2023 - Vol. 20 - Issue 1 - Power Platform
CODE Focus - Power Platform 2023 is a special collection of articles written primarily by Microsoft MVPs covering major features of Microsoft Power Platform with a look ahead as Copilot is about to be released, and enable business technologists and professional developers. If you are new to Power Platform, Copilot can easily help you get started. If you are a professional developer, Power Platform can help business people on your team write a lot of a new application. You only need to advise on data decisions and adjust some things for connection and deployment. Your whole team gets better.
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Coding the Future: The Rise of Low-Code and AI with the Microsoft Power Platform
By:
Charles Lamanna
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2023 - Vol. 20 - Issue 1 - Power Platform
Charles Lamanna notes that AI will help makers with low-code development in Power Platform, including simplifying, streamlining and democratizing software creation, fostering collaboration across domains of expertise, and empowering everyone to be innovators.
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The Future of Low-Code / No-Code Power Platform Development in the Age of Copilot
By:
Lewis Baybutt
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2023 - Vol. 20 - Issue 1 - Power Platform
Microsoft is leading a paradigm shift in the industry, where organizations will become AI companies to meet their software needs. Microsoft is using generative AI to enhance Power Platform, and is bringing natural language automation flows, and Copilots, that leverage AI, to simplify and accelerate software development.
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Phillip’s Power Apps Odyssey
By:
Shane Young
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2023 - Vol. 20 - Issue 1 - Power Platform
Journey to cosmic Azuria and hear the tale of squire Phillip and how he learns the magic of Power Apps to create an app to improve the acquisition and management of snacks for Sir Pow R. Platformius on his great battle steed, Excel’erant.
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Using Power Automate to Manage Process
By:
Angelo Gulisano
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2023 - Vol. 20 - Issue 1 - Power Platform
Angelo explains some key concepts of Power Automate including triggers, actions, and cloud flows. He then shows two examples of how to use Power Automate to automate tasks, such as processing invoices using AI Builder and storing data in a Dataverse table, or using Power Automate Desktop to connect to a business application that doesn’t have a Power Platform connector.
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Power Platform ❤ Code Developers
By:
David Yack
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2023 - Vol. 20 - Issue 1 - Power Platform
Professional developers should love Power Platform. It’s built on Azure cloud services and has many extensibility points. Use the Power Platform Extension for Visual Studio Code and you don’t have to leave your favorite IDE while you create, build, and deploy Power Platform solutions, packages and Power Pages websites. Apply pro-dev skills for customization, creating connectors and working on teams where citizen developers do a lot of the less interesting work.
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Powering Up Power BI: 7 Seamless Integrations with the Power Platform
By:
John P. White
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2023 - Vol. 20 - Issue 1 - Power Platform
John presents seven examples of how to use Power BI with other tools in the Power Platform to use them better together. John's examples include refreshing data on a schedule or on change, creating real-time reports and dashboards, writing back data using Power Apps visual, displaying real-time survey results, alerting with dashboards, and creating data-driven subscriptions.
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Power Fx: Low Code for Everyone
By:
Greg Lindhorst,
Mike Stall
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2023 - Vol. 20 - Issue 1 - Power Platform
Mike and Greg describe how Power Fx democratizes the creation of apps, automation flows, virtual agents, and other business solutions in Power Platform. They describe ways to use Power Fx in different scenarios such as evaluating formulas, accessing external data, and using imperative logic. Pro-devs can leverage the Power Fx SDK to build features into their own products.
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The Rise of the Low-Code Ecosystem
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2023 - Vol. 20 - Issue 1 - Power Platform
We are in the era of enablement. Businesses have a challenge in that they cannot find enough software developers. Chris suggests that low-code platforms, such as Microsoft Power Platform, have evolved to empower citizen developers, business technologists and professional developers to collaborate and build solutions that meet business needs.
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The Power of Power Pages to Create a Business Website
By:
Fabio Franzini,
Toni Pohl
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2023 - Vol. 20 - Issue 1 - Power Platform
Toni and Fabio explain and demonstrate the benefits of Power Pages and its features to rapidly prototype and iterate sites, which offers advantages for professional developers. Those pro-devs can focus on building functionality and delivering tailored user experiences, while Power Platform handles underlying infrastructure, security, and complexities.
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New in .NET 7
By:
Rod Paddock
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2022 - Vol. 19 - Issue 1 - .NET 7.0
Rod explores the recent release of .NET 7 and finds out that it meets or exceeds the hype.
