My first XrmToolBox Portal contribution!

Tanguy Touzard and the esteemed XrmToolBox Team maintain an excellent portal for both developer and end user documentation and have recently asked for some help in updating the documentation. So I answered the recruiting call and I have posted my first contribution to the developer documentation section of the XrmToolBox Portal! 

As anyone who reads my posts from the last year or so knows, I’ve really enjoyed working on my own XrmToolBox Tools and some shared controls for the XrmToolBox developer community (more to come on that topic soon!)  So I jumped at the chance to contribute directly to the XrmToolBox Portal documentation.  

Wait, don’t we have a blog?

I will continue to post on this site about my Tools and controls, but I am excited to contribute to the official Portal documentation for a few reasons.  First, I see teaching as an excellent method for learning.  If we explain a topic to a broad audience, we need to understand the topic fairly well to properly answer questions, cover details from multiple perspectives, and ensure the audience walks away with a solid understanding.  Teaching is also a great way to see a topic from a different perspective.  Your audience may throw a question your way that you had never considered and it forces everyone to take a different look.  Lastly, over recent years I have saved HOURS and HOURS using the variety of Tools provided by the XrmToolBox team and community.  This is just my small way of repaying the favor and helping out other Tool developers.

All Your MultipleConnectionsPluginControlBase Are Belong To Us

I am working on a new XrmToolBox Tool that requires multiple active connections, so my first entry was an update to the MultipleConnectionsPluginControlBase base class page.  I expanded on the Property and Methods details and included a link to a sample project that you can download and review details.

The sample project is not intended as a fully functional XrmToolBox Tool, but it provides an overview of the moving parts in the MultipleConnectionsPluginControlBase base class.  Download the project and let me know if you have any questions,  comments, or issues.

I am looking forward to more posts in the near future.  I plan on including downloadable “how-to” sample projects with my updates.  I feel that digging into a bit of code helps with understanding the Portal documentation and in building your own Tools. 

Speaking of building your own tools… Check back in the next week or so (holidays permitting) for two of Building XrmToolBox Tools.

And as always, questions, comments, and suggestions are welcome!