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CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, November 17, 2012

CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, November 17, 2012Popular ReleasesPaint.NET PSD Plugin: 2.2.0: Changes: Layer group visibility is now applied to all layers within the group. This greatly improves the visual fidelity of complex PSD files that have hidden layer groups. Layer group names are prefixed so that users can get an indication of the layer group hierarchy. (Paint.NET has a flat list of layers, so the hierarchy is flattened out on load.) The progress bar now reports status when saving PSD files, instead of showing an indeterminate rolling bar. Performance improvement of 1...Water Entity for SunBurn: Sunburn Water Entity For 2.0.1.8 (Deffered Only): Sunburn water entity for Sunburn 2.0.1.8 for deffered rendering only, forward water is not working yet. You need to download water normal maps, from Sunburn Reflection/Refraction example from Here.CRM 2011 Visual Ribbon Editor: Visual Ribbon Editor (1.3.1116.7): [IMPROVED] Detailed error message descriptions for FaultException [FIX] Fixed bug in rule CrmOfflineAccessStateRule which had incorrect State attribute name [FIX] Fixed bug in rule EntityPropertyRule which was missing PropertyValue attribute [FIX] Current connection information was not displayed in status bar while refreshing list of entitiesSuper Metroid Randomizer: Super Metroid Randomizer v5: v5 -Added command line functionality for automation purposes. -Implented Krankdud's change to randomize the Etecoon's item. NOTE: this version will not accept seeds from a previous version. The seed format has changed by necessity. v4 -Started putting version numbers at the top of the form. -Added a warning when suitless Maridia is required in a parsed seed. v3 -Changed seed to only generate filename-legal characters. Using old seeds will still work exactly the same. -Files can now be saved...Caliburn Micro: WPF, Silverlight, WP7 and WinRT/Metro made easy.: Caliburn.Micro v1.4: Changes This version includes many bug fixes across all platforms, improvements to nuget support and...the biggest news of all...full support for both WinRT and WP8. Download Contents Debug and Release Assemblies Samples Readme.txt License.txt Packages Available on Nuget Caliburn.Micro – The full framework compiled into an assembly. Caliburn.Micro.Start - Includes Caliburn.Micro plus a starting bootstrapper, view model and view. Caliburn.Micro.Container – The Caliburn.Micro invers...DirectX Tool Kit: November 15, 2012: November 15, 2012 Added support for WIC2 when available on Windows 8 and Windows 7 with KB 2670838 Cleaned up warning level 4 warningsDotNetNuke® Community Edition CMS: 06.02.05: Major Highlights Updated the system so that it supports nested folders in the App_Code folder Updated the Global Error Handling so that when errors within the global.asax handler happen, they are caught and shown in a page displaying the original HTTP error code Fixed issue that stopped users from specifying Link URLs that open on a new window Security FixesFixed issue in the Member Directory module that could show members to non authenticated users Fixed issue in the Lists modul...xUnit.net Contrib: xunitcontrib-resharper 0.7 (RS 7.1, 6.1.1): xunitcontrib release 0.6.1 (ReSharper runner) This release provides a test runner plugin for Resharper 7.1 RTM and 6.1.1, targetting all versions of xUnit.net. (See the xUnit.net project to download xUnit.net itself.) This release drops 7.0 support and targets the latest revisions of the last two major versions of ReSharper (namely 7.0 and 6.1.1). Copies of the plugin that support previous verions of ReSharper can be downloaded from this release. Also note that all builds work against ALL ...MVC Bootstrap: MVC Boostrap 0.5.6: A small demo site, based on the default ASP.NET MVC 3 project template, showing off some of the features of MVC Bootstrap. Added features to the Membership provider, a "lock out" feature to help fight brute force hacking of accounts. After a set number of log in attempts, the account is locked for a set time. If you download and use this project, please give some feedback, good or bad!Home Access Plus+: v8.4: This release only contains fixes for the 97576 release, you can download the v8.3 release files which aren't in this release from 97576 Changes: Fixed: Setup.aspx wrong jquery reference Fixed: Issue with loading the user's photo Changed: The JSON Urls to use a number of a date rather than a string Added: Code to hopefully, finally, fix the AD Browser not working some times File Changes: ~/bin/hap.ad.dll ~/bin/hap.web.dll ~/bin/hap.web.configuration.dll ~/bin/hap.web.livetiles.dl...OnTopReplica: Release 3.4: Update to the 3 version with major fixes and improvements. Compatible with Windows 8. Now runs (and requires) .NET Framework v.4.0. Added relative mode for region selection (allows the user to select regions as margins from the borders of the thumbnail, useful for windows which have a variable size but fixed size controls, like video players). Improved window seeking when restoring cloned thumbnail or cloning a window by title or by class. Improved settings persistence. Improved co...DotSpatial: DotSpatial 1.4: This is a Minor Release. See the changes in the issue tracker. Minimal -- includes DotSpatial core and essential extensions Extended -- includes debugging symbols and additional extensions Tutorials are available. Just want to run the software? End user (non-programmer) version available branded as MapWindow Want to add your own feature? Develop a plugin, using the template and contribute to the extension feed (you can also write extensions that you distribute in other ways). Components ...WinRT XAML Toolkit: WinRT XAML Toolkit - 1.3.5: WinRT XAML Toolkit based on the Windows 8 RTM SDK. Download the latest source from the SOURCE CODE page. For compiled version use NuGet. You can add it to your project in Visual Studio by going to View/Other Windows/Package Manager Console and entering: PM> Install-Package winrtxamltoolkit Features Attachable Behaviors AwaitableUI extensions Controls Converters Debugging helpers Extension methods Imaging helpers IO helpers VisualTree helpers Samples Recent changes Docum...AcDown?????: AcDown????? v4.3: ??●AcDown??????????、??、??、???????。????，????，?????????????????????????。???????????Acfun、????(Bilibili)、??、??、YouTube、??、???、??????、SF????、????????????。 ●??????AcPlay?????，??????、????????????????。 ● AcDown??????????????????，????????????????????????????。 ● AcDown???????C#??，????.NET Framework 2.0??。?????"Acfun?????"。 ????32??64? Windows XP/Vista/7/8 ???? 32??64? ???Linux ????(1)????????Windows XP???，????????.NET Framework 2.0???(x86)，?????"?????????"??? (2)???????????Linux???，????????Mono?? ??2...????: ???? 1.0: ????Unicode IVS Add-in for Microsoft Office: Unicode IVS Add-in for Microsoft Office: Unicode IVS Add-in for Microsoft Office ??? ?????、Unicode IVS?????????????????Unicode IVS???????????????。??、??????????????、?????????????????????????????。Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.74: fix for issue #18836 - sometimes throws null-reference errors in ActivationObject.AnalyzeScope method. add back the Context object's 8-parameter constructor, since someone has code that's using it. throw a low-pri warning if an expression statement is == or ===; warn that the developer may have meant an assignment (=). if window.XXXX or window"XXXX" is encountered, add XXXX (as long as it's a valid JavaScript identifier) to the known globals so subsequent references to XXXX won't throw ...???????: Monitor 2012-11-11: This is the first releasehttpclient?????????: httpclient??????? 1.0: httpclient??????? （1）?????????? （2）????????? （3）??2012-11-06??，???????。VidCoder: 1.4.5 Beta: Removed the old Advanced user interface and moved x264 preset/profile/tune there instead. The functionality is still available through editing the options string. Added ability to specify the H.264 level. Added ability to choose VidCoder's interface language. If you are interested in translating, we can get VidCoder in your language! Updated WPF text rendering to use the better Display mode. Updated HandBrake core to SVN 5045. Removed logic that forced the .m4v extension in certain ...New Projects40Fingers Page Language module for DotNetNuke: DotNetNuke module that allows you to overrule the language a specific page, without using any other localization solutions. Brought to you by 40FINGERSAnonymous Interfaces (by Stephen Cleary): A fluent API for dynamically creating an anonymous type implementing a specific interface.Asynk: Asynk is a framework/application that allows existing applications to easily be extended with an offloaded asynchronous worker layer. Asynk is developed using C#.BizTalkWCFOperationPromoteEncoder: If you seen the BizTalk error: " An action mapping was defined but BTS.Operation was not found in the Message context ", When you use the BizTalk WCF-Customer, bLaugh Plugin for Windows Live Writer: The bLaugh Plugin for Windows Live Writer provides a quick and easy way to find and insert bLaugh (www.blaugh.com) comics into a blog post.CaptureWebPage: Code Between The Lines @ http://www.codebetweenthelines.com Capture an Entire Web Page in a C# Console Application Sample application that fixes most problems.CF-Soft: this is my workspace to study C# programming.Cloud Backup Scheduler: Desktop utility to auto schedule online backups with popular cloud services. Cloud Giraffe: Cloud Giraffe is a library which provides easy collection and analysis of Windows Azure Diagnostics data.dbscript: dbscript is a simple scripting language for DBAs, devs, and others who have need to routinely deliver the results of SQL queries in Excel spreadsheet form.Drill: Drill is the Dependency Resolution and Instance Location Layer, an abstraction to DI containers, service locators and the like facilitating loose coupling.Drzewa decyzyjne WPF: Praca inzE-Commerce Gado: E commerce voltado para o mercado bovinoELearningTutorial: A list of tutorialsElmas Kitap: Kitapliginizi düzenleyebileceginiz bir program.Epi Info iOS Companion: iPad and iPhone companion for Epi Info 7.FreeBlokus: A simple version of Blokus Duo.g1: test GGCStatus: Global Gift Card by We Solve IT. Server Status ApplicationGiveGraph: Social Managed Resources Distribution SystemGlobal String Formatter: The Global String Formatter library allows developers to deal with conditional string formatting in an elegant fashion. Developers specify a predicate and a corresponding string output function for each case of the formatting. The library plays well with DI frameworks.HTWKAidStation: The HTWKAidStation shows schedules and the menu of local mensae in Leipzig, Germany.JsViewEngine - a ASP.NET View Engine using JsRender on both client and server: An ASP.NET View Engine that specializes in sharing partial views between client and server.Kexp.ShoutcastRunner: ShoutcastRunner is a quick and simple Windows service that runs the SHOUTcast DNAS 1.x mp3 server and provides some extra features. MDrive - Controlling Precision Electric Motors: This project demonstrates how to control MDrive(r) precision electric motors from Schneider Electric.MyNet Project: MyNet is an undergraduate project developed in the context of the Cloud Data Management cours at Grenoble INP.Passwords Thief: Sometimes you need to see what is behind asteriks in password edit box. It will help you to resolve this problem. Pet Shop Web: Projeto para gerenciamento de Pet Shop Desenvolvido em ASP.NET com Framework 4.0primeiros passos: aRCVersion: A smart tool to modify version information in RC file.recycling20: Recycling 2.0replaceSID: replaceSID replaces an SID in a SDDL fileshmapcha: Cool toolSMC (Social Media Connector): Social Media APIs are developed to provide Join-In Game providers to access Social Media Portal. Textline Processor: Textline processor is a utility to execute C# codes dynamically on each line of texts, and get output to replace lines in the text. treadmill project: Treadmill ProjectTriathlon Checklist: Triathlon Checklist is a Windows Phone application for triathletes. Download it for free: http://bit.ly/TriathlonChecklistwarhamer40kListBuilder: projet personnel de geston de liste d'armée pour le jeux warhammer 40.000.Wonder: WonderWP7GBAEmulator: A C# GBA Emulator For Windows Phone 7WPF Message Box: WPF Message Box is a simple and free message box for WPF using MVVM pattern. Image, buttons, message, and caption can be set.????: ??????·???????????????

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CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, May 20, 2012

CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, May 20, 2012Popular ReleasesExtAspNet: ExtAspNet v3.1.6: ExtAspNet - ?? ExtJS ??? ASP.NET 2.0 ???，????? AJAX ?????????? ExtAspNet ????? ExtJS ??? ASP.NET 2.0 ???，????? AJAX ??????????。 ExtAspNet ??????? JavaScript，?? CSS，?? UpdatePanel，?? ViewState，?? WebServices ???????。 ??????: IE 7.0, Firefox 3.6, Chrome 3.0, Opera 10.5, Safari 3.0+ ????：Apache License 2.0 (Apache) ??：http://bbs.extasp.net/ ??：http://demo.extasp.net/ ??：http://doc.extasp.net/ ??：http://extaspnet.codeplex.com/ ??：http://sanshi.cnblogs.com/ ????： +2012-05-20 v3.1.6 -??RowD...totalem: version 2012.05.20.1: Beta version added function to create new empty file added function to create new file from clipboard content (save content of clipboard to file) added feature to direct view file from FTP server added feature to direct edit file from FTP server added feature to direct encrypt and copy files to FTP server added feature to direct copy and decrypt files from FTP servergGrid - Editable jQuery Grid: Initial Version release: The js file is the initial version of gGrid. Below are some of the limitations of the gGrid plugin The grid requires to return a MVC partial view to render the updated grid on screen.WatchersNET CKEditor™ Provider for DotNetNuke®: CKEditor Provider 1.14.05: Whats New Added New Editor Skin "BootstrapCK-Skin" Added New Editor Skin "Slick" Added Dnn Pages Drop Down to the Link Dialog (to quickly link to a portal tab) changes Fixed Issue #6956 Localization issue with some languages Fixed Issue #6930 Folder Tree view was not working in some cases Changed the user folder from User name to User id User Folder is now used when using Upload Function and User Folder is enabled File-Browser Fixed Resizer Preview Image Optimized the oEmbed Pl...PHPExcel: PHPExcel 1.7.7: See Change Log for details of the new features and bugfixes included in this release. BREAKING CHANGE! From PHPExcel 1.7.8 onwards, the 3rd-party tcPDF library will no longer be bundled with PHPExcel for rendering PDF files through the PDF Writer. The PDF Writer is being rewritten to allow a choice of 3rd party PDF libraries (tcPDF, mPDF, and domPDF initially), none of which will be bundled with PHPExcel, but which can be downloaded seperately from the appropriate sites.GhostBuster: GhostBuster Setup (91520): Added WMI based RestorePoint support Removed test code from program.cs Improved counting. Changed color of ghosted but unfiltered devices. Changed HwEntries into an ObservableCollection. Added Properties Form. Added Properties MenuItem to Context Menu. Added Hide Unfiltered Devices to Context Menu. If you like this tool, leave me a note, rate this project or write a review or Donate to Ghostbuster. Donate to GhostbusterC#??????EXCEL??、??、????????：DataPie（??MSSQL 2008、ORACLE、ACCESS 2007）: DataPie_V3.2: V3.2, 2012?5?19? ????ORACLE??????。AvalonDock: AvalonDock 2.0.0795: Welcome to the Beta release of AvalonDock 2.0 After 4 months of hard work I'm ready to upload the beta version of AvalonDock 2.0. This new version boosts a lot of new features and now is stable enough to be deployed in production scenarios. For this reason I encourage everyone is using AD 1.3 or earlier to upgrade soon to this new version. The final version is scheduled for the end of June. What is included in Beta: 1) Stability! thanks to all users contribution I’ve corrected a lot of issues...myCollections: Version 2.1.0.0: New in this version : Improved UI New Metro Skin Improved Performance Added Proxy Settings New Music and Books Artist detail Lot of Bug FixingAspxCommerce: AspxCommerce1.1: AspxCommerce - 'Flexible and easy eCommerce platform' offers a complete e-Commerce solution that allows you to build and run your fully functional online store in minutes. You can create your storefront; manage the products through categories and subcategories, accept payments through credit cards and ship the ordered products to the customers. We have everything set up for you, so that you can only focus on building your own online store. Note: To login as a superuser, the username and pass...SiteMap Editor for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011: SiteMap Editor (1.1.1616.403): BUG FIX Hide save button when Titles or Descriptions element is selectedMapWindow 6 Desktop GIS: MapWindow 6.1.2: Looking for a .Net GIS Map Application?MapWindow 6 Desktop GIS is an open source desktop GIS for Microsoft Windows that is built upon the DotSpatial Library. This release requires .Net 4 (Client Profile). Are you a software developer?Instead of downloading MapWindow for development purposes, get started with with the DotSpatial template. The extensions you create from the template can be loaded in MapWindow.DotSpatial: DotSpatial 1.2: This is a Minor Release. See the changes in the issue tracker. Minimal -- includes DotSpatial core and essential extensions Extended -- includes debugging symbols and additional extensions Tutorials are available. Just want to run the software? End user (non-programmer) version available branded as MapWindow Want to add your own feature? Develop a plugin, using the template and contribute to the extension feed (you can also write extensions that you distribute in other ways). Components ...Mugen Injection: Mugen Injection 2.2.1 (WinRT supported): Added ManagedScopeLifecycle. Increase performance. Added support for resolve 'params'.Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.52: Make preprocessor comment-statements nestable; add the ///#IFNDEF statement. (Discussion #355785) Don't throw an error for old-school JScript event handlers, and don't rename them if they aren't global functions.DotNetNuke® Events: 06.00.00: This is a serious release of Events. DNN 6 form pattern - We have take the full route towards DNN6: most notably the incorporation of the DNN6 form pattern with streamlined UX/UI. We have also tried to change all formatting to a div based structure. A daunting task, since the Events module contains a lot of forms. Roger has done a splendid job by going through all the forms in great detail, replacing all table style layouts into the new DNN6 div class="dnnForm XXX" type of layout with chang...LogicCircuit: LogicCircuit 2.12.5.15: Logic Circuit - is educational software for designing and simulating logic circuits. Intuitive graphical user interface, allows you to create unrestricted circuit hierarchy with multi bit buses, debug circuits behavior with oscilloscope, and navigate running circuits hierarchy. Changes of this versionThis release is fixing one but nasty bug. Two functions XOR and XNOR when used with 3 or more inputs were incorrectly evaluating their results. If you have a circuit that is using these functions...LINQ to Twitter: LINQ to Twitter Beta v2.0.25: Supports .NET 3.5, .NET 4.0, Silverlight 4.0, Windows Phone 7.1, Client Profile, and Windows 8. 100% Twitter API coverage. Also available via NuGet! Follow @JoeMayo.BlogEngine.NET: BlogEngine.NET 2.6: Get DotNetBlogEngine for 3 Months Free! Click Here for More Info BlogEngine.NET Hosting - 3 months free! Cheap ASP.NET Hosting - $4.95/Month - Click Here!! Click Here for More Info Cheap ASP.NET Hosting - $4.95/Month - Click Here! If you want to set up and start using BlogEngine.NET right away, you should download the Web project. If you want to extend or modify BlogEngine.NET, you should download the source code. If you are upgrading from a previous version of BlogEngine.NET, please take...BlackJumboDog: Ver5.6.2: 2012.05.07 Ver5.6.2 (1)　Web???????、????????·????????? (2)　Web???????、?????????? COMSPEC PATHEXT WINDIR SERVERADDR SERVERPORT DOCUMENTROOT SERVERADMIN REMOTE_PORT HTTPACCEPTCHRSET HTTPACCEPTLANGUAGE HTTPACCEPTEXCODINGNew ProjectsAkumu Island: Akumu Island is a game being developed by Jared Thomson. At this time, things are still fairly under wraps. The source code is still available though.BasicSocialNetworkingSite: Basic/Simple Social Networking Web Site using C# - ASP.NETCasse Brique: Projet Casse-brique.Cdts.iOS: Cdts iOSCluster2: To be Published...CrowdMOS: CrowdMOS is a set of scripts and tools for performing evaluations of the subjective quality of media such as audio or images using crowdsourcing via Amazon Mechanical Turk. This project is designed to enable low cost, efficient assessments of signal processing algorithms, e.g., compression, denoising, or enhancement, using standard tests such as MOS (Mean Opinion Score) or MUSHRA.Data Frame Loader: A simple C# API for loading tabular dataframes into Microsoft SQL Server database using only a small number of tables to represent any kind of dataframe.Dynamic Segmentation Utility SOE Rest: Dynamic Segmentation Utility SOE Rest for ArcGIS Server 10 (msd)field2012: This is private projectFix soft HyperAero Form: Fix soft Aero Form (HyperAero Edition) works on both xp and Win7 and supports Customizable Animation Effects (On showing and closing form),Gradient Support (Multicolor Gradient Background,Gradient Editor Control),Power Functions (Shutdown,etc with Timer support) ,Aero Glass Support (Extend Margins,Aero Blur,Aero Glow text,Basic Theme Support),Aero Properties (IsWindowsAeroEnabled,AeroColor and opacity),Aero Events,Unlock Hidden Properties (EnableCloseButton, CaptionRenderMode, ActivateOn...Gamer: A program intended to be a PC gamers' companion app by providing features such as: * Customizable system tray menu that lists (favourite/frequent/all) games (as shown in the Windows Games Explorer) for quick launching (and clean desktops). * Ability to edit listings in the Windows Game Explorer * Once these goals are met other handy features can be implemented to increase the value of this app. This program should compliment existing programs used by gamers rather than compete w...gGrid - Editable jQuery Grid: This a jQuery plugin. The plugin will add three buttons Add/Edit/Delete which will need a popup control to add/edit data. Developer using this plugin need to define an HTML table and an HTML DIV which will be used for popup. Also MVC action method to handle the CRUD operation. The plug requires an MVC partial view to be returned from the add edit delete methods to update the table data.HoiChoMuaBan: h?i ch? mua bánmyfirstgit: ???????Nova Code: Nova code is a language to implement processor instructions, states, and other features planned soon for the NEmulation framework. Right now this project will be worked on separately, then integrated into NEmulation.Pocket Book App: Just try it!State Machine .netmf: StateMachineExample for .netmf C# uVersionClientCache: uVersionClientCache is a custom macro to always automatically version (URL querstring parameter) your files based on a MD5 hash of the file contents or file last modified date to prevent issues with client browsers caching an old file after you have changed it.XNA Shader Composer: XNA Shader Composer is a solution for Visual Studio 2010 and XNA 4.0. The goal is to create an environment for learn and create differents HLSL programs.???Disable????: ??????????????errdisable??，????????。

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CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, January 30, 2011

CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, January 30, 2011Popular ReleasesWPF Application Framework (WAF): WPF Application Framework (WAF) 2.0.0.3: Version: 2.0.0.3 (Milestone 3): This release contains the source code of the WPF Application Framework (WAF) and the sample applications. Requirements .NET Framework 4.0 (The package contains a solution file for Visual Studio 2010) The unit test projects require Visual Studio 2010 Professional Remark The sample applications are using Microsoft’s IoC container MEF. However, the WPF Application Framework (WAF) doesn’t force you to use the same IoC container in your application. You can use ...Rawr: Rawr 4.0.17 Beta: Rawr is now web-based. The link to use Rawr4 is: http://elitistjerks.com/rawr.phpThis is the Cataclysm Beta Release. More details can be found at the following link http://rawr.codeplex.com/Thread/View.aspx?ThreadId=237262 and on the Version Notes page: http://rawr.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=VersionNotes As of the 4.0.16 release, you can now also begin using the new Downloadable WPF version of Rawr!This is a pre-alpha release of the WPF version, there are likely to be a lot of issues. If you...VivoSocial: VivoSocial 7.4.2: Version 7.4.2 of VivoSocial has been released. If you experienced any issues with the previous version, please update your modules to the 7.4.2 release and see if they persist. If you have any questions about this release, please post them in our Support forums. If you are experiencing a bug or would like to request a new feature, please submit it to our issue tracker. Web Controls * Updated Business Objects and added a new SQL Data Provider File. Groups * Fixed a security issue whe...PHP Manager for IIS: PHP Manager 1.1.1 for IIS 7: This is a minor release of PHP Manager for IIS 7. It contains all the functionality available in 56962 plus several bug fixes (see change list for more details). Also, this release includes Russian language support. SHA1 codes for the downloads are: PHPManagerForIIS-1.1.0-x86.msi - 6570B4A8AC8B5B776171C2BA0572C190F0900DE2 PHPManagerForIIS-1.1.0-x64.msi - 12EDE004EFEE57282EF11A8BAD1DC1ADFD66A654VFPX: VFP2C32 2.0.0.8 Release Candidate: This release includes several bugfixes, new functions and finally a CHM help file for the complete library.EnhSim: EnhSim 2.3.3 ALPHA: 2.3.3 ALPHAThis release supports WoW patch 4.06 at level 85 To use this release, you must have the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=A7B7A05E-6DE6-4D3A-A423-37BF0912DB84 To use the GUI you must have the .NET 4.0 Framework installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=9cfb2d51-5ff4-4491-b0e5-b386f32c0992 - Added back in a p...DB>doc for Microsoft SQL Server: 1.0.0.0: Initial release Supported output HTML WikiPlex markup Raw XML Supported objects Tables Primary Keys Foreign Keys ViewsmojoPortal: 2.3.6.1: see release notes on mojoportal.com http://www.mojoportal.com/mojoportal-2361-released.aspx Note that we have separate deployment packages for .NET 3.5 and .NET 4.0 The deployment package downloads on this page are pre-compiled and ready for production deployment, they contain no C# source code. To download the source code see the Source Code Tab I recommend getting the latest source code using TortoiseHG, you can get the source code corresponding to this release here.Office Web.UI: Alpha preview: This is the first alpha release. Very exciting moment... This download is just the demo application : "Contoso backoffice Web App". No source included for the moment, just the app, for testing purposes and for feedbacks !! This package includes a set of official MS Office icons (143 png 16x16 and 132 png 32x32) to really make a great app ! Please rate and give feedback ThanksParallel Programming with Microsoft Visual C++: Drop 6 - Chapters 4 and 5: This is Drop 6. It includes: Drafts of the Preface, Introduction, Chapters 2-7, Appendix B & C and the glossary Sample code for chapters 2-7 and Appendix A & B. The new material we'd like feedback on is: Chapter 4 - Parallel Aggregation Chapter 5 - Futures The source code requires Visual Studio 2010 in order to run. There is a known bug in the A-Dash sample when the user attempts to cancel a parallel calculation. We are working to fix this.Catel - WPF and Silverlight MVVM library: 1.1: (+) Styles can now be changed dynamically, see Examples application for a how-to (+) ViewModelBase class now have a constructor that allows services injection (+) ViewModelBase services can now be configured by IoC (via Microsoft.Unity) (+) All ViewModelBase services now have a unit test implementation (+) Added IProcessService to run processes from a viewmodel with directly using the process class (which makes it easier to unit test view models) (*) If the HasErrors property of DataObjec...NodeXL: Network Overview, Discovery and Exploration for Excel: NodeXL Excel Template, version 1.0.1.160: The NodeXL Excel template displays a network graph using edge and vertex lists stored in an Excel 2007 or Excel 2010 workbook. What's NewThis release improves NodeXL's Twitter and Pajek features. See the Complete NodeXL Release History for details. Installation StepsFollow these steps to install and use the template: Download the Zip file. Unzip it into any folder. Use WinZip or a similar program, or just right-click the Zip file in Windows Explorer and select "Extract All." Close Ex...Kooboo CMS: Kooboo CMS 3.0 CTP: Files in this downloadkooboo_CMS.zip: The kooboo application files Content_DBProvider.zip: Additional content database implementation of MSSQL, RavenDB and SQLCE. Default is XML based database. To use them, copy the related dlls into web root bin folder and remove old content provider dlls. Content provider has the name like "Kooboo.CMS.Content.Persistence.SQLServer.dll" View_Engines.zip: Supports of Razor, webform and NVelocity view engine. Copy the dlls into web root bin folder to enable...UOB & ME: UOB ME 2.6: UOB ME 2.6????: ???? V1.0: ???? V1.0 ??Password Generator: 2.2: Parallel password generation Password strength calculation ( Same method used by Microsoft here : https://www.microsoft.com/protect/fraud/passwords/checker.aspx ) Minor code refactoringVisual Studio 2010 Architecture Tooling Guidance: Spanish - Architecture Guidance: Francisco Fagas http://geeks.ms/blogs/ffagas, Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP), localized the Visual Studio 2010 Quick Reference Guidance for the Spanish communities, based on http://vsarchitectureguide.codeplex.com/releases/view/47828. Release Notes The guidance is available in a xps-only (default) or complete package. The complete package contains the files in xps, pdf and Office 2007 formats. 2011-01-24 Publish version 1.0 of the Spanish localized bits.ASP.NET MVC Project Awesome, jQuery Ajax helpers (controls): 1.6.2: A rich set of helpers (controls) that you can use to build highly responsive and interactive Ajax-enabled Web applications. These helpers include Autocomplete, AjaxDropdown, Lookup, Confirm Dialog, Popup Form, Popup and Pager the html generation has been optimized, the html page size is much smaller nowFacebook Graph Toolkit: Facebook Graph Toolkit 0.6: new Facebook Graph objects: Application, Page, Post, Comment Improved Intellisense documentation new Graph Api connections: albums, photos, posts, feed, home, friends JSON Toolkit upgraded to version 0.9 (beta release) with bug fixes and new features bug fixed: error when handling empty JSON arrays bug fixed: error when handling JSON array with square or large brackets in the message bug fixed: error when handling JSON obejcts with double quotation in the message bug fixed: erro...Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework: Visual Studio 2008 Code Samples 2011-01-23: Code samples for Visual Studio 2008New ProjectsAnaida - WebSocket Client/Adapter: Anaida is a WebSocket Client Library/Adapter. With 3 versions for Java, Silverlight and C#CutPasteAssign: Visual Studio extension to assist in the common refactoring of assigning parameters to local variables.Drori Photos: Photos of Drori the photographerD-Solution: App de D-SolutionEnigma Home Inventory: Most consumers do not have an itemized list of proof of ownership. Enigma Home Inventory may take the hassle out of arguing with the insurance companies. This project is aimed to be for a simple inventory program for end users who are not computer savvy.FastKnow: is a CMS & wikiFileSignatures: FileSignatures aims to create a class library that can identify the file format based on file contents. The project is written in C# 3.0, and can be used in .NET 3.5 and 4.0 projects.Genrsis: The aim of the Genrsis project is to be a suite of products that you can use to build things, starting with a workflow-based project management tool. Built in C#, it should be a one-stop place to get well-integrated products to get you up and running.MVC Demos: MVC 2 and MVC 3 examples with ajax and json.MVC Templates for DevExpress: Scaffolding templates for use in ASP.NET MVC 2 with DevExpress MVC Extensions for ASP.NET MVCPixel Replacer: The Pixel Replacer is a simple library for replacing pixel colors with a new color, by setting a filter rule.ReviewPal - The Code Review Companion for .Net.: ReviewPal, the Code Review Companion for .Net. This is an Add-In / Extension for Visual Studio 2008 & Visual Studio 2010. The aim of the Add-In / Extension is to do a source code review within the Visual Studio IDE where code makes more sense and most readable.SMVector3: Vector3 class implemented as float array or with SIMD instructions with the same interface so it is transparant whether you decide to use one version or another. You can also chance version during the life cycle of the projects.uRibbon - Office 2007 Ribbon control for VB.NET: Office 2007 ribbon control, with Orb and graphic transitions. After searching for many day looking for an Office 2007-like ribbon bar, I finally gave up and decided to write my own. It's in decent shape as-is. But anyone interested in helping me to continue the devlopment??vtcheck: This will read a target binary and check to see if it is detected by VirusTotal.Web Scheduled Task Framework: A simple set of classes intended to allow the standalone scheduling of tasks (arbitrary code to execute) on a .net website without requiring access to the operating system.WP7 codeproject app: A Windows Phone 7 app for browsing codeproject.com.zhongjh: ?????????，???????。???????????: ???????????

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Enabling DNS for IPv6 infrastructure

After successful automatic distribution of IPv6 address information via DHCPv6 in your local network it might be time to start offering some more services. Usually, we would use host names in order to communicate with other machines instead of their bare IPv6 addresses. During the following paragraphs we are going to enable our own DNS name server with IPv6 address resolving. This is the third article in a series on IPv6 configuration: Configure IPv6 on your Linux system DHCPv6: Provide IPv6 information in your local network Enabling DNS for IPv6 infrastructure Accessing your web server via IPv6 Piece of advice: This is based on my findings on the internet while reading other people's helpful articles and going through a couple of man-pages on my local system. What's your name and your IPv6 address? $ sudo service bind9 status * bind9 is running If the service is not recognised, you have to install it first on your system. This is done very easy and quickly like so: $ sudo apt-get install bind9 Once again, there is no specialised package for IPv6. Just the regular application is good to go. But of course, it is necessary to enable IPv6 binding in the options. Let's fire up a text editor and modify the configuration file. $ sudo nano /etc/bind/named.conf.optionsacl iosnet { 127.0.0.1; 192.168.1.0/24; ::1/128; 2001:db8:bad:a55::/64;};listen-on { iosnet; };listen-on-v6 { any; };allow-query { iosnet; };allow-transfer { iosnet; }; Most important directive is the listen-on-v6. This will enable your named to bind to your IPv6 addresses specified on your system. Easiest is to specify any as value, and named will bind to all available IPv6 addresses during start. More details and explanations are found in the man-pages of named.conf. Save the file and restart the named service. As usual, check your log files and correct your configuration in case of any logged error messages. Using the netstat command you can validate whether the service is running and to which IP and IPv6 addresses it is bound to, like so: $ sudo service bind9 restart $ sudo netstat -lnptu | grep "named\W*$"tcp 0 0 192.168.1.2:53 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 1734/named tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:53 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 1734/named tcp6 0 0 :::53 :::* LISTEN 1734/named udp 0 0 192.168.1.2:53 0.0.0.0:* 1734/named udp 0 0 127.0.0.1:53 0.0.0.0:* 1734/named udp6 0 0 :::53 :::* 1734/named Sweet! Okay, now it's about time to resolve host names and their assigned IPv6 addresses using our own DNS name server. $ host -t aaaa www.6bone.net 2001:db8:bad:a55::2Using domain server:Name: 2001:db8:bad:a55::2Address: 2001:db8:bad:a55::2#53Aliases: www.6bone.net is an alias for 6bone.net.6bone.net has IPv6 address 2001:5c0:1000:10::2 Alright, our newly configured BIND named is fully operational. Eventually, you might be more familiar with the dig command. Here is the same kind of IPv6 host name resolve but it will provide more details about that particular host as well as the domain in general. $ dig @2001:db8:bad:a55::2 www.6bone.net. AAAA More details on the Berkeley Internet Name Domain (bind) daemon and IPv6 are available in Chapter 22.1 of Peter Bieringer's HOWTO on IPv6. Setting up your own DNS zone Now, that we have an operational named in place, it's about time to implement and configure our own host names and IPv6 address resolving. The general approach is to create your own zone database below the bind folder and to add AAAA records for your hosts. In order to achieve this, we have to define the zone first in the configuration file named.conf.local. $ sudo nano /etc/bind/named.conf.local //// Do any local configuration here//zone "ios.mu" { type master; file "/etc/bind/zones/db.ios.mu";}; Here we specify the location of our zone database file. Next, we are going to create it and add our host names, our IP and our IPv6 addresses. $ sudo nano /etc/bind/zones/db.ios.mu $ORIGIN .$TTL 259200 ; 3 daysios.mu IN SOA ios.mu. hostmaster.ios.mu. ( 2014031101 ; serial 28800 ; refresh (8 hours) 7200 ; retry (2 hours) 604800 ; expire (1 week) 86400 ; minimum (1 day) ) NS server.ios.mu.$ORIGIN ios.mu.server A 192.168.1.2server AAAA 2001:db8:bad:a55::2client1 A 192.168.1.3client1 AAAA 2001:db8:bad:a55::3client2 A 192.168.1.4client2 AAAA 2001:db8:bad:a55::4 With a couple of machines in place, it's time to reload that new configuration. Note: Each time you are going to change your zone databases you have to modify the serial information, too. Named loads the plain text zone definitions and converts them into an internal, indexed binary format to improve lookup performance. If you forget to change your serial then named will not use the new records from the text file but the indexed ones. Or you have to flush the index and force a reload of the zone. This can be done easily by either restarting the named: $ sudo service bind9 restart or by reloading the configuration file using the name server control utility - rndc: $ sudo rndc reconfig Check your log files for any error messages and whether the new zone database has been accepted. Next, we are going to resolve a host name trying to get its IPv6 address like so: $ host -t aaaa server.ios.mu. 2001:db8:bad:a55::2Using domain server:Name: 2001:db8:bad:a55::2Address: 2001:db8:bad:a55::2#53Aliases: server.ios.mu has IPv6 address 2001:db8:bad:a55::2 Looks good. Alternatively, you could have just ping'd the system as well using the ping6 command instead of the regular ping: $ ping6 serverPING server(2001:db8:bad:a55::2) 56 data bytes64 bytes from 2001:db8:bad:a55::2: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.615 ms64 bytes from 2001:db8:bad:a55::2: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.407 ms^C--- ios1 ping statistics ---2 packets transmitted, 2 received, 0% packet loss, time 1001msrtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.407/0.511/0.615/0.104 ms That also looks promising to me. How about your configuration? Next, it might be interesting to extend the range of available services on the network. One essential service would be to have web sites at hand.

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CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, July 10, 2012

CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, July 10, 2012Popular ReleasesjListSelect - jQuery plug-in for a fully customizable select input: 1.0: This is the initial release. Documentation is available using the Documentation tab above and inside the JavaScript code.Push Framework: Push Framework 1.5: This version brings many bug fixes and enhancements to its predecessor.DbDiff: Database Diff and Database Scripting: 1.1.3.3: Sql 2005, Sql 2012 fixes Removed dbdiff recommended default exe because it was a wrong build.re-linq: 1.13.158: This is build 1.13.158 of re-linq. Find the complete release notes for the build here: Release NotesMishra Reader: Mishra Reader beta 3: Per-feed browsing Tons of bug fixes Note: This release requires .NET 4.5 RC. You'll be prompted to install it if you don't already have it. The RC will be upgradeable to the RTM once it's available.MVVM Light Toolkit: MVVM Light Toolkit V4 RTM: The issue with the installer is fixed, sorry for the problems folks This version supports Silverlight 3, Silverlight 4, Silverlight 5, WPF 3.5 SP1, WPF4, Windows Phone 7.0 and 7.5, WinRT (Windows 8). Support for Visual Studio 2010 and Visual Studio 2012 RC.BlackJumboDog: Ver5.6.7: 2012.07.08 Ver5.6.7 (1) ????????????????「?????　Request.Receve()」?????????? (2) Web???????????FlMML customized: FlMML customized ??: FlMML customized ????。 ??、ＰＣＭ??????????、??????。ecBlog: ecBlog 0.2: ecBlog alpha realaseTaskScheduler ASP.NET: Release 3 - 1.2.0.0: Release 3 - Version 1.2.0.0 That version was altered only the library: In TaskScheduler was added new properties: UseBackgroundThreads Enables the use of separate threads for each task. StoreThreadsInPool Manager enables to store in the Pool threads that are performing the tasks. OnStopSchedulerAutoCancelThreads Scheduler allows aborting threads when it is stopped. false if the scheduler is not aborted the threads that are running. AutoDeletedExecutedTasks Allows Manager Delete Task afte...DotNetNuke Persian Packages: ??? ?? ???? ????? ???? 6.2.0: *????? ???? ??? ?? ???? 6.2.0 ? ??????? ???? ????? ???? ??? ????? *????? ????? ????? ??? ??? ???? ??? ??????? ??????? - ???? *?????? ???? ??? ?????? ?? ???? ???? ????? ? ?? ??? ?? ???? ???? ?? *????? ????? ????? ????? ????? / ??????? ???? ?? ???? ??? ??? - ???? *???? ???? ???? ????? ? ??????? ??? ??? ??? ?? ???? *????? ????? ???????? ??? ? ??????? ?? ?? ?????? ????? ????????? ????? ?????? - ???? *????? ????? ?????? ????? ?? ???? ?? ?? ?? ???????? ????? ????? ????????? ????? ?????? *???? ?...Cypher Bot: Cypher Bot 4.1: Cypher Bot is the most advanced encryption tool on the planet.... and now it actually works. That's right we fixed the bugs! For a full program summary go to the Home Page or visit www.iRareMedia.com So what's new? We've pretty much fixed all the bugs, but here's a run down if you wanna know exactly what's different: Fixed Installation / Setup Error, where an error message would display: "No Internet Connection, Try Again Later" Fixed File Encryption / Decryption error where the file exten...Coding4Fun Kinect Service: Coding4Fun Kinect Service v1.5: Requires Kinect for Windows SDK v1.5 Minor bug fixes + Kinect for Windows SDK v1.5 Aligning version with the Kinect for Windows SDK requiredtedplay: tedplay 1.1: tedplay 1.1 source and Win32 binary is out now. Changes are: SID card support Commodore 64 PSID music format support optimized FIR filter global hotkeys for skipping tracks (Windows only) module properties window (Windows only) mutable noise channel via GUI button (Windows only) disable SID card from the menu (Windows only) bugfixes PSID tunes are played on the C64 clock frequency but in a Commodore plus/4 virtual machine. The purpose is not to have yet another SID player, but t...xUnit.net Contrib: xunitcontrib-resharper 0.6 (RS 7.0, 6.1.1): xunitcontrib release 0.6 (ReSharper runner) This release provides a test runner plugin for Resharper 7.0 (EAP build 82) and 6.1, targetting all versions of xUnit.net. (See the xUnit.net project to download xUnit.net itself.) Copies of the plugin that support previous verions of ReSharper can be downloaded from this release. The plan is to support the latest revisions of the last two paid-for major versions of ReSharper (namely 7.0 and 6.1) Also note that all builds work against ALL VERSIONS...Umbraco CMS: Umbraco 4.8.0 Beta: Whats newuComponents in the core Multi-Node Tree Picker, Multiple Textstring, Slider and XPath Lists Easier Lucene searching built in IFile providers for easier file handling Updated 3rd party libraries Applications / Trees moved out of the database SQL Azure support added Various bug fixes Getting Started A great place to start is with our Getting Started Guide: Getting Started Guide: http://umbraco.codeplex.com/Project/Download/FileDownload.aspx?DownloadId=197051 Make sure to...CODE Framework: 4.0.20704.0: See CODE Framework (.NET) Change Log for changes in this version.xUnit.net - Unit testing framework for C# and .NET (a successor to NUnit): xUnit.net 1.9.1: xUnit.net release 1.9.1Build #1600 Important note for Resharper users: Resharper support has been moved to the xUnit.net Contrib project. Important note for TestDriven.net users: If you are having issues running xUnit.net tests in TestDriven.net, especially on 64-bit Windows, we strongly recommend you upgrade to TD.NET version 3.0 or later. Important note for VS2012 users: The VS2012 runner is in the Visual Studio Gallery now, and should be installed via Tools | Extension Manager from insi...MVC Controls Toolkit: Mvc Controls Toolkit 2.2.0: Added Modified all Mv4 related features to conform with the Mvc4 RC Now all items controls accept any IEnumerable<T>(before just List<T> were accepted by most of controls) retrievalManager class that retrieves automatically data from a data source whenever it catchs events triggered by filtering, sorting, and paging controls move method to the updatesManager to move one child objects from a father to another. The move operation can be undone like the insert, update and delete operatio...IronPython: 2.7.3: On behalf of the IronPython team, I'm happy to announce the final release of IronPython 2.7.3. This release includes everything from IronPython 54498, 62475, and 74478 as well. Like all IronPython 2.7-series releases, .NET 4 is required to install it. Installing this release will replace any existing IronPython 2.7-series installation. The incompatibility with IronRuby has been resolved, and they can once again be installed side-by-side. The biggest improvements in IronPython 2.7.3 are: the...New ProjectsAuction Helper: Auction HelperBizTalk 0MQ Adapter: The BizTalk 0MQ Adapter allows BizTalk to send and receive messages using the ZeroMq cross platform messaging framework.fluentstatement: FluentStatement is a library for .NET usable to create Expressions Trees through its fluent interface. These ET can contain Lambda Expressions and Statements.Freemansoft: ??????????????????gppsoftware: gppsoftwarejAutoFitText - jQuery plug-in to auto-fit text similar to iOS applications: This is a jQuery plug-in that automatically fits text in a specific container using font size manipulation and/or string truncation. The end result is simjDelayedAction - jQuery plug-in to allow a delayed reaction to an event: This is a jQuery plug-in that allows the creation of an event (or multiple event) handler with a delay that can be extended or canceled before reacting.jInMemoryImageLoader - jQuery plug-in to asynchronously load an image: This is a jQuery plug-in that allows the asynchronous, in-memory loading of an image file with a callback for when it has succeeded or failed to load.jListSelect - jQuery plug-in for a fully customizable select input: A jQuery plug-in that allows you to create a fully customizable select input.jNumericalInput - jQuery plug-in to limit a text input to only numeric values: A simple jQuery plug-in that, when applied to an input of type text, only allows the input to have a numeric value (positive or negative).jVerticalAlignMiddle - jQuery plug-in to vertically align elements: A simple jQuery plug-in that vertically centers one element within its parent container.lhhp.net: this project is for testLiteCode: Your having enough of crackers, reverse engineers ? With LiteCode you can host your code remotely at a server where no cracker can touch itNetEx .net tool set: NetEx .net tool setOpenFlashChart: OpenFlashChart ??????Flash Chart??。 Project RPG: Developers learn how to design a game from the ground up.saka-pon.net: saka-pon.net.School System: Its all about school managementSeeForYourself: SeeForYourSelfSharepoint JQuery Editor Web Part: Enables quick JQuery development by executing your code immediately while in desing mode.Simplex: Simplex ???????????????J2EE???????????????。 Stuff.NET: This library provides several useful classes and methods to deal with frequently appearing challenges. e.g.: pathfinding, forms/controls, dynamic compiling, ...