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What’s New in .NET 7
By:
Jon Douglas,
Jeremy Likness,
Angelos Petropoulos
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2022 - Vol. 19 - Issue 1 - .NET 7.0
Jon, Jeremy, and Angelos are so excited about the new release of .NET 7 that we almost ran out of room in the magazine! Read about some of the great changes and follow the links for further discussion and more information.
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What’s New in C# 11
By:
Bill Wagner
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2022 - Vol. 19 - Issue 1 - .NET 7.0
If you’re interested in improving productivity, object initialization and creation, generic math support, and runtime performance, you’re going to be pretty interested in what Bill has to say about C#’s latest release.
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Highlighted Performance Wins with .NET 7
By:
Stephen Toub
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2022 - Vol. 19 - Issue 1 - .NET 7.0
There are too many improvements in performance using .NET 7 to cover here, so Stephen focuses on the three that he thinks are the best.
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Use .NET MAUI for Native, No-Compromise Apps
By:
David Ortinau
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2022 - Vol. 19 - Issue 1 - .NET 7.0
It used to be that you had to write code for each platform your users might use. David tells you how .NET Multi-platform App UI (MAUI) lets you code once and distribute it to everyone.
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Minimal APIS: Stuck in the Middleware Again
By:
Shawn Wildermuth
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2022 - Vol. 19 - Issue 1 - .NET 7.0
ASP.NET Core lets you use middleware to interact with Minimal APIs and Shawn shows you how it’s done.
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EF Core 7: It Just Keeps Getting Better
By:
Julie Lerman
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2022 - Vol. 19 - Issue 1 - .NET 7.0
It’s no surprise that Julie’s excited about the latest EF release. It’s faster, it allows bulk updates and deletes, it lets you map entity properties to database JSON columns, and you can map stored procedures the way you’re used to. There’s more, too!
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Upgrade Tooling for .NET 7
By:
Mike Rousos
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2022 - Vol. 19 - Issue 1 - .NET 7.0
You liked the .NET Upgrade Assistant tool last year, right? Mike tells you how, with .NET 7, there are even more tooling options to ease the transition from .NET Framework to .NET 7.
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Using CoreWCF to Move WCF Services to .NET Core
By:
Sam Spencer
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2022 - Vol. 19 - Issue 1 - .NET 7.0
Sam’s eager to share how you can use CoreWCF to modernize applications to .NET 7.
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Blazor for the Web and Beyond in .NET 7
By:
Daniel Roth
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2022 - Vol. 19 - Issue 1 - .NET 7.0
Blazor enables UI development for the web without JavaScript and using open web standards. Daniel shows you how to author reusable web UI components that can be used on any modern web browser.
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.NET Focus Features Fabulous Features
By:
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2021 - Vol. 18 - Issue 1 - .NET 6.0
Rod reflects on this being the third CODE Focus issue he has managed and highlights some of the great articles about .NET 6 in this issue.
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The Unified .NET 6
By:
Richard Lander
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2021 - Vol. 18 - Issue 1 - .NET 6.0
There were many lessons learned as the .NET team released .NET 5 during the lockdown with an all-remote team. Rich shows how those lessons carried into .NET 6 with major performance improvements, multiple operating system scenarios for building client apps, support for Apple Silicon chips, and faster and more responsive development tools.
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Bring Your .NET Apps Forward with the .NET Upgrade Assistant
By:
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2021 - Vol. 18 - Issue 1 - .NET 6.0
Now that you’re using all the shiny new tools in .NET 6, you need to make sure that the rest of your .NET Framework is keeping up. Mike shows you how the new Upgrade Assistant does some of that work for you; but you'll have some work to do yourself.
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Visual Studio 2022 Productivity
By:
Mika Dumont
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2021 - Vol. 18 - Issue 1 - .NET 6.0
VS 2022 is finally 64-bit! Mika shows you how, with enhanced speed, AI coding assistance, expanded productivity tools, and streamlined team collaboration, you’ll find this new version improving your workdays.
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Essential C# 10.0: Making it Simpler
By:
Mark Michaelis
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2021 - Vol. 18 - Issue 1 - .NET 6.0
It’s time for the annual release of C# vNext. Mark shows you how it’s streamlined in some ways and tightened in others. In fact, he thinks it will mark a sea change in how C# devs write code.
