Tuesday, September 23, 2014

How setup SharePoint web application to write SignalR based application pages?

There are few steps to enable SignalR into a web application. But how do this for a SharePoint based web application? 

The goal of this post is provide you a SharePoint deployment package to is automate such steps for a SharePoint web application.

The only thing you have to do is:

2) Install the SignalR distributed assemblies the web application bin directory from Powershell console:

>Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell
>Add-SPSolution (Resolve-Path .\SignalR.SharePoint.wsp)
>Install-SPSolution SignalR.SharePoint.wsp -WebApplication $WebAppUrl -GACDeployment -FullTrustBinDeployment -Force

3) Enable [SignalR SharePoint Configuration Feature] - in the web application scope - in order to modify the web.config for run-time assembly binding redirection, set legacyCasModel to false (allow dynamic calls) and set the owin:AutomaticAppStartup application setting key to false.

...
   <trust level="Full" originUrl="" legacyCasModel="false" />
...
  <runtime>
    <assemblyBinding>
...
      <dependentAssembly>
        <assemblyIdentity name="Microsoft.Owin.Security" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" culture="neutral" />
        <bindingRedirect oldVersion="0.0.0.0-2.1.0.0" newVersion="2.1.0.0" />
      </dependentAssembly>
      <dependentAssembly>
        <assemblyIdentity name="Microsoft.Owin" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" culture="neutral" />
        <bindingRedirect oldVersion="0.0.0.0-2.1.0.0" newVersion="2.1.0.0" />
      </dependentAssembly>
      <dependentAssembly>
        <assemblyIdentity name="Newtonsoft.Json" publicKeyToken="30ad4fe6b2a6aeed" culture="neutral" />
        <bindingRedirect oldVersion="0.0.0.0-6.0.0.0" newVersion="6.0.0.0" />
      </dependentAssembly>
    </assemblyBinding>
  </runtime>
...
  <appSettings>
...
    <add key="owin:AutomaticAppStartup" value="false" />
  </appSettings>

4) Create and deploy your hub based assembly into the web application. The easy way to do this is by writing the hub in a SharePoint based project and set the “Assembly Deployment Target” to WebApplication. You can also try with this simple chat example by deploying it into your web application.

5) Enable the [SignalR SharePoint Enable AutomaticAppStartup Feature] - in the web application scope - in order turn the owin:AutomaticAppStartup application setting key to true.

  <appSettings>
...
    <add key="owin:AutomaticAppStartup" value="true" />
  </appSettings>

6) Just open your browser and navigates to the application page. If you deployed the chat example, you can try with %WebApplicationUrl%/_layouts/15/_layouts/15/SignalR.SharePoint.Demo/Chat.aspx application page.

Monday, August 11, 2014

What about Catel.Fody and computed read-only properties change notifications?


In my last post, I covered the implementation of INotifyPropertyChanged interface when using SheepAspect as an AOP library. In the end, I also implemented an approach to notify changes of computed read-only properties. This approach has a downside, the dependent properties discovering process must be done in run-time.

Such a journey recalls us that Catel.Fody didn’t have support for notifying property changes of computed read-only properties. How could such a thing ever be possible? Obvious, “the shoemaker's son always goes barefoot” ;). But don’t worry: the feature is here, moving the dependent properties discovering process to build-time, thanks to Fody.

As you probably know by now, Catel.Fody will rewrite all properties on the DataObjectBase and ViewModelBase. So, if a property is written like this:

public string FirstName { get; set; }

will be weaved into

public string FirstName
{
    get { return GetValue<string>(FirstNameProperty); }
    set { SetValue(FirstNameProperty, value); }
}

public static readonly PropertyData FirstNameProperty = RegisterProperty("FirstName", typeof(string));


But now we added a new feature to Catel.Fody. If a read-only computed property like this one exists:

public string FullName
{
    get { return string.Format("{0} {1}", FirstName, LastName).Trim(); }
}

the OnPropertyChanged method will be also weaved into

protected override void OnPropertyChanged(AdvancedPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
{
    base.OnPropertyChanged(e);
    if (e.PropertyName.Equals("FirstName"))
    {
        base.RaisePropertyChanged("FullName");
    }
    if (e.PropertyName.Equals("LastName"))
    {
        base.RaisePropertyChanged("FullName");
    }
}


This feature is already available in the latest beta package of Catel.Fody.

Try yourself and let us know.

Monday, June 30, 2014

Implementing notify property changed with SheepAspect

Introduction

I spend some time looking for AOP options for .NET.  All references point to PostSharp as the coolest option - even when you have to pay to use it - due to its features, starting from the way it works – in build time and static – plus a lot of build-in “advice” and extensions points.

