Products, the Universe and Everything

ResOrg 2.0 has been released

Well, it's done. After a rather extended incubation period ResOrg 2.0.0.15 (the first public ResOrg 2.0 build) was uploaded earlier this morning, and the ResOrg product pages updated to match. If you have used ResOrg 1.x before, you will notice that the user interface of ResOrg 2.0 is subtly different from its predecessor - notably in the Visual Studio plug-in (which now of course supports Visual Studio 2008 and 2010...). In particular, the old (and rather limited) "ResOrg.NET Explorer" toolwindow has been replaced by a much more useful "Symbol Files Display" which is also available in the standalone application. If you are using Visual Studio 2010, it might interest you to know that ResOrg 2.0 can automatically update Ribbon Designer (.mfcribbon-ms) files when an ID referenced in a ribbon resource is renumbered. I won't include any screenshots in this post as a couple of good ones were included in the previous post, however if you are reading this post in your RSS reader you can find them at http://www.riverblade.co.uk/blog.php?archive=2011_12_01_archive.xml#2011121501. Try ResOrg 2.0

ResOrg 2.0 update

We released a new beta of ResOrg 2.0 this morning. This one has a new and slightly more up to date look and feel than its predecessors, as you can probably see from the screenshot below:

If the value of a symbol which appears in a .mfcribbon-ms file associated with the same .rc file is changed, ResOrg will now automatically update the contents of the .mfcribbon-ms file when the symbol file is saved. The symbol highlighted in yellow above is an example - if you change the value of IDB_BUTTONS in the left hand pane and the save the file, the corresponding value in the ribbon.mfcribbon-ms file will be updated automatically and the IDE will then prompt you to reload the ribbon.mfcribbon-ms file. We still have a handful of things to change in ResOrg 2.0 before releasing it publicly, but it's now just about there.

Today only - 50% off Visual Lint Standard Edition on Bits du Jour!

Visual Lint Standard Edition is being featured on Bits du Jour today for a whopping 50% discount. We obviously can't afford to offer this kind of discount often, so it will be available for today only. If you are interested in a Standard Edition licence at half the price it would normally be this is your big chance! Please visit http://www.bitsdujour.com/software/visual-lint-standard-edition for more information.

ESWC is this weekend - and I'm speaking!

This is one of the slides from the "Software Quality for MicrosISVs" talk I'm giving at this weekend's European Software Conference. Although I haven't presented a talk for a while (the last one was the "Code Analysis Tool Parallisation and Grid Computing" BOF session I did at ACCU 2009) I'm really looking forward to it. I'm sure you'll agree it's a huge topic to present in a 45 minute slot, though. Wish me luck!

Visual Lint 3.0.8.166 has been released

The following changes are included in this build:

Fixed a bug in the parsing of Visual Studio 2010 projects using Forced Include properties containing the $(ProjectName) environment variable.
If the active analysis tool is Vera++ and VERA_ROOT (which is needed to use Vera++) is not defined, Visual Lint will now define it for the current process.

LintProject Pro 2.5.2.23 has been released

The following changes are included in this build:

Fixed a bug in the handling of UNC paths while writing PC-lint project indirect files [from Visual Lint 3.0.6.162].
Fixed a bug in the parsing of PC-lint XML formatted analysis results (generated by env-xml.lnt) which could cause the contents of the tag to be truncated [from Visual Lint 3.0.6.162].
Revised the layout of the charts used within generated analysis reports [from Visual Lint 3.0.6.162 and 3.0.7.164].
Tweaked the PC-lint analysis results parser to better handle raw analysis results generated without an env-*.lnt file [from Visual Lint 3.0.7.164].
Fixed a bug in the parsing of Visual Studio 2010 projects using Forced Include properties containing the $(ProjectName) environment variable [from Visual Lint 3.0.7.164b].
Fixed a potential crash if no configurations could be read from a project file being analysed.
Added the /exportfile and /exportformat switches to allow analysis results to be exported when the analysis run completes. The following formats are currently supported: "text" (as implemented by the Visual Lint "Copy to Clipboard" command in the analysis results display), "env-xml" (PC-lint env-xml.lnt format) and "SATE" (http://samate.nist.gov/SATE.html).
Added basic support for AVR Studio 5.0 solutions (.avrsln) and projects (.avrgccproj).
Added basic support for Visual DSP++ 4.0 and 5.0+ projects (.dpj).
Added basic support for MPLAB X projects (nbproject/project.xml).

