• Chapter1Game
• Xna Pong
• Xna Breakout
• Xna Tetris
• Rocket Commander Xna
• Xna Shooter
• Xna Racing Game
• Dungeon Quest GDC

• Chapter1Game: This application is not really a game, but a test project to check out if XNA 2.0 is properly working on both Windows and the Xbox 360. It is from the first chapter of my book "Professional XNA Game Programming". BTW: The second edition of the book is coming out soon, there are 3 more chapters about Multiplayer game programming and a cool new role playing game.
  
  
  • Game Installer: Chapter1GameSetup.exe (210 KB)
  • Source Code and Game Content: Chapter1GameSourceCode.zip (57 KB)
  • Screenshot:
    
    
    
• Xna Pong: Xna Pong is a simple clone of the favorite pong game from 1978. It is just a few hunderd lines of code and should be very easy to understand.
  
  This game is from the book "Professional XNA Game Programming" by Benjamin Nitschke. For more information read chapter 2. (2008-02-10: Now updated to XNA 2.0)
  
  
  • Game Installer: XnaPongSetup.exe (309 KB)
  • Source Code and Game Content: XnaPongSourceCode.zip (258 KB)
  • Screenshot:
    
    
    
• Xna Breakout: XNA Breakout is a simple Breakout/Arcanoid game based on the XNA Pong game from the previous chapter.
  
  It is fully described and covered in Chapter 3 of my book "Professional XNA Game Programming". The code is quite short and should be easy to understand. (2008-02-10: Now updated to XNA 2.0)
  
  
  • Game Installer: XnaBreakoutSetup.exe (383 KB)
  • Source Code and Game Content: XnaBreakoutSourceCode.zip (316 KB)
  • Screenshot:
    
    
    
• Xna Tetris: This is a simple, but highly addictive Tetris game. You can control the blocks with your cursor keys, aswd or a game pad and the game works both on Windows and the Xbox 360. Reaching levels above 5 is really hard. My highest level was 9, try to reach more :) (2008-02-10: Now updated to XNA 2.0)
  
  This game introduces the helper classes (chapter 4 of my book) and makes more use of unit testing and game components in XNA.
  
  
  • Game Installer: XnaTetrisSetup.exe (310 KB)
  • Source Code and Game Content: XnaTetrisSourceCode.zip (277 KB)
  • Screenshot:
    
    
    
• Rocket Commander Xna: XNA port of the famous Rocket Commander game. The game principle stayed the same, but the controls were a little bit simplified to make it more fun on the Xbox 360.
  
  If you want to learn more about the Rocket Commander game, check out its official website www.RocketCommander.com and check out the Video Tutorials on Coding4Fun by MSDN. (2008-02-10: Now updated to XNA 2.0, also supports very big resolutions now and runs faster on the Xbox 360)
  
  
  • Game Installer: RocketCommanderXnaSetup.exe (16.5 MB)
  • Source Code and Game Content: RocketCommanderXnaSourceCode.zip (52.8 MB)
  • Screenshot:
    
    
    
• Xna Shooter: Shoot'n'up game specifically created for my book "Professional XNA Game Programming". It features full HDTV support, runs on Windows and the Xbox 360, 5 weapon types, 5 enemy types, a powerful ship and some power ups. It is quite fun to play and it gets harder and harder the longer you play. Based partly on the Rocket Commander XNA engine, but also features lots of new effects and shaders. (2008-02-10: Now updated to XNA 2.0, also much easier and balanced)
  
  This game and the racing game are the most improved. The game works now much better in high resolutions and on the Xbox 360. But most importantly the game is now much easier, balanced and more fun. Additionally a level percentage is now visible on the bottom and more EMP bombs can be picked up to make it easier at the end of the level.
  
  • Game Installer: XnaShooterSetup.exe (14.9 MB)
  • Source Code and Game Content: XnaShooterSourceCode.zip (32.2 MB)
  • Screenshot:
    
    
    
• Xna Racing Game: XNA Racing Game Starter Kit I wrote for http://creators.xna.com. More information and more downloads can be found on http://XnaRacingGame.com. It runs best on the Xbox 360 in HDTV (1920x1200), but it also runs fine on the PC. (2008-02-10: Now updated to XNA 2.0, driving also improved a lot, better tested on Xbox 360 and fixed some issues).
  
  Following things were improved: Shadow mapping on very big resolutions works now (crashed before), more options for lower quality settings, fixed physics, car now always stays on the road, fixed loopings, cars are much faster now, winning conditions work better now, and fixed several other bugs.
  
  • Game Installer: XnaRacingGameSetup.exe (40.2 MB)
  • Source Code and Game Content: XnaRacingGameSourceCode.zip (95.4 MB)
  • Screenshot:
    
    
    
• Dungeon Quest GDC: And finally the Dungeon Quest XNA Game, which was developed in just 4 days on the GDC 2007 at the XNA Contest. Dungeon Quest GDC is a relatively complex 3D role playing game (at least for just 4 days of work). An early version even supported coop multiplayer on the Xbox 360 via splitscreen. The game was developed by Benjamin Nitschke (abi.exDream.com) and Christoph Rienaecker (WAII). (2008-02-10: Now updated to XNA 2.0). This is NOT the full Dungeon Quest game (see www.DungeonQuestGame.com for that), this is just the GDC version.
  
  Please note that the level was reduced to allow loading on the Xbox 360 (which otherwise crashes with an OutOfMemoryException), the game is not fully playable, only the first part is implemented. You can also press F2 to toggle the Options menu and some minor bugs were fixed. But this game is no longer supported, I will not improve it anymore! Please check out the new Dungeon Quest game from www.DungeonQuestGame.com, which is coming in a month or so.
  
