I first published my C# WPF code snippets last December in this post.  Due to increasing demand for VB versions of these snippets, I spent this past weekend porting them to VB.  They are now available for both languages. You can download the snippet installer here.

Updated October 1, 2008: 

I just updated the snippets to play nicely with the Strict option in VB.  Grab the latest installer to get a version of the VB snippets that properly casts the result of the CLR get accessors based on the DP type.

All 65 snippets are supported in both C# and VB.NET now.  The shortcuts for the VB versions are slightly different because the VB code editor does not provide the same level of support for snippets as the C# editor  (see rant below). 

In VB, for example, you cannot just type "dp" and hit tab twice to get a list of my dependency property snippets.  Instead, you must type the entire unique shortcut (e.g., "dp2") and then hit tab to expand that specific snippet.  It is probably easier to install all of the snippets within a single category (like "My Code Snippets") and then select the desired snippet from a list, as shown here:

I hope the VB snippets are helpful to a few of you!  Let me know if you find any problems with the ported code.

Cheers,
Dr. WPF

Small Rant Regarding VB Snippet Support

In my earlier post, I talked about how I am looking forward to a day when Visual Studio code snippets will support more advanced macro-like functionality.  After spending some time working with snippets in VB, I realize just how lucky I am to work primarily in C#.  On a scale of Classic Pong to XBox 360, the C# snippet support is probably somewhere around a PS2, whereas the VB.NET snippet support is barely a Nintendo 64!

Come on, Microsoft…  show a little love for that monster base of VB developers you created in the 90’s!  At a minimum, at least give them snippet parity with C#.  Here are a few of my complaints:

• Intellisense should provide snippet hints.
• The user should not have to tab through every field in the snippet… just the unique fields.
• There should be support for functions like ClassName().
• The $end$ tag should be supported.
• Pressing ‘Enter’ should take the snippet out of edit mode and place the cursor at the $end$ tag.
• If there are multiple snippets with the same shortcut, typing the shortcut should provide a filtered list of descriptions for the matching snippets.

Okay, I’m sure most VB developers know how to deal with all these limitations, and since I’m not really part of that constituency, my voice probably doesn’t hold much sway in this argument…  so I’m done now.  Enjoy the snippets!

Yikes!  Has it really been over a month since my last blog entry!?!

Okay, the last 6 weeks are a bit hazy and I wish I could blame my absence from the WPF Forum (and this blog) on something exciting, but honestly, it’s just been work.  A number of projects all converged at once creating “the perfect storm” of work engagements.  And although I love writing WPF code, I’m now hoping for a small respite from the daily deadlines.  Hopefully, the next few weeks will be a little more tame and I will be able to catch up with life in the WPF community.

Whenever we go through these crunch times, I realize how much I’ve come to depend upon the code snippet support in Visual Studio 2005/2008.  I totally rely on my WPF code snippets… and its not just because of the time they save me writing code, but also because of the consistency they bring to my code.  I can look at any WPF classes I’ve written over the past few years and immediately understand what is going on in the properties, events, and commands exposed by those classes.

If you do not yet have a good set of Visual Studio code snippets, I would encourage you to develop them.  I have posted my C# WPF snippets here for anyone who is interested in perusing, adopting, or improving them. 

<UPDATE>

January 4, 2008:  The downloadable snippets file now contains a .vsi file that can be used to directly import these snippets into Visual Studio 2005/2008.  (Special thanks to the coworker who was nice enough to create the install package for me!)

</UPDATE>

(Apologies to the VB.NET WPF developers out there…  I have never ported these to VB, as the time I spend writing VB code is extremely limited.  But if anyone is up for a challenge and wants to port these and send them my way, I’d be happy to post the equivalent VB snippets on my site.)

<UPDATE>

September 22, 2008:  I finally got around to porting these snippets to VB.  See this post for the details.

</UPDATE>

I have designed these snippets to cover 98% of the usage scenarios that I encounter in a typical WPF development project.  I have also designed them to enforce good coding patterns, especially around consistency and documentation.

I won’t spend a lot of time explaining how to use them (because hopefully they are self-explanatory for WPF developers).  There are really only three shortcut keywords to remember:

• dp  (for dependency properties)
• rc  (for routed commands)
• re  (for routed events)

From there, it’s just a matter of choosing the correct snippets from the context menu.  I’ve found that I can now invoke most of my snippets without even thinking about the keystrokes… my fingers just go into “auto” mode ( d – p – <tab> – <tab> – 2 – <enter> – property name – property type – … ). 

Of course, I created the blasted things, so maybe I’m not a representative sample. 

In addition to the WPF-specific snippets, I’ve included a couple of other snippets in this zip that I also use quite a bit… “pc” provides the PropertyChanged implementation for the INotifyPropertyChanged interface and “pcp” is used to define a property that raises such a change notification. 

I’m looking forward to a day when I’ll be able to do more advanced things in my snippets (custom functions, custom formatting, capitalization, custom placement for different code parts, etc).  In the meantime, I hope others will find my existing snippets useful!

Cheers,
Dr. WPF