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Integrating HTML into Silverlight Applications

- by dwahlin

Looking for a way to display HTML content within a Silverlight application? If you haven’t tried doing that before it can be challenging at first until you know a few tricks of the trade. Being able to display HTML is especially handy when you’re required to display RSS feeds (with embedded HTML), SQL Server Reporting Services reports, PDF files (not actually HTML – but the techniques discussed will work), or other HTML content. In this post I'll discuss three options for displaying HTML content in Silverlight applications and describe how my company is using these techniques in client applications. Displaying HTML Overlays If you need to display HTML over a Silverlight application (such as an RSS feed containing HTML data in it) you’ll need to set the Silverlight control’s windowless parameter to true. This can be done using the object tag as shown next: <object data="data:application/x-silverlight-2," type="application/x-silverlight-2" width="100%" height="100%"> <param name="source" value="ClientBin/HTMLAndSilverlight.xap"/> <param name="onError" value="onSilverlightError" /> <param name="background" value="white" /> <param name="minRuntimeVersion" value="4.0.50401.0" /> <param name="autoUpgrade" value="true" /> <param name="windowless" value="true" /> <a href="http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=149156&v=4.0.50401.0" style="text-decoration:none"> <img src="http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=161376" alt="Get Microsoft Silverlight" style="border-style:none"/> </a> </object> By setting the control to “windowless” you can overlay HTML objects by using absolute positioning and other CSS techniques. Keep in mind that on Windows machines the windowless setting can result in a performance hit when complex animations or HD video are running since the plug-in content is displayed directly by the browser window. It goes without saying that you should only set windowless to true when you really need the functionality it offers. For example, if I want to display my blog’s RSS content on top of a Silverlight application I could set windowless to true and create a user control that grabbed the content and output it using a DataList control: <style type="text/css"> a {text-decoration:none;font-weight:bold;font-size:14pt;} </style> <div style="margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px;margin-right:5px;"> <asp:DataList ID="RSSDataList" runat="server" DataSourceID="RSSDataSource"> <ItemTemplate> <a href='<%# XPath("link") %>'><%# XPath("title") %></a> <br /> <%# XPath("description") %> <br /> </ItemTemplate> </asp:DataList> <asp:XmlDataSource ID="RSSDataSource" DataFile="http://weblogs.asp.net/dwahlin/rss.aspx" XPath="rss/channel/item" CacheDuration="60" runat="server" /> </div> The user control can then be placed in the page hosting the Silverlight control as shown below. This example adds a Close button, additional content to display in the overlay window and the HTML generated from the user control. <div id="RSSDiv"> <div style="background-color:#484848;border:1px solid black;height:35px;width:100%;"> <img alt="Close Button" align="right" src="Images/Close.png" onclick="HideOverlay();" style="cursor:pointer;" /> </div> <div style="overflow:auto;width:800px;height:565px;"> <div style="float:left;width:100px;height:103px;margin-left:10px;margin-top:5px;"> <img src="http://weblogs.asp.net/blogs/dwahlin/dan2008.jpg" style="border:1px solid Gray" /> </div> <div style="float:left;width:300px;height:103px;margin-top:5px;"> <a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/dwahlin" style="margin-left:10px;font-size:20pt;">Dan Wahlin's Blog</a> </div> <br /><br /><br /> <div style="clear:both;margin-top:20px;"> <uc:BlogRoller ID="BlogRoller" runat="server" /> </div> </div> </div> Of course, we wouldn’t want the RSS HTML content to be shown until requested. Once it’s requested the absolute position of where it should show above the Silverlight control can be set using standard CSS styles. The following ID selector named #RSSDiv handles hiding the overlay div shown above and determines where it will be display on the screen. #RSSDiv { background-color:White; position:absolute; top:100px; left:300px; width:800px; height:600px; border:1px solid black; display:none; } Now that the HTML content to display above the Silverlight control is set, how can we show it as a user clicks a HyperlinkButton or other control in the application? Fortunately, Silverlight provides an excellent HTML bridge that allows direct access to content hosted within a page. The following code shows two JavaScript functions that can be called from Siverlight to handle showing or hiding HTML overlay content. The two functions rely on jQuery (http://www.jQuery.com) to make it easy to select HTML objects and manipulate their properties: function ShowOverlay() { rssDiv.css('display', 'block'); } function HideOverlay() { rssDiv.css('display', 'none'); } Calling the ShowOverlay function is as simple as adding the following code into the Silverlight application within a button’s Click event handler: private void OverlayHyperlinkButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) { HtmlPage.Window.Invoke("ShowOverlay"); } The result of setting the Silverlight control’s windowless parameter to true and showing the HTML overlay content is shown in the following screenshot: Thinking Outside the Box to Show HTML Content Setting the windowless parameter to true may not be a viable option for some Silverlight applications or you may simply want to go about showing HTML content a different way. The next technique I’ll show takes advantage of simple HTML, CSS and JavaScript code to handle showing HTML content while a Silverlight application is running in the browser. Keep in mind that with Silverlight’s HTML bridge feature you can always pop-up HTML content in a new browser window using code similar to the following: System.Windows.Browser.HtmlPage.Window.Navigate( new Uri("http://silverlight.net"), "_blank"); For this example I’ll demonstrate how to hide the Silverlight application while maximizing a container div containing the HTML content to show. This allows HTML content to take up the full screen area of the browser without having to set windowless to true and when done right can make the user feel like they never left the Silverlight application. The following HTML shows several div elements that are used to display HTML within the same browser window as the Silverlight application: <div id="JobPlanDiv"> <div style="vertical-align:middle"> <img alt="Close Button" align="right" src="Images/Close.png" onclick="HideJobPlanIFrame();" style="cursor:pointer;" /> </div> <div id="JobPlan_IFrame_Container" style="height:95%;width:100%;margin-top:37px;"></div> </div> The JobPlanDiv element acts as a container for two other divs that handle showing a close button and hosting an iframe that will be added dynamically at runtime. JobPlanDiv isn’t visible when the Silverlight application loads due to the following ID selector added into the page: #JobPlanDiv { position:absolute; background-color:#484848; overflow:hidden; left:0; top:0; height:100%; width:100%; display:none; } When the HTML content needs to be shown or hidden the JavaScript functions shown next can be used: var jobPlanIFrameID = 'JobPlan_IFrame'; var slHost = null; var jobPlanContainer = null; var jobPlanIFrameContainer = null; var rssDiv = null; $(document).ready(function () { slHost = $('#silverlightControlHost'); jobPlanContainer = $('#JobPlanDiv'); jobPlanIFrameContainer = $('#JobPlan_IFrame_Container'); rssDiv = $('#RSSDiv'); }); function ShowJobPlanIFrame(url) { jobPlanContainer.css('display', 'block'); $('<iframe id="' + jobPlanIFrameID + '" src="' + url + '" style="height:100%;width:100%;" />') .appendTo(jobPlanIFrameContainer); slHost.css('width', '0%'); } function HideJobPlanIFrame() { jobPlanContainer.css('display', 'none'); $('#' + jobPlanIFrameID).remove(); slHost.css('width', '100%'); } ShowJobPlanIFrame() handles showing the JobPlanDiv div and adding an iframe into it dynamically. Once JobPlanDiv is shown, the Silverlight control host has its width set to a value of 0% to allow the control to stay alive while making it invisible to the user. I found that this technique works better across multiple browsers as opposed to manipulating the Silverlight control host div’s display or visibility properties. Now that you’ve seen the code to handle showing and hiding the HTML content area, let’s switch focus to the Silverlight application. As a user clicks on a link such as “View Report” the ShowJobPlanIFrame() JavaScript function needs to be called. The following code handles that task: private void ReportHyperlinkButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) { ShowBrowser(_BaseUrl + "/Report.aspx"); } public void ShowBrowser(string url) { HtmlPage.Window.Invoke("ShowJobPlanIFrame", url); } Any URL can be passed into the ShowBrowser() method which handles invoking the JavaScript function. This includes standard web pages or even PDF files. We’ve used this technique frequently with our SmartPrint control (http://www.smartwebcontrols.com) which converts Silverlight screens into PDF documents and displays them. Here’s an example of the content generated: Silverlight 4’s WebBrowser Control Both techniques shown to this point work well when Silverlight is running in-browser but not so well when it’s running out-of-browser since there’s no host page that you can access using the HTML bridge. Fortunately, Silverlight 4 provides a WebBrowser control that can be used to perform the same functionality quite easily. We’re currently using it in client applications to display PDF documents, SSRS reports and standard HTML content. Using the WebBrowser control simplifies the application quite a bit since no JavaScript is required if the application only runs out-of-browser. Here’s a simple example of defining the WebBrowser control in XAML. I typically define it in MainPage.xaml when a Silverlight Navigation template is used to create the project so that I can re-use the functionality across multiple screens. <Grid x:Name="WebBrowserGrid" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" VerticalAlignment="Stretch" Visibility="Collapsed"> <StackPanel HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" VerticalAlignment="Stretch"> <Border Background="#484848" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" Height="40"> <Image x:Name="WebBrowserImage" Width="100" Height="33" Cursor="Hand" HorizontalAlignment="Right" Source="/HTMLAndSilverlight;component/Assets/Images/Close.png" MouseLeftButtonDown="WebBrowserImage_MouseLeftButtonDown" /> </Border> <WebBrowser x:Name="JobPlanReportWebBrowser" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" VerticalAlignment="Stretch" /> </StackPanel> </Grid> Looking through the XAML you can see that a close image is defined along with the WebBrowser control. Because the URL that the WebBrowser should navigate to isn’t known at design time no value is assigned to the control’s Source property. If the XAML shown above is left “as is” you’ll find that any HTML content assigned to the WebBrowser doesn’t display properly. This is due to no height or width being set on the control. To handle this issue the following code is added into the XAML’s code-behind file to dynamically determine the height and width of the page and assign it to the WebBrowser. This is done by handling the SizeChanged event. void MainPage_SizeChanged(object sender, SizeChangedEventArgs e) { WebBrowserGrid.Height = JobPlanReportWebBrowser.Height = ActualHeight; WebBrowserGrid.Width = JobPlanReportWebBrowser.Width = ActualWidth; } When the user wants to view HTML content they click a button which executes the code shown in next: public void ShowBrowser(string url) { if (Application.Current.IsRunningOutOfBrowser) { JobPlanReportWebBrowser.NavigateToString("<html><body><iframe src='" + url + "' style='width:100%;height:97%;' /></body></html>"); WebBrowserGrid.Visibility = Visibility.Visible; } else { HtmlPage.Window.Invoke("ShowJobPlanIFrame", url); } } private void WebBrowserImage_MouseLeftButtonDown(object sender, MouseButtonEventArgs e) { WebBrowserGrid.Visibility = Visibility.Collapsed; } Looking through the code you’ll see that it checks to see if the Silverlight application is running out-of-browser and then either displays the WebBrowser control or runs the JavaScript function discussed earlier. Although the WebBrowser control’s Source property could be assigned the URI of the page to navigate to, by assigning HTML content using the NavigateToString() method and adding an iframe, content can be shown from any site including cross-domain sites. This is especially handy when you need to grab a page from a reporting site that’s in a different domain than the Silverlight application. Here’s an example of viewing PDF file inside of an out-of-browser application. The first image shows the application running out-of-browser before the user clicks a PDF HyperlinkButton. The second image shows the PDF being displayed. While there are certainly other techniques that can be used, the ones shown here have worked well for us in different applications and provide the ability to display HTML content in-browser or out-of-browser. Feel free to add a comment if you have another tip or trick you like to use when working with HTML content in Silverlight applications. Download Code Sample For more information about onsite, online and video training, mentoring and consulting solutions for .NET, SharePoint or Silverlight please visit http://www.thewahlingroup.com.

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West Wind WebSurge - an easy way to Load Test Web Applications

- by Rick Strahl

A few months ago on a project the subject of load testing came up. We were having some serious issues with a Web application that would start spewing SQL lock errors under somewhat heavy load. These sort of errors can be tough to catch, precisely because they only occur under load and not during typical development testing. To replicate this error more reliably we needed to put a load on the application and run it for a while before these SQL errors would flare up. It’s been a while since I’d looked at load testing tools, so I spent a bit of time looking at different tools and frankly didn’t really find anything that was a good fit. A lot of tools were either a pain to use, didn’t have the basic features I needed, or are extravagantly expensive. In the end I got frustrated enough to build an initially small custom load test solution that then morphed into a more generic library, then gained a console front end and eventually turned into a full blown Web load testing tool that is now called West Wind WebSurge. I got seriously frustrated looking for tools every time I needed some quick and dirty load testing for an application. If my aim is to just put an application under heavy enough load to find a scalability problem in code, or to simply try and push an application to its limits on the hardware it’s running I shouldn’t have to have to struggle to set up tests. It should be easy enough to get going in a few minutes, so that the testing can be set up quickly so that it can be done on a regular basis without a lot of hassle. And that was the goal when I started to build out my initial custom load tester into a more widely usable tool. If you’re in a hurry and you want to check it out, you can find more information and download links here: West Wind WebSurge Product Page Walk through Video Download link (zip) Install from Chocolatey Source on GitHub For a more detailed discussion of the why’s and how’s and some background continue reading. How did I get here? When I started out on this path, I wasn’t planning on building a tool like this myself – but I got frustrated enough looking at what’s out there to think that I can do better than what’s available for the most common simple load testing scenarios. When we ran into the SQL lock problems I mentioned, I started looking around what’s available for Web load testing solutions that would work for our whole team which consisted of a few developers and a couple of IT guys both of which needed to be able to run the tests. It had been a while since I looked at tools and I figured that by now there should be some good solutions out there, but as it turns out I didn’t really find anything that fit our relatively simple needs without costing an arm and a leg… I spent the better part of a day installing and trying various load testing tools and to be frank most of them were either terrible at what they do, incredibly unfriendly to use, used some terminology I couldn’t even parse, or were extremely expensive (and I mean in the ‘sell your liver’ range of expensive). Pick your poison. There are also a number of online solutions for load testing and they actually looked more promising, but those wouldn’t work well for our scenario as the application is running inside of a private VPN with no outside access into the VPN. Most of those online solutions also ended up being very pricey as well – presumably because of the bandwidth required to test over the open Web can be enormous. When I asked around on Twitter what people were using– I got mostly… crickets. Several people mentioned Visual Studio Load Test, and most other suggestions pointed to online solutions. I did get a bunch of responses though with people asking to let them know what I found – apparently I’m not alone when it comes to finding load testing tools that are effective and easy to use. As to Visual Studio, the higher end skus of Visual Studio and the test edition include a Web load testing tool, which is quite powerful, but there are a number of issues with that: First it’s tied to Visual Studio so it’s not very portable – you need a VS install. I also find the test setup and terminology used by the VS test runner extremely confusing. Heck, it’s complicated enough that there’s even a Pluralsight course on using the Visual Studio Web test from Steve Smith. And of course you need to have one of the high end Visual Studio Skus, and those are mucho Dinero ($$$) – just for the load testing that’s rarely an option. Some of the tools are ultra extensive and let you run analysis tools on the target serves which is useful, but in most cases – just plain overkill and only distracts from what I tend to be ultimately interested in: Reproducing problems that occur at high load, and finding the upper limits and ‘what if’ scenarios as load is ramped up increasingly against a site. Yes it’s useful to have Web app instrumentation, but often that’s not what you’re interested in. I still fondly remember early days of Web testing when Microsoft had the WAST (Web Application Stress Tool) tool, which was rather simple – and also somewhat limited – but easily allowed you to create stress tests very quickly. It had some serious limitations (mainly that it didn’t work with SSL), but the idea behind it was excellent: Create tests quickly and easily and provide a decent engine to run it locally with minimal setup. You could get set up and run tests within a few minutes. Unfortunately, that tool died a quiet death as so many of Microsoft’s tools that probably were built by an intern and then abandoned, even though there was a lot of potential and it was actually fairly widely used. Eventually the tools was no longer downloadable and now it simply doesn’t work anymore on higher end hardware. West Wind Web Surge – Making Load Testing Quick and Easy So I ended up creating West Wind WebSurge out of rebellious frustration… The goal of WebSurge is to make it drop dead simple to create load tests. It’s super easy to capture sessions either using the built in capture tool (big props to Eric Lawrence, Telerik and FiddlerCore which made that piece a snap), using the full version of Fiddler and exporting sessions, or by manually or programmatically creating text files based on plain HTTP headers to create requests. I’ve been using this tool for 4 months now on a regular basis on various projects as a reality check for performance and scalability and it’s worked extremely well for finding small performance issues. I also use it regularly as a simple URL tester, as it allows me to quickly enter a URL plus headers and content and test that URL and its results along with the ability to easily save one or more of those URLs. A few weeks back I made a walk through video that goes over most of the features of WebSurge in some detail: Note that the UI has slightly changed since then, so there are some UI improvements. Most notably the test results screen has been updated recently to a different layout and to provide more information about each URL in a session at a glance. The video and the main WebSurge site has a lot of info of basic operations. For the rest of this post I’ll talk about a few deeper aspects that may be of interest while also giving a glance at how WebSurge works. Session Capturing As you would expect, WebSurge works with Sessions of Urls that are played back under load. Here’s what the main Session View looks like: You can create session entries manually by individually adding URLs to test (on the Request tab on the right) and saving them, or you can capture output from Web Browsers, Windows Desktop applications that call services, your own applications using the built in Capture tool. With this tool you can capture anything HTTP -SSL requests and content from Web pages, AJAX calls, SOAP or REST services – again anything that uses Windows or .NET HTTP APIs. Behind the scenes the capture tool uses FiddlerCore so basically anything you can capture with Fiddler you can also capture with Web Surge Session capture tool. Alternately you can actually use Fiddler as well, and then export the captured Fiddler trace to a file, which can then be imported into WebSurge. This is a nice way to let somebody capture session without having to actually install WebSurge or for your customers to provide an exact playback scenario for a given set of URLs that cause a problem perhaps. Note that not all applications work with Fiddler’s proxy unless you configure a proxy. For example, .NET Web applications that make HTTP calls usually don’t show up in Fiddler by default. For those .NET applications you can explicitly override proxy settings to capture those requests to service calls. The capture tool also has handy optional filters that allow you to filter by domain, to help block out noise that you typically don’t want to include in your requests. For example, if your pages include links to CDNs, or Google Analytics or social links you typically don’t want to include those in your load test, so by capturing just from a specific domain you are guaranteed content from only that one domain. Additionally you can provide url filters in the configuration file – filters allow to provide filter strings that if contained in a url will cause requests to be ignored. Again this is useful if you don’t filter by domain but you want to filter out things like static image, css and script files etc. Often you’re not interested in the load characteristics of these static and usually cached resources as they just add noise to tests and often skew the overall url performance results. In my testing I tend to care only about my dynamic requests. SSL Captures require Fiddler Note, that in order to capture SSL requests you’ll have to install the Fiddler’s SSL certificate. The easiest way to do this is to install Fiddler and use its SSL configuration options to get the certificate into the local certificate store. There’s a document on the Telerik site that provides the exact steps to get SSL captures to work with Fiddler and therefore with WebSurge. Session Storage A group of URLs entered or captured make up a Session. Sessions can be saved and restored easily as they use a very simple text format that simply stored on disk. The format is slightly customized HTTP header traces separated by a separator line. The headers are standard HTTP headers except that the full URL instead of just the domain relative path is stored as part of the 1st HTTP header line for easier parsing. Because it’s just text and uses the same format that Fiddler uses for exports, it’s super easy to create Sessions by hand manually or under program control writing out to a simple text file. You can see what this format looks like in the Capture window figure above – the raw captured format is also what’s stored to disk and what WebSurge parses from. The only ‘custom’ part of these headers is that 1st line contains the full URL instead of the domain relative path and Host: header. The rest of each header are just plain standard HTTP headers with each individual URL isolated by a separator line. The format used here also uses what Fiddler produces for exports, so it’s easy to exchange or view data either in Fiddler or WebSurge. Urls can also be edited interactively so you can modify the headers easily as well: Again – it’s just plain HTTP headers so anything you can do with HTTP can be added here. Use it for single URL Testing Incidentally I’ve also found this form as an excellent way to test and replay individual URLs for simple non-load testing purposes. Because you can capture a single or many URLs and store them on disk, this also provides a nice HTTP playground where you can record URLs with their headers, and fire them one at a time or as a session and see results immediately. It’s actually an easy way for REST presentations and I find the simple UI flow actually easier than using Fiddler natively. Finally you can save one or more URLs as a session for later retrieval. I’m using this more and more for simple URL checks. Overriding Cookies and Domains Speaking of HTTP headers – you can also overwrite cookies used as part of the options. One thing that happens with modern Web applications is that you have session cookies in use for authorization. These cookies tend to expire at some point which would invalidate a test. Using the Options dialog you can actually override the cookie: which replaces the cookie for all requests with the cookie value specified here. You can capture a valid cookie from a manual HTTP request in your browser and then paste into the cookie field, to replace the existing Cookie with the new one that is now valid. Likewise you can easily replace the domain so if you captured urls on west-wind.com and now you want to test on localhost you can do that easily easily as well. You could even do something like capture on store.west-wind.com and then test on localhost/store which would also work. Running Load Tests Once you’ve created a Session you can specify the length of the test in seconds, and specify the number of simultaneous threads to run each session on. Sessions run through each of the URLs in the session sequentially by default. One option in the options list above is that you can also randomize the URLs so each thread runs requests in a different order. This avoids bunching up URLs initially when tests start as all threads run the same requests simultaneously which can sometimes skew the results of the first few minutes of a test. While sessions run some progress information is displayed: By default there’s a live view of requests displayed in a Console-like window. On the bottom of the window there’s a running total summary that displays where you’re at in the test, how many requests have been processed and what the requests per second count is currently for all requests. Note that for tests that run over a thousand requests a second it’s a good idea to turn off the console display. While the console display is nice to see that something is happening and also gives you slight idea what’s happening with actual requests, once a lot of requests are processed, this UI updating actually adds a lot of CPU overhead to the application which may cause the actual load generated to be reduced. If you are running a 1000 requests a second there’s not much to see anyway as requests roll by way too fast to see individual lines anyway. If you look on the options panel, there is a NoProgressEvents option that disables the console display. Note that the summary display is still updated approximately once a second so you can always tell that the test is still running. Test Results When the test is done you get a simple Results display: On the right you get an overall summary as well as breakdown by each URL in the session. Both success and failures are highlighted so it’s easy to see what’s breaking in your load test. The report can be printed or you can also open the HTML document in your default Web Browser for printing to PDF or saving the HTML document to disk. The list on the right shows you a partial list of the URLs that were fired so you can look in detail at the request and response data. The list can be filtered by success and failure requests. Each list is partial only (at the moment) and limited to a max of 1000 items in order to render reasonably quickly. Each item in the list can be clicked to see the full request and response data: This particularly useful for errors so you can quickly see and copy what request data was used and in the case of a GET request you can also just click the link to quickly jump to the page. For non-GET requests you can find the URL in the Session list, and use the context menu to Test the URL as configured including any HTTP content data to send. You get to see the full HTTP request and response as well as a link in the Request header to go visit the actual page. Not so useful for a POST as above, but definitely useful for GET requests. Finally you can also get a few charts. The most useful one is probably the Request per Second chart which can be accessed from the Charts menu or shortcut. Here’s what it looks like: Results can also be exported to JSON, XML and HTML. Keep in mind that these files can get very large rather quickly though, so exports can end up taking a while to complete. Command Line Interface WebSurge runs with a small core load engine and this engine is plugged into the front end application I’ve shown so far. There’s also a command line interface available to run WebSurge from the Windows command prompt. Using the command line you can run tests for either an individual URL (similar to AB.exe for example) or a full Session file. By default when it runs WebSurgeCli shows progress every second showing total request count, failures and the requests per second for the entire test. A silent option can turn off this progress display and display only the results. The command line interface can be useful for build integration which allows checking for failures perhaps or hitting a specific requests per second count etc. It’s also nice to use this as quick and dirty URL test facility similar to the way you’d use Apache Bench (ab.exe). Unlike ab.exe though, WebSurgeCli supports SSL and makes it much easier to create multi-URL tests using either manual editing or the WebSurge UI. Current Status Currently West Wind WebSurge is still in Beta status. I’m still adding small new features and tweaking the UI in an attempt to make it as easy and self-explanatory as possible to run. Documentation for the UI and specialty features is also still a work in progress. I plan on open-sourcing this product, but it won’t be free. There’s a free version available that provides a limited number of threads and request URLs to run. A relatively low cost license removes the thread and request limitations. Pricing info can be found on the Web site – there’s an introductory price which is $99 at the moment which I think is reasonable compared to most other for pay solutions out there that are exorbitant by comparison… The reason code is not available yet is – well, the UI portion of the app is a bit embarrassing in its current monolithic state. The UI started as a very simple interface originally that later got a lot more complex – yeah, that never happens, right? Unless there’s a lot of interest I don’t foresee re-writing the UI entirely (which would be ideal), but in the meantime at least some cleanup is required before I dare to publish it :-). The code will likely be released with version 1.0. I’m very interested in feedback. Do you think this could be useful to you and provide value over other tools you may or may not have used before? I hope so – it already has provided a ton of value for me and the work I do that made the development worthwhile at this point. You can leave a comment below, or for more extensive discussions you can post a message on the West Wind Message Board in the WebSurge section Microsoft MVPs and Insiders get a free License If you’re a Microsoft MVP or a Microsoft Insider you can get a full license for free. Send me a link to your current, official Microsoft profile and I’ll send you a not-for resale license. Send any messages to [email protected]. Resources For more info on WebSurge and to download it to try it out, use the following links. West Wind WebSurge Home Download West Wind WebSurge Getting Started with West Wind WebSurge Video© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2014Posted in ASP.NET Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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Rendering ASP.NET Script References into the Html Header