  • Game Installer: DungeonQuestGDCSetup.exe (25.6 MB)
  • Source Code and Game Content: DungeonQuestGDCSourceCode.zip (67.2 MB)
  • Screenshot:
    
    
    

1. Either use the XNA project conversion utility (can be found on the XNA Creators Club website) or just create a new XNA 2.0 project in VS 2005.
   
   
2. If you created a new project, drag all source code files into the project and seperate the content files out and put them all in the existing Content directory (only there the content pipeline is activated). If you just converted a project and the content files did not move, move them yourself to the content directory. Gladly all my projects with more than 5 content files had a special content directory anyway, so no need to change anything content-wise for them. If you don't want some of the files to be compiled to .xnb files, you have to change the build action from "compile" to "content" (and then use the "copy to output directory" switch) or to "none" if you want them to be ignored like for .wav files, which are automatically processed by the .xct (XACT) file for you.
   
   
3. Find the line content = new ContentManager(Services); and replace it with Content.RootDirectory = "Content";. If you do that, get rid of the content manager in your game class since you can now use the build-in Content property to access the underlying Game content manager. In case you don't want to do that or if you need an extra variable, replace the above line with content = new ContentManager(Services, "Content");. Both ways will make sure all the content is now loaded from the content directory instead from the main directory of the application. In more complex XNA games you can also change the BaseGameDirectory to the content directory, but then you would also have to move all other resource files to this directory (config files, save games, levels, etc.). It is usually a good idea to separate the compiled (.xnb) content from the content the user can change (config, levels, etc.), so I suggest just redirecting the content directory of the content manager.
   
   
4. Replace the LoadGraphicsContent(bool) method with LoadContent, remove all the if (loadAllContent) commands (was never false anyway, just let the content of the if loop stay) and also remove the call to base.LoadGraphicsContent(bool) (does not do anything like all the Load or Unload methods in the XNA Game class, they are just empty virtual methods). You can also ignore this and the next step since it will only generate depreciated warnings, but I suggest cleaning up your source code whenever an opportunity like this presents itself. I also added some missing region blocks to the code and some comments here and there were they were missing.
   
   
5. Finally delete the UnloadGraphicsContent method unless it did anything beside base.Unload and base.UnloadGraphicsContent. In my XNA games the UnloadGraphicsContent usually looked like this and can be safely removed now (at least if nothing else is in there):

/// <summary>
/// Unload graphic content if the device gets lost.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="unloadAllContent">Unload everything?</param>
protectedoverridevoid UnloadGraphicsContent(bool unloadAllContent)
{
  if (unloadAllContent == true)
    content.Unload();

  base.UnloadGraphicsContent(unloadAllContent);
} // UnloadGraphicsContent(loadAllContent)

1. First of all make sure the old XNA 1.1 code gets compileable by going though the changes mentioned above (e.g. replacing ResourceUsage with TextureUsage or BufferUsage) and removing everything that does not exist anymore (like ResourceManagementMode.Automatic). If a method is non-existent in XNA 2.0 like ResolveRenderTarget, comment it out and remember where it happened.
   
   
2. You might go through other issues, but you have to come back to the RenderTarget issue. This took the most time in the converting process for me (probably half of all my issues come by something related to changes with RenderTargets in XNA 2.0). For that reason always make sure that rendering to textures still works while you make changing. I always used the TestCreateRenderToTexture unit test inside the RenderToTexture class to figure things out.
   
   
3. Additionally to making some changes in the BaseGame class (loading content via LoadContent, using the base.Content instead of creating a new content manager, etc.) I also removed all the RenderTarget helper methods and fields from the BaseGame class (SetRenderTarget, ResetRenderTarget, etc.) and moved them into the RenderToTexture class. While this makes the code more clean and restructured by making a few more fields private, if you do not call the new InitializeDepthBufferFormatAndMultisampling of the RenderToTexture class the calls to SetRenderTarget and ResetRenderTarget will not work correctly and will not restore the default depth buffer (which has to be remembered first). If you get the following exception it means the DepthBuffer Device.DepthStencilBuffer was set to null, but is obviously still used. In order to fix that make sure the remDepthBuffer variable is set to a correct value in the InitializeDepthBufferFormatAndMultisampling method!
   

An error has occurred during the Clear operation while trying to clear the depth or stencil buffer, no DepthStencilBuffer surface exists.
System.InvalidOperationException: An error has occurred during the Clear operation while trying to clear the depth or stencil buffer, no DepthStencilBuffer surface exists.
at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics.GraphicsDevice.Clear(ClearOptions options, Color color, Single depth, Int32 stencil, Rectangle[] regions)
at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics.GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color color)

• http://www.gameports.net/cms/meldung,medien-kritik-an-arbeitsbedingungen-in-der-spielebranche,2292.html

• http://www.gameports.net/cms/artikel,medien-eine-branche-im-aufwrtstrend,801.html

Could not load file or assembly 'xunit, Version=7.10.25.1028, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.
    System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'xunit, Version=7.10.25.1028, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.
    File name: 'xunit, Version=7.10.25.1028, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null'
    at Xunit.TdNet.TdNetRunner.RunTests(Type type, MethodInfo method, ITestListener listener, TestRunState& runState)
    at Xunit.TdNet.TdNetRunner.RunMethod(MethodInfo method, ITestListener testListener)
    at TestDriven.TestRunner.AdaptorTestRunner.Run(ITestListener testListener, ITraceListener traceListener, String assemblyPath, String testPath)
    at TestDriven.TestRunner.ThreadTestRunner.Runner.Run()
    
    WRN: Assembly binding logging is turned OFF.
    To enable assembly bind failure logging, set the registry value [HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Fusion!EnableLog] (DWORD) to 1.
    Note: There is some performance penalty associated with assembly bind failure logging.
    To turn this feature off, remove the registry value [HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Fusion!EnableLog].

