You might have an ASP.NET Core app that you deploy to IIS (Internet Information Server) that, for example, listens in the background to incoming IoT Signals from a Message Queue, but it only does so after you have visited the server in the browser. Having an app that should do background work but does not start automatically can be cumbersome at best and lead to outages, aka angry support calls, at worst. Let’s look at how we can ensure an app is started automatically on startup. How can we change this to make your app appear automatically after deployment? You might ask yourself: “Okay, let’s ..read more

Automated tests can be a great timesaver when developing any kind of application. Some pieces of code can be harder to test automatically since they require a dependency on an external ressource. When writing .NET MAUI apps this often means that a piece of code or library requires to run on a platform to perform it’s function. This is the time when running your code on a device or emulator becomes mandatory. So let’s see how this can be done. Before we start looking at how device running tests are implemented. Let’s quickly discuss when these tests can be of great value. Generally speaking it ..read more

Using Docker for your .NET builds gives you a reproducible way to execute your builds on your build server and developers’ devices. Setting up Docker to build your .NET applications is a straightforward process, but what if you use a private Azure DevOps NuGet feed that has to be accessed to build your app? Well, let’s find out. ? In this example, Docker is used to build an ASP.NET Core application. Let’s start by looking at a Dockerfile defining the image we want to create for our build. Microsoft offers a few of the images we can use for this task. At the time of writing, .NET 8 was the late ..read more

By discovering Tailscale, I finally found a solution for my QNAP NAS as a VPN gateway into my home network. I have a couple of devices at home that do not talk to some cloud service but provide services when accessed through my home network. Whenever I am not at home, accessing said services is no longer possible. Let’s examine how Tailscale enables accessing devices on the same network as your QNAP NAS. Tailscale is a VPN (Virtual Private Network) service that enables devices to communicate securely with each other. You must set up an account by following the steps described here. You can ins ..read more

This blog post is part of the .NET MAUI UI July - be sure to check out the other blog posts. ? Automated UI tests allow you to write tests that execute your app as a user would. This can be a significant selling point compared to a unit, integration, and other non-UI automated tests. Non-technical users are no longer left with a chart of how many passed, failed, skipped, etc. - they actually get to see what the tests performed. At first glance, automated UI tests seem like the ultimate automated tests, but more later. If you have written Xamarin apps in the past, you might have heard about Xam ..read more

Writing mobile apps usually brings along its fair share of application logic run on the device. When writing code, it is paramount to test it. How else will you know if it is working as expected? The answer is testing. And since we are developers, we like to automate mundane tasks. So Unit Testing our logic can be a great way to test our logic. If you know how to set up unit tests, skip to the TL;DR; marker. ? Unit Tests allow us to test the logic parts of our app. This will enable us to try most of our apps except the views. The most popular testing frameworks to the date of writing this post ..read more

Maybe it is old age or just a lack of attention, but I have felt a lot less flexible over the past, so I did what every app developer would do. Go to the app store and search for an app that could help. Not only did I find an app that has dramatically improved my flexibility due to a stretching routine focused on my weak points, but it also had a neat countdown button control. And since it is UI July, this is a post for the said community event. Let’s have a look at how we can create such a control. Perhaps you might be wondering: What is this countdown button control you are talking about ..read more

Did you ever have that moment when you are just about to deploy your new (web) app for the first time on a Windows Server and have the information of connecting to your SQL server at hand? You deploy your app, but nothing works due to some incorrect configuration. Does this sound familiar? While there are many steps involved in getting everything set up and configured correctly, one of the essential parts is usually connecting your app to its database. And if that does not work, your app usually does not work either. And this is where Universal Data Link (UDL) files come in handy. UDL files al ..read more

This blog post is part of the F# Advent 2021, which brings you a new blog post every day, just as Advent of Code. Thank you, Sergey, for organising it again this year! Every advent when the nights get longer and the days get colder (at least here in Europe), there is something to look forward to that even a pandemic can’t take away. During advent, it is tradition to have a calendar which for each day provides a surprise. There are many variants, from those holding chocolate to beer or whatever may come to mind. There probably is a calendar out there providing just that. Since 2015 there is eve ..read more

I have been using Typora now for a few years to edit all my markdown documents. And since I have now migrated my blog over to GitHub pages, it has become a tool I use even more. There are many favourite markdown editors out there, but this one is mine. So let me show you a few highlights ..read more