- by Rick Strahl

One thing that I’ve come to appreciate in control development in ASP.NET that use JavaScript is the ability to have more control over script and script include placement than ASP.NET provides natively. Specifically in ASP.NET you can use either the ClientScriptManager or ScriptManager to embed scripts and script references into pages via code. This works reasonably well, but the script references that get generated are generated into the HTML body and there’s very little operational control for placement of scripts. If you have multiple controls or several of the same control that need to place the same scripts onto the page it’s not difficult to end up with scripts that render in the wrong order and stop working correctly. This is especially critical if you load script libraries with dependencies either via resources or even if you are rendering referenced to CDN resources. Natively ASP.NET provides a host of methods that help embedding scripts into the page via either Page.ClientScript or the ASP.NET ScriptManager control (both with slightly different syntax): RegisterClientScriptBlock Renders a script block at the top of the HTML body and should be used for embedding callable functions/classes. RegisterStartupScript Renders a script block just prior to the </form> tag and should be used to for embedding code that should execute when the page is first loaded. Not recommended – use jQuery.ready() or equivalent load time routines. RegisterClientScriptInclude Embeds a reference to a script from a url into the page. RegisterClientScriptResource Embeds a reference to a Script from a resource file generating a long resource file string All 4 of these methods render their <script> tags into the HTML body. The script blocks give you a little bit of control by having a ‘top’ and ‘bottom’ of the document location which gives you some flexibility over script placement and precedence. Script includes and resource url unfortunately do not even get that much control – references are simply rendered into the page in the order of declaration. The ASP.NET ScriptManager control facilitates this task a little bit with the abililty to specify scripts in code and the ability to programmatically check what scripts have already been registered, but it doesn’t provide any more control over the script rendering process itself. Further the ScriptManager is a bear to deal with generically because generic code has to always check and see if it is actually present. Some time ago I posted a ClientScriptProxy class that helps with managing the latter process of sending script references either to ClientScript or ScriptManager if it’s available. Since I last posted about this there have been a number of improvements in this API, one of which is the ability to control placement of scripts and script includes in the page which I think is rather important and a missing feature in the ASP.NET native functionality. Handling ScriptRenderModes One of the big enhancements that I’ve come to rely on is the ability of the various script rendering functions described above to support rendering in multiple locations: /// <summary> /// Determines how scripts are included into the page /// </summary> public enum ScriptRenderModes { /// <summary> /// Inherits the setting from the control or from the ClientScript.DefaultScriptRenderMode /// </summary> Inherit, /// Renders the script include at the location of the control /// </summary> Inline, /// <summary> /// Renders the script include into the bottom of the header of the page /// </summary> Header, /// <summary> /// Renders the script include into the top of the header of the page /// </summary> HeaderTop, /// <summary> /// Uses ClientScript or ScriptManager to embed the script include to /// provide standard ASP.NET style rendering in the HTML body. /// </summary> Script, /// <summary> /// Renders script at the bottom of the page before the last Page.Controls /// literal control. Note this may result in unexpected behavior /// if /body and /html are not the last thing in the markup page. /// </summary> BottomOfPage } This enum is then applied to the various Register functions to allow more control over where scripts actually show up. Why is this useful? For me I often render scripts out of control resources and these scripts often include things like a JavaScript Library (jquery) and a few plug-ins. The order in which these can be loaded is critical so that jQuery.js always loads before any plug-in for example. Typically I end up with a general script layout like this: Core Libraries- HeaderTop Plug-ins: Header ScriptBlocks: Header or Script depending on other dependencies There’s also an option to render scripts and CSS at the very bottom of the page before the last Page control on the page which can be useful for speeding up page load when lots of scripts are loaded. The API syntax of the ClientScriptProxy methods is closely compatible with ScriptManager’s using static methods and control references to gain access to the page and embedding scripts. For example, to render some script into the current page in the header: // Create script block in header ClientScriptProxy.Current.RegisterClientScriptBlock(this, typeof(ControlResources), "hello_function", "function helloWorld() { alert('hello'); }", true, ScriptRenderModes.Header); // Same again - shouldn't be rendered because it's the same id ClientScriptProxy.Current.RegisterClientScriptBlock(this, typeof(ControlResources), "hello_function", "function helloWorld() { alert('hello'); }", true, ScriptRenderModes.Header); // Create a second script block in header ClientScriptProxy.Current.RegisterClientScriptBlock(this, typeof(ControlResources), "hello_function2", "function helloWorld2() { alert('hello2'); }", true, ScriptRenderModes.Header); // This just calls ClientScript and renders into bottom of document ClientScriptProxy.Current.RegisterStartupScript(this,typeof(ControlResources), "call_hello", "helloWorld();helloWorld2();", true); which generates: <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" > <head><title> </title> <script type="text/javascript"> function helloWorld() { alert('hello'); } </script> <script type="text/javascript"> function helloWorld2() { alert('hello2'); } </script> </head> <body> … <script type="text/javascript"> //<![CDATA[ helloWorld();helloWorld2();//]]> </script> </form> </body> </html> Note that the scripts are generated into the header rather than the body except for the last script block which is the call to RegisterStartupScript. In general I wouldn’t recommend using RegisterStartupScript – ever. It’s a much better practice to use a script base load event to handle ‘startup’ code that should fire when the page first loads. So instead of the code above I’d actually recommend doing: ClientScriptProxy.Current.RegisterClientScriptBlock(this, typeof(ControlResources), "call_hello", "$().ready( function() { alert('hello2'); });", true, ScriptRenderModes.Header); assuming you’re using jQuery on the page. For script includes from a Url the following demonstrates how to embed scripts into the header. This example injects a jQuery and jQuery.UI script reference from the Google CDN then checks each with a script block to ensure that it has loaded and if not loads it from a server local location: // load jquery from CDN ClientScriptProxy.Current.RegisterClientScriptInclude(this, typeof(ControlResources), "http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.2/jquery.min.js", ScriptRenderModes.HeaderTop); // check if jquery loaded - if it didn't we're not online string scriptCheck = @"if (typeof jQuery != 'object') document.write(unescape(""%3Cscript src='{0}' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E""));"; string jQueryUrl = ClientScriptProxy.Current.GetWebResourceUrl(this, typeof(ControlResources), ControlResources.JQUERY_SCRIPT_RESOURCE); ClientScriptProxy.Current.RegisterClientScriptBlock(this, typeof(ControlResources), "jquery_register", string.Format(scriptCheck,jQueryUrl),true, ScriptRenderModes.HeaderTop); // Load jquery-ui from cdn ClientScriptProxy.Current.RegisterClientScriptInclude(this, typeof(ControlResources), "http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.7.2/jquery-ui.min.js", ScriptRenderModes.Header); // check if we need to load from local string jQueryUiUrl = ResolveUrl("~/scripts/jquery-ui-custom.min.js"); ClientScriptProxy.Current.RegisterClientScriptBlock(this, typeof(ControlResources), "jqueryui_register", string.Format(scriptCheck, jQueryUiUrl), true, ScriptRenderModes.Header); // Create script block in header ClientScriptProxy.Current.RegisterClientScriptBlock(this, typeof(ControlResources), "hello_function", "$().ready( function() { alert('hello'); });", true, ScriptRenderModes.Header); which in turn generates this HTML: <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" > <head> <script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.2/jquery.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> if (typeof jQuery != 'object') document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='/WestWindWebToolkitWeb/WebResource.axd?d=DIykvYhJ_oXCr-TA_dr35i4AayJoV1mgnQAQGPaZsoPM2LCdvoD3cIsRRitHKlKJfV5K_jQvylK7tsqO3lQIFw2&t=633979863959332352' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); </script> <title> </title> <script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.7.2/jquery-ui.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> if (typeof jQuery != 'object') document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='/WestWindWebToolkitWeb/scripts/jquery-ui-custom.min.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); </script> <script type="text/javascript"> $().ready(function() { alert('hello'); }); </script> </head> <body> …</body> </html> As you can see there’s a bit more control in this process as you can inject both script includes and script blocks into the document at the top or bottom of the header, plus if necessary at the usual body locations. This is quite useful especially if you create custom server controls that interoperate with script and have certain dependencies. The above is a good example of a useful switchable routine where you can switch where scripts load from by default – the above pulls from Google CDN but a configuration switch may automatically switch to pull from the local development copies if your doing development for example. How does it work? As mentioned the ClientScriptProxy object mimicks many of the ScriptManager script related methods and so provides close API compatibility with it although it contains many additional overloads that enhance functionality. It does however work against ScriptManager if it’s available on the page, or Page.ClientScript if it’s not so it provides a single unified frontend to script access. There are however many overloads of the original SM methods like the above to provide additional functionality. The implementation of script header rendering is pretty straight forward – as long as a server header (ie. it has to have runat=”server” set) is available. Otherwise these routines fall back to using the default document level insertions of ScriptManager/ClientScript. Given that there is a server header it’s relatively easy to generate the script tags and code and append them to the header either at the top or bottom. I suspect Microsoft didn’t provide header rendering functionality precisely because a runat=”server” header is not required by ASP.NET so behavior would be slightly unpredictable. That’s not really a problem for a custom implementation however. Here’s the RegisterClientScriptBlock implementation that takes a ScriptRenderModes parameter to allow header rendering: /// <summary> /// Renders client script block with the option of rendering the script block in /// the Html header /// /// For this to work Header must be defined as runat="server" /// </summary> /// <param name="control">any control that instance typically page</param> /// <param name="type">Type that identifies this rendering</param> /// <param name="key">unique script block id</param> /// <param name="script">The script code to render</param> /// <param name="addScriptTags">Ignored for header rendering used for all other insertions</param> /// <param name="renderMode">Where the block is rendered</param> public void RegisterClientScriptBlock(Control control, Type type, string key, string script, bool addScriptTags, ScriptRenderModes renderMode) { if (renderMode == ScriptRenderModes.Inherit) renderMode = DefaultScriptRenderMode; if (control.Page.Header == null || renderMode != ScriptRenderModes.HeaderTop && renderMode != ScriptRenderModes.Header && renderMode != ScriptRenderModes.BottomOfPage) { RegisterClientScriptBlock(control, type, key, script, addScriptTags); return; } // No dupes - ref script include only once const string identifier = "scriptblock_"; if (HttpContext.Current.Items.Contains(identifier + key)) return; HttpContext.Current.Items.Add(identifier + key, string.Empty); StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(); // Embed in header sb.AppendLine("\r\n<script type=\"text/javascript\">"); sb.AppendLine(script); sb.AppendLine("</script>"); int? index = HttpContext.Current.Items["__ScriptResourceIndex"] as int?; if (index == null) index = 0; if (renderMode == ScriptRenderModes.HeaderTop) { control.Page.Header.Controls.AddAt(index.Value, new LiteralControl(sb.ToString())); index++; } else if(renderMode == ScriptRenderModes.Header) control.Page.Header.Controls.Add(new LiteralControl(sb.ToString())); else if (renderMode == ScriptRenderModes.BottomOfPage) control.Page.Controls.AddAt(control.Page.Controls.Count-1,new LiteralControl(sb.ToString())); HttpContext.Current.Items["__ScriptResourceIndex"] = index; } Note that the routine has to keep track of items inserted by id so that if the same item is added again with the same key it won’t generate two script entries. Additionally the code has to keep track of how many insertions have been made at the top of the document so that entries are added in the proper order. The RegisterScriptInclude method is similar but there’s some additional logic in here to deal with script file references and ClientScriptProxy’s (optional) custom resource handler that provides script compression /// <summary> /// Registers a client script reference into the page with the option to specify /// the script location in the page /// </summary> /// <param name="control">Any control instance - typically page</param> /// <param name="type">Type that acts as qualifier (uniqueness)</param> /// <param name="url">the Url to the script resource</param> /// <param name="ScriptRenderModes">Determines where the script is rendered</param> public void RegisterClientScriptInclude(Control control, Type type, string url, ScriptRenderModes renderMode) { const string STR_ScriptResourceIndex = "__ScriptResourceIndex"; if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(url)) return; if (renderMode == ScriptRenderModes.Inherit) renderMode = DefaultScriptRenderMode; // Extract just the script filename string fileId = null; // Check resource IDs and try to match to mapped file resources // Used to allow scripts not to be loaded more than once whether // embedded manually (script tag) or via resources with ClientScriptProxy if (url.Contains(".axd?r=")) { string res = HttpUtility.UrlDecode( StringUtils.ExtractString(url, "?r=", "&", false, true) ); foreach (ScriptResourceAlias item in ScriptResourceAliases) { if (item.Resource == res) { fileId = item.Alias + ".js"; break; } } if (fileId == null) fileId = url.ToLower(); } else fileId = Path.GetFileName(url).ToLower(); // No dupes - ref script include only once const string identifier = "script_"; if (HttpContext.Current.Items.Contains( identifier + fileId ) ) return; HttpContext.Current.Items.Add(identifier + fileId, string.Empty); // just use script manager or ClientScriptManager if (control.Page.Header == null || renderMode == ScriptRenderModes.Script || renderMode == ScriptRenderModes.Inline) { RegisterClientScriptInclude(control, type,url, url); return; } // Retrieve script index in header int? index = HttpContext.Current.Items[STR_ScriptResourceIndex] as int?; if (index == null) index = 0; StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(256); url = WebUtils.ResolveUrl(url); // Embed in header sb.AppendLine("\r\n<script src=\"" + url + "\" type=\"text/javascript\"></script>"); if (renderMode == ScriptRenderModes.HeaderTop) { control.Page.Header.Controls.AddAt(index.Value, new LiteralControl(sb.ToString())); index++; } else if (renderMode == ScriptRenderModes.Header) control.Page.Header.Controls.Add(new LiteralControl(sb.ToString())); else if (renderMode == ScriptRenderModes.BottomOfPage) control.Page.Controls.AddAt(control.Page.Controls.Count-1, new LiteralControl(sb.ToString())); HttpContext.Current.Items[STR_ScriptResourceIndex] = index; } There’s a little more code here that deals with cleaning up the passed in Url and also some custom handling of script resources that run through the ScriptCompressionModule – any script resources loaded in this fashion are automatically cached based on the resource id. Raw urls extract just the filename from the URL and cache based on that. All of this to avoid doubling up of scripts if called multiple times by multiple instances of the same control for example or several controls that all load the same resources/includes. Finally RegisterClientScriptResource utilizes the previous method to wrap the WebResourceUrl as well as some custom functionality for the resource compression module: /// <summary> /// Returns a WebResource or ScriptResource URL for script resources that are to be /// embedded as script includes. /// </summary> /// <param name="control">Any control</param> /// <param name="type">A type in assembly where resources are located</param> /// <param name="resourceName">Name of the resource to load</param> /// <param name="renderMode">Determines where in the document the link is rendered</param> public void RegisterClientScriptResource(Control control, Type type, string resourceName, ScriptRenderModes renderMode) { string resourceUrl = GetClientScriptResourceUrl(control, type, resourceName); RegisterClientScriptInclude(control, type, resourceUrl, renderMode); } /// <summary> /// Works like GetWebResourceUrl but can be used with javascript resources /// to allow using of resource compression (if the module is loaded). /// </summary> /// <param name="control"></param> /// <param name="type"></param> /// <param name="resourceName"></param> /// <returns></returns> public string GetClientScriptResourceUrl(Control control, Type type, string resourceName) { #if IncludeScriptCompressionModuleSupport // If wwScriptCompression Module through Web.config is loaded use it to compress // script resources by using wcSC.axd Url the module intercepts if (ScriptCompressionModule.ScriptCompressionModuleActive) { string url = "~/wwSC.axd?r=" + HttpUtility.UrlEncode(resourceName); if (type.Assembly != GetType().Assembly) url += "&t=" + HttpUtility.UrlEncode(type.FullName); return WebUtils.ResolveUrl(url); } #endif return control.Page.ClientScript.GetWebResourceUrl(type, resourceName); } This code merely retrieves the resource URL and then simply calls back to RegisterClientScriptInclude with the URL to be embedded which means there’s nothing specific to deal with other than the custom compression module logic which is nice and easy. What else is there in ClientScriptProxy? ClientscriptProxy also provides a few other useful services beyond what I’ve already covered here: Transparent ScriptManager and ClientScript calls ClientScriptProxy includes a host of routines that help figure out whether a script manager is available or not and all functions in this class call the appropriate object – ScriptManager or ClientScript – that is available in the current page to ensure that scripts get embedded into pages properly. This is especially useful for control development where controls have no control over the scripting environment in place on the page. RegisterCssLink and RegisterCssResource Much like the script embedding functions these two methods allow embedding of CSS links. CSS links are appended to the header or to a form declared with runat=”server”. LoadControlScript Is a high level resource loading routine that can be used to easily switch between different script linking modes. It supports loading from a WebResource, a url or not loading anything at all. This is very useful if you build controls that deal with specification of resource urls/ids in a standard way. Check out the full Code You can check out the full code to the ClientScriptProxyClass here: ClientScriptProxy.cs ClientScriptProxy Documentation (class reference) Note that the ClientScriptProxy has a few dependencies in the West Wind Web Toolkit of which it is part of. ControlResources holds a few standard constants and script resource links and the ScriptCompressionModule which is referenced in a few of the script inclusion methods. There’s also another useful ScriptContainer companion control to the ClientScriptProxy that allows scripts to be placed onto the page’s markup including the ability to specify the script location and script minification options. You can find all the dependencies in the West Wind Web Toolkit repository: West Wind Web Toolkit Repository West Wind Web Toolkit Home Page© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2010Posted in ASP.NET JavaScript

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Creating STA COM compatible ASP.NET Applications

