What is NArrange?

NArrange is a stand-alone, configurable .NET code beautification tool that automatically organizes code members and elements within .NET classes. It allows developers to easily sort class contents according to their style and layout conventions. NArrange works by parsing source code files into a document object model, arranging the elements then rewriting the arranged source code.

NArrange helps reduce the amount of time developers spend arranging members within source code files and when used as part of check-in procedures can also help reduce source code repository conflicts. With NArrange, developers don't need to worry about where they place a new member definition in a class, they can just type away and run NArrange prior to compilation. After formatting, the new member will be automatically moved to the appropriate location in the source file. NArrange is not only a great time saver, but it also helps enforce coding style standards across a team when a common configuration file is used.

Homepage: http://www.narrange.net/

Documentation: http://www.narrange.net/doc/index.htm

Today, I downloaded the July 2008 CTP of Windows Live Tools for Visual Studio 2008.

Windows Live™ Tools for Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2008 are a set of control add-ins to make incorporating Windows Live services into your Web application easier with Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Web Developer Express 2008.

 There are 6 controls that were included in the CTP release:

• Contacts Control
• IDLoginStatus Control
• IDLoginView Control 
• MessengerChat Control 
• SilverlightStreamingMediaPlayer Control
• Map Control 

Among these controls, what I am excited to experiment with is the Map Control. I'm interested in developing application that uses maps, e.i. Google Maps, Yahoo Maps but I hate javascript so my plan didn't materialize. Thanks to this controls release for ASP.NET I can now start experimenting with these.  

Find the full details of the CTP and Windows Live Tools here.

A new developer tool was released by Microsoft - it is the Source Analysis for C#.

The ultimate goal of Source Analysis is to allow you to produce elegant, consistent code that your team members and others who view your code will find highly readable. In order to accomplish this, Source Analysis does not allow its rules to be very configurable. Source Analysis takes a one-size-fits-all approach to code style, layout, and readability rules. It is highly likely that you will not agree with all of the rules and may even find some of the rules annoying at first! However, the majority of teams using this tool within Microsoft have found that after a short adjustment period, they came to appreciate the rules enforced by Source Analysis, and even began to find it difficult to read code not written in this style.

Rules that this Source Analysis checks includes:

• Layout of elements, statements, expressions, and query clauses
• Placement of curly brackets, parenthesis, square brackets, etc
• Spacing around keywords and operator symbols
• Line spacing
• Placement of method parameters within method declarations or method calls
• Standard ordering of elements within a class
• Formatting of documentation within element headers and file headers
• Naming of elements, fields and variables
• Use of the built-in types
• Use of access modifiers
• Allowed contents of files
• Debugging text

 A dedicated blog for Source Analysis for C# can be found here and the tool can be downloaded here.

If you want to integrate the tool with MSBuild, an explanation can be found here.