For students using the Community version of Visual Studios (which is functionally no different than the Citrix one), you should have very little problems submitting, as your projects will already exist on your local machine. Simply compress the top-most directory into a .zip or .rar file, upload to Blackboard and you're done!

For Citrix Receiver users... buckle up, cause there's a bit of a process involved, which I'm hoping is clearly explained below. Thankfully, it does end with the precise solution we're after: a simple compress directory command that we can move to our local machine for submission to Blackboard.

How to Access Your M: Drive

Citrix Receiver users are saving their projects to the M: in order to build and execute, but there doesn't appear to be a simple way to transfer that work to your own machine in order to zip up and submit to Blackboad. Unless you start cut 'n pasting files directly, into projects you "create" on your local machine (but can't test to make sure actually work before submission, so best to avoid this if possible.) So instead, you need to install "Novell Filr" -- no, that isn't a typo. Someone decided that was a good name for this software.

This is the DoIT Services > Storage page, where we'll get started. The right menu includes a "Log In" section (followed by AnywhereFiles), and a "Service Documentation" section (followed by Install AnywhereFiles). But don't be fooled -- this isn't a link to install AnywhereFiles, but the documentation for how you do it, which is by clicking the "AnywhereFiles" link above this, under "Log In".

After you provide your Novell credentials, you should end up somewhere that looks like this:



You can ignore most everything in here, as from what I've discovered, none of it helps us solve this submission problem. Instead, you'll click under your username in the top-right part of the page to get this drop-down menu:



Which contains what we're really after: the desktop application version. Clicking this brings up this menu:



Where you choose your operating system. Thankfully, this software for the class doesn't discriminate against Mac users.

Once you've downloaded and installed the software, it will ask you for a "Server URL", beginning with "https://". After the forward-slashes, enter in: anywherefiles.niu.edu, followed by your Novell credentials. I don't have screenshots of this part, because I wasn't sure it would work anyway, but soon enough, you'll be asked to choose an empty directory that will contain a synchronized view of your M: drive contents, including your project directories. In a view that we all know and love. I put a "slacker" directory on my desktop, just to simplify my access.

From there (under the "My Files" directory), you can right-click the top-most directory of your project, Send To > Compress Folder. Ctrl-C the .zip file, Ctrl-V onto your local machine and presto, you're ready to submit.

I'd like to take this time now and apologize for how convoluted this initital setup process has been. From the subtle differences between using the Community/Citrix Receiver versions of Visual Studios, to the issue Mac users are currently having trying to build Forms — it appears the .Net Framework explicitly prohibits these Windows Forms from being built on Mac devices — to now this legwork necessary to move projects around. Thank you for your patience and for gritting your teeth and frustration with getting this setup and know that it should be much simpler going forward.