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What’s New in ASP.NET Core in .NET 6
By:
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2021 - Vol. 18 - Issue 1 - .NET 6.0
You already know that ASP.NET Core provides everything you need to build great Web UIs and powerful back-end services. Daniel shows how you can build rich interactive client Web UIs using all your favorite interactivity tools, standards-based HTTP APIs, real-time services, and back-end services.
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EF Core 6: Fulfilling the Bucket List
By:
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2021 - Vol. 18 - Issue 1 - .NET 6.0
EF Core just gets better and better. Julie shows you how the development team listened to the community for this latest release as she explores all the cool new tools.
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An Introduction to .NET MAUI
By:
Steven Thewissen
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2021 - Vol. 18 - Issue 1 - .NET 6.0
You’ve been using Xamarin for years. Steven shows how the .NET Multi-platform App UI (.NET MAUI) hasn't just kept up with everything, but how it compares with the old Xamarin.Forms.
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Blazor Hybrid Web Apps with .NET MAUI
By:
Ed Charbeneau
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2021 - Vol. 18 - Issue 1 - .NET 6.0
You’ve been waiting for MAUI, and now it’s here! Ed takes you on a tour and shows you how easy it is to code for the Web, desktops, and mobiles, all using the skills you already have.
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Power Up Your Power Apps with .NET 6 and Azure
By:
Brady Gaster
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2021 - Vol. 18 - Issue 1 - .NET 6.0
Power Apps help design and specify how a mobile app will function without having to know all those troublesome details of being a professional coder. Come along as Brady walks you through .NET 6’s new ASP.NET Core Minimal APIs, then publishes the app to Azure App Service, imports it into Azure API Managements, and secures it with Microsoft Identity Platform.
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The Journey to One .NET
By:
Beth Massi
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2020 - Vol. 17 - Issue 1 - .NET 5.0
Product Marketing Manager for .NET Beth Massi talks about her journey from FoxPro to .NET 5 and highlights the great topics covered in this CODE Focus issue.
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From .NET Standard to .NET 5
By:
Immo Landwerth
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2020 - Vol. 17 - Issue 1 - .NET 5.0
Microsoft's release of .NET 5 will be a shared code base for .NET Core, Mono, Xamarin, and future .NET implementations. So which target framework names (TFMs) should you use? This article explains when you should target .NET Standard 2.0 or when you should go straight to .NET 5.
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Introducing C# 9.0
By:
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2020 - Vol. 17 - Issue 1 - .NET 5.0
The C# compiler that ships with the .NET 5 SDK has been updated and streamlined; but C# 9.0 is supported only on .NET 5.0. Read this overview of the best C# 9.0 feaures to support native cloud applications, modern software engineering practices, and more concise readable code.
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EF Core 5: Building on the Foundation
By:
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2020 - Vol. 17 - Issue 1 - .NET 5.0
Julie’s pretty excited about the new features in EF Core 5. You will be too when you read about the bugs fixed, over 200 new features (including many-to-many support and the ability to filter when eager loading with the Include method) and minor enhancements and support for previous versions.
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Project Tye: Creating Microservices in a .NET Way
By:
Shayne Boyer
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2020 - Vol. 17 - Issue 1 - .NET 5.0
Learn to use Project Tye, an experimental developer's tool that makes the experience of creating, testing and deploying microservices easier in .NET. Note that Tye's deployment target is only to Kubernetes.
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Big Data and Machine Learning in .NET 5
By:
Bri Achtman
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2020 - Vol. 17 - Issue 1 - .NET 5.0
Learn about .NET for Spark and ML.NET to help .NET 5 applications better use big data and machine learning (ML). This article includes a code walkthrough.
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F# 5: A New Era of Functional Programming with .NET
By:
Phillip Carter
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2020 - Vol. 17 - Issue 1 - .NET 5.0
Microsoft has updated F# 5 with new features that include FSI in .NET Core and support for packages in NuGet. Plus F# 5 now supports Jupyter Notebooks as well as Visual Studio Code Notebooks, and more.
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Xamarin.Forms 5: Dual Screens, Dark Modes, Designing with Shapes, and More
By:
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2020 - Vol. 17 - Issue 1 - .NET 5.0
Learn about new enhancements to Xamarin.Forms 5 to support new screen sizes, orientatonss and postures supported in the Surface Duo.
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.NET 5.0 Runtime Highlights
By:
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2020 - Vol. 17 - Issue 1 - .NET 5.0
Learn about new .NET 5.0 projects: single file apps and ARM64. Single file apps enable you to create standalone, true xcopy, single-file executables. ARM64 projects let you build applications that will run faster on hardware that uses ARM chips (phones, Surface Pro X, the Samsung Galaxy Book S and the Apple Silicon-based Mac line).