Ziggyware has a good overview of the XNA 2.0 announcements and GameFest conference sessions in the following post. Check it out if you are interested in the new XNA 2.0 features (mainly networking, which is really a big step forward). It is also nice to see so many new XNA games and development efforts :)

http://www.ziggyware.com/news.php?readmore=407

• DungeonQuestSetup.exe (40 MB): Game installer for Windows with everything you need to play.
  
  
• DungeonQuestSourceCodeAndContent.zip (103 MB): Full Dungeon Quest source code with all content files.
  Please note that the collada files (xml text format) and the sound/music are very big (extracted ~200 MB).
  This download also contains the full game in the bin/debug/ directory, you only need to download this file
  for development and testing.
  Contains solution and project files for VS2005, VC# Express (XNA Express) and Xbox 360!
  
  
• DungeonQuest.wmv (21 MB): Higher quality version of the YouTube video below
  
  

• UIManager.TestUI();
  Show the graphical user interface of the game (boxes for health, player values, rpg levels, etc.)
  
  

• ShaderTests.TestNormalMappingShader();
  Test the normal mapping shader, for more shader tests check out the XNA Rocket Commander and XNA Racing Game projects.
  
  

• ColladaModel.TestCaveColladaModelScene();
  This tests the big cave collada file (80 MB) and renders it with the cave shader. Looks very nice.
  
  

• ColladaModel.TestLoadStaticModel();
  This is straight from the SkiningColladaModelsWithXNA project from February. This test show shows a static collada model.
  
  

• AnimatedColladaModel.TestPlayerColladaModelScene();
  Also from the SkinningColladaModelsWithXNA project. This shows the player or the goblins running, dying, staying, etc.
  This is a useful unit test to test animations for skinned collada models.
  
  

• PostScreenGlow.TestPostScreenGlow();
  Test post screen glow, more details can be found in the Rocket Commander tutorials and most of my XNA projects.
  
  

• PlaneRenderer.TestRenderingPlaneXY();
  Test to render a plane on the ground, which is also used in some other tests. Also good for testing shaders.
  
  

• ShadowMapShader.TestShadowMapping();
  Test Shadow Mapping unit test, pretty complex stuff, but kinda nice for this game. More details can be found in my book, this is a complex topic and involves a lot of finetuning to get it right.
  
  

• EffectManager.TestEffects();
  Since DungeonQuest uses some effects for fire, smoke, blood, etc. it has a simple effect system build in. Use this test to see whats possible and to extend the effect system.
  
  

• StringHelper.TestConvertStringToFloatArray();
  An example of a dynamic unit test, which can also be started from NUnit or TestDriven.Net (right click if you have the addin installed).
  
  

• Sound.TestPlaySounds();
  And another test to play the sound effects used in the game, just press A, B, 1, 2, 3, etc. to play sounds.
  
  

• ColladaModel.TestCaveColladaModelSceneSplitScreen();
  This test shows how the engine supports split screen support, but it was never fully implemented into the game itself yet.
  To finish this the game logic + handling input from 2nd player has to be implemented.

Ok, let's get started. What is this guy doing there. He doesn't look very friendly, maybe it is better to hit him in the head!

First quest completed. This key is important to open the door to the second level.

Nonstop fighting action. Well, at least if you don't lose your way.

This is how it looks like after I got angry. I told those guys, don't start any fights!

Ohh no. I did not use all my skills (see right side) and this Ogre killed me too quickly. I guess I have to start over.

The credit screen when the game ends. Notice my book :)

• Replace Silverlight.js with the newer version from alpha refresh (you probably have done that already)

• Replace Sys.Silverlight.createObjectEx with Silverlight.createObjectEx in all your .js files

• Also replace all version="0.95" with version="1.1" in all .js files!

• Finally replace enableHtmlAccess: true with enableHtmlAccess: "true"
  This change is very important and will finally get rid of the Html access restricted error above.
  If you like the error, you can "enable" it again by setting enableHtmlAccess to "false" ^^

• Silverlight 1.0 RC (for da browser)
  
• Silverlight 1.1 Alpha Refresh (for da browser)
  
• Silverlight 1.1 Alpha Refresh SDK (some new samples and updated code)
  
• Blend 2 Preview (August CTP, important for designers)
• Microsoft Silverlight Tools Alpha for VS2008 Beta 2 (for Alpha Refresh, July 2007)
• Microsoft ASP.NET Futures (July 2007, also kinda important for ASP.NET Ajax and Silverlight)
  

• http://www.codeflakes.net/blog/
  
• http://silverlight.net/blogs/jesseliberty/archive/2007/07/27/
  silverlight-1-0-rc-and-1-1-alpha-refresh.aspx
  

• Scott Gu's Blog about VS2008 Intellisense
  

• 1001: usually AG_E_UNKNOWN_ERROR (yeah, thats really helpful)

• some element is null while loading a control
  Fix: Check all controls constructors and fields, set breakpoints there!
  

• Namespace duplicate found (usually error code 2254)
  Fix: Check all namespaces, make sure each name and namespace is only set once
  
  
• Control has no default Constructor and can't be instantiated
  Fix: Provide a default constructor with no parameters, it can be empty!
  

• NullReferenceException (or other exceptions) happend somewhere
  (usually in the Control constructor somewhere)
  Fix: Catch the exception or set breakpoints to find it, then fix it.
  Often it is also useful to comment code out and test if it works again.
  
  
• If this all not helps and the 1001 errors keeps coming up when you use the
  control use the following approach:
  
  Fix: Comment out the control, the page should now work.
  Comment it in again and check every single property you set, try removing
  as much as possible and test again. If it still does not work, check out
  the control itself, comment everything out here inside the control canvas.
  It should work now except for some errors of missing inner control names.
  Now slowly comment everything in again and try to see which inner control
  did not work. Often a depreciacted, commented out or deleted property is
  used and causes this error. Again try to work with as little as possible
  control properties and increase until the error pops up again.
  