- by Rick Strahl

When building ASP.NET applications that interface with old school COM objects like those created with VB6 or Visual FoxPro (MTDLL), it's extremely important that the threads that are serving requests use Single Threaded Apartment Threading. STA is a COM built-in technology that allows essentially single threaded components to operate reliably in a multi-threaded environment. STA's guarantee that COM objects instantiated on a specific thread stay on that specific thread and any access to a COM object from another thread automatically marshals that thread to the STA thread. The end effect is that you can have multiple threads, but a COM object instance lives on a fixed never changing thread. ASP.NET by default uses MTA (multi-threaded apartment) threads which are truly free spinning threads that pay no heed to COM object marshaling. This is vastly more efficient than STA threading which has a bit of overhead in determining whether it's OK to run code on a given thread or whether some sort of thread/COM marshaling needs to occur. MTA COM components can be very efficient, but STA COM components in a multi-threaded environment always tend to have a fair amount of overhead. It's amazing how much COM Interop I still see today so while it seems really old school to be talking about this topic, it's actually quite apropos for me as I have many customers using legacy COM systems that need to interface with other .NET applications. In this post I'm consolidating some of the hacks I've used to integrate with various ASP.NET technologies when using STA COM Components. STA in ASP.NET Support for STA threading in the ASP.NET framework is fairly limited. Specifically only the original ASP.NET WebForms technology supports STA threading directly via its STA Page Handler implementation or what you might know as ASPCOMPAT mode. For WebForms running STA components is as easy as specifying the ASPCOMPAT attribute in the @Page tag:<%@ Page Language="C#" AspCompat="true" %> which runs the page in STA mode. Removing it runs in MTA mode. Simple. Unfortunately all other ASP.NET technologies built on top of the core ASP.NET engine do not support STA natively. So if you want to use STA COM components in MVC or with class ASMX Web Services, there's no automatic way like the ASPCOMPAT keyword available. So what happens when you run an STA COM component in an MTA application? In low volume environments - nothing much will happen. The COM objects will appear to work just fine as there are no simultaneous thread interactions and the COM component will happily run on a single thread or multiple single threads one at a time. So for testing running components in MTA environments may appear to work just fine. However as load increases and threads get re-used by ASP.NET COM objects will end up getting created on multiple different threads. This can result in crashes or hangs, or data corruption in the STA components which store their state in thread local storage on the STA thread. If threads overlap this global store can easily get corrupted which in turn causes problems. STA ensures that any COM object instance loaded always stays on the same thread it was instantiated on. What about COM+? COM+ is supposed to address the problem of STA in MTA applications by providing an abstraction with it's own thread pool manager for COM objects. It steps in to the COM instantiation pipeline and hands out COM instances from its own internally maintained STA Thread pool. This guarantees that the COM instantiation threads are STA threads if using STA components. COM+ works, but in my experience the technology is very, very slow for STA components. It adds a ton of overhead and reduces COM performance noticably in load tests in IIS. COM+ can make sense in some situations but for Web apps with STA components it falls short. In addition there's also the need to ensure that COM+ is set up and configured on the target machine and the fact that components have to be registered in COM+. COM+ also keeps components up at all times, so if a component needs to be replaced the COM+ package needs to be unloaded (same is true for IIS hosted components but it's more common to manage that). COM+ is an option for well established components, but native STA support tends to provide better performance and more consistent usability, IMHO. STA for non supporting ASP.NET Technologies As mentioned above only WebForms supports STA natively. However, by utilizing the WebForms ASP.NET Page handler internally it's actually possible to trick various other ASP.NET technologies and let them work with STA components. This is ugly but I've used each of these in various applications and I've had minimal problems making them work with FoxPro STA COM components which is about as dififcult as it gets for COM Interop in .NET. In this post I summarize several STA workarounds that enable you to use STA threading with these ASP.NET Technologies: ASMX Web Services ASP.NET MVC WCF Web Services ASP.NET Web API ASMX Web Services I start with classic ASP.NET ASMX Web Services because it's the easiest mechanism that allows for STA modification. It also clearly demonstrates how the WebForms STA Page Handler is the key technology to enable the various other solutions to create STA components. Essentially the way this works is to override the WebForms Page class and hijack it's init functionality for processing requests. Here's what this looks like for Web Services:namespace FoxProAspNet { public class WebServiceStaHandler : System.Web.UI.Page, IHttpAsyncHandler { protected override void OnInit(EventArgs e) { IHttpHandler handler = new WebServiceHandlerFactory().GetHandler( this.Context, this.Context.Request.HttpMethod, this.Context.Request.FilePath, this.Context.Request.PhysicalPath); handler.ProcessRequest(this.Context); this.Context.ApplicationInstance.CompleteRequest(); } public IAsyncResult BeginProcessRequest( HttpContext context, AsyncCallback cb, object extraData) { return this.AspCompatBeginProcessRequest(context, cb, extraData); } public void EndProcessRequest(IAsyncResult result) { this.AspCompatEndProcessRequest(result); } } public class AspCompatWebServiceStaHandlerWithSessionState : WebServiceStaHandler, IRequiresSessionState { } } This class overrides the ASP.NET WebForms Page class which has a little known AspCompatBeginProcessRequest() and AspCompatEndProcessRequest() method that is responsible for providing the WebForms ASPCOMPAT functionality. These methods handle routing requests to STA threads. Note there are two classes - one that includes session state and one that does not. If you plan on using ASP.NET Session state use the latter class, otherwise stick to the former. This maps to the EnableSessionState page setting in WebForms. This class simply hooks into this functionality by overriding the BeginProcessRequest and EndProcessRequest methods and always forcing it into the AspCompat methods. The way this works is that BeginProcessRequest() fires first to set up the threads and starts intializing the handler. As part of that process the OnInit() method is fired which is now already running on an STA thread. The code then creates an instance of the actual WebService handler factory and calls its ProcessRequest method to start executing which generates the Web Service result. Immediately after ProcessRequest the request is stopped with Application.CompletRequest() which ensures that the rest of the Page handler logic doesn't fire. This means that even though the fairly heavy Page class is overridden here, it doesn't end up executing any of its internal processing which makes this code fairly efficient. In a nutshell, we're highjacking the Page HttpHandler and forcing it to process the WebService process handler in the context of the AspCompat handler behavior. Hooking up the Handler Because the above is an HttpHandler implementation you need to hook up the custom handler and replace the standard ASMX handler. To do this you need to modify the web.config file (here for IIS 7 and IIS Express): <configuration> <system.webServer> <handlers> <remove name="WebServiceHandlerFactory-Integrated-4.0" /> <add name="Asmx STA Web Service Handler" path="*.asmx" verb="*" type="FoxProAspNet.WebServiceStaHandler" precondition="integrated"/> </handlers> </system.webServer> </configuration> (Note: The name for the WebServiceHandlerFactory-Integrated-4.0 might be slightly different depending on your server version. Check the IIS Handler configuration in the IIS Management Console for the exact name or simply remove the handler from the list there which will propagate to your web.config). For IIS 5 & 6 (Windows XP/2003) or the Visual Studio Web Server use:<configuration> <system.web> <httpHandlers> <remove path="*.asmx" verb="*" /> <add path="*.asmx" verb="*" type="FoxProAspNet.WebServiceStaHandler" /> </httpHandlers> </system.web></configuration> To test, create a new ASMX Web Service and create a method like this: [WebService(Namespace = "http://foxaspnet.org/")] [WebServiceBinding(ConformsTo = WsiProfiles.BasicProfile1_1)] public class FoxWebService : System.Web.Services.WebService { [WebMethod] public string HelloWorld() { return "Hello World. Threading mode is: " + System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.GetApartmentState(); } } Run this before you put in the web.config configuration changes and you should get: Hello World. Threading mode is: MTA Then put the handler mapping into Web.config and you should see: Hello World. Threading mode is: STA And you're on your way to using STA COM components. It's a hack but it works well! I've used this with several high volume Web Service installations with various customers and it's been fast and reliable. ASP.NET MVC ASP.NET MVC has quickly become the most popular ASP.NET technology, replacing WebForms for creating HTML output. MVC is more complex to get started with, but once you understand the basic structure of how requests flow through the MVC pipeline it's easy to use and amazingly flexible in manipulating HTML requests. In addition, MVC has great support for non-HTML output sources like JSON and XML, making it an excellent choice for AJAX requests without any additional tools. Unlike WebForms ASP.NET MVC doesn't support STA threads natively and so some trickery is needed to make it work with STA threads as well. MVC gets its handler implementation through custom route handlers using ASP.NET's built in routing semantics. To work in an STA handler requires working in the Page Handler as part of the Route Handler implementation. As with the Web Service handler the first step is to create a custom HttpHandler that can instantiate an MVC request pipeline properly:public class MvcStaThreadHttpAsyncHandler : Page, IHttpAsyncHandler, IRequiresSessionState { private RequestContext _requestContext; public MvcStaThreadHttpAsyncHandler(RequestContext requestContext) { if (requestContext == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("requestContext"); _requestContext = requestContext; } public IAsyncResult BeginProcessRequest(HttpContext context, AsyncCallback cb, object extraData) { return this.AspCompatBeginProcessRequest(context, cb, extraData); } protected override void OnInit(EventArgs e) { var controllerName = _requestContext.RouteData.GetRequiredString("controller"); var controllerFactory = ControllerBuilder.Current.GetControllerFactory(); var controller = controllerFactory.CreateController(_requestContext, controllerName); if (controller == null) throw new InvalidOperationException("Could not find controller: " + controllerName); try { controller.Execute(_requestContext); } finally { controllerFactory.ReleaseController(controller); } this.Context.ApplicationInstance.CompleteRequest(); } public void EndProcessRequest(IAsyncResult result) { this.AspCompatEndProcessRequest(result); } public override void ProcessRequest(HttpContext httpContext) { throw new NotSupportedException("STAThreadRouteHandler does not support ProcessRequest called (only BeginProcessRequest)"); } } This handler code figures out which controller to load and then executes the controller. MVC internally provides the information needed to route to the appropriate method and pass the right parameters. Like the Web Service handler the logic occurs in the OnInit() and performs all the processing in that part of the request. Next, we need a RouteHandler that can actually pick up this handler. Unlike the Web Service handler where we simply registered the handler, MVC requires a RouteHandler to pick up the handler. RouteHandlers look at the URL's path and based on that decide on what handler to invoke. The route handler is pretty simple - all it does is load our custom handler: public class MvcStaThreadRouteHandler : IRouteHandler { public IHttpHandler GetHttpHandler(RequestContext requestContext) { if (requestContext == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("requestContext"); return new MvcStaThreadHttpAsyncHandler(requestContext); } } At this point you can instantiate this route handler and force STA requests to MVC by specifying a route. The following sets up the ASP.NET Default Route:Route mvcRoute = new Route("{controller}/{action}/{id}", new RouteValueDictionary( new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }), new MvcStaThreadRouteHandler()); RouteTable.Routes.Add(mvcRoute); To make this code a little easier to work with and mimic the behavior of the routes.MapRoute() functionality extension method that MVC provides, here is an extension method for MapMvcStaRoute(): public static class RouteCollectionExtensions { public static void MapMvcStaRoute(this RouteCollection routeTable, string name, string url, object defaults = null) { Route mvcRoute = new Route(url, new RouteValueDictionary(defaults), new MvcStaThreadRouteHandler()); RouteTable.Routes.Add(mvcRoute); } } With this the syntax to add route becomes a little easier and matches the MapRoute() method:RouteTable.Routes.MapMvcStaRoute( name: "Default", url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}", defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional } ); The nice thing about this route handler, STA Handler and extension method is that it's fully self contained. You can put all three into a single class file and stick it into your Web app, and then simply call MapMvcStaRoute() and it just works. Easy! To see whether this works create an MVC controller like this: public class ThreadTestController : Controller { public string ThreadingMode() { return Thread.CurrentThread.GetApartmentState().ToString(); } } Try this test both with only the MapRoute() hookup in the RouteConfiguration in which case you should get MTA as the value. Then change the MapRoute() call to MapMvcStaRoute() leaving all the parameters the same and re-run the request. You now should see STA as the result. You're on your way using STA COM components reliably in ASP.NET MVC. WCF Web Services running through IIS WCF Web Services provide a more robust and wider range of services for Web Services. You can use WCF over HTTP, TCP, and Pipes, and WCF services support WS* secure services. There are many features in WCF that go way beyond what ASMX can do. But it's also a bit more complex than ASMX. As a basic rule if you need to serve straight SOAP Services over HTTP I 'd recommend sticking with the simpler ASMX services especially if COM is involved. If you need WS* support or want to serve data over non-HTTP protocols then WCF makes more sense. WCF is not my forte but I found a solution from Scott Seely on his blog that describes the progress and that seems to work well. I'm copying his code below so this STA information is all in one place and quickly explain. Scott's code basically works by creating a custom OperationBehavior which can be specified via an [STAOperation] attribute on every method. Using his attribute you end up with a class (or Interface if you separate the contract and class) that looks like this: [ServiceContract] public class WcfService { [OperationContract] public string HelloWorldMta() { return Thread.CurrentThread.GetApartmentState().ToString(); } // Make sure you use this custom STAOperationBehavior // attribute to force STA operation of service methods [STAOperationBehavior] [OperationContract] public string HelloWorldSta() { return Thread.CurrentThread.GetApartmentState().ToString(); } } Pretty straight forward. The latter method returns STA while the former returns MTA. To make STA work every method needs to be marked up. The implementation consists of the attribute and OperationInvoker implementation. Here are the two classes required to make this work from Scott's post:public class STAOperationBehaviorAttribute : Attribute, IOperationBehavior { public void AddBindingParameters(OperationDescription operationDescription, System.ServiceModel.Channels.BindingParameterCollection bindingParameters) { } public void ApplyClientBehavior(OperationDescription operationDescription, System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.ClientOperation clientOperation) { // If this is applied on the client, well, it just doesn’t make sense. // Don’t throw in case this attribute was applied on the contract // instead of the implementation. } public void ApplyDispatchBehavior(OperationDescription operationDescription, System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.DispatchOperation dispatchOperation) { // Change the IOperationInvoker for this operation. dispatchOperation.Invoker = new STAOperationInvoker(dispatchOperation.Invoker); } public void Validate(OperationDescription operationDescription) { if (operationDescription.SyncMethod == null) { throw new InvalidOperationException("The STAOperationBehaviorAttribute " + "only works for synchronous method invocations."); } } } public class STAOperationInvoker : IOperationInvoker { IOperationInvoker _innerInvoker; public STAOperationInvoker(IOperationInvoker invoker) { _innerInvoker = invoker; } public object[] AllocateInputs() { return _innerInvoker.AllocateInputs(); } public object Invoke(object instance, object[] inputs, out object[] outputs) { // Create a new, STA thread object[] staOutputs = null; object retval = null; Thread thread = new Thread( delegate() { retval = _innerInvoker.Invoke(instance, inputs, out staOutputs); }); thread.SetApartmentState(ApartmentState.STA); thread.Start(); thread.Join(); outputs = staOutputs; return retval; } public IAsyncResult InvokeBegin(object instance, object[] inputs, AsyncCallback callback, object state) { // We don’t handle async… throw new NotImplementedException(); } public object InvokeEnd(object instance, out object[] outputs, IAsyncResult result) { // We don’t handle async… throw new NotImplementedException(); } public bool IsSynchronous { get { return true; } } } The key in this setup is the Invoker and the Invoke method which creates a new thread and then fires the request on this new thread. Because this approach creates a new thread for every request it's not super efficient. There's a bunch of overhead involved in creating the thread and throwing it away after each thread, but it'll work for low volume requests and insure each thread runs in STA mode. If better performance is required it would be useful to create a custom thread manager that can pool a number of STA threads and hand off threads as needed rather than creating new threads on every request. If your Web Service needs are simple and you need only to serve standard SOAP 1.x requests, I would recommend sticking with ASMX services. It's easier to set up and work with and for STA component use it'll be significantly better performing since ASP.NET manages the STA thread pool for you rather than firing new threads for each request. One nice thing about Scotts code is though that it works in any WCF environment including self hosting. It has no dependency on ASP.NET or WebForms for that matter. STA - If you must STA components are a pain in the ass and thankfully there isn't too much stuff out there anymore that requires it. But when you need it and you need to access STA functionality from .NET at least there are a few options available to make it happen. Each of these solutions is a bit hacky, but they work - I've used all of them in production with good results with FoxPro components. I hope compiling all of these in one place here makes it STA consumption a little bit easier. I feel your pain :-) Resources Download STA Handler Code Examples Scott Seely's original STA WCF OperationBehavior Article© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in FoxPro ASP.NET .NET COM Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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Scaling-out Your Services by Message Bus based WCF Transport Extension – Part 1 – Background

- by Shaun

Cloud computing gives us more flexibility on the computing resource, we can provision and deploy an application or service with multiple instances over multiple machines. With the increment of the service instances, how to balance the incoming message and workload would become a new challenge. Currently there are two approaches we can use to pass the incoming messages to the service instances, I would like call them dispatcher mode and pulling mode. Dispatcher Mode The dispatcher mode introduces a role which takes the responsible to find the best service instance to process the request. The image below describes the sharp of this mode. There are four clients communicate with the service through the underlying transportation. For example, if we are using HTTP the clients might be connecting to the same service URL. On the server side there’s a dispatcher listening on this URL and try to retrieve all messages. When a message came in, the dispatcher will find a proper service instance to process it. There are three mechanism to find the instance: Round-robin: Dispatcher will always send the message to the next instance. For example, if the dispatcher sent the message to instance 2, then the next message will be sent to instance 3, regardless if instance 3 is busy or not at that moment. Random: Dispatcher will find a service instance randomly, and same as the round-robin mode it regardless if the instance is busy or not. Sticky: Dispatcher will send all related messages to the same service instance. This approach always being used if the service methods are state-ful or session-ful. But as you can see, all of these approaches are not really load balanced. The clients will send messages at any time, and each message might take different process duration on the server side. This means in some cases, some of the service instances are very busy while others are almost idle. For example, if we were using round-robin mode, it could be happened that most of the simple task messages were passed to instance 1 while the complex ones were sent to instance 3, even though instance 1 should be idle. This brings some problem in our architecture. The first one is that, the response to the clients might be longer than it should be. As it’s shown in the figure above, message 6 and 9 can be processed by instance 1 or instance 2, but in reality they were dispatched to the busy instance 3 since the dispatcher and round-robin mode. Secondly, if there are many requests came from the clients in a very short period, service instances might be filled by tons of pending tasks and some instances might be crashed. Third, if we are using some cloud platform to host our service instances, for example the Windows Azure, the computing resource is billed by service deployment period instead of the actual CPU usage. This means if any service instance is idle it is wasting our money! Last one, the dispatcher would be the bottleneck of our system since all incoming messages must be routed by the dispatcher. If we are using HTTP or TCP as the transport, the dispatcher would be a network load balance. If we wants more capacity, we have to scale-up, or buy a hardware load balance which is very expensive, as well as scaling-out the service instances. Pulling Mode Pulling mode doesn’t need a dispatcher to route the messages. All service instances are listening to the same transport and try to retrieve the next proper message to process if they are idle. Since there is no dispatcher in pulling mode, it requires some features on the transportation. The transportation must support multiple client connection and server listening. HTTP and TCP doesn’t allow multiple clients are listening on the same address and port, so it cannot be used in pulling mode directly. All messages in the transportation must be FIFO, which means the old message must be received before the new one. Message selection would be a plus on the transportation. This means both service and client can specify some selection criteria and just receive some specified kinds of messages. This feature is not mandatory but would be very useful when implementing the request reply and duplex WCF channel modes. Otherwise we must have a memory dictionary to store the reply messages. I will explain more about this in the following articles. Message bus, or the message queue would be best candidate as the transportation when using the pulling mode. First, it allows multiple application to listen on the same queue, and it’s FIFO. Some of the message bus also support the message selection, such as TIBCO EMS, RabbitMQ. Some others provide in memory dictionary which can store the reply messages, for example the Redis. The principle of pulling mode is to let the service instances self-managed. This means each instance will try to retrieve the next pending incoming message if they finished the current task. This gives us more benefit and can solve the problems we met with in the dispatcher mode. The incoming message will be received to the best instance to process, which means this will be very balanced. And it will not happen that some instances are busy while other are idle, since the idle one will retrieve more tasks to make them busy. Since all instances are try their best to be busy we can use less instances than dispatcher mode, which more cost effective. Since there’s no dispatcher in the system, there is no bottleneck. When we introduced more service instances, in dispatcher mode we have to change something to let the dispatcher know the new instances. But in pulling mode since all service instance are self-managed, there no extra change at all. If there are many incoming messages, since the message bus can queue them in the transportation, service instances would not be crashed. All above are the benefits using the pulling mode, but it will introduce some problem as well. The process tracking and debugging become more difficult. Since the service instances are self-managed, we cannot know which instance will process the message. So we need more information to support debug and track. Real-time response may not be supported. All service instances will process the next message after the current one has done, if we have some real-time request this may not be a good solution. Compare with the Pros and Cons above, the pulling mode would a better solution for the distributed system architecture. Because what we need more is the scalability, cost-effect and the self-management. WCF and WCF Transport Extensibility Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is a framework for building service-oriented applications. In the .NET world WCF is the best way to implement the service. In this series I’m going to demonstrate how to implement the pulling mode on top of a message bus by extending the WCF. I don’t want to deep into every related field in WCF but will highlight its transport extensibility. When we implemented an RPC foundation there are many aspects we need to deal with, for example the message encoding, encryption, authentication and message sending and receiving. In WCF, each aspect is represented by a channel. A message will be passed through all necessary channels and finally send to the underlying transportation. And on the other side the message will be received from the transport and though the same channels until the business logic. This mode is called “Channel Stack” in WCF, and the last channel in the channel stack must always be a transport channel, which takes the responsible for sending and receiving the messages. As we are going to implement the WCF over message bus and implement the pulling mode scaling-out solution, we need to create our own transport channel so that the client and service can exchange messages over our bus. Before we deep into the transport channel, let’s have a look on the message exchange patterns that WCF defines. Message exchange pattern (MEP) defines how client and service exchange the messages over the transportation. WCF defines 3 basic MEPs which are datagram, Request-Reply and Duplex. Datagram: Also known as one-way, or fire-forgot mode. The message sent from the client to the service, and no need any reply from the service. The client doesn’t care about the message result at all. Request-Reply: Very common used pattern. The client send the request message to the service and wait until the reply message comes from the service. Duplex: The client sent message to the service, when the service processing the message it can callback to the client. When callback the service would be like a client while the client would be like a service. In WCF, each MEP represent some channels associated. MEP Channels Datagram IInputChannel, IOutputChannel Request-Reply IRequestChannel, IReplyChannel Duplex IDuplexChannel And the channels are created by ChannelListener on the server side, and ChannelFactory on the client side. The ChannelListener and ChannelFactory are created by the TransportBindingElement. The TransportBindingElement is created by the Binding, which can be defined as a new binding or from a custom binding. For more information about the transport channel mode, please refer to the MSDN document. The figure below shows the transport channel objects when using the request-reply MEP. And this is the datagram MEP. And this is the duplex MEP. After investigated the WCF transport architecture, channel mode and MEP, we finally identified what we should do to extend our message bus based transport layer. They are: Binding: (Optional) Defines the channel elements in the channel stack and added our transport binding element at the bottom of the stack. But we can use the build-in CustomBinding as well. TransportBindingElement: Defines which MEP is supported in our transport and create the related ChannelListener and ChannelFactory. This also defines the scheme of the endpoint if using this transport. ChannelListener: Create the server side channel based on the MEP it’s. We can have one ChannelListener to create channels for all supported MEPs, or we can have ChannelListener for each MEP. In this series I will use the second approach. ChannelFactory: Create the client side channel based on the MEP it’s. We can have one ChannelFactory to create channels for all supported MEPs, or we can have ChannelFactory for each MEP. In this series I will use the second approach. Channels: Based on the MEPs we want to support, we need to implement the channels accordingly. For example, if we want our transport support Request-Reply mode we should implement IRequestChannel and IReplyChannel. In this series I will implement all 3 MEPs listed above one by one. Scaffold: In order to make our transport extension works we also need to implement some scaffold stuff. For example we need some classes to send and receive message though out message bus. We also need some codes to read and write the WCF message, etc.. These are not necessary but would be very useful in our example. Message Bus There is only one thing remained before we can begin to implement our scaling-out support WCF transport, which is the message bus. As I mentioned above, the message bus must have some features to fulfill all the WCF MEPs. In my company we will be using TIBCO EMS, which is an enterprise message bus product. And I have said before we can use any message bus production if it’s satisfied with our requests. Here I would like to introduce an interface to separate the message bus from the WCF. This allows us to implement the bus operations by any kinds bus we are going to use. The interface would be like this. 1: public interface IBus : IDisposable 2: { 3: string SendRequest(string message, bool fromClient, string from, string to = null); 4: 5: void SendReply(string message, bool fromClient, string replyTo); 6: 7: BusMessage Receive(bool fromClient, string replyTo); 8: } There are only three methods for the bus interface. Let me explain one by one. The SendRequest method takes the responsible for sending the request message into the bus. The parameters description are: message: The WCF message content. fromClient: Indicates if this message was came from the client. from: The channel ID that this message was sent from. The channel ID will be generated when any kinds of channel was created, which will be explained in the following articles. to: The channel ID that this message should be received. In Request-Reply and Duplex MEP this is necessary since the reply message must be received by the channel which sent the related request message. The SendReply method takes the responsible for sending the reply message. It’s very similar as the previous one but no “from” parameter. This is because it’s no need to reply a reply message again in any MEPs. The Receive method takes the responsible for waiting for a incoming message, includes the request message and specified reply message. It returned a BusMessage object, which contains some information about the channel information. The code of the BusMessage class is 1: public class BusMessage 2: { 3: public string MessageID { get; private set; } 4: public string From { get; private set; } 5: public string ReplyTo { get; private set; } 6: public string Content { get; private set; } 7: 8: public BusMessage(string messageId, string fromChannelId, string replyToChannelId, string content) 9: { 10: MessageID = messageId; 11: From = fromChannelId; 12: ReplyTo = replyToChannelId; 13: Content = content; 14: } 15: } Now let’s implement a message bus based on the IBus interface. Since I don’t want you to buy and install the TIBCO EMS or any other message bus products, I will implement an in process memory bus. This bus is only for test and sample purpose. It can only be used if the service and client are in the same process. Very straightforward. 1: public class InProcMessageBus : IBus 2: { 3: private readonly ConcurrentDictionary<Guid, InProcMessageEntity> _queue; 4: private readonly object _lock; 5: 6: public InProcMessageBus() 7: { 8: _queue = new ConcurrentDictionary<Guid, InProcMessageEntity>(); 9: _lock = new object(); 10: } 11: 12: public string SendRequest(string message, bool fromClient, string from, string to = null) 13: { 14: var entity = new InProcMessageEntity(message, fromClient, from, to); 15: _queue.TryAdd(entity.ID, entity); 16: return entity.ID.ToString(); 17: } 18: 19: public void SendReply(string message, bool fromClient, string replyTo) 20: { 21: var entity = new InProcMessageEntity(message, fromClient, null, replyTo); 22: _queue.TryAdd(entity.ID, entity); 23: } 24: 25: public BusMessage Receive(bool fromClient, string replyTo) 26: { 27: InProcMessageEntity e = null; 28: while (true) 29: { 30: lock (_lock) 31: { 32: var entity = _queue 33: .Where(kvp => kvp.Value.FromClient == fromClient && (kvp.Value.To == replyTo || string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(kvp.Value.To))) 34: .FirstOrDefault(); 35: if (entity.Key != Guid.Empty && entity.Value != null) 36: { 37: _queue.TryRemove(entity.Key, out e); 38: } 39: } 40: if (e == null) 41: { 42: Thread.Sleep(100); 43: } 44: else 45: { 46: return new BusMessage(e.ID.ToString(), e.From, e.To, e.Content); 47: } 48: } 49: } 50: 51: public void Dispose() 52: { 53: } 54: } The InProcMessageBus stores the messages in the objects of InProcMessageEntity, which can take some extra information beside the WCF message itself. 1: public class InProcMessageEntity 2: { 3: public Guid ID { get; set; } 4: public string Content { get; set; } 5: public bool FromClient { get; set; } 6: public string From { get; set; } 7: public string To { get; set; } 8: 9: public InProcMessageEntity() 10: : this(string.Empty, false, string.Empty, string.Empty) 11: { 12: } 13: 14: public InProcMessageEntity(string content, bool fromClient, string from, string to) 15: { 16: ID = Guid.NewGuid(); 17: Content = content; 18: FromClient = fromClient; 19: From = from; 20: To = to; 21: } 22: } Summary OK, now I have all necessary stuff ready. The next step would be implementing our WCF message bus transport extension. In this post I described two scaling-out approaches on the service side especially if we are using the cloud platform: dispatcher mode and pulling mode. And I compared the Pros and Cons of them. Then I introduced the WCF channel stack, channel mode and the transport extension part, and identified what we should do to create our own WCF transport extension, to let our WCF services using pulling mode based on a message bus. And finally I provided some classes that need to be used in the future posts that working against an in process memory message bus, for the demonstration purpose only. In the next post I will begin to implement the transport extension step by step. Hope this helps, Shaun All documents and related graphics, codes are provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. Copyright © Shaun Ziyan Xu. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License.