There are also several run time and dynamic options such as Castle, Unity, etc., but I prefer the build time and static approach.  Indeed I use Fody - as an alternative to PostSharp - even when I have to write down custom plugins directly in IL.

But all of these AOP-like libraries and tools for .NET do not allow you to handle exactly the all the AOP concepts such as pointcut, join-point, and advice.

But recently I found a project in CodePlex, named SheepAspect with an introductory statement that includes the following words “…was inspired in AspectJ”. So, I just installed the package from NuGet and started to write in C# a notify property changed proof of concept with a friend of mine (Leandro).

Introducing NotifyPropertyChanged aspect

The very first step is to write a NotifyPropertyChangedAspect class. It’s important to get related with SAQL in order to query the right properties from the right types, and with the usage of the SheepAspect attributes. For this particular example the pointcut includes “all public property setters of types that implement System.ComponentModel.INotifyPropertyChanged” and look like this:
[Aspect]
public class NotifyPropertyChangedAspect
{
    [SelectTypes("ImplementsType:'System.ComponentModel.INotifyPropertyChanged'")]
    public void NotifiedPropertyChangedTypes()
    {
    }

    [SelectPropertyMethods("Public & Setter & InType:AssignableToType:@NotifiedPropertyChangedTypes")]
    public void PublicPropertiesOfTypesThatImplementsINotifyPropertyChangedInterfacePointCut()
    {
    }
}

Now, I just needed to add the notify property changed behavior as around advice just as follow:

[Around("PublicPropertiesOfTypesThatImplementsINotifyPropertyChangedInterfacePointCut")]
public void AdviceForPublicPropertiesOfTypesThatImplementsINotifyPropertyChangedInterface(PropertySetJointPoint jp)
{
    object value = jp.Property.GetValue(jp.This);
    if (!object.Equals(value, jp.Value))
    {
        jp.Proceed();
        jp.This.RaiseNotifyPropertyChanged(jp.Property);
    }
}

As you should notice, to implement this, I also introduce a couple of extension methods TryGetPropertyChangedField and of course the RaiseNotifyPropertyChanged itself:

public static bool TryGetPropertyChangedField(this Type type, out FieldInfo propertyChangedEvent)
{
    propertyChangedEvent = null;
    while (propertyChangedEvent == null && type != null && type != typeof(object))
    {
        propertyChangedEvent = type.GetField("PropertyChanged", BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.NonPublic);
        if (propertyChangedEvent == null)
        {
            type = type.BaseType;
        }
        else if (!typeof(MulticastDelegate).IsAssignableFrom(propertyChangedEvent.FieldType))
        {
            propertyChangedEvent = null;
        }
    }

    return propertyChangedEvent != null;
}

/*...*/

public static void RaiseNotifyPropertyChanged(this object instance, PropertyInfo property)
{
    FieldInfo propertyChangedEvent;
    if (instance.GetType().TryGetPropertyChangedField(out propertyChangedEvent))
    {
        var propertyChangedEventMulticastDelegate = (MulticastDelegate)propertyChangedEvent.GetValue(instance);
        var invocationList = propertyChangedEventMulticastDelegate.GetInvocationList();
                
        foreach (var handler in invocationList)
        {
            MethodInfo methodInfo = handler.GetMethodInfo();
            methodInfo.Invoke(handler.Target, new[] { instance, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(property.Name) });
        }
    } 
}

Now, if a class that implements or inherits from a class that implements INotifyPropertyChanged interface is added, just like this one:

public class Person : INotifyPropertyChanged
{
        public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;

        public string FirstName { get; set; }

        public string LastName { get; set; }

        public string FullName
        {
            get
            {
                return string.Format(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, "{0} {1}", this.FirstName, this.LastName).Trim();
            }
        }
}

and a program like this one is written:

this.person.PropertyChanged += (sender, args) =>
                {
                    object value = sender.GetType().GetProperty(args.PropertyName).GetValue(sender);
                    Console.WriteLine("Property Changed => '{0}' = '{1}'", args.PropertyName, value);
                };

this.person.FirstName = "Igr Alexánder";
this.person.LastName = "Fernández Saúco";

then the output will be:

Property Changed => 'FirstName' = 'Igr Alexánder'
Property Changed => 'LastName' = 'Fernández Saúco'

Uhmm! But what about with the computed read-only properties like FullName?

Notifying property changes of computed read-only properties.