  This more complex case will hopefully not happen to you in the beginning,
  but the more controls you build, the more likely it is that this one
  will annoy the hell out of you. Keep calm and go forward as methodically
  as possible, it will also help you for future error encounters.
  

• Can happen if a TargetName for a Storyboard (or something similar) cannot
  be found. Make sure the target control name is still valid.
  

• 2005:    ParserError: Unknown namespace xy

• The line should tell you which namespace is unknown and this should
  be quite easy to fix. It usually means you have either forgotten to
  add a namespace or add an element into an unsupported location.
  E.g. adding something to a nested Canvas can sometimes cause this error.
  

• 2024: ParserError:

• Invalid attribute value text/python, usually happens in the main xaml file.
  Similar to 2265, use the same fixes.
  
  
• It can also happen when the mime type
  is not available (e.g. in IIS) and .py files can't be used.
  Fix: Define .py as mime type in IIS as 'text/ironpython'
  

• 2101: can be:

• LostFocus event (or similar) not supported here
  Fix: Move global events to the main canvas, they are only supported there!
  

• 2207: AG_E_RUNTIME_METHOD

• playing media failed, unable to play it, loading probably failed with 403
  or 404
  

• 2210: AG_E_INVALID_ARGUMENT

• Short: In 90% of your cases the embedded resource cannot be found, make
  sure that the name of your embedded resource is correct in the
  GetManifestResourceStream function in your control constructor. Also make
  sure the file is marked as an embedded resource in VS Orcas!
  

• This means the embedded resource could not be found, which means either the
  call to GetManifestResourceStream uses the wrong string OR the resource
  is just not existant because of a wrong content type! make sure the
  control you are trying to access is actually an Embedded Resource and not
  just a Content or Silverlight Page.
  
  Fix: Set control xaml as Embedded Resource and make sure all strings are
  correct! GetManifestResourceStream should succeed! Using the Silverlight
  1.1 API UI Controls is also helpful because they figure out the path
  for you (just leaving you with misstyping the control name or forgetting
  to set the embedded resource type or one of the million errors below).
  
  Note: This is very annoying because SourceControl sometimes messes this up
  and just merges 2 files and setting it as Content or Silverlight Page,
  which make this error hard to track, so always check for the correct
  file build action first, it should always be Embedded Resource for controls.
  

• Another way this error can happen is when inside the control a namespace
  error occurs (similar to 1001 or 2254), you just get 2210 and trying to
  find why it does not work while all names are set ok and the resource is
  found, etc. One example of this failing is that a namespace or assembly
  used inside a control to reference other controls cannot be found or is
  misspelled (e.g. path does not longer fit, can be stupid things like
  ClientBin/Some.dll should be ../ClientBin/Some.dll)
  
  Fix: Check all namespaces in the control too, make sure all names are
  correct and files (especially assemblies) can be found the way they
  are specified!
  
  Advanced Fix: I use reflection to find out about the class name and use
  that same name for the .xaml file, this way I never have to specify
  any name and merging files does not lead to problems as long as the xaml
  file has the same name as the class (which is easy to spot in VS Orcas).
  

• Another VERY crazy way for this to happen is when one of your controls is
  using the partial keyword for its control class and overwrites some of the
  autogenerated background fields (through x:Class in the main Canvas of the
  control), it is probably better to always remove the partial and make sure
  the control is all managed by you (like in the SDK samples).
  
  Fix: Remove the partial in c# and the x:Class in xaml if you get compile
  errors, after that it usually just works :)
  

• Older notes (before I figured this out):
  Seems to happen with perfectly fine xaml code, no c# breakpoint is ever
  hit, so this must happen while parsing the xaml. Often also changes to error
  2254 if some name or namespace is wrong, but then gets back to 2210 if that
  is fixed.
  

• Someone here traced the 2210 back to “InitializeFromXaml” being called
  with an invalid resource stream (GetManifestResourceStream), which failed
  one line above it:
  http://silverlight.net/forums/t/1755.aspx
  

• 2251: ParserError, AG_E_RUNTIME_MANAGED_ACTIVATION

• Probably a security issue, seems to happen on a Max when the xaml file
  could not be loaded or accesses something that is not available (assemblies)
  Fix: Seems to be a Mac bug, will hopefully be fixed in the future.
  

• 2252: can be:

• Canvas Load Error, canvas could not be loaded because something is wrong
  it may help to check out the line and error description for more details.
  Fix: Look through the xaml line by line, annoying, but something is wrong
  

• AG_E_RUNTIME_MANAGED_ASSEMBLY_DOWNLOAD:
  When this happens the control at the line specified failed to load.
  This can be because it crashed somewhere in the constructor, setting a
  breakpoint usually tells you wether it crashed in C# or already in the
  xaml. If it is in the xaml, you have to figure out the error there (try
  to uncomment, check namings, etc.). If it happens in C# setting a
  breakpoint makes it much easier, but the error is still annoying. For
  that reason you should make sure to test your controls as much as
  possible before using them on a complex page.
  
  Fix: Set a breakpoint in the constructor of the control and fix the
  exception! Or if that does not help, take a close look at the xaml
  and comment it out to see what works and what does not.
  

• More help about 2252 from http://silverlight.net/forums/t/370.aspx
  Assembly loading failed, this can happen because of the IIS being
  misconfigured (unlikely if you doing development) or because the
  path to the assembly could not be found (much more likely).
  
  Fix: Make sure both the page xaml and the control xaml point to the
  correct directory for the dll and make sure this works from the
  perspective of the page, not the directories the xaml files are in!
  In my case changing ClientBin/.dll to ../ClientBin/.dll often did
  the trick!
  

• Another issue can happen when you rename the assembly, but not all the
  .dll links are correct. It can also be problematic if there are special
  letters like - in the assembly, which will get renamed to _, but the
  filename is still with -, see here:
  http://silverlight.net/forums/t/370.aspx
  
  Fix: Just check all .dll links and make sure both the name and the path
  are correct.
  

