Quarkus is, in its own words, “Supersonic subatomic Java” and a “Kubernetes native Java stack tailored for GraalVM & OpenJDK HotSpot, crafted from the best of breed Java libraries and standards.” For the purpose of illustrating how to modernize an existing Java application to Quarkus, I will use the Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform (JBoss EAP) quickstarts helloworld quickstart as sample of a Java application builds using technologies (CDI and Servlet 3) supported in Quarkus.

It’s important to note that both Quarkus and JBoss EAP rely on providing developers with tools based—as much as possible—on standards. If your application is not already running on JBoss EAP, there’s no problem. You can migrate it from your current application server to JBoss EAP using the Red Hat Application Migration Toolkit. After that, the final and working modernized version of the code is available in the https://github.com/mrizzi/jboss-eap-quickstarts/tree/quarkus repository inside the helloworld module.

This article is based on the guides Quarkus provides, mainly Creating Your First Application and Building a Native Executable.

Get the code

To start, clone the JBoss EAP quickstarts repository locally, running:

$ git clone https://github.com/jboss-developer/jboss...starts.git Cloning into 'jboss-eap-quickstarts'... remote: Enumerating objects: 148133, done. remote: Total 148133 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 148133 Receiving objects: 100% (148133/148133), 59.90 MiB | 7.62 MiB/s, done. Resolving deltas: 100% (66476/66476), done. $ cd jboss-eap-quickstarts/helloworld/

Try plain, vanilla helloworld

The name of the quickstart is a strong clue about what this application does, but let’s follow a scientific approach in modernizing this code, so first things first: Try the application as it is.

Deploy helloworld

1. Open a terminal and navigate to the root of the JBoss EAP directory EAP_HOME (which you can download).
2. Start the JBoss EAP server with the default profile by typing the following command:

$ EAP_HOME/bin/standalone.sh 

Note: For Windows, use the EAP_HOME\bin\standalone.bat script.

After a few seconds, the log should look like:

[org.jboss.as] (Controller Boot Thread) WFLYSRV0025: JBoss EAP 7.2.0.GA (WildFly Core 6.0.11.Final-redhat-00001) started in 3315ms - Started 306 of 527 services (321 services are lazy, passive or on-demand)

3. Open http://127.0.0.1:8080 in a browser, and a page like Figure 1 should appear:

Figure 1: The JBoss EAP home page.

4. Following instructions from Build and Deploy the Quickstart, deploy the helloworld quickstart and execute (from the project root directory) the command:

$ mvn clean install wildfly:deploy 

This command should end successfully with a log like this:

[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [INFO] BUILD SUCCESS [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [INFO] Total time: 8.224 s 

The helloworld application has now been deployed for the first time in JBoss EAP in about eight seconds.

Test helloworld

Following the Access the Application guide, open http://127.0.0.1:8080/helloworld in the browser and see the application page, as shown in Figure 2:

Figure 2: JBoss EAP’s Hello World.

Make changes

Change the createHelloMessage(String name) input parameter from World to Marco (my ego is cheap):

writer.println("<h1>" + helloService.createHelloMessage("Marco") + "</h1>");

Execute again the command:

$ mvn clean install wildfly:deploy 

and then refresh the web page in the browser to check the message displayed changes, as shown in Figure 3:

Figure 3: JBoss EAP’s Hello Marco.

Undeploy helloworld and shut down

If you want to undeploy (optional) the application before shutting down JBoss EAP, run the following command:

$ mvn clean install wildfly:undeploy 

To shut down the JBoss EAP instance, enter Ctrl+C in the terminal where it’s running.

Let’s modernize helloworld

Now we can leave the original helloworld behind and update it.

Create a new branch

Create a new working branch once the quickstart project finishes executing:

$ git checkout -b quarkus 7.2.0.GA 

Change the pom.xml file

The time has come to start changing the application. starting from the pom.xml file. From the helloworld folder, run the following command to let Quarkus add XML blocks:

$ mvn io.quarkus:quarkus-maven-plugin:0.23.2:create 

This article uses the 0.23.2 version. To know which is the latest version is, please refer to https://github.com/quarkusio/quarkus/releases/latest/, since the Quarkus release cycles are short.

This command changed the pom.xml, file adding:

• The property <quarkus.version> to define the Quarkus version to be used.
• The <dependencyManagement> block to import the Quarkus bill of materials (BOM). In this way, there’s no need to add the version to each Quarkus dependency.
• The quarkus-maven-plugin plugin responsible for packaging the application, and also providing the development mode.
• The native profile to create application native executables.