In order to notify changes of computed read-only properties, an inspection of the IL code is required. The .NET native reflection API is limited. From the PropertyInfo is only possible to get the IL byte array from the get method body, and nothing more. Therefore, I just switched to the Mono.Cecil reflection API to be able to complement the existing RaiseNotifyPropertyChanged extension method with the following extension methods:

public static bool ExistPropertyDependencyBetween(this Type type, PropertyInfo dependentProperty, PropertyInfo propertyInfo)
{
    AssemblyDefinition assemblyDefinition = new DefaultAssemblyResolver().Resolve(type.Assembly.FullName);
    TypeDefinition typeDefinition = assemblyDefinition.MainModule.GetType(type.FullName);
    PropertyDefinition dependentPropertyDefinition = typeDefinition.Properties.FirstOrDefault(definition => definition.Name == dependentProperty.Name);
    
    bool found = false;
    if (dependentPropertyDefinition != null)
    {
        MethodDefinition definition = dependentPropertyDefinition.GetMethod;
        if (definition.HasBody)
        {
            ILProcessor processor = definition.Body.GetILProcessor();

            int idx = 0;
            while (!found && idx < processor.Body.Instructions.Count)
            {
                Instruction instruction = processor.Body.Instructions[idx];
                
                MethodDefinition methodDefinition;
                if (instruction.OpCode == OpCodes.Call && (methodDefinition = instruction.Operand as MethodDefinition) != null && methodDefinition.DeclaringType.IsAssignableFrom(typeDefinition) && methodDefinition.Name == string.Format(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, "get_{0}", propertyInfo.Name))
                {
                    found = true;
                }
                else
                {
                    idx++;
                }
            }
        }
    }

    return found;
}

/*...*/

public static IEnumerable<PropertyInfo> GetDependentPropertiesFrom(this Type type, PropertyInfo property)
{
    List<PropertyInfo> dependentPropertyInfos = type.GetProperties(BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.Public).Where(dependentProperty => property != dependentProperty && dependentProperty.CanRead && type.ExistPropertyDependencyBetween(dependentProperty, property)).ToList();
    for (int i = 0; i < dependentPropertyInfos.Count; i++)
    {
        foreach (PropertyInfo info in type.GetDependentPropertiesFrom(dependentPropertyInfos[i]))
        {
            if (!dependentPropertyInfos.Contains(info))
            {
                dependentPropertyInfos.Add(info);
            }
        }
    }

    return dependentPropertyInfos;
}
just like this:
public static void RaiseNotifyPropertyChanged(this object instance, PropertyInfo property)
{
    FieldInfo propertyChangedEvent;
    if (instance.GetType().TryGetPropertyChangedField(out propertyChangedEvent))
    {
        var propertyChangedEventMulticastDelegate = (MulticastDelegate)propertyChangedEvent.GetValue(@this);
        var invocationList = propertyChangedEventMulticastDelegate.GetInvocationList();
                
        foreach (var handler in invocationList)
        {
            MethodInfo methodInfo = handler.GetMethodInfo();
            methodInfo.Invoke(handler.Target, new[] { instance, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(property.Name) });
        }

        foreach (PropertyInfo propertyInfo in instance.GetType().GetDependentPropertiesFrom(property))
        {
            foreach (var handler in invocationList)
            {
                MethodInfo methodInfo = handler.GetMethodInfo();
                methodInfo.Invoke(handler.Target, new[] { instance, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(propertyInfo.Name) });
            }
        }
    }
}

So, now the program output is:

Property Changed => 'FirstName' = 'Igr Alexánder'
Property Changed => 'FullName' = ' Igr Alexánder' 
Property Changed => 'LastName' = 'Fernández Saúco'
Property Changed => 'FullName' = ' Igr Alexánder Fernández Saúco'

Conclusion

At this point, you should be worried about the performance and a lot of reflection API calls. I'm pretty sure that this issue could be handle with the right caching approach ;).

I didn’t know why I never heard about SheepAspect before. Probably no one trust in something called “Sheep”, but believe me SheepAspect rocks!

Wait for a second! Right now I'm reading about something called mixing. Probably I can get a more declarative approach to implement this, just like the Fody or PostSharp home page examples. But I'm not sure right now, so, you have to wait for my next post to know about it ;).

Friday, February 21, 2014

Developing a ReSharper Plugin – The backward compatibility approach

Introduction

We have being developed a ReSharper plugin for Catel framework also known as CatelR# for a while, following an interesting approach in order support the new R# version and also keep the backward compatibility.

If you want to know how we made it, just take a look.

Visual Studio solution setup

1)    Create project per supported R# version, which means that the output of each project is targeting to the specific version of R# and references the specific version of the SDK.



2)    Keep in mind, that could be several breaking changes between R# SDK versions, but nothing that couldn’t be handled with pre-processor directives.