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C#/.NET Little Wonders: The ConcurrentDictionary

- by James Michael Hare

Once again we consider some of the lesser known classes and keywords of C#. In this series of posts, we will discuss how the concurrent collections have been developed to help alleviate these multi-threading concerns. Last week’s post began with a general introduction and discussed the ConcurrentStack<T> and ConcurrentQueue<T>. Today's post discusses the ConcurrentDictionary<T> (originally I had intended to discuss ConcurrentBag this week as well, but ConcurrentDictionary had enough information to create a very full post on its own!). Finally next week, we shall close with a discussion of the ConcurrentBag<T> and BlockingCollection<T>. For more of the "Little Wonders" posts, see the index here. Recap As you'll recall from the previous post, the original collections were object-based containers that accomplished synchronization through a Synchronized member. While these were convenient because you didn't have to worry about writing your own synchronization logic, they were a bit too finely grained and if you needed to perform multiple operations under one lock, the automatic synchronization didn't buy much. With the advent of .NET 2.0, the original collections were succeeded by the generic collections which are fully type-safe, but eschew automatic synchronization. This cuts both ways in that you have a lot more control as a developer over when and how fine-grained you want to synchronize, but on the other hand if you just want simple synchronization it creates more work. With .NET 4.0, we get the best of both worlds in generic collections. A new breed of collections was born called the concurrent collections in the System.Collections.Concurrent namespace. These amazing collections are fine-tuned to have best overall performance for situations requiring concurrent access. They are not meant to replace the generic collections, but to simply be an alternative to creating your own locking mechanisms. Among those concurrent collections were the ConcurrentStack<T> and ConcurrentQueue<T> which provide classic LIFO and FIFO collections with a concurrent twist. As we saw, some of the traditional methods that required calls to be made in a certain order (like checking for not IsEmpty before calling Pop()) were replaced in favor of an umbrella operation that combined both under one lock (like TryPop()). Now, let's take a look at the next in our series of concurrent collections!For some excellent information on the performance of the concurrent collections and how they perform compared to a traditional brute-force locking strategy, see this wonderful whitepaper by the Microsoft Parallel Computing Platform team here. ConcurrentDictionary – the fully thread-safe dictionary The ConcurrentDictionary<TKey,TValue> is the thread-safe counterpart to the generic Dictionary<TKey, TValue> collection. Obviously, both are designed for quick – O(1) – lookups of data based on a key. If you think of algorithms where you need lightning fast lookups of data and don’t care whether the data is maintained in any particular ordering or not, the unsorted dictionaries are generally the best way to go. Note: as a side note, there are sorted implementations of IDictionary, namely SortedDictionary and SortedList which are stored as an ordered tree and a ordered list respectively. While these are not as fast as the non-sorted dictionaries – they are O(log2 n) – they are a great combination of both speed and ordering -- and still greatly outperform a linear search. Now, once again keep in mind that if all you need to do is load a collection once and then allow multi-threaded reading you do not need any locking. Examples of this tend to be situations where you load a lookup or translation table once at program start, then keep it in memory for read-only reference. In such cases locking is completely non-productive. However, most of the time when we need a concurrent dictionary we are interleaving both reads and updates. This is where the ConcurrentDictionary really shines! It achieves its thread-safety with no common lock to improve efficiency. It actually uses a series of locks to provide concurrent updates, and has lockless reads! This means that the ConcurrentDictionary gets even more efficient the higher the ratio of reads-to-writes you have. ConcurrentDictionary and Dictionary differences For the most part, the ConcurrentDictionary<TKey,TValue> behaves like it’s Dictionary<TKey,TValue> counterpart with a few differences. Some notable examples of which are: Add() does not exist in the concurrent dictionary. This means you must use TryAdd(), AddOrUpdate(), or GetOrAdd(). It also means that you can’t use a collection initializer with the concurrent dictionary. TryAdd() replaced Add() to attempt atomic, safe adds. Because Add() only succeeds if the item doesn’t already exist, we need an atomic operation to check if the item exists, and if not add it while still under an atomic lock. TryUpdate() was added to attempt atomic, safe updates. If we want to update an item, we must make sure it exists first and that the original value is what we expected it to be. If all these are true, we can update the item under one atomic step. TryRemove() was added to attempt atomic, safe removes. To safely attempt to remove a value we need to see if the key exists first, this checks for existence and removes under an atomic lock. AddOrUpdate() was added to attempt an thread-safe “upsert”. There are many times where you want to insert into a dictionary if the key doesn’t exist, or update the value if it does. This allows you to make a thread-safe add-or-update. GetOrAdd() was added to attempt an thread-safe query/insert. Sometimes, you want to query for whether an item exists in the cache, and if it doesn’t insert a starting value for it. This allows you to get the value if it exists and insert if not. Count, Keys, Values properties take a snapshot of the dictionary. Accessing these properties may interfere with add and update performance and should be used with caution. ToArray() returns a static snapshot of the dictionary. That is, the dictionary is locked, and then copied to an array as a O(n) operation. GetEnumerator() is thread-safe and efficient, but allows dirty reads. Because reads require no locking, you can safely iterate over the contents of the dictionary. The only downside is that, depending on timing, you may get dirty reads. Dirty reads during iteration The last point on GetEnumerator() bears some explanation. Picture a scenario in which you call GetEnumerator() (or iterate using a foreach, etc.) and then, during that iteration the dictionary gets updated. This may not sound like a big deal, but it can lead to inconsistent results if used incorrectly. The problem is that items you already iterated over that are updated a split second after don’t show the update, but items that you iterate over that were updated a split second before do show the update. Thus you may get a combination of items that are “stale” because you iterated before the update, and “fresh” because they were updated after GetEnumerator() but before the iteration reached them. Let’s illustrate with an example, let’s say you load up a concurrent dictionary like this: 1: // load up a dictionary. 2: var dictionary = new ConcurrentDictionary<string, int>(); 3: 4: dictionary["A"] = 1; 5: dictionary["B"] = 2; 6: dictionary["C"] = 3; 7: dictionary["D"] = 4; 8: dictionary["E"] = 5; 9: dictionary["F"] = 6; Then you have one task (using the wonderful TPL!) to iterate using dirty reads: 1: // attempt iteration in a separate thread 2: var iterationTask = new Task(() => 3: { 4: // iterates using a dirty read 5: foreach (var pair in dictionary) 6: { 7: Console.WriteLine(pair.Key + ":" + pair.Value); 8: } 9: }); And one task to attempt updates in a separate thread (probably): 1: // attempt updates in a separate thread 2: var updateTask = new Task(() => 3: { 4: // iterates, and updates the value by one 5: foreach (var pair in dictionary) 6: { 7: dictionary[pair.Key] = pair.Value + 1; 8: } 9: }); Now that we’ve done this, we can fire up both tasks and wait for them to complete: 1: // start both tasks 2: updateTask.Start(); 3: iterationTask.Start(); 4: 5: // wait for both to complete. 6: Task.WaitAll(updateTask, iterationTask); Now, if I you didn’t know about the dirty reads, you may have expected to see the iteration before the updates (such as A:1, B:2, C:3, D:4, E:5, F:6). However, because the reads are dirty, we will quite possibly get a combination of some updated, some original. My own run netted this result: 1: F:6 2: E:6 3: D:5 4: C:4 5: B:3 6: A:2 Note that, of course, iteration is not in order because ConcurrentDictionary, like Dictionary, is unordered. Also note that both E and F show the value 6. This is because the output task reached F before the update, but the updates for the rest of the items occurred before their output (probably because console output is very slow, comparatively). If we want to always guarantee that we will get a consistent snapshot to iterate over (that is, at the point we ask for it we see precisely what is in the dictionary and no subsequent updates during iteration), we should iterate over a call to ToArray() instead: 1: // attempt iteration in a separate thread 2: var iterationTask = new Task(() => 3: { 4: // iterates using a dirty read 5: foreach (var pair in dictionary.ToArray()) 6: { 7: Console.WriteLine(pair.Key + ":" + pair.Value); 8: } 9: }); The atomic Try…() methods As you can imagine TryAdd() and TryRemove() have few surprises. Both first check the existence of the item to determine if it can be added or removed based on whether or not the key currently exists in the dictionary: 1: // try add attempts an add and returns false if it already exists 2: if (dictionary.TryAdd("G", 7)) 3: Console.WriteLine("G did not exist, now inserted with 7"); 4: else 5: Console.WriteLine("G already existed, insert failed."); TryRemove() also has the virtue of returning the value portion of the removed entry matching the given key: 1: // attempt to remove the value, if it exists it is removed and the original is returned 2: int removedValue; 3: if (dictionary.TryRemove("C", out removedValue)) 4: Console.WriteLine("Removed C and its value was " + removedValue); 5: else 6: Console.WriteLine("C did not exist, remove failed."); Now TryUpdate() is an interesting creature. You might think from it’s name that TryUpdate() first checks for an item’s existence, and then updates if the item exists, otherwise it returns false. Well, note quite... It turns out when you call TryUpdate() on a concurrent dictionary, you pass it not only the new value you want it to have, but also the value you expected it to have before the update. If the item exists in the dictionary, and it has the value you expected, it will update it to the new value atomically and return true. If the item is not in the dictionary or does not have the value you expected, it is not modified and false is returned. 1: // attempt to update the value, if it exists and if it has the expected original value 2: if (dictionary.TryUpdate("G", 42, 7)) 3: Console.WriteLine("G existed and was 7, now it's 42."); 4: else 5: Console.WriteLine("G either didn't exist, or wasn't 7."); The composite Add methods The ConcurrentDictionary also has composite add methods that can be used to perform updates and gets, with an add if the item is not existing at the time of the update or get. The first of these, AddOrUpdate(), allows you to add a new item to the dictionary if it doesn’t exist, or update the existing item if it does. For example, let’s say you are creating a dictionary of counts of stock ticker symbols you’ve subscribed to from a market data feed: 1: public sealed class SubscriptionManager 2: { 3: private readonly ConcurrentDictionary<string, int> _subscriptions = new ConcurrentDictionary<string, int>(); 4: 5: // adds a new subscription, or increments the count of the existing one. 6: public void AddSubscription(string tickerKey) 7: { 8: // add a new subscription with count of 1, or update existing count by 1 if exists 9: var resultCount = _subscriptions.AddOrUpdate(tickerKey, 1, (symbol, count) => count + 1); 10: 11: // now check the result to see if we just incremented the count, or inserted first count 12: if (resultCount == 1) 13: { 14: // subscribe to symbol... 15: } 16: } 17: } Notice the update value factory Func delegate. If the key does not exist in the dictionary, the add value is used (in this case 1 representing the first subscription for this symbol), but if the key already exists, it passes the key and current value to the update delegate which computes the new value to be stored in the dictionary. The return result of this operation is the value used (in our case: 1 if added, existing value + 1 if updated). Likewise, the GetOrAdd() allows you to attempt to retrieve a value from the dictionary, and if the value does not currently exist in the dictionary it will insert a value. This can be handy in cases where perhaps you wish to cache data, and thus you would query the cache to see if the item exists, and if it doesn’t you would put the item into the cache for the first time: 1: public sealed class PriceCache 2: { 3: private readonly ConcurrentDictionary<string, double> _cache = new ConcurrentDictionary<string, double>(); 4: 5: // adds a new subscription, or increments the count of the existing one. 6: public double QueryPrice(string tickerKey) 7: { 8: // check for the price in the cache, if it doesn't exist it will call the delegate to create value. 9: return _cache.GetOrAdd(tickerKey, symbol => GetCurrentPrice(symbol)); 10: } 11: 12: private double GetCurrentPrice(string tickerKey) 13: { 14: // do code to calculate actual true price. 15: } 16: } There are other variations of these two methods which vary whether a value is provided or a factory delegate, but otherwise they work much the same. Oddities with the composite Add methods The AddOrUpdate() and GetOrAdd() methods are totally thread-safe, on this you may rely, but they are not atomic. It is important to note that the methods that use delegates execute those delegates outside of the lock. This was done intentionally so that a user delegate (of which the ConcurrentDictionary has no control of course) does not take too long and lock out other threads. This is not necessarily an issue, per se, but it is something you must consider in your design. The main thing to consider is that your delegate may get called to generate an item, but that item may not be the one returned! Consider this scenario: A calls GetOrAdd and sees that the key does not currently exist, so it calls the delegate. Now thread B also calls GetOrAdd and also sees that the key does not currently exist, and for whatever reason in this race condition it’s delegate completes first and it adds its new value to the dictionary. Now A is done and goes to get the lock, and now sees that the item now exists. In this case even though it called the delegate to create the item, it will pitch it because an item arrived between the time it attempted to create one and it attempted to add it. Let’s illustrate, assume this totally contrived example program which has a dictionary of char to int. And in this dictionary we want to store a char and it’s ordinal (that is, A = 1, B = 2, etc). So for our value generator, we will simply increment the previous value in a thread-safe way (perhaps using Interlocked): 1: public static class Program 2: { 3: private static int _nextNumber = 0; 4: 5: // the holder of the char to ordinal 6: private static ConcurrentDictionary<char, int> _dictionary 7: = new ConcurrentDictionary<char, int>(); 8: 9: // get the next id value 10: public static int NextId 11: { 12: get { return Interlocked.Increment(ref _nextNumber); } 13: } Then, we add a method that will perform our insert: 1: public static void Inserter() 2: { 3: for (int i = 0; i < 26; i++) 4: { 5: _dictionary.GetOrAdd((char)('A' + i), key => NextId); 6: } 7: } Finally, we run our test by starting two tasks to do this work and get the results… 1: public static void Main() 2: { 3: // 3 tasks attempting to get/insert 4: var tasks = new List<Task> 5: { 6: new Task(Inserter), 7: new Task(Inserter) 8: }; 9: 10: tasks.ForEach(t => t.Start()); 11: Task.WaitAll(tasks.ToArray()); 12: 13: foreach (var pair in _dictionary.OrderBy(p => p.Key)) 14: { 15: Console.WriteLine(pair.Key + ":" + pair.Value); 16: } 17: } If you run this with only one task, you get the expected A:1, B:2, ..., Z:26. But running this in parallel you will get something a bit more complex. My run netted these results: 1: A:1 2: B:3 3: C:4 4: D:5 5: E:6 6: F:7 7: G:8 8: H:9 9: I:10 10: J:11 11: K:12 12: L:13 13: M:14 14: N:15 15: O:16 16: P:17 17: Q:18 18: R:19 19: S:20 20: T:21 21: U:22 22: V:23 23: W:24 24: X:25 25: Y:26 26: Z:27 Notice that B is 3? This is most likely because both threads attempted to call GetOrAdd() at roughly the same time and both saw that B did not exist, thus they both called the generator and one thread got back 2 and the other got back 3. However, only one of those threads can get the lock at a time for the actual insert, and thus the one that generated the 3 won and the 3 was inserted and the 2 got discarded. This is why on these methods your factory delegates should be careful not to have any logic that would be unsafe if the value they generate will be pitched in favor of another item generated at roughly the same time. As such, it is probably a good idea to keep those generators as stateless as possible. Summary The ConcurrentDictionary is a very efficient and thread-safe version of the Dictionary generic collection. It has all the benefits of type-safety that it’s generic collection counterpart does, and in addition is extremely efficient especially when there are more reads than writes concurrently. Tweet Technorati Tags: C#, .NET, Concurrent Collections, Collections, Little Wonders, Black Rabbit Coder,James Michael Hare

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CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, October 29, 2011

CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, October 29, 2011Popular Releasespatterns & practices: Enterprise Library Contrib: Enterprise Library Contrib - 5.0 (Oct 2011): This release of Enterprise Library Contrib is based on the Microsoft patterns & practices Enterprise Library 5.0 core and contains the following: Common extensionsTypeConfigurationElement<T> - A Polymorphic Configuration Element without having to be part of a PolymorphicConfigurationElementCollection. AnonymousConfigurationElement - A Configuration element that can be uniquely identified without having to define its name explicitly. Data Access Application Block extensionsMySql Provider - ...Network Monitor Open Source Parsers: Network Monitor Parsers 3.4.2748: The Network Monitor Parsers packages contain parsers for more than 400 network protocols, including RFC based public protocols and protocols for Microsoft products defined in the Microsoft Open Specifications for Windows and SQL Server. NetworkMonitor_Parsers.msi is the base parser package which defines parsers for commonly used public protocols and protocols for Microsoft Windows. In this release, NetowrkMonitor_Parsers.msi continues to improve quality and fix bugs. It has included the fo...Duckworth Lewis Professional Edition Calculator: DLcalc 3.0: DLcalc 3.0 can perform Duckworth/Lewis Professional Edition calculations 100% accurately. It also produces over-by-over and ball-by-ball PAR score tables.Folder Bookmarks: Folder Bookmarks 2.2.0.1: In this version: Custom Icons - now you can change the icons of the bookmarks. By default, whenever an image is added, the icon is automatically changed to a thumbnail of the picture. This can be turned off in the settings (Options... > Settings) Ability to remove items from the 'Recent' category Bugfixes - 'Choose' button in 'Edit Bookmark' now works Another bug fix: another problem in the 'Edit Bookmark' windowMedia Companion: MC 3.420b Weekly: Ensure .NET 4.0 Full Framework is installed. (Available from http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=17718) Ensure the NFO ID fix is applied when transitioning from versions prior to 3.416b. (Details here) Movies Fixed: Fanart and poster scraping issues TV Shows (Re)Added: Rebuild single show Fixed: Issue when shows are moved from original location Ability to handle " for actor nicknames Crash when episode name contains "<" (does not scrape yet) Clears fanart when switch...patterns & practices - Unity: Unity 3.0 for .NET4.5 Preview: The Unity 3.0.1026.0 Preview enables Unity to work on .NET 4.5 with both the WinRT and desktop profiles. The major changes include: Unity projects updated to target .NET 4.5. Dynamic build plans modified to use compiled lambda expressions instead of Reflection.Emit Converting reflection to use the new TypeInfo for reflection. Projects updated to work with the Microsoft Visual Studio 2011 Preview Notes/Known Issues: The Microsoft.Practices.Unity.UnityServiceLocator class cannot be use...Managed Extensibility Framework: MEF 2 Preview 4: Detailed information on this release is available on the BCL team blog.Image Converter: Image Converter 0.3: New Features: - English and German support Technical Improvements: - Microsoft All Rules using Code Analysis Planned Features for future release: 1. Unit testing 2. Command line interface 3. Automatic UpdatesAcDown????? - Anime&Comic Downloader: AcDown????? v3.6: ?? ● AcDown??????????、??????，??????????????????????，???????Acfun、Bilibili、???、???、???、Tucao.cc、SF???、?????80????，???????????、?????????。 ● AcDown???????????????????????????，???，???????????????????。 ● AcDown???????C#??，????.NET Framework 2.0??。?????"Acfun?????"。 ????32??64? Windows XP/Vista/7 ????????????? ??：????????Windows XP???,?????????.NET Framework 2.0???(x86)?.NET Framework 2.0???(x64)，?????"?????????"??? ??????????????，??????????： ??"AcDown?????"????????? ?? v3.6?? ??“????”...DotNetNuke® Events: 05.02.01: This release fixes any know bugs from any previous version. Events 05.02.01 will work for any DNN version 5.5.0 and up. Full details on the changes can be found at http://dnnevents.codeplex.com/workitem/list/basic Please review and rate this release... (stars are welcome)BUG FIXESAdded validation around category cookie RSS feed was missing an explicit close of the file when writing. Fixed. Added extra security into detail view .ICS Files did not include correct line folding. Fixed Cha...Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.33: Add JSParser.ParseExpression method to parse JavaScript expressions rather than source-elements. Add -strict switch (CodeSettings.StrictMode) to force input code to ECMA5 Strict-mode (extra error-checking, "use strict" at top). Fixed bug when MinifyCode setting was set to false but RemoveUnneededCode was left it's default value of true.Path Copy Copy: 8.0: New version that mostly adds lots of requested features: 11340 11339 11338 11337 This version also features a more elaborate Settings UI that has several tabs. I tried to add some notes to better explain the use and purpose of the various options. The Path Copy Copy documentation is also on the way, both to explain how to develop custom plugins and to explain how to pre-configure options if you're a network admin. Stay tuned.MVC Controls Toolkit: Mvc Controls Toolkit 1.5.0: Added: The new Client Blocks feaure of Views A new "move" js method for the TreeViews The NewHtmlCreated js event to the DataGrid Improved the ChoiceList structure that now allows also the selection list of a dropdown to be chosen with a lambda expression Improved the AcceptViewHintAttribute controller filter. Now a client can specify not only the name of a View or Partial View it prefers, but also to receive just the rough data in Json format. Fixed: Issue with partial thrust Cl...Free SharePoint Master Pages: Buried Alive (Halloween) Theme: Release Notes *Created for Halloween, you will find theme file, custom css file and images. *Created by Al Roome @AlstarRoome Features: Custom styling for web part Custom background *Screenshot https://s3.amazonaws.com/kkhipple/post/sharepoint-showcase-halloween.pngDevForce Application Framework: DevForce AF 2.0.3 RTW: PrerequisitesWPF 4.0 Silverlight 4.0 DevForce 2010 6.1.3.1 Download ContentsDebug and Release Assemblies API Documentation Source code License.txt Requirements.txt Release HighlightsNew: EventAggregator event forwarding New: EntityManagerInterceptor<T> to intercept EntityManger events New: IHarnessAware to allow for ViewModel setup when executed inside of the Development Harness New: Improved design time stability New: Support for add-in development New: CoroutineFns.To...NicAudio: NicAudio 2.0.5: Minor change to accept special DTS stereo modes (LtRt, AB,...)NDepend TFS 2010 integration: version 0.5.0 beta 1: Only the activity and the VS plugin are avalaible right now. They basically work. Data types that are logged into tfs reports are subject to change. This is no big deal since data is not yet sent into the warehouse.Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone: Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone v1.3.1: Upgraded Windows Azure projects to Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 1.5 – September 2011 Upgraded the tools tools to support the Windows Phone Developer Tools RTW Update SQL Azure only scenarios to use ASP.NET Universal Providers (through the System.Web.Providers v1.0.1 NuGet package) Changed Shared Access Signature service interface to support more operations Refactored Blobs API to have a similar interface and usage to that provided by the Windows Azure SDK Stor...DotNetNuke® FAQ: 05.00.00: FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) 05.00.00 will work for any DNN version 5.6.1 and up. It is the first version which is rewritten in C#. The scope of this update is to fix all known issues and improve user interface. Please review and rate this release... (stars are welcome)BUG FIXESManage Categories button text was not localized Edit/Add FAQ Entry: button text was not localized ENHANCEMENTSAdded an option to select the control for category display: Listbox with checkboxes (flat category ...SiteMap Editor for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011: SiteMap Editor (1.0.921.340): Added CodePlex and PayPal links New iconNew ProjectsAsynk: Asynk is a framework/application that allows existing applications to easily be extended with an offloaded asynchronous worker layer. Asynk is developed using C#.Blob Tower Defense: 3D tower defense game for Windows Phone 7. School project for Brno University of Technology, computer graphics class.Booz: Booz is... An extended version of the boo shell (booish2 to be precise). Offers additional commands like cd, md, ls etc. I hope this shell can be used to take the position of/surpass the native windows shell in the near future.CIMS: a sanction infomation system for sencience and technology of hustCrystalDot - Icon Collection / Pack (LGPL): .Net / Mono freundliche Varainte der Crystal-Icons von Everaldo Icon collection / pack for .NET and Mono designed by Everaldo - KDE style http://www.everaldo.com/crystal/dotetes: dotetes adalah teka teki silang tool dikembangkan dengan bahasa c#Emoe': This Project is a Windows Phone 7.1 application.Equation Inversion: Visual Studion 2008 Add-in for equation inversions.Exploring VMR Features on WEC7: This is the sample application helps you to do alpha blending the bitmap on camera streaming in Windows Embedded Compact 7 using Directshow video Renderer (VMR). It is a VS2008 based smart device project developed on C++. I have explained the sample application in the following blog link. http://www.e-consystems.com/blog/windowsce/?p=759 EzValidation: Custom validation extensions for ASP.NET MVC 3. Includes server and client side model based validation attributes for: -- Equal To -- Not Equal To -- Greater Than -- Greater Than or Equal To -- Less Than -- Less Than or Equal To Supports validating against: -- Another Model Field -- A Specific Value -- Current Date/Yesterday/Tomorrow (for Dates and Strings) Download & Install via NuGet "package-install ezvalidation"Flu.net: Flu.net is a tool that helps you creating your own fluent syntax for .NET Framework applications in a declarative fashion. It is aimed for infrastructures and other open-source projects use.For Chess Endgames: King vs. King Opposition Calculator: You must input the locations of 2 kings on a chessboard, and whose turn it is to move. The calculator will display which king has the opposition, and how it can be used or maintained.GameTrakXNA: This project aims to create a simple library to use the unique GameTrak controller within XNA and Flash.Google Speech Recognition Example: Google Speech Recognition contains a working example of application that uses google speech recognition API. App contains all necessary dlls to record, decode and send your voice request to google service and recieve a text representation of what you've said. It's developed in C#Interval Mandelbrot Explorer: Explore the Mandelbrot set using interval arithmetic.ISD training tasks: ISD training examples and tasksiTunesControlBar: The iTunesControlBar helps user control their iTunes Application while it is minimized. iTunesControlBar resides at the top of the screen, invisible when not used, and allows playback and volume control, library searches and media information without the need to bring up iTunes.iTurtle: A bunch of Powerscripts to automate server management in AD environment.M26WC - Mono 2.6 Wizard Control: Wizard which runs under Mono2.6 A fork of: http://aerowizard.codeplex.com/Microsoft Help Viewer 2: Help Viewer 2 is the help runtime for both Visual Studio 11 help and Windows 8 help. The code in this project will help you use and understand the HV2 runtime API.MONTRASEC: Monitoring Trafficking in human beings and Sexual Exploitation of Children: benchmarking for member state and EU reporting, turning the SIAMSECT templates into a user-friendly interface and reporting tool. MTF.NET Runtime: Managed Task Framework .NET Runtime The MTF.NET runtime software and resulting assemblies are required to run applications built using the Managed Task Framework.NET Professional (Visual Studio 2010 extension) software design editor. The MTF.NET team are committed to continuously improving the core MTF.NET runtime and ensuring it is always available free and fully transparent. Pandoras Box: A greenfield inversion of control project utilising the power and flexibility of expressions and preferring convention over configuration.Pass the Puzzle: Pass the Puzzle is a frantic word-guessing party game. The game displays a few letters, and the players must come up with words containing those letters. But beware: if the timer goes off, you lose! It is based on the folk party game Pass the Parcel and is written in C#.PerCiGal: Percigal is a project for the development of applications for managing your personal media library. It consists in - a windows application to use at home to catalog movies, TV series, cast and books, with the support of the Internet for information retrieval; - a web interface for viewing and cataloging everywhere your media; - an application for smartphones. Project Flying Carpet: Este jogo é um projeto para a cadeira Projeto de Jogos: Motores Jogos do curso de Jogos Digitais da Unisinos.proxy browser: sed leo Latin's Butterfly....Python Multiple Dispatch: Multiple dispatch (AKA multimethods) for Python 3 via a metaclass and type annotations.reDune: ?????????? ???? ? ????? «????????? ? ???????? ???????». ???????? ?? Dune2000 ?? Westwood ? Electronic Arts.Rereadable: Keep page from internet for read it latter.ServStop: ServStop is a .NET application that makes it easy to stop several system services at once. Now you don't have to change startup types or stop them one at a time. It has a simple list-based interface with the ability to save and load lists of user services to stop. Written in C#.SharePoint 2010 Audience Membership Workflow Activity (Full Trust): A simple SharePoint 2010 workflow activity / workflow condition to check whether the user initiating the workflow is a member of a specified audience. Farm-level .wsp solution, written in C#. Once installed, the workflow activity can be used in SharePoint Designer 2010 declarative workflows.SQL Server® to Firebird DB converter: Converts Microsoft SQL Server® database into Firebird database including entire structure and datastegitest: test projectSystem.Threading.Joins: The Joins project provides asynchronous concurrency semantics based on join calculus and modeled after the Microsoft Research C? (C Omega) project.TestAndroidGame: try dev a TestAndroidGametetribricks: block game Topographic Explorer: A project to import, convert, explore, manipulate, and save topographical maps. Looking to use C# and WPF.Trading: Under construction!!!Trombone: Trombone makes it easier for Windows Mobile Professional users to automate status reply through SMS. It's developed in Visual C# 2008.Tulsa SharePoint Interest Group: Repository for source code for the Tulsa SharePoint Interest Group's web site. The Tulsa SharePoint Interest Group is using the Community Kit for SharePoint. This project will house any modifications that are specific to our user group.World of Tanks RU tiny stats collection utilty.: Tiny utility to load players stats for World of Tanks RU server. Results saved to comma separated file.WS-Discovery Proxy: Attempt at creating general purpose WS-Discovery Proxy.Yamaha Tu?n Tr?c: This application is used to manage information for Yamaha Tu?n Tr?c