Visual Lint 3.0.7.164 has been released

The following changes are included in this build:

Added basic support for the Vera++ C++ static analysis tool.
Optimised the Visual Lint start-up process for faster loading.
Added support for Eclipse projects whose location is defined via a URI stored within a .location file within the workspace .metadata folder.
Added support for the Eclipse environment variable ${parent-2-project_loc}.
Guarded against repeated Eclipse resource project add/remove events during "Open/Close Project" operations.
Added basic support for linked resources and path variables in Eclipse projects.
Fixed an intermittent crash when a project was removed in Eclipse with the Analysis Status Display "All Files" view active.
Fixed a bug in the Analysis Status Display which caused the selection of the "Filter" drop list to be lost when a project was closed in Eclipse.
Fixed a bug in the Manual Analysis Dialog which manifested when a file which was not a member of the currently loaded solution (if any) was analysed with the "Close this dialog when the analysis completes" checkbox active.
Fixed a bug with opening linked files for editing from the Analysis Status Display within the Eclipse IDE.
Fixed a bug in the handling of PC-lint issue categories which affected the Visual Lint Category "Issues" page.
Modified the PC-lint analysis results parser to better handle raw analysis results generated without an env-*.lnt file.
The Analysis Results Display "Go to Source" command will now be disabled if the selected issue does not include details of the source file.
The Analysis Results Display "Go to Source" command now checks that the file exists, and displays an error message otherwise.
Revised the look and feel of pie charts used in reports/displays following beta test feedback on the changes introduced in Visual Lint 3.0.6.162.
Minor tweaks to the layout of the chart properties controls within the Analysis Results Display.

Visual Lint and Atmel AVR Studio 5

From our perspective one of the more intriguing embedded environments to appear recently is Atmel's AVR Studio 5. When I first saw a screenshot of this IDE (it was mentioned in a post in the CodeProject Lounge) it was immediately obvious that this was some sort of Visual Studio derivative. In fact, although it uses GCC toolchains, the environment is based on the Visual Studio 2010 isolated shell (which incidentally is something we briefly considered using ourselves for a future standalone GUI version of Visual Lint, but decided against because of its complexity and the size of the download). It obviously occured to us then that as a Visual Studio derivative, it shouldn't be too difficult to get Visual Lint running within it. The first step was obviously to install the IDE in a VM (XP SP3 - doesn't XP look a bit old these days...?) and experiment with some projects. AVR Studio 5 codebases uses the Visual Studio 2010 solution file format (albeit rebadged as a .avrsln file) and a new MSBuild based project file format (.avrgccproj), so the first thing we obviously had to do was implement parsers for these files (something that will also benefit LintProject Pro, of course). Once that was done, we turned our attention to getting Visual Lint to load within the IDE itself. This turned out to be fairly straightforward. Although AVR Studio 5 does not seem to support COM add-in registration in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE (which is how the Visual Lint add-in registers in Visual Studio), the corresponding registration in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Atmel\AVRStudio\5.0\AddIns does work. Although this is problematical from an installation point of view (see my previous post on the Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview) it is not a showstopper by any means. With manual add-in registration in place, Visual Lint loaded within the IDE. Although a few minor tweaks were needed to work around issues such as AVR reporting itself as "Visual Studio Express Edition, version 1.0" (which caused the version detection code in Visual Lint to default to 16 colour command bitmaps!) those were easily addressed. As a result, we now have AVR Studio 5 running with a development build of Visual Lint:

Although we still have quite a bit to do (not least the code editor markers and installer) before AVR Studio 5 can become a supported host environment for Visual Lint this is a very promising start. Needless to say, beta testers are welcome.

Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview

Hot on the heels of the Windows 8 preview (which we're already experimenting with in a VM) comes something probably even more significant for us - an early preview of Visual Studio 11, no less! The first thing we tried to do was of course to load Visual Lint into it. Although Visual Lint won't yet load automatically into VS11, by the simple trick of exporting the registry from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\AddIns\Visual Lint and reimporting it to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\11.0\AddIns\Visual Lint (with the Wow6432Node node on x64 machines, of course) we were able to get it to show up in the VS11 Add-In Manager. Unfortunately, Visual Studio then reported an error when it tried to load the add-in. After a little experimentation we discovered that VS11 COM add-in registration in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE is broken in the preview, but once we moved the registration to HKEY_CURRENT_USER Visual Lint loaded correctly (albeit without a toolbar or menu as its VSPackage implementation doesn't yet know about VS11). If you really need the proof, here it is:

The slightly unnerving thing about this is the issue it raises within the installer - writing to HKEY_CURRENT_USER from an elevated installer is highly discouraged behaviour (it will cause your app to fail a platform test if you submit it for formal testing) and for good reason - if the logged in user doesn't have admin privileges the user account that gets modified by the installer will be the wrong one. Hence if this isn't fixed in VS11 we have some headscratching to do. Nevertheless, it's a start.

Visual Lint 3.0.6.162 has been released

The following changes are included in this build:

Fixed a bug in the handling of UNC paths while writing PC-lint project indirect files.
Fixed a bug in the parsing of PC-lint XML formatted analysis results (generated by env-xml.lnt) which could cause the contents of the tag to be truncated.
Fixed a bug in the implementation of the "Auto-show the Analysis Results Display when analysis results are available" option which could cause the UI to freeze when hosted within Visual Studio 2005.
Fixed a bug which could cause code editor markers for issues in header files to be shown incorrectly [VS2002-VS2010] [Visual Lint Enterprise Edition].
Fixed two bugs in the Analysis Results Display which prevented the selected file from being changed directly when the "Pin" command was active or after all files open for editing within the environment had been closed.
Updated the balloon tip text displayed in the when an invalid name/key combination is entered into the Registration Dialog.
Generalised the caption text for the "initial analysis state" control on the "Analysis" options page.
Added a new "Auto" analysis thread count option to the "Analysis" options page. This is now the default setting for new installations of Visual Lint.
Revised the layout of the charts used within the displays and reports.

Visual Lint command line application - now in beta

For some time now we have been receiving enquiries about the possibility of doing a command line version of Visual Lint for use with build servers. Such a product would in effect offer a more capable alternative to LintProject Pro which could also run incremental and whole project analysis, or even take advantage of an IncrediBuild grid to dramatically reduce analysis time. Although we have had "proof of concept" code for VisualLintConsole (our internal name for the Visual Lint command line application) for some time now, the project is now running on a more formal footing in our Visual Lint development branch. Analysis functions (including IncrediBuild/XGE accelerated analysis) are working, and we are gradually implementing command line switches matching those supported by LintProject Pro:

VisualLintConsole supports incremental analysis in the same way as the interactive versions of Visual Lint, and we are finding this to be very well suited to a continuous integration environment - in fact we have VisualLintConsole configured to run a time-limited incremental analysis on each check-in, and our build server (a humble dual core 1.8GHz Xeon) hasn't melted just yet! In terms of licencing, our intention is that developer installations of VisualLintConsole will be covered under existing Visual Lint licences , but for use in a build server environment a new "Build Server Edition" licence will become available. LintProject Pro will of course continue to be offered as a low-cost alternative for teams who do not need access to the more advanced functionality offered by VisualLintConsole. Public availability will be "when it's ready" rather than on a fixed schedule but later this year or early next year is realistic. In the meantime it goes without saying that beta testers are welcome. We are particularly interested in developing stylesheets etc. to integrate VisualLintConsole with continuous integration servers such as CruiseControl.NET, Jenkins and TeamCity so if you are using one of these environments we would be particularly interested to hear from you.