#if R70 || R71 || R80
        protected override void Process(CSharpGeneratorContext context)

#elif R61
        public override void Process(CSharpGeneratorContext context)
#endif
        {
            CSharpElementFactory factory = CSharpElementFactory.GetInstance(context.Root.GetPsiModule());
#if R80
            IDeclaredType viewModelToModelAttributeClrType = TypeFactory.CreateTypeByCLRName(CatelMVVM.ViewModelToModelAttribute, context.PsiModule, UniversalModuleReferenceContext.Instance);
#else
            IDeclaredType viewModelToModelAttributeClrType = TypeFactory.CreateTypeByCLRName(CatelMVVM.ViewModelToModelAttribute, context.PsiModule);
#endif
            /*...*/
#if R80
                        var fixedArguments = new List<AttributeValue> { new AttributeValue(ClrConstantValueFactory.CreateStringValue(model.ShortName, context.PsiModule, UniversalModuleReferenceContext.Instance)) };
#else
                        var fixedArguments = new List<AttributeValue> { new AttributeValue(ClrConstantValueFactory.CreateStringValue(model.ShortName, context.PsiModule)) };
#endif
                        if (propertyName != modelProperty.ShortName)
                        {
#if R80
                            fixedArguments.Add(new AttributeValue(ClrConstantValueFactory.CreateStringValue(modelProperty.ShortName, context.PsiModule,  UniversalModuleReferenceContext.Instance)));
#else
                            fixedArguments.Add(new AttributeValue(ClrConstantValueFactory.CreateStringValue(modelProperty.ShortName, context.PsiModule)));
#endif
                        }
            /*...*/
                    }
                }
            }
        }

3)    Keep all these entire project sources synchronized. Could be very easy thanks to Caitlyn.




4)   Finally redirect the build projects outputs to dealing with ease with the packaging of the deployment units.

Building the deployment units

The R# plugin build process indeed an heterogeneous one as any build process. Even though  this build could be handled via msbuild tasks, we actually recommend the usage of tools with intuitive GUI in order to quickly creating and debugging such build "scripts", such as FinalBuilder or VisualBuild.


1) Since 8.0 R# version  the NuGet based extension manager is available. Therefore one of the build output could be a NuGet package to distribute your plugin through the ReSharper extension gallery.

2) But NuGet based extension manager is not available for all R# versions. Therefore a second build output could also be classic deployment unit built on top of any of the existing installer system.  For instance InnoSetup or NSIS.

The following are the code snippets from the install and uninstall sections of CatelR# setup. Notice how we deal with build output to support all R#  versions.


# ...
# Installer section
# ...

Push "v6.1"
Push "v7.0"
Push "v7.1"
Push "v8.0"
Push "v8.1"
${Do}
  Pop $0
  ReadRegStr $1 HKLM "Software\JetBrains\ReSharper\$0" InstallDir
  ${If} $1 != ''
    DetailPrint "Installing Catel.ReSharper for JetBrains ReSharper $0"
    SetOutPath "$1\Plugins\$(^Name)"
    ${If} $0 == 'v6.1'
      File /r "..\..\output\Debug\v6.1\*.dll"
    ${ElseIf} $0 == 'v7.0'
      File /r "..\..\output\Debug\v7.0\*.dll"
    ${ElseIf} $0 == 'v7.1'
      File /r "..\..\output\Debug\v7.1\*.dll"
    ${ElseIf} $0 == 'v8.0'
      File /r "..\..\output\Debug\v8.0\*.dll"
    ${ElseIf} $0 == 'v8.1'
      File /r "..\..\output\Debug\v8.1\*.dll"
    ${EndIf}
    Push true
    Pop $3
    WriteRegStr HKLM "${REGKEY}" "$0" 1
  ${EndIf}
${LoopUntil} $0 == "v6.1"

# ... 

# ... 
# Uninstaller section
# ... 

Push "v6.1"
Push "v7.0"
Push "v7.1"
Push "v8.0"
Push "v8.1"
${Do}
  Pop $0
  ReadRegStr $1 HKLM "${REGKEY}" "$0"
  ${If} $1 == '1'
    ReadRegStr $2 HKLM "Software\JetBrains\ReSharper\$0" InstallDir
    ${If} $2 != ''
      RMDir /r /REBOOTOK "$2\Plugins\$(^Name)" 
      DeleteRegValue HKLM "${REGKEY}" "$0"
    ${EndIf}
  ${EndIf}
${LoopUntil} $0 == "v6.1"  

# ...


Conclusions

Just a few minutes ago, I read the notification about the release of R#8.2 EAP. It’s a good moment to revalidate this approach. Let’s see,… creating a new project with post-fix 82, …installing the SDK package, ..., ...time out, sorry…slow connection…,…,…,..updating the build script, …, …, … reviewing for breaking changes, good news, there are no breaking changes,… updating setup script…., committing source modifications, … running the build script and it’s done.

Now you can update the extension from the extension gallery or download the full installer of CatelR# with support for R#8.2 EAP ;)

X-ray StoneAssemblies.MassAuth with NDepend

Introduction A long time ago, I wrote this post  Why should you start using NDepend?  which I consider as the best post I have ever...