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Cluster Node Recovery Using Second Node in Solaris Cluster

- by Onur Bingul

Assumptions:Node 0a is the cluster node that has crashed and could not boot anymore.Node 0b is the node in cluster and in production with services active.Both nodes have their boot disk mirrored via SDS/SVM.We have many options to clone the boot disk from node 0b:- make a copy via network using the ufsdump command and pipe to ufsrestore - make a copy inserting the disk locally on node 0b and creating the third mirror with SDS- make a copy inserting the disk locally on node 0b using dd commandIn this procedure we are going to use dd command (from my experience this is the best option).Bare in mind that in the examples provided we work on Sun Fire V240 systems which have SCSI internal disks. In the case of Fibre Channel (FC) internal disks you must pay attention to the unique identifier, or World Wide Name (WWN), associated with each FC disk (in this case take a look at infodoc #40133 in order to recreate the device tree correctly).Procedure:On node 0b the boot disk is c1t0d0 (c1t1d0 mirror) and this is the VTOC:* Partition Tag Flags Sector Count Sector Mount Directory 0 2 00 0 2106432 2106431 1 3 01 2106432 74630784 76737215 2 5 00 0 143349312 143349311 4 7 00 76737216 50340672 127077887 5 4 00 127077888 14683968 141761855 6 0 00 141761856 1058304 142820159 7 0 00 142820160 529152 143349311We will insert the new disk on node 0b and it will be seen as c1t2d0.1) On node 0b we make a copy via dd from disk c1t0d0s2 to disk c1t2d0s2# dd if=/dev/rdsk/c1t0d0s2 of=/dev/rdsk/c1t2d0s2 bs=8192kA copy of a 72GB disk will take approximately about 45 minutes.Note: as an alternative to make identical copy of root over network follow Document ID: 47498Title: Sun[TM] Cluster 3.0: How to Rebuild a node with Veritas Volume Manager2) Perform an fsck on disk c1t2d0 data slices: 1. fsck -o f /dev/rdsk/c1t2d0s0 (root) 2. fsck -o f /dev/rdsk/c1t2d0s4 (/var) 3. fsck -o f /dev/rdsk/c1t2d0s5 (/usr) 4. fsck -o f /dev/rdsk/c1t2d0s6 (/globaldevices)3) Mount the root file system in order to edit following files for changing the node name:# mount /dev/dsk/c1t2d0s0 /mntChange the hostname from 0b to 0a:# cd /mnt/etc# vi hosts # vi hostname.bge0 # vi hostname.bge2 # vi nodename 4) Change the /mnt/etc/vfstab from the actual:/dev/md/dsk/d201 - - swap - no -/dev/md/dsk/d200 /dev/md/rdsk/d200 / ufs 1 no -/dev/md/dsk/d205 /dev/md/rdsk/d205 /usr ufs 1 no logging/dev/md/dsk/d204 /dev/md/rdsk/d204 /var ufs 1 no logging#/dev/md/dsk/d206 /dev/md/rdsk/d206 /globaldevices ufs 2 yes loggingswap - /tmp tmpfs - yes -/dev/md/dsk/d206 /dev/md/rdsk/d206 /global/.devices/node@2 ufs 2 noglobalto this (unencapsulate disk from SDS/SVM):/dev/dsk/c1t0d0s1 - - swap - no -/dev/dsk/c1t0d0s0 /dev/rdsk/c1t0d0s0 / ufs 1 no -/dev/dsk/c1t0d0s5 /dev/rdsk/c1t0d0s5 /usr ufs 1 no logging/dev/dsk/c1t0d0s4 /dev/rdsk/c1t0d0s4 /var ufs 1 no logging#/dev/md/dsk/d206 /dev/md/rdsk/d206 /globaldevices ufs 2 yes loggingswap - /tmp tmpfs - yes -/dev/dsk/c1t0d0s6 /dev/rdsk/c1t0d0s6 /global/.devices/node@1 ufs 2 no globalIt is important that global device partition (slice 6) in the new vfstab will point to the physical partition of the disk (in our case slice 6).Be careful with the name you use for the new disk. In this case we define it as c1t0d0 because we will insert it as target 0 in node 0a.But this could be different based on the configuration you are working on.5) Remove following entry from /mnt/etc/system (part of unencapsulation procedure):rootdev:/pseudo/md@0:0,200,blk6) Correct the link shared -> ../../global/.devices/node@2/dev/md/shared in order to point to the nodeid of node 0a (in our case nodeid 1):# cd /mnt/dev/mdhow it is now.... node 0b has nodeid 2lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 42 Mar 10 2005 shared ->../../global/.devices/node@2/dev/md/shared# rm shared# ln -s ../../global/.devices/node@1/dev/md/shared sharedhow is going to be... with nodeid 1 for node 0alrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 42 Mar 10 2005 shared ->../../global/.devices/node@1/dev/md/shared7) Change nodeid (in our case from 2 to 1):# cd /mnt/etc/cluster# vi nodeid8) Change the file /mnt/etc/path_to_inst in order to reflect the correct nodeid for node 0a:# cd /mnt/etc# vi path_to_instChange entries from node@2 to node@1 with the vi command ":%s/node@2/node@1/g"9) Write the bootblock to the disk... just in case:# /usr/sbin/installboot /usr/platform/sun4u/lib/fs/ufs/bootblk /dev/rdsk/c1t2d0s0Now the disk is ready to be inserted in node 0a in order to bootup the node.10) Bootup node 0a with command "boot -sx"... this is becasue we need to make some changes in ccr files in order to recreate did environment.11) Modify cluster ccr:# cd /etc/cluster/ccr# rm did_instances# rm did_instances.bak# vi directory - remove the did_instances line.# /usr/cluster/lib/sc/ccradm -i /etc/cluster/ccr/directory # grep ccr_gennum /etc/cluster/ccr/directory ccr_gennum -1 # /usr/cluster/lib/sc/ccradm -i /etc/cluster/ccr/infrastructure # grep ccr_gennum /etc/cluster/ccr/infrastructure ccr_gennum -112) Bring the node 0a down again to the ok prompt and then issue the command "boot -r"Now the node will join the cluster and from scstat and metaset command you can verify functionality. Next step is to encapsulate the boot disk in SDS/SVM and create the mirrors.In our case node 0b has metadevice name starting from d200. For this reason on node 0a we need to create metadevice starting from d100. This is just an example, you can have different names.The important thing to remember is that metadevice boot disks have different names on each node.13) Remove metadevice pointing to the boot and mirror disks (inherit from node 0b):# metaclear -r -f d200# metaclear -r -f d201# metaclear -r -f d204# metaclear -r -f d205# metaclear -r -f d206verify from metastat that no metadevices are set for boot and mirror disks.14) Encapsulate the boot disk:# metainit -f d110 1 1 c1t0d0s0# metainit d100 -m d110# metaroot d10015) Reboot node 0a.16) Create all the metadevice for slices remaining on boot disk# metainit -f d111 1 1 c1t0d0s1# metainit d101 -m d111# metainit -f d114 1 1 c1t0d0s4# metainit d104 -m d114# metainit -f d115 1 1 c1t0d0s5# metainit d105 -m d115# metainit -f d116 1 1 c1t0d0s6# metainit d106 -m d11617) Edit the vfstab in order to specifiy metadevices created:old:/dev/dsk/c1t0d0s1 - - swap - no -/dev/md/dsk/d100 /dev/md/rdsk/d100 / ufs 1 no -/dev/dsk/c1t0d0s5 /dev/rdsk/c1t0d0s5 /usr ufs 1 no logging/dev/dsk/c1t0d0s4 /dev/rdsk/c1t0d0s4 /var ufs 1 no logging#/dev/md/dsk/d206 /dev/md/rdsk/d206 /globaldevices ufs 2 yes loggingswap - /tmp tmpfs - yes -/dev/dsk/c1t0d0s6 /dev/rdsk/c1t0d0s6 /global/.devices/node@1 ufs 2 no globalnew:/dev/md/dsk/d101 - - swap - no -/dev/md/dsk/d100 /dev/md/rdsk/d100 / ufs 1 no -/dev/md/dsk/d105 /dev/md/rdsk/d105 /usr ufs 1 no logging/dev/md/dsk/d104 /dev/md/rdsk/d104 /var ufs 1 no logging#/dev/md/dsk/106 /dev/md/rdsk/d106 /globaldevices ufs 2 yes loggingswap - /tmp tmpfs - yes -/dev/md/dsk/d106 /dev/md/rdsk/d106 /global/.devices/node@1 ufs 2 noglobal18) Reboot node 0a in order to check new SDS/SVM boot configuration.19) Label the mirror disk c1t1d0 with the VTOC of boot disk c1t0d0:# prtvtoc /dev/dsk/c1t0d0s2 > /var/tmp/VTOC_c1t0d0 # fmthard -s /var/tmp/VTOC_c1t0d0 /dev/rdsk/c1t1d0s220) Put DB replica on slice 7 of disk c1t1d0:# metadb -a -c 3 /dev/dsk/c1t1d0s721) Create metadevice for mirror disk c1t1d0 and attach the new mirror side:# metainit d120 1 1 c1t1d0s0# metattach d100 d120# metainit d121 1 1 c1t1d0s1# metattach d101 d121# metainit d124 1 1 c1t1d0s4# metattach d104 d124# metainit d125 1 1 c1t1d0s5# metattach d105 d125# metainit d126 1 1 c1t1d0s6# metattach d106 d126

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iPhone SDK vs. Windows Phone 7 Series SDK Challenge, Part 2: MoveMe

In this series, I will be taking sample applications from the iPhone SDK and implementing them on Windows Phone 7 Series. My goal is to do as much of an apples-to-apples comparison as I can. This series will be written to not only compare and contrast how easy or difficult it is to complete tasks on either platform, how many lines of code, etc., but Id also like it to be a way for iPhone developers to either get started on Windows Phone 7 Series development, or for developers in general to learn the platform. Heres my methodology: Run the iPhone SDK app in the iPhone Simulator to get a feel for what it does and how it works, without looking at the implementation Implement the equivalent functionality on Windows Phone 7 Series using Silverlight. Compare the two implementations based on complexity, functionality, lines of code, number of files, etc. Add some functionality to the Windows Phone 7 Series app that shows off a way to make the scenario more interesting or leverages an aspect of the platform, or uses a better design pattern to implement the functionality. You can download Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone CTP here, and the Expression Blend 4 Beta here. If youre seeing this series for the first time, check out Part 1: Hello World. A note on methodologyin the prior post there was some feedback about lines of code not being a very good metric for this exercise. I dont really disagree, theres a lot more to this than lines of code but I believe that is a relevant metric, even if its not the ultimate one. And theres no perfect answer here. So I am going to continue to report the number of lines of code that I, as a developer would need to write in these apps as a data point, and Ill leave it up to the reader to determine how that fits in with overall complexity, etc. The first example was so basic that I think it was difficult to talk about in real terms. I think that as these apps get more complex, the subjective differences in concept count and will be more important. MoveMe The MoveMe app is the main end-to-end app writing example in the iPhone SDK, called Creating an iPhone Application. This application demonstrates a few concepts, including handling touch input, how to do animations, and how to do some basic transforms. The behavior of the application is pretty simple. User touches the button: The button does a throb type animation where it scales up and then back down briefly. User drags the button: After a touch begins, moving the touch point will drag the button around with the touch. User lets go of the button: The button animates back to its original position, but does a few small bounces as it reaches its original point, which makes the app fun and gives it an extra bit of interactivity. Now, how would I write an app that meets this spec for Windows Phone 7 Series, and how hard would it be? Lets find out! Implementing the UI Okay, lets build the UI for this application. In the HelloWorld example, we did all the UI design in Visual Studio and/or by hand in XAML. In this example, were going to use the Expression Blend 4 Beta. You might be wondering when to use Visual Studio, when to use Blend, and when to do XAML by hand. Different people will have different takes on this, but heres mine: XAML by hand simple UI that doesnt contain animations, gradients, etc., and or UI that I want to really optimize and craft when I know exactly what I want to do. Visual Studio Basic UI layout, property setting, data binding, etc. Blend Any serious design work needs to be done in Blend, including animations, handling states and transitions, styling and templating, editing resources. As in Part 1, go ahead and fire up Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone (yes, soon it will take longer to say the name of our products than to start them up!), and create a new Windows Phone Application. As in Part 1, clear out the XAML from the designer. An easy way to do this is to just: Click on the design surface Hit Control+A Hit Delete Theres a little bit left over (the Grid.RowDefinitions element), just go ahead and delete that element so were starting with a clean state of only one outer Grid element. To use Blend, we need to save this project. See, when you create a project with Visual Studio Express, it doesnt commit it to the disk (well, in a place where you can find it, at least) until you actually save the project. This is handy if youre doing some fooling around, because it doesnt clutter your disk with WindowsPhoneApplication23-like directories. But its also kind of dangerous, since when you close VS, if you dont save the projectits all gone. Yes, this has bitten me since I was saving files and didnt remember that, so be careful to save the project/solution via Save All, at least once. So, save and note the location on disk. Start Expression Blend 4 Beta, and chose File > Open Project/Solution, and load your project. You should see just about the same thing you saw over in VS: a blank, black designer surface. Now, thinking about this application, we dont really need a button, even though it looks like one. We never click it. So were just going to create a visual and use that. This is also true in the iPhone example above, where the visual is actually not a button either but a jpg image with a nice gradient and round edges. Well do something simple here that looks pretty good. In Blend, look in the tool pane on the left for the icon that looks like the below (the highlighted one on the left), and hold it down to get the popout menu, and choose Border: Okay, now draw out a box in the middle of the design surface of about 300x100. The Properties Pane to the left should show the properties for this item. First, lets make it more visible by giving it a border brush. Set the BorderBrush to white by clicking BorderBrush and dragging the color selector all the way to the upper right in the palette. Then, down a bit farther, make the BorderThickness 4 all the way around, and the CornerRadius set to 6. In the Layout section, do the following to Width, Height, Horizontal and Vertical Alignment, and Margin (all 4 margin values): Youll see the outline now is in the middle of the design surface. Now lets give it a background color. Above BorderBrush select Background, and click the third tab over: Gradient Brush. Youll see a gradient slider at the bottom, and if you click the markers, you can edit the gradient stops individually (or add more). In this case, you can select something you like, but wheres what I chose: Left stop: #BFACCFE2 (I just picked a spot on the palette and set opacity to 75%, no magic here, feel free to fiddle these or just enter these numbers into the hex area and be done with it) Right stop: #FF3E738F Okay, looks pretty good. Finally set the name of the element in the Name field at the top of the Properties pane to welcome. Now lets add some text. Just hit T and itll select the TextBlock tool automatically: Now draw out some are inside our welcome visual and type Welcome!, then click on the design surface (to exit text entry mode) and hit V to go back into selection mode (or the top item in the tool pane that looks like a mouse pointer). Click on the text again to select it in the tool pane. Just like the border, we want to center this. So set HorizontalAlignment and VerticalAlignment to Center, and clear the Margins: Thats it for the UI. Heres how it looks, on the design surface: Not bad! Okay, now the fun part Adding Animations Using Blend to build animations is a lot of fun, and its easy. In XAML, I can not only declare elements and visuals, but also I can declare animations that will affect those visuals. These are called Storyboards. To recap, well be doing two animations: The throb animation when the element is touched The center animation when the element is released after being dragged. The throb animation is just a scale transform, so well do that first. In the Objects and Timeline Pane (left side, bottom half), click the little + icon to add a new Storyboard called touchStoryboard: The timeline view will appear. In there, click a bit to the right of 0 to create a keyframe at .2 seconds: Now, click on our welcome element (the Border, not the TextBlock in it), and scroll to the bottom of the Properties Pane. Open up Transform, click the third tab ("Scale), and set X and Y to 1.2: This all of this says that, at .2 seconds, I want the X and Y size of this element to scale to 1.2. In fact you can see this happen. Push the Play arrow in the timeline view, and youll see the animation run! Lets make two tweaks. First, we want the animation to automatically reverse so it scales up then back down nicely. Click in the dropdown that says touchStoryboard in Objects and Timeline, then in the Properties pane check Auto Reverse: Now run it again, and youll see it go both ways. Lets even make it nicer by adding an easing function. First, click on the Render Transform item in the Objects tree, then, in the Property Pane, youll see a bunch of easing functions to choose from. Feel free to play with this, then seeing how each runs. I chose Circle In, but some other ones are fun. Try them out! Elastic In is kind of fun, but well stick with Circle In. Thats it for that animation. Now, we also want an animation to move the Border back to its original position when the user ends the touch gesture. This is exactly the same process as above, but just targeting a different transform property. Create a new animation called releaseStoryboard Select a timeline point at 1.2 seconds. Click on the welcome Border element again Scroll to the Transforms panel at the bottom of the Properties Pane Choose the first tab (Translate), which may already be selected Set both X and Y values to 0.0 (we do this just to make the values stick, because the value is already 0 and we need Blend to know we want to save that value) Click on RenderTransform in the Objects tree In the properties pane, choose Bounce Out Set Bounces to 6, and Bounciness to 4 (feel free to play with these as well) Okay, were done. Note, if you want to test this Storyboard, you have to do something a little tricky because the final value is the same as the initial value, so playing it does nothing. If you want to play with it, do the following: Next to the selection dropdown, hit the little "x (Close Storyboard) Go to the Translate Transform value for welcome Set X,Y to 50, 200, respectively (or whatever) Select releaseStoryboard again from the dropdown Hit play, see it run Go into the object tree and select RenderTransform to change the easing function. When youre done, hit the Close Storyboard x again and set the values in Transform/Translate back to 0 Wiring Up the Animations Okay, now go back to Visual Studio. Youll get a prompt due to the modification of MainPage.xaml. Hit Yes. In the designer, click on the welcome Border element. In the Property Browser, hit the Events button, then double click each of ManipulationStarted, ManipulationDelta, ManipulationCompleted. Youll need to flip back to the designer from code, after each double click. Its code time. Here we go. Here, three event handlers have been created for us: welcome_ManipulationStarted: This will execute when a manipulation begins. Think of it as MouseDown. welcome_ManipulationDelta: This executes each time a manipulation changes. Think MouseMove. welcome_ManipulationCompleted: This will execute when the manipulation ends. Think MouseUp. Now, in ManipuliationStarted, we want to kick off the throb animation that we called touchAnimation. Thats easy: 1: private void welcome_ManipulationStarted(object sender, ManipulationStartedEventArgs e) 2: { 3: touchStoryboard.Begin(); 4: } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } Likewise, when the manipulation completes, we want to re-center the welcome visual with our bounce animation: 1: private void welcome_ManipulationCompleted(object sender, ManipulationCompletedEventArgs e) 2: { 3: releaseStoryboard.Begin(); 4: } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } Note there is actually a way to kick off these animations from Blend directly via something called Triggers, but I think its clearer to show whats going on like this. A Trigger basically allows you to say When this event fires, trigger this Storyboard, so its the exact same logical process as above, but without the code. But how do we get the object to move? Well, for that we really dont want an animation because we want it to respond immediately to user input. We do this by directly modifying the transform to match the offset for the manipulation, and then well let the animation bring it back to zero when the manipulation completes. The manipulation events do a great job of keeping track of all the stuff that you usually had to do yourself when doing drags: where you started from, how far youve moved, etc. So we can easily modify the position as below: 1: private void welcome_ManipulationDelta(object sender, ManipulationDeltaEventArgs e) 2: { 3: CompositeTransform transform = (CompositeTransform)welcome.RenderTransform; 4: 5: transform.TranslateX = e.CumulativeManipulation.Translation.X; 6: transform.TranslateY = e.CumulativeManipulation.Translation.Y; 7: } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } Thats it! Go ahead and run the app in the emulator. I suggest running without the debugger, its a little faster (CTRL+F5). If youve got a machine that supports DirectX 10, youll see nice smooth GPU accelerated graphics, which also what it looks like on the phone, running at about 60 frames per second. If your machine does not support DX10 (like the laptop Im writing this on!), it wont be quite a smooth so youll have to take my word for it! Comparing Against the iPhone This is an example where the flexibility and power of XAML meets the tooling of Visual Studio and Blend, and the whole experience really shines. So, for several things that are declarative and 100% toolable with the Windows Phone 7 Series, this example does them with code on the iPhone. In parens is the lines of code that I count to do these operations. PlacardView.m: 19 total LOC Creating the view that hosts the button-like image and the text Drawing the image that is the background of the button Drawing the Welcome text over the image (I think you could technically do this step and/or the prior one using Interface Builder) MoveMeView.m: 63 total LOC Constructing and running the scale (throb) animation (25) Constructing the path describing the animation back to center plus bounce effect (38) Beyond the code count, yy experience with doing this kind of thing in code is that its VERY time intensive. When I was a developer back on Windows Forms, doing GDI+ drawing, we did this stuff a lot, and it took forever! You write some code and even once you get it basically working, you see its not quite right, you go back, tweak the interval, or the math a bit, run it again, etc. You can take a look at the iPhone code here to judge for yourself. Scroll down to animatePlacardViewToCenter toward the bottom. I dont think this code is terribly complicated, but its not what Id call simple and its not at all simple to get right. And then theres a few other lines of code running around for setting up the ViewController and the Views, about 15 lines between MoveMeAppDelegate, PlacardView, and MoveMeView, plus the assorted decls in the h files. Adding those up, I conservatively get something like 100 lines of code (19+63+15+decls) on iPhone that I have to write, by hand, to make this project work. The lines of code that I wrote in the examples above is 5 lines of code on Windows Phone 7 Series. In terms of incremental concept counts beyond the HelloWorld app, heres a shot at that: iPhone: Drawing Images Drawing Text Handling touch events Creating animations Scaling animations Building a path and animating along that Windows Phone 7 Series: Laying out UI in Blend Creating & testing basic animations in Blend Handling touch events Invoking animations from code This was actually the first example I tried converting, even before I did the HelloWorld, and I was pretty surprised. Some of this is luck that this app happens to match up with the Windows Phone 7 Series platform just perfectly. In terms of time, I wrote the above application, from scratch, in about 10 minutes. I dont know how long it would take a very skilled iPhone developer to write MoveMe on that iPhone from scratch, but if I was to write it on Silverlight in the same way (e.g. all via code), I think it would likely take me at least an hour or two to get it all working right, maybe more if I ended up picking the wrong strategy or couldnt get the math right, etc. Making Some Tweaks Silverlight contains a feature called Projections to do a variety of 3D-like effects with a 2D surface. So lets play with that a bit. Go back to Blend and select the welcome Border in the object tree. In its properties, scroll down to the bottom, open Transform, and see Projection at the bottom. Set X,Y,Z to 90. Youll see the element kind of disappear, replaced by a thin blue line. Now Create a new animation called startupStoryboard. Set its key time to .5 seconds in the timeline view Set the projection values above to 0 for X, Y, and Z. Save Go back to Visual Studio, and in the constructor, add the following bold code (lines 7-9 to the constructor: 1: public MainPage() 2: { 3: InitializeComponent(); 4: 5: SupportedOrientations = SupportedPageOrientation.Portrait; 6: 7: this.Loaded += (s, e) => 8: { 9: startupStoryboard.Begin(); 10: }; 11: } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } If the code above looks funny, its using something called a lambda in C#, which is an inline anonymous method. Its just a handy shorthand for creating a handler like the manipulation ones above. So with this youll get a nice 3D looking fly in effect when the app starts up. Here it is, in flight: Pretty cool!Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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ASP.NET Creating a Rich Repeater, DataBind wiping out custom added controls...