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Blazor Updates in .NET 5
By:
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2020 - Vol. 17 - Issue 1 - .NET 5.0
Learn about new features available in Blazor using .NET 5 including the Blazor WebAssembly SDK, new built-in support for virtualization, CSS isolation, lazy loading and built-in features that reduce or eliminate JavaScript interop code required.
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Azure Tools for .NET in Visual Studio 2019
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2020 - Vol. 17 - Issue 1 - .NET 5.0
Overview of how to use Visual Studio 2019 to consume Azure services from a .NET app and deploy your app to Azure using the revamped Connected Services experience. Get started using Connected Services to add service dependencies to your application.
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Windows Desktop Apps and .NET 5
By:
Olia Gavrysh
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2020 - Vol. 17 - Issue 1 - .NET 5.0
This article describes the differences between .NET 5 and .NET Core 3.x and describes breaking changes from the upgrade. Overview of how to upgrade existing WinForms and WPF applications to .NET 5.
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.NET Core: The WOW Factor
By:
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2019 - Vol. 16 - Issue 1 - .NET Core 3.0
Rod is just as excited as everyone else about all the new tools in .NET Core 3.0.
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Be More Productive in Visual Studio 2019
By:
Kendra Havens
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2019 - Vol. 16 - Issue 1 - .NET Core 3.0
If you thought Visual Studio was a great tool before, you’re going to go nuts about the latest release. Mika and Kendra talk about the changes that they’re most excited about.
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Upgrading Windows Desktop Applications with .NET Core 3
By:
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2019 - Vol. 16 - Issue 1 - .NET Core 3.0
It’s not enough that creating apps using .NET Core is better than ever before. Now, Olia shows us how with .NET Core 3, upgrading existing apps is easier, too.
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ML.NET: Machine Learning for .NET Developers
By:
Cesar de la Torre
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2019 - Vol. 16 - Issue 1 - .NET Core 3.0
Machine Learning doesn’t have to be the big scary monster lurking in the dark. Bri and Cesar show you how Microsoft’s ML.NET lets you design your own models specific to your deployment context and needs even if you’ve never played with ML before.
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A New Era of Productivity with Blazor
By:
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2019 - Vol. 16 - Issue 1 - .NET Core 3.0
Blazor is a new Web framework that uses .NET Core’s architecture, essentially combining the simplicity of Razor with .NET Core concepts. Ed shows you how to get the most from this great tool.
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Entity Framework Core 3.0: A Foundation for the Future
By:
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2019 - Vol. 16 - Issue 1 - .NET Core 3.0
The latest release of Entity Framework gets it geared up for some big future changes. Julie shows you that the changes are nothing to sneeze at.
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What’s New in ASP.NET Core 3.0
By:
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2019 - Vol. 16 - Issue 1 - .NET Core 3.0
Get ready for an exciting list (and examples) as Shawn explores the new tools in ASP.NET Core 3.0.
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Visual Studio for Mac 8.3: It’s Not Just for Xamarin Anymore!
By:
Benjamin Day,
Dominic Nahous
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2019 - Vol. 16 - Issue 1 - .NET Core 3.0
If you’ve been putting off using VS on the Mac, you’ll be excited by Ben’s experience with the new release. It’s got all the whistles and bells you know and love and it makes some tasks even easier than you’d expect.
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From Xamarin Native to Xamarin.Forms: Reaping the Rewards without the Risk
By:
Ryan Davis
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2019 - Vol. 16 - Issue 1 - .NET Core 3.0
If you need access to native platforms, you’re going to want to see what Ryan has to say about Xamarin.Forms. He’ll show you that migration isn’t the pain you thought it might be.
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gRPC as a Replacement for WCF
By:
Magnus Montin
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2019 - Vol. 16 - Issue 1 - .NET Core 3.0
You’ve been programming in C# for a while now, and you know that you need bidirectional streaming with low latency and high throughput. Google’s remote procedure call offering (gRPC) has what you need, and Magnus shows you why.
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Essential C# 8.0
By:
Published in: CODE Focus Magazine: 2019 - Vol. 16 - Issue 1 - .NET Core 3.0
When .NET Core got its makeover, so did C#. Mark shows you what’s improved and why you’ll want to work with it right away.