Further changes required to pom.xml, to be done manually:

1. Move the <groupId> tag outside of the <parent> block, and above the <artifactId> tag. Because we remove the <parent> block in the next step, the <groupId> must be preserved.
2. Remove the <parent> block: The application doesn’t need the JBoss parent pom anymore to run with Quarkus.
3. Add the <version> tag (below the <artifactId> tag) with the value you prefer.
4. Remove the <packaging> tag: The application won’t be a WAR anymore, but a plain JAR.
5. Change the following dependencies:
   
   1. Replace the javax.enterprise:cdi-api dependency with io.quarkus:quarkus-arc, removing <scope>provided</scope> because—as stated in the documentation—this Quarkus extension provides the CDI dependency injection.
   2. Replace the org.jboss.spec.javax.servlet:jboss-servlet-api_4.0_spec dependency with io.quarkus:quarkus-undertow, removing the <scope>provided</scope>, because—again as stated in the documentation—this is the Quarkus extension that provides support for servlets.
   3. Remove the org.jboss.spec.javax.annotation:jboss-annotations-api_1.3_spec dependency because it’s coming with the previously changed dependencies.

The pom.xml file’s fully changed version is available at https://github.com/mrizzi/jboss-eap-quickstarts/blob/quarkus/helloworld/pom.xml.

Note that the above mvn io.quarkus:quarkus-maven-plugin:0.23.2:create command, besides the changes to the pom.xml file, added components to the project. The added file and folders are:

• The files mvnw and mvnw.cmd, and .mvn folder: The Maven Wrapper allows you to run Maven projects with a specific version of Maven without requiring that you install that specific Maven version.
• The docker folder (in src/main/): This folder contains example Dockerfile files for both native and jvm modes (together with a .dockerignore file).
• The resources folder (in src/main/): This folder contains an empty application.properties file and the sample Quarkus landing page index.html (more in the section “Run the modernized helloworld“).

Run helloworld

To test the application, use quarkus:dev, which runs Quarkus in development mode (more details on Development Mode here).

Note: We expect this step to fail as changes are still required to the application, as detailed in this section.

Now run the command to check if and how it works:

$ ./mvnw compile quarkus:dev [INFO] Scanning for projects... [INFO] [INFO] ----------------< org.jboss.eap.quickstarts:helloworld >---------------- [INFO] Building Quickstart: helloworld quarkus [INFO] --------------------------------[ war ]--------------------------------- [INFO] [INFO] --- maven-resources-plugin:2.6:resources (default-resources) @ helloworld --- [INFO] Using 'UTF-8' encoding to copy filtered resources. [INFO] Copying 2 resources [INFO] [INFO] --- maven-compiler-plugin:3.1:compile (default-compile) @ helloworld --- [INFO] Nothing to compile - all classes are up to date [INFO] [INFO] --- quarkus-maven-plugin:0.23.2:dev (default-cli) @ helloworld --- Listening for transport dt_socket at address: 5005 INFO [io.qua.dep.QuarkusAugmentor] Beginning quarkus augmentation INFO [org.jbo.threads] JBoss Threads version 3.0.0.Final ERROR [io.qua.dev.DevModeMain] Failed to start quarkus: java.lang.RuntimeException: io.quarkus.builder.BuildException: Build failure: Build failed due to errors [error]: Build step io.quarkus.arc.deployment.ArcProcessor#validate threw an exception: javax.enterprise.inject.spi.DeploymentException: javax.enterprise.inject.UnsatisfiedResolutionException: Unsatisfied dependency for type org.jboss.as.quickstarts.helloworld.HelloService and qualifiers [@Default] - java member: org.jboss.as.quickstarts.helloworld.HelloWorldServlet#helloService - declared on CLASS bean [types=[javax.servlet.ServletConfig, java.io.Serializable, org.jboss.as.quickstarts.helloworld.HelloWorldServlet, javax.servlet.GenericServlet, javax.servlet.Servlet, java.lang.Object, javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet], qualifiers=[@Default, @Any], target=org.jboss.as.quickstarts.helloworld.HelloWorldServlet] at io.quarkus.arc.processor.BeanDeployment.processErrors(BeanDeployment.java:841) at io.quarkus.arc.processor.BeanDeployment.init(BeanDeployment.java:214) at io.quarkus.arc.processor.BeanProcessor.initialize(BeanProcessor.java:106) at io.quarkus.arc.deployment.ArcProcessor.validate(ArcProcessor.java:249) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62) at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43) at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:498) at io.quarkus.deployment.ExtensionLoader$1.execute(ExtensionLoader.java:780) at io.quarkus.builder.BuildContext.run(BuildContext.java:415) at org.jboss.threads.ContextClassLoaderSavingRunnable.run(ContextClassLoaderSavingRunnable.java:35) at org.jboss.threads.EnhancedQueueExecutor.safeRun(EnhancedQueueExecutor.java:2011) at org.jboss.threads.EnhancedQueueExecutor$ThreadBody.doRunTask(EnhancedQueueExecutor.java:1535) at org.jboss.threads.EnhancedQueueExecutor$ThreadBody.run(EnhancedQueueExecutor.java:1426) at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:748) at org.jboss.threads.JBossThread.run(JBossThread.java:479) Caused by: javax.enterprise.inject.UnsatisfiedResolutionException: Unsatisfied dependency for type org.jboss.as.quickstarts.helloworld.HelloService and qualifiers [@Default] - java member: org.jboss.as.quickstarts.helloworld.HelloWorldServlet#helloService - declared on CLASS bean [types=[javax.servlet.ServletConfig, java.io.Serializable, org.jboss.as.quickstarts.helloworld.HelloWorldServlet, javax.servlet.GenericServlet, javax.servlet.Servlet, java.lang.Object, javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet], qualifiers=[@Default, @Any], target=org.jboss.as.quickstarts.helloworld.HelloWorldServlet] at io.quarkus.arc.processor.Beans.resolveInjectionPoint(Beans.java:428) at io.quarkus.arc.processor.BeanInfo.init(BeanInfo.java:371) at io.quarkus.arc.processor.BeanDeployment.init(BeanDeployment.java:206) ... 14 more 