LintProject Pro 2.5.1.22 has been released

The following changes are included in this build:

Added a guard against recursively defined environment variables in Visual Studio 2010 (.vcxproj) project files [from Visual Lint 3.0.5.160].
Fixed a bug in the parsing of IncludePath elements in Visual Studio 2010 property (.props) files [from Visual Lint 3.0.5.160].
Various modifications to the command line processor. For the most part these should be transparent; however incorrectly specified parameters such as /folder"c:\lint" will no longer be accepted.
Renamed the following command line switches: /cfg (now /config), /cfg? (now /config?), /env (now /envfile), /folder (now /toolfolder), /show (now /showreport) and /tool (now /toolname). For backward compatibility both old and new forms are accepted. Note that support for /f and /s will shortly be removed from the software and we therefore recommend that they should no longer be used.
Corrected the location in the registry used to store saved PC-lint installation folder and config file information.
The Code Composer Studio 3.x project file parser now uses the name of the project file to determine the project name.

Visual Lint 3.0.5.160 has been released

The following changes are included in this build:

Fixed a bug in the detection of the format of PC-lint analysis results generated by env-xml.lnt.
Fixed a bug in the IncrediBuild interface which could cause analysis results to be erroneously discarded on completion if the destination folder did not exist.
Added a guard against recursively defined environment variables in Visual Studio 2010 (.vcxproj) project files.
Fixed a bug in the parsing of IncludePath elements in Visual Studio 2010 property (.props) files.
Fixed a bug in the identification of unloaded projects [VS2002-VS2010].
Added a "prioritise re-analysis of saved files" option to the "Analysis" options page. When set (which is the default) newly saved files will be added to the front of the analysis queue rather than the back. This option allows the user to override that behaviour if required.

Visual Lint 3.0.4.158 has been released

The following changes are included in this build:

Added support for the revised CppCheck XML format when parsing the output of --errorlist with CppCheck 1.47 or later. This allows categories other than Style or Error to be parsed.
The Analysis Results Display "Insert Directive" context menu command is now available for cpplint.py (Google C++ Style Checker) analysis [Visual Lint Enterprise Edition].
Added a "Show issues in header files" checkbox to the Analysis Results Display to allow issues in C/C++ header files to be hidden if desired. The checkbox is hidden when a non C/C++ analysis tool is active.
Added support for the project environment variables $(TargetFileName) $(TargetName) and $(TargetExt) in .vcproj project files [VS2002-VS2008].
PC-lint project.lnt files written by Visual Lint now include a +libdir() option for each system include folder.
Corrected the text of the Analysis Results Display "Insert Directive" context menu command [Visual Lint Enterprise Edition].
Added FindBugs to the list of supported analysis tools in the readme file packaged within the installer.
The Eclipse plug-in now reports details of the host environment in the subject of support emails sent via the About Box.
Fixed a bug in the Eclipse plug-in which could cause the Analysis Results Display to fail to draw correctly when activated from the Manual Analysis Dialog.
Fixed several bugs in the Eclipse plug-in which caused warnings to be recorded in the Eclipse error log.
Fixed a bug in the reporting of analysis tool names/versions in the subject of support emails sent via the About Box in the Visual Studio plug-in.
Fixed some display issues with large fonts.

ACCU 2012 dates announced

If you enjoyed this year's ACCU conference, or indeed were disappointed to not be able to make it, you might be interested to know that the dates for next year's conference have now been announced:

Tuesday 24th April - pre-conference day
Wednesday 25th April - main conference day 1
Thursday 26th April - main conference day 2
Friday 27th April - main conference day 3
Saturday 28th April - main conference day 4

The venue will once again be the Barcelo hotel Oxford.