Web Client Software Factory - February 2008

What exactly is the Web Client Software Factory? The first link that comes up on Google’s result page is the patterns & practices WCSF homepage, which says:

The Web Client Software Factory (WCSF) provides a set of guidance for architects and developers building enterprise Web applications. The factory includes samples, reusable code and a guidance package which automates key development tasks from within Visual Studio.

Microspeak, as usual. After playing around with the February 2008 edition, this would be my answer:

The Web Client Software Factory (WCSF) is a Model View Presenter (MVP) project template for Visual Studio. It also comes with built-in support for the following Enterprise Library Application Blocks: Security, Logging, and Exception Handling.

The point is that you should be able to create a new WCSF project in Visual Studio as follows:

After which you should get a project as follows:

Then, to add new pages or modules, click Tools -> Guidance Package Manager:

Note that the sample Default.aspx page comprises of Default.aspx.cs (the View) and DefaultViewPresenter.cs (the Presenter). IDefaultView.cs is the interface for the View.

Out of the box, the UI is quite nice:

Installation and Setup Overview

Unfortunately installation is not just a matter of downloading an MSI and running it. You need to install Guidance Automation Extensions and Guidance Automation Toolkit for VS2008, then you need to compile and install the Web Client Factory Guidance Package.

To get going, first download and install the following:

1. Web Client Software Factory - February 2008.msi
2. GuidanceAutomationExtensions.exe
3. GuidanceAutomationToolkitForVS2008.msi

To enable guidance automation:

1. Open <wcsf_source_dir>\WCSF-Feb2008\GP\WebClientFactory Guidance Package.sln and rebuild the solution under Release config.
2. Execute <wcsf_source_dir>\WCSF-Feb2008\GP\WebClientFactoryPackageSetup\Release\WebClientFactoryPackageSetup.msi
3. In Visual Studio, click Tools -> Guidance Package Manager
4. Click “Enable / Disable Packages…”
5. Select “Custom Web Client Factory Guidance Package”

Hints and Workarounds

When you open a new WCSF project, you will be prompted for the location of a list of assemblies. Copy the contents of <wcsf_source_dir>\WCSF-Feb2008\Lib\entlib and <wcsf_source_dir>\WCSF-Feb2008\Lib\WCSFBlocks into a temporary folder and point to this folder.

If you get the following error messages:

• “The file AssemblyInfo.cs.template could not be found within the project templates. Continuing to run, but the resulting project may not build properly.”
• “A problem was encountered creating the sub project ‘$WebUIProjectName$’. Unable to copy the file ‘AssemblyInfo.cs’ from the project template to the project. Cannot find file ‘…\Temp\Properties\AssemblyInfo.cs’.”
• Recipe Framework Error: “An exception occured during the binding of reference or execution of recipe CreateWebClientFactorySolutionWAPCS. Error was: The following arguments are required and don’t have values: WebUIProject, WebsiteNamespace. Can’t continue execution. You can remove the reference to this recipe through the Guidance Package”

The workaround is to copy AssemblyInfo.cs.template from <wcsf_source_dir>\WCSF-Feb2008\GP\WebClientFactoryPackage\Templates\Solutions\Projects\WebProject.CS\Properties to C:\Program Files\Microsoft patterns & practices\WebClientFactoryPackageSetup\Templates\Solutions\Projects\WebProject.CS\Properties.

9 December 2008 | .NET | Comments