It failed. Why? What happened?

The UnsatisfiedResolutionException exception refers to the HelloService class, which is a member of the HelloWorldServlet class (java member: org.jboss.as.quickstarts.helloworld.HelloWorldServlet#helloService). The problem is that HelloWorldServlet needs an injected instance of HelloService, but it can not be found (even if the two classes are in the very same package).

It’s time to return to Quarkus guides to leverage the documentation and understand how @Inject—and hence Contexts and Dependency Injection (CDI)—works in Quarkus, thanks to the Contexts and Dependency Injection guide. In the Bean Discovery paragraph, it says, “Bean classes that don’t have a bean defining annotation are not discovered.”

Looking at the HelloService class, it’s clear there’s no bean defining annotation, and one has to be added to have Quarkus to discover the bean. So, because it’s a stateless object, it’s safe to add the @ApplicationScoped annotation:

@ApplicationScoped public class HelloService { 

Note: The IDE should prompt you to add the required package shown here (add it manually if need be):

import javax.enterprise.context.ApplicationScoped; 

If you’re in doubt about which scope to apply when the original bean has no scope defined, please refer to the JSR 365: Contexts and Dependency Injection for Java 2.0—Default scope documentation.

Now, try again to run the application, executing again the ./mvnw compile quarkus:dev command:

$ ./mvnw compile quarkus:dev [INFO] Scanning for projects... [INFO] [INFO] ----------------< org.jboss.eap.quickstarts:helloworld >---------------- [INFO] Building Quickstart: helloworld quarkus [INFO] --------------------------------[ war ]--------------------------------- [INFO] [INFO] --- maven-resources-plugin:2.6:resources (default-resources) @ helloworld --- [INFO] Using 'UTF-8' encoding to copy filtered resources. [INFO] Copying 2 resources [INFO] [INFO] --- maven-compiler-plugin:3.1:compile (default-compile) @ helloworld --- [INFO] Changes detected - recompiling the module! [INFO] Compiling 2 source files to /home/mrizzi/git/forked/jboss-eap-quickstarts/helloworld/target/classes [INFO] [INFO] --- quarkus-maven-plugin:0.23.2:dev (default-cli) @ helloworld --- Listening for transport dt_socket at address: 5005 INFO [io.qua.dep.QuarkusAugmentor] (main) Beginning quarkus augmentation INFO [io.qua.dep.QuarkusAugmentor] (main) Quarkus augmentation completed in 576ms INFO [io.quarkus] (main) Quarkus 0.23.2 started in 1.083s. Listening on: http://0.0.0.0:8080 INFO [io.quarkus] (main) Profile dev activated. Live Coding activated. INFO [io.quarkus] (main) Installed features: [cdi] 

This time the application runs successfully.