• 2254: AG_E_RUNTIME_MANAGER_ASSEMBLY_DOWNLOAD, can be:

• Control type not found because a namespace is not set correctly, this can
  happen if you just copy a file from another project and do not change the
  namespace accordingly.
  Fix: Make sure all namespaces are correct (same in xaml as in the controls)
  
  
• Namespace duplicate found, make sure that all namespaces and names only
  occur once.
  Fix: See above 1001
  

• 2255: AG_E_PARSER_BAD_TYPE

• An unsupported type was found, which usually means you are specifying a
  control or class for the xaml, which does not exist (anymore). Make sure
  that the x:Class parameter points to an existing class and uses a correct
  namespace.
  

• Also seems to happen when there are multiple comment blocks mixed in the
  xaml file or some name contains an invalid character because of that.
  Clear the xaml file and test until it works again, then insert the removed
  code again to figure out where the error is happening. The line/position
  information of this error is usually not very helpful!
  

• 2265: Error: Parser code

• Parsing xaml failed, this has been reported after saving some xaml in Blend
  but it could not be parsed in Visual Studio.
  Fix: Try using only parts of the xaml, use smaller files, dunno.
  
  
• Parsing xmal failed, some syntax error.
  Fix: You should be able to spot the error and fix it if it is a smaller
  file, for bigger files comment most of it out and comment it back in until
  it breaks again. Then fix the issue.
  

• 3001: AG_E_INVALID_FILE_FORMAT

• Often a ImageError, which usually means you are trying to load an
  unsupported image format like the .GIF format, which is not supported
  by Silverlight yet.
  Fix: Use .PNG instead of .GIF, etc.
  

• 3002: AG_E_NOT_FOUND:

• Error type should describe which kind of resource was not found (usually
  ImageError). Check your constructor and Page_Loaded methods and check
  all the files that are loaded there and make sure they exist. This is
  probably the equivalent of FileNotFoundException, just all the helpful
  information (which file, why, etc.) is missing. Sometimes the error type is
  confusing because it may report an ImageError, but in reality just the xaml
  file could not be loaded, always check the xaml file (name, loading, etc.)!
  

• 3010: can be:

• Silverlight installation is not complete yet, restart browser (or computer
  if this error persists).
  Fix: Tell user to restart browser.
  

• XnaProjectChangerSetup.zip (79.76 KB)

• XnaProjectChanger.zip (34.95 KB)

• Silverlight documentation about using remoting and webservices. Two solutions are presented, but the help is very short and if you have not done it before there can be many problems that are not discussed here. But this two ways are the standard solutions that almost everyone uses.
  http://www.silverlight.net/QuickStarts/Remote/default.aspx
  

• Silverlight board with the System.Net.WebException I mentioned above, the forum posters recomment using a static port.
  http://silverlight.net/forums/p/2575/7132.aspx
  

• Jon Galloway fixes the problem by assigning a static port to the webservice and silverlight app, I couldn't reproduce it in VS Orcas on Vista x64, the webservice always uses a new random port, no matter which one I gave it. But if you can use his technique, it is probably one of the easier solutions. He also explains the main problem very good and give detailed insight on the IsCrossDomainRequest method that causes the problem!
  http://weblogs.asp.net/jgalloway/archive/2007/06/14/
  calling-an-asmx-webservice-from-silverlight-use-a-static-port.aspx
  

• I used another solution to put all websites, web services and silverlight projects onto my IIS 7 server in Vista x64, but I had troubles debugging them. I moved also to IIS because it was annoying to test the website with the fun crashes VS Orcas gives you from time to time and it also has the advantage to show a working version on your colleagues computers by pointing to your computer's IIS.

• The following article might be helpful on which things you have to keep your eyes open for when working with Vista and IIS 7. http://mvolo.com/blogs/serverside/archive/2006/12/28/
  Fix-problems-with-Visual-Studio-F5-debugging-of-ASP.NET-applications-on-IIS7-Vista.aspx

• Here is another quick article on debugging websites on IIS:
  http://ryanfarley.com/blog/archive/2005/08/23/8540.aspx
  

• And another one from MSDN (little bit dated, but can be useful):
  http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dv_vstechart/html/vsdebug.asp
  

• Another MSDN article on Vista and IIS7:
  http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/07/03/IIS7/default.aspx
  

• Install IIS (Internet Information Services) first, you can find it in the Control Panel -> Programs/Features -> Turn Windows features on or off.

• Open the IIS tree and select the Web Management Tools (just install all of them). Also make sure you install ASP.NET in World Wide Web Services/  Application Development Features, it will also select all the other required components.
  

• Last but not least select the Basic, IP, URL and Windows Authentications in the Security tree below World Wide Web Services.
  

• After installing it you probably need to restart (it did not work without restarting at my colleagues computer). With the IIS Manager (in Computer Management) navigate to your Default Web Site and go into Authentication. Only Anonymous Authentication will be enabled, also enable Windows Authentication (and whatever else you need). You should also switch from the Default AppPool to the Classic .NET AppPool in the Default Web Site -> Right Click -> Advanced Settings -> Application Pool, else debugging will probably not work (Ctrl+F5 works fine even when you do not do this).

• All websites you create from now will use the Classic .NET AppPool, if you already have websites in IIS, make sure to change them too if you want to debug them.

• If you still cannot debug you probably do not have sufficiant rights for the user account that is used in IIS. I usually create a new account with Admin rights (plus password), set it to the IIS (Anonymous Authentication, click edit to select a new user) and then downgrade the Account until it does not work anymore, then you can set the appropriate rights (directory access, etc.) to the account. If you only use your IIS for yourself, you can also use your own user account for testing and debugging.

