Last week at the PDC was Oslo’s big
coming out party. If you haven’t heard Oslo is a new set of technologies from
Microsoft relating to model-driven development. The three main parts of Oslo
are:
1) A language: The M language is a language for writing stuff down. You
write down the things you need to drive your application. The things could be
application configuration data, or application specific data, or data which is actually
your application. How exactly you use M is largely up to you. There is
also MGrammar which I’ll be covering more in future posts.
2) A repository: There needs to be a place to hold all this data, so Oslo has a SQL
Server 2008 database named the "Repository". The Repository is full
of models, both models that Microsoft has created, as well as models you might want
to create. Microsoft has created a large number of models that they think will
be useful for us as developers. Things like endpoints, service contracts, workflows,
as well as other data our applications will need. You can choose to put your
models made in M into the Repository, or you can put your models into your own database.
The choice I think will largely be based on whether you want your models to be able
interact with Microsoft’s models, and whether the Repository becomes your main application
database.
3) A visual tool: To view the models in the Repository they’ve create a visual
tool named "Quadrant" (this is a code-name hence the quotes). "Quadrant"
is a tool for viewing models for those of you who are visual/spatial people.
Some people like text – so they have M. Some people like drawings – so they
Quadrant. Quadrant is a highly customizable general purpose data viewing and
editing tool.
Those are the three "main" pieces, but there are other pieces as well.
To create a great editing experience for M, the Oslo team built a tool called IntelliPad
(or IPad) for short. IPad is a customizable text editor that has support for
the M language. Here is a screenshot of IPad in action:
In this picture I’m using M to generate "Reach SQL" which is SQL that isn’t
limited to the Repository. The test.m buffer is in "MMode" which means
there are additional commands available that wouldn’t be available if I where editing
any other kind of text file. The other buffer is generated from the M in the
test.m buffer, and I made this happen by going to the MMode menu and selecting "Reach
SQL".
If you want to see Repository SQL you can use the MMode menu and select "Repository
SQL".
In this case I am beginning a model to represent a blog. I’ve created an M type
named BlogEntryType, and then an extent (the name for storage space in M) named BlogEntry.
You can see on the right that the M will generate a table named BlogEntry with the
appropriate columns. As Scott points
out one of the nice features of this system for developers even if you aren’t using
the Repository is that you will be able to check-in the m file to source control and
doing all the usual source control type things on it.
That’s all a brief introduction to Oslo and IPad. The purpose of this post (indicated
by the title) is that IPad is super customizable. When I was at the last Oslo
"SDR" like event a few weeks ago, I asked for a feature in IPad – the "Open
Folder in Windows Explorer" feature from Visual Studio 2008 which I find to be
the most useful simple feature in Visual Studio I think for all time.
Chris Sells (who is a
PM on Oslo) said "You add it". Which is a very typical Chris response,
but at least in this case it is possible since IPad’s whole system of commands is
totally customizable.
Harry will happy that this is
forcing me to learn about IronPython, although I have to admit I was able to make
it work without much actual learning of the IronPython language.
Almost all of IPad’s commands are actually written in Python. These commands
are registered with IPad when IPad first starts, and the commands are implemented
by manipulating the interface to IPad’s object model.
The main command file is Commands.py which is in the Oslo install directory under
Bin\Intellipad\Settings. It contains almost all of the standard mode commands.
To add a new command, all I had to do was add a new .py file to that directory.
IPad seems to search at least that directory for .py files and loads up all the commands
found inside into the environment.
Each command has at least one IronPython function, which represents the "Execution"
of method of the command. This function is annotated with an "attribute"
(which I think may be added by the IPad team, I can’t seem to find any reference to
attribute support in IronPython – Harry?).
The Metadata.CommandExecuted "attribute" tells IPad this is a definition
of a command. It has three parameters, the IPad object that should execute
the command, the name of the command, and the keyboard shortcut (which is optional).
