In this post I want to show you how to create a very simple Windows Console client for The Smart Shopping List using Visual Studio & the RestSharp REST library.

• Create a Windows Console Application using Visual Studio

• Download RestSharp Nuget Package

• Add the following code

• When you build & run the application you should get an output similar to this:

You could also create, read, update & delete (CRUD) Stores, Product Categories, Products & Shopping List. Please check this post for more information.   

You can access The Smart Shopping List Web Api from any client as follows:

• Join/Register to use The Smart Shopping List

• On the Edit Shopper screen press Save

• When The Smart Shopping List Home page displays then you are registered

• Now point your favorite client to https://webapi.smartshoppinglist.net and provide the following headers:

Accept: application/vnd.cyberbizsoft.ssl+xml

Authorization: Basic Your-User-ID:Your-Password (Base64 encoded)

When using POST, PUT & DELETE you must also add:

Content-Type: application/vnd.cyberbizsoft.ssl+xml

The entry point will provide the links that are available and as you add stores, products, etc. the application state will be updated.

On a previous post I outlined a procedure for implementing ReSTful Web Services. In this post I will expand that outline with the design/implementation of a Web Api for The Smart Shopping List.

Figure 1 shows a class diagram of the simple domain model for The Smart Shopping List.

Figure 1. The Smart Shopping List domain model

As you can see we have a Shopper that could have zero to many Stores and also zero to many Shopping Lists.

Each Store could have zero to many Product Categories and also zero to many Products.

Each Shopping List could have zero to many Products along with some other information.

Figure 2 shows a class diagram of the logical resources that will represent our Web Api.

Figure 2.The Smart Shopping List Resource Model

We have one entry point logical resource named Smart Shopping List, that advertises the Store  & the Shopping List logical resources for each Shopper.

The Store logical resource contains two logical sub-resources Product Category & Product  and the Shopping List logical resource has one Detail logical sub-resource.

Those logical resources and sub-resources are named by their Uris as depicted in Table 1.

Table 1. Logical Resources Uris

Each logical resource also implement a subset of the uniform interface as Table 2 shows.

Table 2. Logical Resource Uniform Interface subset

Figure 3 shows that each logical resource has two representations one for a single resource and another for its collection along with its status.

Figure 3. The Smart Shopping List Resource Representation Model

Also each resource representation contains links that advertises the logical resource status.

For the implementation I have used preview 4 of the WCF Web Api and I will be adding this code later this week (if everything goes smoothly ) to The Smart Shopping List Source Code. You also will be able to "test drive" The Smart Shopping List at https://webapi.smartshoppinglist.net but you have to create a Smart Shopping List account and also use the following headers with your client:

Accept: application/vnd.cyberbizsoft.ssl+xml

Authorization: Basic Your-User-ID:Your-Password (Base64 encoded)

When using POST, PUT & DELETE you must also add:

Content-Type: application/vnd.cyberbizsoft.ssl+xml

Just point your client to https://webapi.smartshoppinglist.net and follow the protocol.

Figure 4. Sample POSTing session using Fiddler.

Design Notes

• Application is computerized behavior to achieve a business goal
• Application Protocol is a set of rules of allowed/legal interactions in an Application
• Application State is an instant of time of the Application
• URIs are used for resource identification
• HTTP Methods/Verbs are used as the Uniform Interface
• Resources are a logical representation of the Domain Model/Data Set
• Resource Representations are transformations/views of Resources state at an instant of time
• Resource Representations are requested via headers
• There is a one to many relationship between a resource and its representations
• Access to Resources is always mediated by way of Resource Representations
• Hypermedia Resource Representation allows lazy-cacheable access that advertise permitted transitions
• Use Transaction Resources to create stateless interaction

Design Procedure

1. Figure out the Domain Model/Data Set (if it does not already exists)
2. Split the Domain Model/Data Set into logical Resources
3. Name the resources using URIs i.e. /orders, /orders/{key}, etc.
4. Expose your subset of the uniform interface i.e. GET/POST/PUT/DELETE
5. Design the Resource Representations
6. Design the Hypermedia Resource Representations integration
7. Design Scenarios, Alternative Paths & Error Conditions   

Navigate to The Accounting Engine

Fill and submit the Request

Make sure to have a valid email. 

The email will contain among other information a link to the Subscription where you will complete the registration.

Complete and submit the Subscription

After the Accounting Data is created a logon is displayed

Use the information from the email sent to login

When you login successfully as an Administrator you will be redirected to the Settings.

Update: This situation has been resolved

Back on October last year I got an email from Microsoft in which they said that they were trying to charge my company credit card for services I was not receiving. I responded:

They ignored my request and continued sending the same stupid message only changing the Notice # and I continued replaying:

I consider this a harassment and that Microsoft is trying to damage my company reputation and credit history.

If they continue this path I will take legal action to stop this Character Assassination attempt!

Today after downloading and installing Crystal Reports for Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 I got this message:

I understand that it is a beta but do they test this stuff!

I am lucky that I always install these kind of software in a test system but it is annoying and time consuming. 

Can someone from Microsoft explain What is the job of their "Dirteam"?

This is the response I got so far. Is this arrogance or what?:

I don't know when and how it happened, maybe when I installed VS 2010 side-by-side with VS 2008, but my VS 2010 default language was set to Visual Basic and I don't use "that thing" anymore. I ignored it for a while since I have been just converting from VS 2008 but it got annoying because every time I created a new project it was created with Visual Basic so I had to delete it and recreate it.

Finally I decided to change the setting but I was looking on the wrong place Tools -> Options. After a while I found this eggheadcafe posting and as it said it is Tools -> Import and Export Settings.:

Save your current settings in case you change your mind later: (not me :-))

Then select Visual C# Development Settings and click Finish:

While installing Silverlight 4 Tools v1.0 for Visual Studio I ran into the following screen sometimes after the installation hanged for a while:

I had found that problem before while trying to install SQL Server 2008 so I located the following registry key:

and removed this from the PendingFileRenameOperations

After doing that I ran the installation again and it completed successfully.