• Debugging silverlight and web services, peter uses a different approach, which is not easy to implement, but he can use cross-domain web services and can debug easier.
  http://peterkellner.net/2007/06/18/silverlightdebugwebservicedotnet/
  

• Don't forget to activate Silverlight debugging if you want to debug it (or disable it again for ASP.NET Ajax debugging)
  http://peterkellner.net/2007/06/20/silverlightdebugonemorething/

• General asp.net web services forum:
  http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=46&SiteID=1
  

 <webServices>

<protocols>

<add name="HttpGet"/>

<add name="HttpPost"/>

</protocols>

</webServices>

From the astoria website: "The new wave of web applications are built on technologies such as AJAX and Microsoft Silverlight that enable developers to build better, richer user experiences. These technologies bring a shift in how applications are organized, including a stronger separation of presentation from data.

The goal of Microsoft Codename Astoria is to enable applications to expose data as a data service that can be consumed by web clients within a corporate network and across the internet. The data service is reachable over HTTP, and URIs are used to identify the various pieces of information available through the service. Interactions with the data service happens in terms of HTTP verbs such as GET, POST, PUT and DELETE, and the data exchanged in those interactions is represented in simple formats such as XML and JSON.

We are delivering this first early release of Astoria as a Community Tech Preview you can download and also as an experimental online service you can access over the internet."

• Ctrl+1, Ctrl+2: Comment code like CR_Commenter (not implemented yet, it is commented out, too much features from CR_Commenter missing).
• Ctrl+3: Build region like CodeRush or CR_Commenter, also commented out, CodeRush's version currently does work much better, but adds comments to #endregion
• Ctrl+4: Collapse or expand the current region you are in
• Ctrl+5: Collapse or expand all regions in the current file. In IronPython it has 3 modes: All uncollapsed, All methods collapsed, All classes and methods collapsed
• Ctrl+6: Regenerate all collapsable blocks in IronPython, this is important because the IronPython language service does not support any collapseable blocks, maybe I will implement that later in there ...
  

•    RegionAddinSourceCode.zip (25.67 KB)
  
  
•    RegionAddinSetup.exe (80.1 KB)
  

I had often the problem that after a while of using Visual Studio 2005 (especially in beta) and now with Visual Studio Orcas that when the solution grows and grows to many projects you encounter the following error quite often:

Unable to copy file "obj\Debug\<projectname> .dll" to "bin\Debug\<projectname> .dll".

The process cannot access the file 'bin\Debug\<projectname> .dll' because it is being used by another process.

if exist "$(TargetPath).locked" del "$(TargetPath).locked"
if exist "$(TargetPath)"if not exist "$(TargetPath).locked" move "$(TargetPath)""$(TargetPath).locked"

• First of all: Visual Studio 2005 is NOT supported, you need Visual Studio Orcas Beta 1 (see my last 2 posts about it)
  
  
• You need the VS_SilverlightTools_Alpha_Setup.exe setup file to get started with silverlight and allow debugging
  
  
• The XAML designer view never seems to work and it usually does not even show up. If you want to hide it, switch the design and xaml views and then click the button on the very right to hide the design view on the bottom.
  
  
• Most importantly: If debugging does not work for you make sure that:
  
  
• Close ALL your instances of Firefox and Internet Explorer first. Then start the debugger of VS Orcas with F5 and let it create a new instance of your browser. This is VERY important because if you leave the browser open and start to set some breakpoints and debug the application, it won't work. Every time you press F5 in VS Orcas to start the project a new browser instance must be created, else debugging is just skipped and you just see the website, the debugger ends immediately. I tested it with Internet Explorer first, but Firefox is ok too if you can live with the constant opening and closing. For me it is much more comfortable to use Firefox for browsing and then Internet Explorer for testing the Silverlight stuff.
  
  
• Your project/website/etc. does not contain any spaces. Like the .NET 3.5 installation there are still issues with spaces. Just make sure there are none. This wasn't a problem at my PC, but on a Vista machine it caused problems.
  
  
• Exceptions seem to be ignored and there seems to be some Exception-Eating-Monster in the Silverlight runtime because no matter what happens or what you throw, it will not be passed to the debugger. Instead it just seems to end the debugging session and shows the page as far as it got. It is probably best to catch all exceptions yourself and display them in some label or flush them to a log file ..

• http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1683227&SiteID=1
• http://forums.asp.net/p/1114611/1733120.aspx
• http://blogs.msdn.com/vstsqualitytools/archive/2007/04/26/
  known-issues-and-workarounds-for-orcas-beta1-asp-net.aspx
• http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1312399&SiteID=1
• http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1354397&SiteID=1

• CoolCommands 3.0 adds some nice features to VS, mainly to improve interaction between VS, projects and the explorer or command line
  
  
• MZ-Tools is a great addin for Visual Studio I never have heard of before (and I know a lot of addins).  It has a long feature list, check it out yourself ^^ Sadly it does not support VS Orcas yet, but it works nicely in VS2005 and does not override any behaviour of other addins like CodeRush as far as I can tell.
  
  
• CodeIt.Right and CodeIt.Once I have heard of them before, but I never really installed it and check it out. It provides many useful reformating, refactoring and produtivity features, which allow you to quickly add existing code, reformat it automatically and apply rules for all developers on a project. They have also 3 short videos on their website so you can quickly see what this is about. Again no VS Orcas support yet as it seems.
  
  
• SmartOutline is also an addin from the CodeIt.Right guys, they won the 3rd place in the VS Studio Extensibility Contest. All this addin does is add regions, but it is free to download and use. Not sure why this is great, my Commenter plugin could do that 3 years ago and does it in a much faster way (shortcut: Ctrl+3). CodeRush does support it too (Ctrl+R or Ctrl+3 too).
  
