BHAL Project Home Page / QuickStart Guide

What is this guide for?

This page is a guide to help you configure your environment if you are developing for Project BHAL.

Ok, so this is an installation guide?

No, not at all. An installation guide will be provided with every release (updated to reflect changes). This guide has the sole purpose of helping you in the task of configuring your environment for developing for BHAL (assuming you are on the project or just want to debug our Open Source code).

First Considerations

I´m assuming for this guide that you have know-how of Visual Studio (on one of its flavors) and have it installed and configured (I mean configured in the sense that you can run a Hello World Application).

Well, now that Visual Studio is configured we must configure Team Explorer. Please advise that this part is only needed if you are accessing the codebase with Visual Studio directly. This part probably will only be needed by people working on the project.

Configuring Team Explorer

Team Explorer is the tool you need if you plan on connecting to any Team Foundation Server, including CodePlex. But since many people can´t afford TFS, Microsoft has provided that we, who develop open-source code, have access to Team Explorer nonetheless. I can´t possibly say better than Rob Caron, so read his words of wisdom.

Anyway, you can download Team Explorer from here (just right-click and click "Save Target As"). It comes as a DVD-image and you can use any virtual mounting software to mount it or burn it if you will.

If you have any doubts configuring it check this wiki page to learn more: Configuring Team Explorer.

Ok, Team Explorer configured! Onto the next step, getting the necessary updates to Visual Studio 2005.

Web Application Project

The website for Project BHAL uses the Web Application Project type of website for building web applications. This kind of web site is very similar to the .Net Framework 1.1 model and is preferred in the case of BHAL where there will be probably a lot of user controls loaded dynamically.

You can get the installer for Web Application Projects at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnvs05/html/WAP.asp.

Check out the Installing Web Application Projects section.

After downloading it you can just run it. The installation is pretty straightforward.

Needed Packages

To be able to develop for project BHAL you´ll need some features in the following packages:

1. .Net Framework 3.0 - As Martin Woodward states here it´s just .Net 2.0 plus Windows Communication Foundation, Windows Workflow Foundation and Windows Presentation Foundation. This is definitely needed since our project runs on top of WCF and WF. You can download .NET Framework 3.0 Runtime Components here.
2. Microsoft® Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for .NET Framework 3.0 (Windows Workflow Foundation) - This one isn´t needed, but it´s highly recommended since it adds a lot of functionality to VS2005 for building workflow applications. You can get it here.
3. Microsoft® Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for .NET Framework 3.0 (WCF & WPF), November 2006 CTP – This one isn´t needed, but is highly recommended as well, since it adds a lot of functionality to VS2005 for building Service (WCF) applications. You can get it here.
4. Windows SDK for Vista and the .NET Framework 3.0 - Another not required, although recommended download. You can download it here.
5. If you want to know more about the .Net Framework 3.0 release, the readme can be found here.
6. If you had installed a previous version of the .Net Framework 3.0, please read the uninstall instructions before installing the RTM version of .Net Framework 3.0.

SQL Server 2005 - Standard or Enterprise

You´ll need SQL Server 2005 as database backend for the application. If you don´t have a license for one of the two versions you can download the trial version here.

ASP.Net Ajax

For the web project to work you´ll also need ASP.Net Ajax installed. It can be found here.

It´s intallation is pretty easy, so I´ll leave that to you.

And you´ll need the Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX CTP Beta as well. You can download them here. Just as easy to install.

Conclusion

Well, I believe you will be able to install all the above without further help. So this is pretty much all you need to be able to develop for the BHAL Project. If any problems related to configuration of the environment arise, please feel free to leave a comment here, and when appropriate this guide will be updated.

Last Update: 19th November 2006