minicsharplab Release Rss Feed

UPDATED RELEASE: Mini CSharp Lab ver 1.3 (七月 11, 2008)

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 21:40:47 GMT

After Mini C# Lab ver 1.2, I got several important feedbacks from community, a friend, elleryq, told me that there is a free software Snippet Compiler providing colorful formatting, line number, document outlining, method list dropdown, even Intellisence, almost as luxurious as Visual Studio. Wow! It's really cool.

Compared with Snippet Compiler, Mini C# Lab's code editor is quite weak. The Snippet Compiler integrated ActiPro's SyntaxEditor control to provide friendly editing environment, but this make it fatter (about 3MB, but still not big) and not open-source. If Mini C# Lab can improve its code editor, the mini size (less than 100KB), open-source, and single file features still can distinguish it from such fancy solutions as Snippet Compiler, IMHO.

Another friend, adminjew (AKA Yotzichok), did a splendid job! The open source code editor, ICSharpCode.TextEditor, was integrated to provide adequate features for C# coding, although no Intellisense and method list, it's good enough for mini coding job. Except the new code editor, adminjew also add a whole bunch of new features, including undo/redo, a tool bar, splitted window, copy as formatted HTML...

I postponed the release of ver 1.3 for several weeks for dogfooding it by myself. I was excited about the nice experience of using Mini C# Lab on remote machine via terminal service, download and run! The best experience is when I had to write and test C# code directly on a Bloomberg terminal, I was not allowed to setup Visual Studio on it because of memory limitation and authorization issue. My code cause Snippet Compiler failed, so I use Mini C# Lab 1.3 to complete the whole coding and testing, it's totally adequate for the job!

Here are the new features of Mini C# Lab v1.3:

* Replace RichTextBox+CSharpFormat with ICSharpCode.TextEditor
* Add toolbar and cut/copy/paste, print, undo, redo, split code box, copy as html functions...
* Terminate execution by force while exiting
* Prompt to save modified code before exiting
* Remember saved file name for latter saving

There are image and Chinese introduction in my blog.

RELEASED: Mini CSharp Lab ver 1.3 (Jul 11, 2008)

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 21:40:47 GMT

CREATED RELEASE: Mini CSharp Lab ver 1.2 (六月 04, 2008)

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 22:16:22 GMT

After Mini C# Lab 1.1 was released, the most frequently asked quesitons are: 1) Could it support VB.NET? 2) Where is the source code?

Now, here comes Mini C# Lab ver 1.2 and some wishful features are added.

*First, it supports VB.NET now!* Yes, VB.NET!! Although it's Mini "C#" Lab, many people still want to use it to test VB.NET code. I found that the CodeDomProvider provides the abstract class concept, so we can use the almost same code to add VB.NET support easily. Since it's not difficult at all, thanks to .NET RD team, I put the VB.NET support into Mini C# Lab ver 1.2.

*Second, since many people asked about the source code, here you are.* In my life of coding, I learned a lot from open source projects and always believe the spirit of sharing over Internet makes the world better day by day. So, here is my two cents, I have put Mini C# Lab on CodePlex now, if you are interested in how it works, you can find the source code there. One more thing, if you find any lousy or dirty code inside my source, please let me know.

You can also find Chinese introduction on [url:my blog|http://blog.darkthread.net/blogs/darkthreadtw/archive/2008/06/04/minicsharplab12.aspx].

RELEASED: Mini CSharp Lab ver 1.2 (Jun 04, 2008)

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 22:16:22 GMT

UPDATED RELEASE: Mini CSharp Lab Ver 1.0 (五月 26, 2008)

Fri, 30 May 2008 11:48:40 GMT

Did this ever occur to you?

You wanted to write several lines of C# code to clarify some syntax or parameter format, or you needed a one-time program to process log files. You started Visual Studio 2005/2008, created a new console application project, wrote several lines of code, then build, run, and finally got the result. What if the answer you wanted to know is simply whether decimal.ToString("N2") will return the correct formatted number? How long have you been waited before writing the first line of code? After you got the answer, would you spend several seconds to delete the *.csproj, *.cs files?

Quite often I felt that I spent 60% of my time on waiting for Visual Studio initialization and project operation, 40% on coding and execution, and it ended up left a whole bunch of unnessary files in my workspace. This is not efficient at all! In these cases, Visual Studio is too heavy, but coding with notepad and csc.exe is too lousy. What I really need is a light-weight IDE than can startup in one second and allows me to edit the code directly and run it with one click. So, here is my Mini C# Coding Lab.

Mini C# Lab is a .NET 2.0 winform application with single 13KB exe file. As you see, the UI is quite simple and easy to use. Write the code on the code editor, then click "Run" button to check the result. The colorful formatting effect is based on Manoli's CSharpFormat. I use an easy, stupid but inefficient way to implement the formatting, so it's not real time. The RichTextEditor refreshes every time when you press after up/down/enter key, so don't try to edit a very long code. (It's only for "mini", right?)

The code is running in another thread, so you can stop it if it hang or the time is longer than you expected. Mini C# Lab also provide simple open and save function, so you can keep your source code in single .cs file for furture use.

OK, that's all, try it and feel free to send me feedback.

You can check the release note on my blog: (including introduction and discussions in Traditional Chinese)
[url:http://blog.darkthread.net/blogs/darkthreadtw/archive/2008/05/27/mini-csharp-lab.aspx]

UPDATED RELEASE: Mini CSharp Lab Ver 1.1 (五月 30, 2008)

Fri, 30 May 2008 11:48:00 GMT

After Mini C# Lab 1.0 was released, I got good suggestions from friends. I agree that these improvements can make Mini C# Lab handier, so I add some useful features to it, then the Mini C# Lab ver 1.1 is coming...

New features:

** The *TERRIBLE* Ctrl-X shortcut for exit is removed, shortcut key for exit is Alt-F4 now.
** Support additional assembly references. For example, when you want to use OracleConnection, you have to make sure your had added System.Data.OracleClient.dll reference to your project in Visual Studio. You can do the same thing with a "//REFDLL" remark, and please use ; to separate multiple references.
** Support .NET 3.5 now! You can test LINQ in Mini C# Lab 1.1 if you like to. Mini C# Lab will add System.Core.dll, System.Data.Linq.dll, System.Xml.Linq.dll automatically when you choose ".NET 3.5" option, so no need to //REFDLL these three assemblies. By the way, don't forget to add "using System.Linq" in your code, or the LINQ code won't run.
** Automatically open the basic C# template after startup.

TIPS: you can use Ctrl-N to get an demo template to save some typing time.

Check it out and feel free to give me feedback.

Ver 1.1 release note: (with demo snapshot and introduction in Traditional Chinese)
[url:http://blog.darkthread.net/blogs/darkthreadtw/archive/2008/05/30/mini-c-lab-ver-1-1.aspx]