Run the modernized helloworld

As the terminal log suggests, open a browser to http://0.0.0.0:8080(the default Quarkus landing page), and the page shown in Figure 4 appears:

Figure 4: The Quarkus dev landing page.

This application has the following context’s definition in the WebServlet annotation:

@WebServlet("/HelloWorld") public class HelloWorldServlet extends HttpServlet { 

Hence, you can browse to http://0.0.0.0:8080/HelloWorldto reach the page shown in Figure 5:

Figure 5: The Quarkus dev Hello World page.

It works!

Make changes

Please, pay attention to the fact that the ./mvnw compile quarkus:dev command is still running, and we’re not going to stop it. Now, try to apply the same—very trivial—change to the code and see how Quarkus improves the developer experience:

writer.println("<h1>" + helloService.createHelloMessage("Marco") + "</h1>");

Save the file, and then refresh the web page to check that Hello Marco appears, as shown in Figure 6:

Figure 6: The Quarkus dev Hello Marco page.

Take time to check the terminal output:

INFO [io.qua.dev] (vert.x-worker-thread-3) Changed source files detected, recompiling [/home/mrizzi/git/forked/jboss-eap-quickstarts/helloworld/src/main/java/org/jboss/as/quickstarts/helloworld/HelloWorldServlet.java] INFO [io.quarkus] (vert.x-worker-thread-3) Quarkus stopped in 0.003s INFO [io.qua.dep.QuarkusAugmentor] (vert.x-worker-thread-3) Beginning quarkus augmentation INFO [io.qua.dep.QuarkusAugmentor] (vert.x-worker-thread-3) Quarkus augmentation completed in 232ms INFO [io.quarkus] (vert.x-worker-thread-3) Quarkus 0.23.2 started in 0.257s. Listening on: http://0.0.0.0:8080 INFO [io.quarkus] (vert.x-worker-thread-3) Profile dev activated. Live Coding activated. INFO [io.quarkus] (vert.x-worker-thread-3) Installed features: [cdi] INFO [io.qua.dev] (vert.x-worker-thread-3) Hot replace total time: 0.371s 

Refreshing the page triggered the source code change detection and the Quarkus automagic “stop-and-start.” All of this executed in just 0.371 seconds (that’s part of the Quarkus “Supersonic Subatomic Java” experience).

Build the helloworld packaged JAR

Now that the code works as expected, it can be packaged using the command:

$ ./mvnw clean package

This command creates two JARs in the /target folder. The first is helloworld-<version>.jar, which is the standard artifact built from the Maven command with the project’s classes and resources. The second is helloworld-<version>-runner.jar, which is an executable JAR.

Please pay attention to the fact that this is not an uber-jar, because all of the dependencies are copied into the /target/lib folder (and not bundled within the JAR). Hence, to run this JAR in another location or host, both the JAR file and the libraries in the /lib folder have to be copied, considering that the Class-Path entry of the MANIFEST.MF file in the JAR explicitly lists the JARs from the lib folder.

To create an uber-jar application, please refer to the Uber-Jar Creation Quarkus guide.

Run the helloworld packaged JAR

Now, the packaged JAR can be executed using the standard java command:

$ java -jar ./target/helloworld-<version>-runner.jar INFO [io.quarkus] (main) Quarkus 0.23.2 started in 0.673s. Listening on: http://0.0.0.0:8080 INFO [io.quarkus] (main) Profile prod activated. INFO [io.quarkus] (main) Installed features: [cdi] 

As done above, open the http://0.0.0.0:8080 URL in a browser, and test that everything works.

Build the helloworld quickstart-native executable

So far so good. The helloworld quickstart ran as a standalone Java application using Quarkus dependencies, but more can be achieved by adding a further step to the modernization path: Build a native executable.

Install GraalVM

First of all, the tools for creating the native executable have to be installed:

1. Download GraalVM 19.2.0.1 from https://github.com/oracle/graal/releases/tag/vm-19.2.0.1.
2. Untar the file using the command:

$ tar xvzf graalvm-ce-linux-amd64-19.2.0.1.tar.gz

3. Go to the untar folder.
4. Execute the following to download and add the native image component:

$ ./bin/gu install native-image

5. Set the GRAALVM_HOME environment variable to the folder created in step two, for example:

$ export GRAALVM_HOME={untar-folder}/graalvm-ce-19.2.0.1)

More details and install instructions for other operating systems are available in Building a Native Executable—Prerequisites Quarkus guide.

