Maori XMass: Installing Custom things in Visual Studio

Who'd have known, Bran Van 3000 is pretty good, while Sandman is po-faced sub-goth fantasy schtick. (ducks)

Installing Custom Project Templates for all users in Visual Studio Express

Aaanyway, thought I'd note down what I discovered about installing custom Project Templates into Visual Studio Express. (NB: This is different to installing into a user's "My Project Templates" folder; that only makes the template visible to one user.)

• Package your template up into a nice zip file using either the Visual Studio Wizard, or Microsoft's documentation
• Read the path given in the registry keyHKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VCSExpress\8.0\VSTemplate\Project key UserFolder
• To that path, append the language string for the user's installed version. (For US English, that'll ususally be 1033. (i.e. append "\1033\" or whatever to the previously read path)
• Copy the zipped template file into that directory
• Locate the VCSexpress.exe executable. The location can be read from HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VCSExpress\8.0 key InstallDir in the registry, but you'll need to append the executable name to that.
• Run VCSExpress.exe with the /setup option

...that should make the IDE re-register it's list of project templates.
Next time you run Visual Studio Express, and go to File | New Project, your project template should be listed. To uninstall the template, delete the .zip file from where you installed it, and re-run VCSExpess.exe /setup

Programatically installing user controls in Visual Studio Express

Given how much trouble this was, and how clunkily it behaves, I rather suspect that Microsoft don't really want you doing this. Never mind.
I've only persuaded this to work for a single user at a time, which is a bit annoying. Anyway, to install some classes you've derived from Component:

• Get the path stored in HKCU\Software\Microsoft\VCSExpress\8.0<\code> key VisualStudioLocation
• Append "\Controls" to that path
• To make your controls appear on a tab called $NAME, append "\$NAME\"
• Copy the assembly containing your Component(s) into that path
• Locate the VCSExpress.exe file, as described above
• Execute VCSExpress.exe /command Tools.InstallCommunityControls

Which has a decent chance of working. NSIS code to do all that is available on request.

Call me George

At work today, I pushed this button:



Not once, but twice! I had a lot of fun, several cups of tea and more than one biscuit.

(Activity level not totally unrelated to this being Christmas eve.)

I also got bored to the point that I wrote down what I know about the present whereabouts of STA alumni and emailed them to someone who must be forming an odd opinion of how I spend my free time. Plus I voluntarily PATed some stuff; now, that's boredom.

And now I sit twiddling my thumbs for an hour or two, as although there is precious little to do, my peverse sense of ethics means I'm reluctant to skip off early. Blasted ethics.

I also seem to have volunteered to look after t'Cube's office computers. Plus possibly more onerous things. Hmm.

Up at oh-god-oh-god-my-brain'O'Clock to go to Cribbs to broadcast GLORIOUS NEWS OF SHOPPING for t'Radio.

Which would have been nice, had the thrice accurs'd Wood & Douglas receiver, attached to the biggest atenna in the universe...

...actually picked up anything other than a curious sort of crackling noise, with faint hints of presenter spicing up the bits inbetween the buzzes. Fortunately a nice new Sennheiser receiver, manufactured sometime after the invention of the integrated circuit, managed to pick up a lovely signal using an eenie-weenie aerial (circled) and a 'lump' transmitter powered by 2 AA batteries.

(vs. the Wood+Douglas effort, which weighs about 10kg, and runs off a sealed lead acid.)

Ah well, I can feel my fingers now.

Hmm. Phil appears to have left, and the sink is empty! Woo. And I'm doing FOH at t'Cube in about as much time as it'll take to find some food. Not sure if that's a good idea, what with having to be at work about 7 hours after the event finishes. All I know is Elvis impersonators + Samba band. It'll be great.

Blogs, eh?

It turns out both the people I live with have blogs. And I'm way cooler than them,so I guess I'd better start one too. (Strikes pose)

Uh, yes.

Today I return to Swindon, a lovely place that epitomises why the private automobile was the worst thing to happen to British civilisation ever (and that's even after you account for Thatcher and cheap alcohol. Which may both be symptoms, I'm not sure.)

Ranting aside (and oh, how those words pain me) it's been a thrilling day here. I've been eating biscuits and trying to motivate myself to read the OpenGL manual. It's better than Direct3D, in the same way that eating play-dough is better than eating concrete. It hurts less, but it still tastes like sh*t, and you really have to wonder why you're bothering when you could just feed the concrete to someone else and slope off to the sandwich shop. In fact...