  
• TestMatrix for Visual Studio .NET is a unit testing, code coverage and profiling addin. I'm not sure where the profiling comes in (I got Ants Profiler for that, havn't found a better tool yet. But I would like a better tool because Ants Profiler hasn't changed much in 2 years, which suxx), but the code coverage and unit testing features are nice. Probably not worth buying if you use TestDriven.Net like me. Code coverage can also be covered via NCover (a lot of covering in this sentence ^^).
  
  
• Spell Checker is a really useful addin. Like using Word, when the spell checker is there, everything feels right, but when it is missing, it gets very annoying when you need it. I used the SpellChecker for CodeRush from RindHand, but Spell Checker is also very good.
  
  
• Koders Addin for Visual Studio 2005 is also cool, but like most of the plugins, it only works in VS2005, no Orcas support yet. I have installed it for a long time, but I never use it. Dunno why, the idea is great, it allows access to many billion lines of source code and prevents you from re-inventing the wheel.
  
  
• CodeKeep is very similar to Koders, but it focuses on code snippets. I have not used this addin before, but I will try it out, maybe I will use it more often than Koders.
  
  
• I might also have installed 50 million other addins, but I have no time to talk about all of them, most of them are not worth mentioning ^^ In the past I have also talked quite a bit about addins and tools for Visual Studio, including TestDriven.Net, LineCounter, CodeRush, VisualAssist (for C++), CodeSmith and more. They are still great addins, no reason to mention them again, you know them probably already ^^
  

BTW: If you had an account for the old Arena Wars game you probably got this newsletter containing some cool information about our new "Veteran" rank for the original Arena Wars players. If you had an account for Arena Wars One everyone will see that you are a Veteran in the Arena Wars Boards and in the game itself.

First of all, I'm exclusively using Visual Studio Orcas now. I mentioned the Visual Studio Orcas Beta1 a month ago and explained how to import unsupported addins and fix some issues. I did not have much time to check out Silverlight yet, but it still looks very promising. There is also a new website from Microsoft called PopFly that is using it.

Last week one of my colleages was away for a couple of days and I stole his 24" monitor and put it right beside my 24". At that time I was converting a few projects from VS 2005 to VS Orcas, but as you can see that is way too much one the screen. I even tried to rotate both screens by 90 degrees, but after a hour I was feeling silly always looking up and down. Anyway, it is just too much to look at both these screens at once. Having one big 24" and a 20" or 19" right beside it is already a very effective solution. Important stuff goes on the big screen (VS mainly) and all the rest (firefox, ultraedit, explorer, whatever) go on the secondary screen.

• 
  SubVersion (successor of CVS): SubVersion is a really great version control system and it works really good, both on small and big projects. We have used it for Arena Wars Reloaded and the only cavecat was getting it to work inside Visual Studio 2005. Thanks to the plugin VisualSVN it worked out just fine, only adding files is a real hassle (they are not added to the remote server, just locally). For VS Orcas there is no support and when you are working with ASP.NET websites in VS SubVersion and VisualSVN is a really bad choice IMO because it messes up the directories and does not add the files properly.
  
  
  
• 
  Perforce: Ok, I went back to Perforce, which I had used before, but mostly alone or together with another programmer. Perforce is a very professional solution, but again not very practical for anything but programmers and I wanted to include the graphic artists and project managers into the version control system too. Also Perforce still has a lot of issues with Visual Studio IMO and is still hard to setup, even with the much improved UI that finally allows you to set rights properly without messing in command line scripts. Again, no support for VS Orcas and the main reason not to use Perforce is the crazy price, $800 per developer, good bye! It was a lot cheaper a few years ago, but I never got into Perforce (mostly used SourceSafe in the past).
  
  
  
• 
  SourceSafe: Ok, back to the basics. The good old SourceSafe with an internal file system that no one understands, strange bugs that prevent you from adding files or the good old "If you delete a file, it is still there, just the content is gone"-"feature". For smaller projects SourceSafe is fine and if you do not have many developers, it works ok, but you can't give it to any graphic artist and once something gets messed up you need to spend a lot of time cleaning it up. The good thing is it works right out of the box in Visual Studio Orcas.
  
  
  
• 
  And then I tried SourceGear Vault: It is pretty much the same thing as SourceSafe, it just uses a SQL DB backend, has a much cleaner interface and much better tools including nice importers to get all your projects converted into the new version control system (yeah, everyone says they have importer, but they never work, the Vault Importer worked, it had no problem importing several GB of SourceSafe data). The disadvantage might be that it still feels like SourceSafe and it still has some of its issues (like deleting files and they appear again as 0-byte files), but overall it is much improved. We have just used it for a few days now and we had one merge problem so far, but that was probably because one artist did not check in his files and we changed it a few times. Vault also runs fine on VS Orcas as it probably just uses the standard SourceSafe interface for most of its stuff, which runs just fine on VS 2005 and Orcas.
  
  
  
• 
  I also tried a couple of other version control systems, but none of them worked in VS Orcas and I did not find a great one anyway. Some tools like AlienBrain have really nice features, but too much other stuff is missing and while it might be a great tool for artists, it is unusable for programmers. I do not believe in having separate version control systems, especially if you work tightly with your artists and make 10+ check ins per day with them.

• Wir haben ja schon an die 1000 Studiums-Dokumente und nun kann man von jedem auch eine Flash-Vorschau direkt auf der Seite angucken und ein bisschen drin stoebern. Momentan sind wir sehr stolz auf dieses Feature. Das ganze funktioniert natuerlich auch fuer alle neue Unterlagen, die ihr hochlaed.
• Tag basierte Interessen mit einer huebschen Uebersichtsseite, die immer gleich andere User zeigt, welche auf aehnliche Dinge abfahren.
• Verwalte deine Freunde in "Meine Freunde". Hier kommen auch noch ganz abgefahrene Features in Kuerze.
• Im Studiumsbereich kann man sich Faecher anlegen oder existierenden Faechern beitreten und somit Kommilitonen leicht wiederfinden und mit ihnen diskutieren und Unterlagen tauschen.
  