Build the helloworld native executable

As stated in the Building a Native Executable—Producing a native executable Quarkus guide, “Let’s now produce a native executable for our application. It improves the startup time of the application and produces a minimal disk footprint. The executable would have everything to run the application including the ‘JVM’ (shrunk to be just enough to run the application), and the application.”

To create the native executable, the Maven native profile has to be enabled by executing:

$ ./mvnw package -Pnative

The build took me about 1:10 minutes and the result is the helloworld-<version>-runner file in the /target folder.

Run the helloworld native executable

The /target/helloworld-<version>-runner file created in the previous step. It’s executable, so running it is easy:

$ ./target/helloworld-<version>-runner INFO [io.quarkus] (main) Quarkus 0.23.2 started in 0.006s. Listening on: http://0.0.0.0:8080 INFO [io.quarkus] (main) Profile prod activated. INFO [io.quarkus] (main) Installed features: [cdi] 

As done before, open the http://0.0.0.0:8080 URL in a browser and test that everything is working.

Next steps

I believe that this modernization, even of a basic application, is the right way to approach a brownfield application using technologies available in Quarkus. This way, you can start facing the issues and tackling them to understand and learn how to solve them.

In part two of this series, I’ll look at how to capture memory consumption data in order to evaluate performance improvements, which is a fundamental part of the modernization process.

The post Quarkus: Modernize “helloworld” JBoss EAP quickstart, Part 1 appeared first on Red Hat Developer.

Tim

If you work on any type of app that has a user interface (UI) you probably have experienced that inner-loop development cycle of making a change, compile and run the app, see the change wasn’t what you wanted, stop debugging, then re-run the cycle again. Depending on the frameworks or technology you use, there are options to improve this experience such as edit-and-continue, Xamarin Hot Reload, and design-time editors. Of course, nothing will show the UI of your app like…well, your app!

For ASP.NET WebForms we have had designers for a while allowing you to switch from your WebForms code view to the Design view to get an idea what the UI may look like. As modern UI frameworks have evolved and relied more on fragments or components of CSS/HTML/etc. this design view may not always reflect the UI:

And these frameworks and UI libraries are becoming more popular and common to a web developer’s experience. We ship them in the box as well with some of our Visual Studio templates! As we looked at some of the web trends and talked with customers in our user research labs we wanted to adapt to that philosophy that the best representation of your UI, data, state, etc. is your actual running app. And so that is what we are working on right now.

Starting today you can download our preview Visual Studio extension for a new editing mode we’re calling “web live preview.” The extension is available now so head on over to the Visual Studio Marketplace and download/install the “Web Live Preview” extension for Visual Studio 2019. Seriously, go do that now and just click install, then come back and read the rest. It will be ready for you when you’re done!

Using the extension

After installing the extension, in an ASP.NET web application you’ll now have an option that says “Edit in Browser” when right-clicking on an ASPX page:

This will launch your default browser with your app in a special mode. You should immediately notice a small difference in that your view has some adorners on it:

In this mode you can now interactively select elements on this view and see the selection synchronized with your source. Even if you select something that comes from a master page, the synchronization will open that page in Visual Studio to navigate to the selection.

So what you may say, well it’s not just selection synchronization, but source as well. You may have a web control and be selecting those elements and we know that, for example, that is an asp:DataGrid component. As you make changes to the source as well, they are immediately reflected in the running app. Notice no saving or no browser refresh happening:

When working with things like Razor pages, we can detect code as well and even interact within those blocks of code. Here in a Razor page I have a loop. Notice how the selection is identified as a code loop, but I can still make some modifications in the code and see it reflected in the running app:

So even in your code blocks within your HTML you can make edits and see them reflected in your running app, shortening that inner loop to smaller changes in your process.

But wait, there’s more!

If you already use browser developer tools you may be asking if this is a full replacement for that for you. And it probably is NOT and that is by design! We know web devs rely a lot on developer tools in browsers and we are experimenting as well with a little extension (for Edge/Chrome) that synchronizes in the rendered dev tools view as well. So now you have synchronization across source representation (including controls/code/static) to rendered app, and with dev tools DOM tree views…and both ways:

We have a lot more to do, hence this being a preview of our work so far.

