The Dev tool of my dreams

Published 12 May 05 10:07 AM | despos

Nikhil on the ASP.NET team released a dev helper tool that I first dreamt of when I was a newbie to ASP.NET. Yeah, sometimes I really wonder if there was ever a time when people were used to write code without .NET <g>

The tool is built as a combination of a server and client component. The server component is a HTTP module you have to install and make available to all apps or just the one you want to play with. The client component is a Browser Helper Object for IE only.

Several times lately I was near enough to writing that tool myself. What stopped me was the difficulty of writing a BHO w/o .NET. A BHO must be a COM object written according to the guidelines you find here. I never considered switch back to ATL and I don't like much writing COM objects through .NET. That's why I heartily welcome the tool from Nikhil.

Join me sending a monumental THANK YOU to Nikhil and the ASP.NET team!

Comments

# Big Jim in stl said on May 12, 2005 09:18 AM:

When I follow your link, and click on the ASP.Net Development Helper tool link (http://www.nikhilk.net/ASPNETDevHelperTool.aspx) it gives me the yellow-and-white Server - Error - In - APplication page...

# Prasad Khandekar said on May 12, 2005 09:50 AM:

Hi,

The link does not seems to work. Almost every link on his site is broken.

# RichB said on May 12, 2005 05:31 PM:

Dino,

Actually, Nikhil's Browser Helper Object is written in .Net :-)

In VS.Net, File->Open, select the BHO. Now right click on the strange binary unmanaged resource and export to a file.

Load this file into reflector or your favourite tool of choice.


And for all those Firefox zealots out there, I've written a Firefox version of Nikhil's tool:

http://blogs.aspadvice.com/rbirkby/archive/2005/05/12/3536.aspx

# Nikhil Kothari said on May 12, 2005 05:36 PM:

Bummer... my site is down with problems at the ISP end. Hopefully it will be back up soon...

Btw, thanks Dino!

# DinoE said on May 13, 2005 04:09 AM:

Hi RichB,
I'll take a look at your FireFox tool and make sure to mention that along with Nikhil's if I have a chance to add cool-tool appendix to my next ASP.NET books.

I suspected Nikhil wrote the tool in .NET. It's just me hating writing COM stuff, anyway :-)

# Alex said on May 14, 2005 11:13 AM:

Have you seen SWExplorerAutomation(http://home.comcast.net/~furmana/SWIEAutomation.htm). SW Explorer Automation (SWEA) creates an object model (automation interface) for any Web application running in Internet Explorer. The tool can be helpful in debugging and testing a data driven ASP.NET applications. It easily automates tedious form filling.
The tool records the automation script and generates C# or VB.NET code from it.

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