I've made some checkinstall packages for JSCall#. Although JSCall# originated as the native part of AspNetEdit, it has other uses as a limited Gecko-C# bridge. You'll obviously need Firefox, though I don't think there are any other hard dependencies. If a Firefox update breaks the packages, please add a comment to this post to tell me, and I'll rebuild them. There's an AMD64 and an i386 version.
Well, the Summer of Code is now ended. The ASP.NET MonoDevelop addin is now open to testing, and although it doesn't look any better than my previousscreenshots, it's quite a bit more stable.
Here's a shiny screenshot of AspNetEdit embedded in MonoDevelop. The code's not really ready for use yet, but I'm making good progress. It's been complicated by the fact that I'm running AspNetEdit and its property grid in a separate process so that the ASP.NET controls are isolated from the MD process.
I've just committed a patch to MonoDevelop to enable the use of the AspNetAddIn that I committed a couple of days ago. It's not close to fully-featured yet, but I'm pleased because it now enables a basic ASP.NET workflow. One can create an ASP.NET project and various ASP.NET files, then build and run it. The XSP server will be launched, followed by a web browser, and the compiled page can be seen in all its glory. In theory all .NET languages supported by MonoDevelop can be used, though I have only been able to test C# so far.
One of the most difficult things about developing ASP.NET project support for MonoDevelop is deciding upon a project model to use. Microsoft appears to have this problem too; while having used a "Web Application" (WA) model for VS.NET 2003, and then switched to a "Web Site" (WS) model for Visual Studio 2005, they have just recently brought back the Web Application model for VS2005. Both are sensible and straightforward ways of developing an ASP.NET site, and developers migrating from Windows are familiar with them, so it was clearly a good idea to use them as a starting point when planning how to implement the project support in MonoDevelop.
I have been accepted into Google's Summer of Code 2006!
This time round I will be adding an ASP.NET Project type to MonoDevelop, with a proper compilation, preview and deployment workflow. I will then be able to host AspNetEdit in MonoDevelop as its graphical designer for ASP.NET.
I will be posting regular updates on my blog. Right now I'm trying to decide which of ASP.NET's compilations models to support, and how they can integrate with the project model. I'm also familiarising myself with MonoDevelop's extension model.
Just thought I'd post a link to my Dr Dobbs Journal article on AspNetEdit. It went out about 6 months ago, but I hadn't got round to linking to it yet. It explains a little bit about the reason for AspNetEdit, and the technologies used to bring it to fruition.
There's a terrible photo of me in the article as well ;-)
Well, it's exam time again. Five in total; first one on Monday, and the last is two days after I find out whether I've been accepted for the Summer of Code 2006. Not enjoying revision, and these exams – third year – are very important.
As for the Summer of Code, I've applied to work on ASP.NET Project Support for MonoDevelop. If I get accepted, I will be integrating AspNetEdit into a proper development environment at last!
My website can now be accessed at the domain http://mjhutchinson.com, and this redirects to the current site for now. I'll be migrating over after exams.
I've been thinking about how the ASP.NET Visual Designer should work with CSS and good semantic markup, and I've been thinking a lot about the role of both of these in the Web. In particular, what part do they play with ASP.NET?