Current constraints

With any preview there are going to be constraints, so here they are for the time of this writing. We eventually see this just being functionality for web developers in Visual Studio without installing anything else, so the extension is temporary. For now, we support the .NET Framework web project types for WebForms and MVC. Yes, we know, we know you want .NET Core and Blazor support. This is definitely on our roadmap, but we wanted to tackle some very known scenarios where our WebForms customers have been using design view for a while. We hear you and this has been echoed in our research as well…we are working on it!

For pure code changes outside of the ASPX/Razor pages we don’t have a full ‘hot reload’ story yet so you will have to refresh the browser in those cases where some fundamental object models are changing that you may rely on (new classes/functions/properties, changed data types, etc.). This is something that we hope to tackle more broadly for the .NET ecosystem and take all that we have learned from customers using similar experiments we have had in this area.

The extension works with Chromium-based browsers such as the latest Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome browsers. This also enables us to have a single browser developer tools extension that handles that integration as well. To use that browser extension, you will have to use developer mode in your browser and load the extension from disk. This process is fairly simple but you have to follow a few steps which are documented on adding and removing extensions in Edge. The location of the dev tools plugin is located at C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Common7\IDE\Extensions\Microsoft\Web Live Preview\BrowserExtension (assuming you have the default Visual Studio 2019 install location and ensuring you specify Community/Professional/Enterprise you have installed). Please note this is also a temporary solution as we are in development of these capabilities. Any final browser tools extensions would be distributed in browser stores.

Summary

If you are one of our customers that can leverage this preview extension we’d love for you to download and install it and give it a try. If you have feedback or issues, please use the Visual Studio Feedback mechanism as that helps us get diagnostic information for any issues you may be facing. We know that you have a lot of tools at your disposal but we hope this web live preview mode will make some of your flow easier. Nothing to install into your project, no tool-specific code in your source, and (eventually) no additional tools to install. Please give it a try and let us know what you think!

On behalf of the team working on web tools for you, thank you for reading!

Over the past 6 months, organizations around the world have adjusted to remote and hybrid work, pioneering new methods of collaboration, and transforming communication systems to stay connected and productive. By working closely with our customers, we’ve identified key requirements that define how you are using meeting and calling solutions and rethinking your costs to achieve long-term resiliency.

As we’ve shared, your organization’s communication needs likely span a spectrum—from the most basic 1:1 meetings and calls to group meetings to large virtual events and conferences. During the pandemic, organizations transformed rapidly moving meetings online and created hybrid workplaces. This environment confirmed the need for multiple ways to join online meetings. For example, participants who do not have reliable internet access to join Microsoft Teams meetings can use Audio Conferencing to join via a dial-in number. Our customers increasingly need to host large scale virtual events ranging from internal town halls to customer events, and Teams can help with these, too. The new Advanced Communications add-on enables large scale events, but also provides structure and admin control to achieve more professional, seamless, and compliant meeting experiences.

To help our customers enable these scenarios and experience the best of what Microsoft Teams can offer in meetings and voice, we’re announcing new promotional offers that deliver these experiences with significant cost savings.

New Microsoft Teams promotional offers:

• Get Audio Conferencing for free, available now for Enterprise Agreement customers¹ and starting October 1^st, 2020 available for customers purchasing via partners and web².
• Get 35% off Advanced Communications³, available now for Enterprise Agreement customers, and will be available before the end of the calendar year for customers purchasing via partners and web.
• For Skype for Business customers, we offer FastTrack support along with great pricing offers to help you move to Teams in a cost-effective manner.  Contact your account representative for more details.

We are committed to helping organizations everywhere stay connected and productive as you navigate new ways of work. By sharing these promotional offers, we aim to support even more of your meeting needs in a cost-efficient manner.

FAQ:

Q: Can an eligible customer use all three offers at once?
A: Yes, if the customer is eligible to all three offers, they can sign up for all three.

Q. Is there a user limit?
A: The offers described above do not have a max number of users.

Q: Are the offers available for education (EDU), GCC, DoD, or GCC High customers?
A: Audio Conferencing Offer^1,2: available for GCC and EDU (A3 only) but is not available for DoD and GCC High customers.
Advanced Communication offer³: The offer is not available for EDU customers. Advanced Communications add-on is not yet available to US GOV clouds (DoD, GCC, GCC High).