• Unter Bilder kann sich jeder eigene Alben anlegen und Bilderbuecher erstellen. Hier haben wir ausserdem noch paar coole innovate Features fuer die nahe Zukunft geplant (Note: Momentan wird das Albumsmodul noch ueberarbeitet, also entschuldigt kleine Fehler und Unannehmlichkeiten).
  
• Man kann natuerlich auch das uebliche machen, wie Freunde adden, im Forum rumposten, Gruppen erstellen, Profileinstellungen machen und Gaestebuecher vollspammen, etc.

Yesterday I wanted to put all the samples from the book on my blog, but it is already way to overloaded here with screenshots and games, adding another 10 games will not make anything better. Instead I had a crazy idea to create a XNA Community site in one day. It is called XnaProjects.Net. The idea is for everyone to submit their games and links. News are grabbed with Google Blog Search and more features will come in July 2007 when I got more than 5 minutes time in a row.

Anyway, check out this great new website, submit your games and links and check out whats already submitted by me (10 Games so far, yes, thats a lot of XNA games I did in the past few months):

• XNA Pong
• XNA Breakout
• XNA Tetris
• Rocket Commander XNA
• XNA Shooter
• XNA Racing Game
• SimpleRacingGame
• SpeedyRacer
• Dungeon Quest
• Skinning with Collada Models in XNA

• The test form is only available for requests from the local machine

<configuration>
    <system.web>
        <webServices>
            <protocols>
                <add name="HttpGet"/>
                <add name="HttpPost"/>
            </protocols>
        </webServices>
    </system.web>
</configuration>

• Can't execute tests in 'Web Site' application.
  

• Turning an ascx user control into a redistributable custom control from David Ebbo's ASP.NET blog
  5 step tutorial on building redistributable custom controls. Pretty good article, but the solution is too complex for me.
  

• Reusing Web User Controls accross applications by Adrian Hara's blog
  Overview about 3 different approaches and some useful notes.
  

• Using MSBuild and ILMerge to Package User Controls For Reuse from K. Scott Allen's blog
  A more complete, but also complexer, solution.
  

• ASP.NET: Reusing Web User Controls and Forms by CMS Wire
  Using virtual paths, looks very messy to me. Btw: Why are they using .php for their blog and talk about asp?
  

• WYSIWYG For Custom Web Controls on CodeProject.net by Alex Soldatov
  Nice article on how to use .ascx files and converting them to a custom controls library.
  
  
• MSDN Information about creating server controls.
  
  
• ScottGu's article on Creating and Using User Control Libraries
  This was the easiest and most useful way to reuse my controls for me.
  This is the same article on his blog.

    -or- path is a directory.

    -or- path specified a read-only file.

#region RemoveAllAttributes
/// <summary>
/// Helper to remove all file and sub directory readonly attributes
/// to make SafeDeleteDirectory work!
/// </summary>
/// <param name="directory">Directory to change (will be deleted later
/// anyway)</param>
privatestaticvoid RemoveAllAttributes(string directory)
{
    // Get all files and sub directories.
    string[] files = Directory.GetFiles(directory);
    string[] directories = Directory.GetDirectories(directory);

    // Kill all attributes, make files normal and directories just directories
    foreach (string file in files)
        File.SetAttributes(file, FileAttributes.Normal);
    foreach (string dir in directories)
        RemoveAllAttributes(dir);

    // Finally set the main directory to a normal directory!
    File.SetAttributes(directory, FileAttributes.Directory);
} // RemoveAllAttributes(directory)
#endregion

• AnnoyingFilesRemover.zip (6.1 KB)

• AnnoyingFilesRemoverSourceCode.zip (12.27 KB)

• Open up regedit
• Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0\AddIns
• Search for the CodeRush key and export it
• If you can't find a CodeRush key here try (probably CodeRush 2.x specific): [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0\PreloadAddinStateManaged]
• If you can't find it there either try the reg installers below!
• Now edit the exported .reg file and just change the \8.0\ to \9.0\ and save.
• Finally doubleclick the file to merge it with your registry (at your own risk btw ^^)
• Start VS Orcas and enjoy the DevExpress menu and the CodeRush functionality :)
  

• Open up regedit again (you have to repeat this probably a few more times if you miss any important reg key)
• Search for your Addin name or navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0\InstalledProducts
• Find your product, it might not be just the name of the product, but something similar (like DXCore for CodeRush).
• You need to open up the key and copy the internal package GUID (the long ugly id) like {BD359A86-BF88-4c4e-A7D2-6CDDA36C3B79} for DXCore
• Now search the whole HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0\ namespace for this key and export everything to external files.
• Merge those exported .reg files and replace \8.0\ with \9.0\ like above.
• Save, import again and start Orcas to test. Repeat until it works ^^
  

• Install CodeRush 2.1.2 to VS Orcas, uses the default paths (english), change if you have installed it somewhere else
• install_coderush2_vs9.reg (3.08 KB)
• Same with german paths (the documents and program files are different in german), change this to other languages if your windows is not english or german:
• install_coderush2_vs9_german_paths.reg (3.08 KB)
• Same for VisualSVN 1.2.1:
• install_visualsvn_vs9.reg (1.23 KB)
• install_visualsvn_vs9_german_paths.reg (1.22 KB)

• A Sneaky Peek At Orcas, short article showing you how to create a new project with lots of screenshots

• LINQ Introduction, very long article, good information, especially if you need a good introduction and overview about all features.

• 101 LINQ Samples: Very useful resource to get started and see some useful examples of the new language features.

• LINQ Samples Update for VS Orcas March CTP

• Download VS Orcas March CTP (self-extracting install) 4.5 GB

• Download VS Orcas March CTP (Virtual Image for Virtual PC or Virtual Server in case you are a pussy) 6.1 GB

• Download VS Orcas March CTP (Team Foundation Server) 860 MB