Here is my CommandExecuted function defintion from the MyCommands.py file I created
in the settings directory:
import sys import System import Microsoft import Common @Metadata.CommandExecuted('{Microsoft.Intellipad}BufferView', '{Microsoft.Intellipad}OpenExplorerAtBuffer', 'Ctrl+B') def OpenExplorerAtBufferExecute(target, sender, args): from System.Diagnostics import Process from System.IO import Path, File exists = False file = sender.Buffer.Uri.AbsolutePath exists = File.Exists(file) if exists: Process.Start(Path.GetDirectoryName(file))
The first argument of the CommandExecuted can either be (as far as I can tell so far)
the BufferView object which represents the current buffer, or the HostWindow object
which seems to represent IPad itself. OpenExplorerAtBuffer is the name I gave
this command, and Ctrl+B is the keyboard short cut. The code is pretty easy,
I just find the path of the buffer and if it exists (since a buffer in IPad might
not have been saved yet) I just call Process.Start at the directory to open explorer.
Each command can optionally have a function that IPad will call to find out if the
command should even be available at a particular time, so I added that one as well:
@Metadata.CommandCanExecute('{Microsoft.Intellipad}BufferView', '{Microsoft.Intellipad}OpenExplorerAtBuffer') def CanOpenExplorerAtBuffer(target, sender, args): from System.IO import Path, File file = sender.Buffer.Uri.AbsolutePath args.CanExecute = File.Exists(file)
The "CommandCanExecute" function just checks to see if the file exists and
returns the args.CanExecute as true or false, if true the command is active, if false
the command is not.
The next step was to add my command to a menu, since I tend to be a mouse/keyboard
developer (sometimes I use the mouse at odd times – just the way my hands work I guess).
To add a command to IPad at all times, I edited the MenuBar.xcml file which
is in the Intellipad\Settings\VisualStudio folder, and drives the default menu (other
IPad "Modes" can have additional menu items merged, as the MMode mode does
with the MMode menu). I added a new item under the File menu:
<act:Exports
xmlns='http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation' xmlns:x='http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml' xmlns:act='clr-namespace:System.ComponentModel.Activation;assembly=Activation' xmlns:mis='clr-namespace:Microsoft.Intellipad.Shell;assembly=Microsoft.Intellipad.Framework' xmlns:mi='clr-namespace:Microsoft.Intellipad;assembly=Microsoft.Intellipad.Core' xmlns:mih='clr-namespace:Microsoft.Intellipad.Host;assembly=Microsoft.Intellipad.Core' >
<act:Export Name='{}{Microsoft.Intellipad}MenuBar' xmlns:mti='Microsoft.Intellipad' >
<Menu> <Menu.Resources> <mi:FileNameConverter x:Key='fileNameConverter' />
<mi:ModeToMenuItemConverter x:Key='modeToMenuItemConverter' />
</Menu.Resources> <MenuItem Header='_File'>
<MenuItem Header='_New' Command='{mis:NamedCommand
Name=mti:New}' /> <MenuItem Header='_Open' Command='{mis:NamedCommand
Name=mti:Open}' /> <MenuItem Header='Open
_Project' Command='{mis:NamedCommand Name=mti:OpenProject}' />
<MenuItem Header='_Save' Command='{mis:NamedCommand
Name=mti:Save}' /> <MenuItem Header='Save
_As' Command='{mis:NamedCommand Name=mti:SaveAs}' />
<MenuItem Header='_Close Buffer' Command='{mis:NamedCommand
Name=mti:CloseBuffer}' /> <MenuItem Header='Open
_Buffer Folder In Explorer' Command='{mis:NamedCommand
Name=mti:OpenExplorerAtBuffer}' /> <Separator /> <!-- rest of file
omitted--> </act:Exports>
So adding the command allowed me to to Ctrl+B from any buffer and get the windows
explorer folder of the current buffer to open. Changing the MenuBar.xcml file
enabled me to get the menu item on the File Menu:
All in all I find IPad to be a really interesting and powerful text editor – but being
able to customize the menus and commands with such ease I think is just another example
of the cool work the Oslo team is doing for us as developers.
Check out my new book on REST.