Q: If I purchase Audio Conferencing via partners or web, how do I enable the offer²?
A: IT Admins can enable it for their organization via the Microsoft 365 Admin Center. First, activate the free Audio Conferencing offer² to acquire a license and then assign it to a specific user in your tenant.

¹ Get Audio Conferencing for free until the end of your enrollment. Eligible for Microsoft Enterprise Agreements customers with paid Microsoft 365 or Office 365 licenses with Microsoft Teams without Audio Conferencing add-on or Microsoft 365 E5. Available now through January 31^st, 2021. Available worldwide with the exception in China and India. Talk to your Microsoft sales representative to learn more. The offer is subject to additional terms and conditions.
² Get Audio Conferencing for free for 12 months. Eligible for CSP and Web Direct customers with paid Microsoft 365 or Office 365 licenses with Microsoft Teams without Audio Conferencing add-on or Microsoft 365 E5. Available Starting October 1^st, 2020 through March 31^st, 2021. Available worldwide with the exception in China and India. The offer is subject to additional terms and conditions.
³ Get 35% off Advanced Communications until the end of your current subscription terms. Eligible for customers with Microsoft Enterprise Agreements, and paid Microsoft 365 or Office 365 license with Microsoft Teams. Available now through January 31^st, 2021. Available worldwide. Broader availability for customers working with our Microsoft partners and transacting on the web is coming soon. The offer is subject to additional terms and conditions.

A fan-made LEGO set based on Animal Crossing‘s Nook’s Cranny shop is being officially reviewed by the company as part of its LEGO Ideas campaign.

As you may be aware, the LEGO Ideas website allows fans to submit their very own designs for approval. If a design gets 10,000 votes from the community, it’s automatically put forward for review by LEGO and can end up being a real product found on store shelves–the designer can enjoy 1% of the royalties, too.

The Nook’s Cranny design, inspired by the store’s appearance in Animal Crossing: New Horizons on Switch, is one of a whopping 35 Ideas that have made it through for review. Both the inside and outside are fully kitted out, and there’s even a Villager Minifigure sporting the classic ‘number 1’ t-shirt.

“As a fan of Animal Crossing, I have wanted to do a build from the game,” says the design’s creator, Micro_Model_Maker. “I have seen a lot of house builds from the game so I have decided to do Nook’s Cranny to shake things up a bit. The build features an interior; I tried to get it as close to the game as possible but due to size I have had to move some things around, however I believe it captures the spirit”.

The creator also wants to include Timmy and Tommy Minifigures, but didn’t have the parts needed. They say that new moulds might be required to pull that off.

As it happens, plenty of video game designs are making it through LEGO Ideas this year. A few months ago, sets based on The Legend of Zelda, Sonic, and Untitled Goose Game also passed the test and are currently under review.

We’d love to see these hit the market, but it’s important to remember that reaching this stage doesn’t guarantee success. LEGO and Nintendo may well have a pretty great relationship these days, but sets like this would still need to be approved by the Big N, too.

Would you snap one of these up given the chance? Let us know in the comments.

PlayStation 5 preorders start on Sept 10th for £7999/8099* https://t.co/qtrvq6qJxe
*for the 24K Gold edition pic.twitter.com/yovks8kpu6

— Wario64 (@Wario64) September 8, 2020

Sourabh

.NET 5 Preview 5 is now available and is ready for evaluation! .NET 5 will be a current release.

Get started

To get started with ASP.NET Core in .NET 5.0 Preview5 install the .NET 5.0 SDK.

If you’re on Windows using Visual Studio, we recommend installing the latest preview of Visual Studio 2019 16.7.

If you’re on macOS, we recommend installing the latest preview of Visual Studio 2019 for Mac 8.7.

Upgrade an existing project

To upgrade an existing ASP.NET Core 5.0 preview4 app to ASP.NET Core 5.0 preview5:

• Update all Microsoft.AspNetCore.* package references to 5.0.0-preview.5.*.
• Update all Microsoft.Extensions.* package references to 5.0.0-preview.5.*.

See the full list of breaking changes in ASP.NET Core 5.0.

That’s it! You should now be all set to use .NET 5 Preview 5.

What’s new?

Reloadable endpoints via configuration for Kestrel

Kestrel now has the ability to observe changes to configuration passed to KestrelServerOptions.Configure and unbind from existing endpoints and bind to new endpoints without requiring you to restart your application.

See the release notes for additional details and known issues.

Give feedback

We hope you enjoy this release of ASP.NET Core in .NET 5! We are eager to hear about your experiences with this latest .NET 5 release. Let us know what you think by filing issues on GitHub.

Thanks for trying out ASP.NET Core!

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many school students around the world to embrace remote learning. But not all have computers at home.

Now a group of companies and non-profits in Hong Kong are taking part in a global program by Microsoft that breathes new life into old office PCs and distributes them to students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

“I live in a village in Sha Tin, and my family’s income is limited,” says Wu Jiahui, a Secondary 5 (Year 11) student at Toi Shan Association College. “We don’t have the ability to purchase computers.”

Instead, Jiahui has had to rely on her smartphone to study. “But the speed is slower, and the software is not sufficient,” she says. “Because of the small screen, it’s hard to read, and the long-term use of my mobile phone caused shoulder pain and dry eye syndrome.”

Without a proper device, students can’t learn efficiently. The quality of their work and their health can be seriously affected. 

– Albert Wong, Association of IT Leaders in Education

Before the COVID-19 lockdowns, Jiahui would finish her homework in her school’s computer room at the end of each day’s lessons. “But I couldn’t make any revisions to my homework at home.”

Barriers to learning

Albert Wong, chairman of the Association of IT Leaders in Education (AiTLE), says students without a computer at home usually end up using their smartphones. “But mobile devices are made for communication, not for learning,” he says.

“Some learning websites have layouts that are not optimal for mobile devices, making it difficult for students to watch video lessons or view slides. Formatting text and visuals for school projects on a smartphone can also be arduous. Not having their own computers hinders students’ creativity and makes learning time-consuming.”

Wong says computers have become essential for learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. “With school suspensions lasting for months due to the pandemic, online learning activities, such as webinars and virtual projects, are necessary,” he says. “Without proper devices, students can’t learn efficiently. The quality of their work and their health can be seriously affected.”

A recent survey of almost 600 students in the territory found that over 70% either don’t have computers or have outdated machines, while 51% don’t have a desk for studying. Moreover, 83% of students said these hurdles made them worry about falling behind their peers.

Empowering students in need

Recognizing this challenge, Microsoft has partnered with corporate groups, computer refurbishers, and education associations to provide computers – once used in offices – to students in need.

“Not every family is in a financial position to provide their children with a computer. Remote learning makes this situation especially hard,” says Ada Ng, Microsoft Hong Kong’s director of corporate affairs and philanthropies. “Donating refurbished hardware is a great way to make a positive impact on a student’s day-to-day life.”

Volunteers at the non-profit Crossroads Foundation overhaul donated PCs under Microsoft’s Refurbisher Program — through which authorized refurbishers across the globe collect secondhand devices, fix them up, and preinstall genuine Microsoft software.

In one recent two-month effort, more than 1,000 used desktops and laptops machines were serviced and refitted, and then sent out to needy students.

Super Rare Games / Nintendo Life

Super Rare Games, one of several companies fighting to keep the world of physical games alive and well, is kicking off a bumper week of deals, competitions, and reveals.

Perhaps the most exciting news for physical collectors is confirmation that the publisher’s next physical Switch game will be revealed tomorrow, Wednesday 9th September. It sounds like it’ll be a crowd-pleaser, too; the press release says, “if our Twitter mentions are anything to go by, it’s one you’ve been waiting for”.

On top of this, Super Rare Games promises “deals, competitions, teases, and some other small surprises” throughout the week, and it’ll also be sharing its plans for the rest of 2020–including info on how many more games will be released and the Collector’s Editions you can expect to look out for. Make sure to keep an eye on its social media channels.

So, those deals we mentioned? Get a load of this:

FREE SHIPPING on any order that includes The Gardens Between: Collector’s Edition or Smoke & Sacrifice! (Excludes orders that contain Dandara)

Two Tribes Collection has been added back to the store! Only 23 copies have been put on sale from units previously held for customer service

50% off all t-shirts – only 100 of each design printed. Once they’re gone, they’re gone

25% off trading card binders – protect, organise, and display your Super Rare card collection

Taking advantage of that shipping discount? Chroma Squad, Old School Musical, SteamWorld Heist, and Little Inferno have limited stock remaining

All of these offers are set to end on 13th September, or when stock runs out, of course. You can buy all of these games and browse the Super Rare store right here.

Do you collect physical indie games? How many do you have in your collection? Let us know with a comment.