- by tonyellard

So...I had this clever idea that I'd create my own Repeater control that implements paging and sorting by inheriting from Repeater and extending it's capabilities. I found some information and bits and pieces on how to go about this and everything seemed ok... I created a WebControlLibrary to house my custom controls. Along with the enriched repeater, I created a composite control that would act as the "pager bar", having forward, back and page selection. My pager bar works 100% on it's own, properly firing a paged changed event when the user interacts with it. The rich repeater databinds without issue, but when the databind fires (when I call base.databind()), the control collection is cleared out and my pager bars are removed. This screws up the viewstate for the pager bars making them unable to fire their events properly or maintain their state. I've tried adding the controls back to the collection after base.databind() fires, but that doesn't solve the issue. I start to get very strange results including problems with altering the hierarchy of the control tree (resolved by adding [ViewStateModeById]). Before I go back to the drawing board and create a second composite control which contains a repeater and the pager bars (so that the repeater isn't responsible for the pager bars viewstate) are there any thoughts about how to resolve the issue? In the interest of share and share alike, the code for the repeater itself is below, the pagerbars aren't as significant as the issue is really the maintaining of state for any additional child controls. (forgive the roughness of some of the code...it's still a work in progress) using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.ComponentModel; using System.Text; using System.Data; using System.Web; using System.Web.UI; using System.Web.UI.WebControls; [ViewStateModeById] public class SortablePagedRepeater : Repeater, INamingContainer { private SuperRepeaterPagerBar topBar = new SuperRepeaterPagerBar(); private SuperRepeaterPagerBar btmBar = new SuperRepeaterPagerBar(); protected override void OnInit(EventArgs e) { Page.RegisterRequiresControlState(this); InitializeControls(); base.OnInit(e); EnsureChildControls(); } protected void InitializeControls() { topBar.ID = this.ID + "__topPagerBar"; topBar.NumberOfPages = this._currentProperties.numOfPages; topBar.CurrentPage = this.CurrentPageNumber; topBar.PageChanged += new SuperRepeaterPagerBar.PageChangedEventHandler(PageChanged); btmBar.ID = this.ID + "__btmPagerBar"; btmBar.NumberOfPages = this._currentProperties.numOfPages; btmBar.CurrentPage = this.CurrentPageNumber; btmBar.PageChanged += new SuperRepeaterPagerBar.PageChangedEventHandler(PageChanged); } protected override void CreateChildControls() { EnsureDataBound(); this.Controls.Add(topBar); this.Controls.Add(btmBar); //base.CreateChildControls(); } private void PageChanged(object sender, int newPage) { this.CurrentPageNumber = newPage; } public override void DataBind() { //pageDataSource(); //DataBind removes all controls from control collection... base.DataBind(); Controls.Add(topBar); Controls.Add(btmBar); } private void pageDataSource() { //Create paged data source PagedDataSource pds = new PagedDataSource(); pds.PageSize = this.ItemsPerPage; pds.AllowPaging = true; // first get a PagedDataSource going and perform sort if possible... if (base.DataSource is System.Collections.IEnumerable) { pds.DataSource = (System.Collections.IEnumerable)base.DataSource; } else if (base.DataSource is System.Data.DataView) { DataView data = (DataView)DataSource; if (this.SortBy != null && data.Table.Columns.Contains(this.SortBy)) { data.Sort = this.SortBy; } pds.DataSource = data.Table.Rows; } else if (base.DataSource is System.Data.DataTable) { DataTable data = (DataTable)DataSource; if (this.SortBy != null && data.Columns.Contains(this.SortBy)) { data.DefaultView.Sort = this.SortBy; } pds.DataSource = data.DefaultView; } else if (base.DataSource is System.Data.DataSet) { DataSet data = (DataSet)DataSource; if (base.DataMember != null && data.Tables.Contains(base.DataMember)) { if (this.SortBy != null && data.Tables[base.DataMember].Columns.Contains(this.SortBy)) { data.Tables[base.DataMember].DefaultView.Sort = this.SortBy; } pds.DataSource = data.Tables[base.DataMember].DefaultView; } else if (data.Tables.Count > 0) { if (this.SortBy != null && data.Tables[0].Columns.Contains(this.SortBy)) { data.Tables[0].DefaultView.Sort = this.SortBy; } pds.DataSource = data.Tables[0].DefaultView; } else { throw new Exception("DataSet doesn't have any tables."); } } else if (base.DataSource == null) { // don't do anything? } else { throw new Exception("DataSource must be of type System.Collections.IEnumerable. The DataSource you provided is of type " + base.DataSource.GetType().ToString()); } if (pds != null && base.DataSource != null) { //Make sure that the page doesn't exceed the maximum number of pages //available if (this.CurrentPageNumber >= pds.PageCount) { this.CurrentPageNumber = pds.PageCount - 1; } //Set up paging values... btmBar.CurrentPage = topBar.CurrentPage = pds.CurrentPageIndex = this.CurrentPageNumber; this._currentProperties.numOfPages = btmBar.NumberOfPages = topBar.NumberOfPages = pds.PageCount; base.DataSource = pds; } } public override object DataSource { get { return base.DataSource; } set { //init(); //reset paging/sorting values since we've potentially changed data sources. base.DataSource = value; pageDataSource(); } } protected override void Render(HtmlTextWriter writer) { topBar.RenderControl(writer); base.Render(writer); btmBar.RenderControl(writer); } [Serializable] protected struct CurrentProperties { public int pageNum; public int itemsPerPage; public int numOfPages; public string sortBy; public bool sortDir; } protected CurrentProperties _currentProperties = new CurrentProperties(); protected override object SaveControlState() { return this._currentProperties; } protected override void LoadControlState(object savedState) { this._currentProperties = (CurrentProperties)savedState; } [Category("Status")] [Browsable(true)] [NotifyParentProperty(true)] [DefaultValue("")] [Localizable(false)] public string SortBy { get { return this._currentProperties.sortBy; } set { //If sorting by the same column, swap the sort direction. if (this._currentProperties.sortBy == value) { this.SortAscending = !this.SortAscending; } else { this.SortAscending = true; } this._currentProperties.sortBy = value; } } [Category("Status")] [Browsable(true)] [NotifyParentProperty(true)] [DefaultValue(true)] [Localizable(false)] public bool SortAscending { get { return this._currentProperties.sortDir; } set { this._currentProperties.sortDir = value; } } [Category("Status")] [Browsable(true)] [NotifyParentProperty(true)] [DefaultValue(25)] [Localizable(false)] public int ItemsPerPage { get { return this._currentProperties.itemsPerPage; } set { this._currentProperties.itemsPerPage = value; } } [Category("Status")] [Browsable(true)] [NotifyParentProperty(true)] [DefaultValue(1)] [Localizable(false)] public int CurrentPageNumber { get { return this._currentProperties.pageNum; } set { this._currentProperties.pageNum = value; pageDataSource(); } } }

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UITableView not displaying parsed data

- by Graeme

I have a UITableView which is setup in Interface Builder and connected properly to its class in Xcode. I also have a "Importer" Class which downloads and parses an RSS feed and stores the information in an NSMutableArray. However I have verified the parsing is working properly (using breakpoints and NSlog) but no data is showing in the UITable View. Any ideas as to what the problem could be? I'm almost out of them. It's based on the XML performance Apple example. Here's the code for TableView.h: #import <UIKit/UIKit.h> #import "IncidentsImporter.h" @class SongDetailsController; @interface CurrentIncidentsTableViewController : UITableViewController <IncidentsImporterDelegate>{ NSMutableArray *incidents; SongDetailsController *detailController; UITableView *ctableView; IncidentsImporter *parser; } @property (nonatomic, retain) NSMutableArray *incidents; @property (nonatomic, retain, readonly) SongDetailsController *detailController; @property (nonatomic, retain) IncidentsImporter *parser; @property (nonatomic, retain) IBOutlet UITableView *ctableView; // Called by the ParserChoiceViewController based on the selected parser type. - (void)beginParsing; @end And the code for .m: #import "CurrentIncidentsTableViewController.h" #import "SongDetailsController.h" #import "Incident.h" @implementation CurrentIncidentsTableViewController @synthesize ctableView, incidents, parser, detailController; #pragma mark - #pragma mark View lifecycle - (void)viewDidLoad { [super viewDidLoad]; self.parser = [[IncidentsImporter alloc] init]; parser.delegate = self; [parser start]; UIBarButtonItem *refreshButton = [[UIBarButtonItem alloc] initWithBarButtonSystemItem:UIBarButtonSystemItemRefresh target:self action:@selector(beginParsing)]; self.navigationItem.rightBarButtonItem = refreshButton; [refreshButton release]; // Uncomment the following line to preserve selection between presentations. //self.clearsSelectionOnViewWillAppear = NO; // Uncomment the following line to display an Edit button in the navigation bar for this view controller. // self.navigationItem.rightBarButtonItem = self.editButtonItem; } - (void)viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated { NSIndexPath *selectedRowIndexPath = [ctableView indexPathForSelectedRow]; if (selectedRowIndexPath != nil) { [ctableView deselectRowAtIndexPath:selectedRowIndexPath animated:NO]; } } // This method will be called repeatedly - once each time the user choses to parse. - (void)beginParsing { NSLog(@"Parsing has begun"); //self.navigationItem.rightBarButtonItem.enabled = NO; // Allocate the array for song storage, or empty the results of previous parses if (incidents == nil) { NSLog(@"Grabbing array"); self.incidents = [NSMutableArray array]; } else { [incidents removeAllObjects]; [ctableView reloadData]; } // Create the parser, set its delegate, and start it. self.parser = [[IncidentsImporter alloc] init]; parser.delegate = self; [parser start]; } /* - (void)viewDidAppear:(BOOL)animated { [super viewDidAppear:animated]; } */ /* - (void)viewWillDisappear:(BOOL)animated { [super viewWillDisappear:animated]; } */ /* - (void)viewDidDisappear:(BOOL)animated { [super viewDidDisappear:animated]; } */ - (BOOL)shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation:(UIInterfaceOrientation)interfaceOrientation { // Override to allow orientations other than the default portrait orientation. return YES; } #pragma mark - #pragma mark Table view data source - (NSInteger)numberOfSectionsInTableView:(UITableView *)tableView { // Return the number of sections. return 1; } - (NSInteger)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView numberOfRowsInSection:(NSInteger)section { // Return the number of rows in the section. return [incidents count]; } // Customize the appearance of table view cells. - (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath { NSLog(@"Table Cell Sought"); static NSString *kCellIdentifier = @"MyCell"; UITableViewCell *cell = [ctableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:kCellIdentifier]; if (cell == nil) { cell = [[[UITableViewCell alloc] initWithStyle:UITableViewCellStyleDefault reuseIdentifier:kCellIdentifier] autorelease]; cell.textLabel.font = [UIFont boldSystemFontOfSize:14.0]; cell.accessoryType = UITableViewCellAccessoryDisclosureIndicator; } cell.textLabel.text = @"Test";//[[incidents objectAtIndex:indexPath.row] title]; return cell; } /* // Override to support conditional editing of the table view. - (BOOL)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView canEditRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath { // Return NO if you do not want the specified item to be editable. return YES; } */ /* // Override to support editing the table view. - (void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView commitEditingStyle:(UITableViewCellEditingStyle)editingStyle forRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath { if (editingStyle == UITableViewCellEditingStyleDelete) { // Delete the row from the data source [tableView deleteRowsAtIndexPaths:[NSArray arrayWithObject:indexPath] withRowAnimation:YES]; } else if (editingStyle == UITableViewCellEditingStyleInsert) { // Create a new instance of the appropriate class, insert it into the array, and add a new row to the table view } } */ /* // Override to support rearranging the table view. - (void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView moveRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)fromIndexPath toIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)toIndexPath { } */ /* // Override to support conditional rearranging of the table view. - (BOOL)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView canMoveRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath { // Return NO if you do not want the item to be re-orderable. return YES; } */ #pragma mark - #pragma mark Table view delegate - (void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView didSelectRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath { self.detailController.incident = [incidents objectAtIndex:indexPath.row]; [self.navigationController pushViewController:self.detailController animated:YES]; } #pragma mark - #pragma mark Memory management - (void)didReceiveMemoryWarning { // Releases the view if it doesn't have a superview. [super didReceiveMemoryWarning]; // Relinquish ownership any cached data, images, etc that aren't in use. } - (void)viewDidUnload { // Relinquish ownership of anything that can be recreated in viewDidLoad or on demand. // For example: self.myOutlet = nil; } - (void)parserDidEndParsingData:(IncidentsImporter *)parser { [ctableView reloadData]; self.navigationItem.rightBarButtonItem.enabled = YES; self.parser = nil; } - (void)parser:(IncidentsImporter *)parser didParseIncidents:(NSArray *)parsedIncidents { //[incidents addObjectsFromArray: parsedIncidents]; // Three scroll view properties are checked to keep the user interface smooth during parse. When new objects are delivered by the parser, the table view is reloaded to display them. If the table is reloaded while the user is scrolling, this can result in eratic behavior. dragging, tracking, and decelerating can be checked for this purpose. When the parser finishes, reloadData will be called in parserDidEndParsingData:, guaranteeing that all data will ultimately be displayed even if reloadData is not called in this method because of user interaction. if (!ctableView.dragging && !ctableView.tracking && !ctableView.decelerating) { self.title = [NSString stringWithFormat:NSLocalizedString(@"Top %d Songs", @"Top Songs format"), [parsedIncidents count]]; [ctableView reloadData]; } } - (void)parser:(IncidentsImporter *)parser didFailWithError:(NSError *)error { // handle errors as appropriate to your application... } - (void)dealloc { [super dealloc]; } @end

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Why is UITableView not reloading (even on the main thread)?

- by radesix

I have two programs that basically do the same thing. They read an XML feed and parse the elements. The design of both programs is to use an asynchronous NSURLConnection to get the data then to spawn a new thread to handle the parsing. As batches of 5 items are parsed it calls back to the main thread to reload the UITableView. My issue is it works fine in one program, but not the other. I know that the parsing is actually occuring on the background thread and I know that [tableView reloadData] is executing on the main thread; however, it doesn't reload the table until all parsing is complete. I'm stumped. As far as I can tell... both programs are structured exactly the same way. Here is some code from the app that isn't working correctly. - (void)startConnectionWithURL:(NSString *)feedURL feedList:(NSMutableArray *)list { self.feedList = list; // Use NSURLConnection to asynchronously download the data. This means the main thread will not be blocked - the // application will remain responsive to the user. // // IMPORTANT! The main thread of the application should never be blocked! Also, avoid synchronous network access on any thread. // NSURLRequest *feedURLRequest = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:feedURL]]; self.bloggerFeedConnection = [[[NSURLConnection alloc] initWithRequest:feedURLRequest delegate:self] autorelease]; // Test the validity of the connection object. The most likely reason for the connection object to be nil is a malformed // URL, which is a programmatic error easily detected during development. If the URL is more dynamic, then you should // implement a more flexible validation technique, and be able to both recover from errors and communicate problems // to the user in an unobtrusive manner. NSAssert(self.bloggerFeedConnection != nil, @"Failure to create URL connection."); // Start the status bar network activity indicator. We'll turn it off when the connection finishes or experiences an error. [UIApplication sharedApplication].networkActivityIndicatorVisible = YES; } - (void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didReceiveResponse:(NSURLResponse *)response { self.bloggerData = [NSMutableData data]; } - (void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didReceiveData:(NSData *)data { [bloggerData appendData:data]; } - (void)connectionDidFinishLoading:(NSURLConnection *)connection { self.bloggerFeedConnection = nil; [UIApplication sharedApplication].networkActivityIndicatorVisible = NO; // Spawn a thread to fetch the link data so that the UI is not blocked while the application parses the XML data. // // IMPORTANT! - Don't access UIKit objects on secondary threads. // [NSThread detachNewThreadSelector:@selector(parseFeedData:) toTarget:self withObject:bloggerData]; // farkData will be retained by the thread until parseFarkData: has finished executing, so we no longer need // a reference to it in the main thread. self.bloggerData = nil; } If you read this from the top down you can see when the NSURLConnection is finished I detach a new thread and call parseFeedData. - (void)parseFeedData:(NSData *)data { // You must create a autorelease pool for all secondary threads. NSAutoreleasePool *pool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init]; self.currentParseBatch = [NSMutableArray array]; self.currentParsedCharacterData = [NSMutableString string]; self.feedList = [NSMutableArray array]; // // It's also possible to have NSXMLParser download the data, by passing it a URL, but this is not desirable // because it gives less control over the network, particularly in responding to connection errors. // NSXMLParser *parser = [[NSXMLParser alloc] initWithData:data]; [parser setDelegate:self]; [parser parse]; // depending on the total number of links parsed, the last batch might not have been a "full" batch, and thus // not been part of the regular batch transfer. So, we check the count of the array and, if necessary, send it to the main thread. if ([self.currentParseBatch count] > 0) { [self performSelectorOnMainThread:@selector(addLinksToList:) withObject:self.currentParseBatch waitUntilDone:NO]; } self.currentParseBatch = nil; self.currentParsedCharacterData = nil; [parser release]; [pool release]; } In the did end element delegate I check to see that 5 items have been parsed before calling the main thread to perform the update. - (void)parser:(NSXMLParser *)parser didEndElement:(NSString *)elementName namespaceURI:(NSString *)namespaceURI qualifiedName:(NSString *)qName { if ([elementName isEqualToString:kItemElementName]) { [self.currentParseBatch addObject:self.currentItem]; parsedItemsCounter++; if (parsedItemsCounter % kSizeOfItemBatch == 0) { [self performSelectorOnMainThread:@selector(addLinksToList:) withObject:self.currentParseBatch waitUntilDone:NO]; self.currentParseBatch = [NSMutableArray array]; } } // Stop accumulating parsed character data. We won't start again until specific elements begin. accumulatingParsedCharacterData = NO; } - (void)addLinksToList:(NSMutableArray *)links { [self.feedList addObjectsFromArray:links]; // The table needs to be reloaded to reflect the new content of the list. if (self.viewDelegate != nil && [self.viewDelegate respondsToSelector:@selector(parser:didParseBatch:)]) { [self.viewDelegate parser:self didParseBatch:links]; } } Finally, the UIViewController delegate: - (void)parser:(XMLFeedParser *)parser didParseBatch:(NSMutableArray *)parsedBatch { NSLog(@"parser:didParseBatch:"); [self.selectedBlogger.feedList addObjectsFromArray:parsedBatch]; [self.tableView reloadData]; } If I write to the log when my view controller delegate fires to reload the table and when cellForRowAtIndexPath fires as it's rebuilding the table then the log looks something like this: parser:didParseBatch: parser:didParseBatch: tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath parser:didParseBatch: parser:didParseBatch: parser:didParseBatch: tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath parser:didParseBatch: tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath parser:didParseBatch: parser:didParseBatch: parser:didParseBatch: parser:didParseBatch: tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath Clearly, the tableView is not reloading when I tell it to every time. The log from the app that works correctly looks like this: parser:didParseBatch: tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath parser:didParseBatch: tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath parser:didParseBatch: tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath parser:didParseBatch: tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath parser:didParseBatch: tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath

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PHP session not working with JQuery Ajax?

- by Bolt_Head

Update, Solved: After all this I found out that I was calling an old version of my code in the update ajax. 'boardControl.php' instead of 'boardUpdate.php' These are the kinds of mistakes that make programing fun. I'm writing a browser gomoku game. I have the ajax statement that allows the player to play a piece. $(document).ready(function() { $("td").live('click',function(){ var value = $(this).attr('id'); $.get('includes/boardControl.php',{play: value, bid: bid}); }); }); value = board square location bid = board ID Before creating a user login for player identification, the server side php had a temporary solution. It would rotate the piece state for the squares when clicked instead of knowing what player to create them for. After creating login stuff I set a session variable for the player's ID. I was hoping to read the session ID from the php during the ajax request and figure out what player they are from there. session_start(); ... $playerId = $_SESSION['char']; $Query=("SELECT p1, p2 FROM board WHERE bid=$bid"); $Result=mysql_query($Query); $p1 = mysql_result($Result,0,"p1"); $p2 = mysql_result($Result,0,"p2"); $newPiece = 0; //*default no player if($playerId == $p1) $newPiece = 1; if($playerId == $p2) $newPiece = 2; For some reason when I run the full web app, the pieces still cycle though, even after I deleted the code to make them cycle. Furthermore, after logging in If i manually load the php page in the browser, it modifies the database correctly (where it only plays pieces belonging to that player) and outputs the correct results. It seems to me that the session is not being carried over when used with Ajax. Yet Google searches tell me that, sessions do work with Ajax. Update: I'm trying to provide more information. Logging in works correctly. My ID is recognized and I printed it out next to the board to ensure that I was retrieving it correctly. The ajax request does update the board. The values passed are correct and confirmed with firebug's console. However instead of placing pieces only for the player they belong to it cycles though the piece states (0,1,2). When manually browsing to boardUpdate.php and putting in the same values sent from the Ajax the results seen in the echo'ed response indicates that the corresponding piece is played each time as intended. Same results on my laptop after fresh load of firefox. Manually browsing to boardUpdate.php without logging in before hand leave the board unchanged (as intended when no user is found in the session). I've double checked the that session_start() is on the php files and double checked the session ID variables. Hope this extra information helps, i'm running out of ideas what to tell you. Should I load up the full code? Update 2: After checking the Ajax responce in fire-bug I realized that the 'play' request does not get a result, and the board is not updated till the next 'update'. I'm still looking into this but I'll post it here for you guys too. boardUpdate.php Notable places are: Refresh Board(line6) Place Piece(line20) function boardUpdate($turnCount) (line63) <?php session_start(); require '../../omok/dbConnect.php'; //*** Refresh Board *** if(isset($_GET['update'])) { $bid = $_GET['bid']; $Query=("SELECT turn FROM board WHERE bid=$bid"); $Result=mysql_query($Query); $turnCount=mysql_result($Result,0,"turn"); if($_GET['turnCount'] < $turnCount) //** Turn increased { boardUpdate($turnCount); } } //*** Place Piece *** if(isset($_GET['play'])) // turn order? player detect? { $squareID = $_GET['play']; $bid = $_GET['bid']; $Query=("SELECT turn, boardstate FROM board WHERE bid=$bid"); $Result=mysql_query($Query); $turnCount=mysql_result($Result,0,"turn"); $boardState=mysql_result($Result,0,"boardstate"); $turnCount++; $playerId = $_SESSION['char']; $Query=("SELECT p1, p2 FROM board WHERE bid=$bid"); $Result=mysql_query($Query); $p1 = mysql_result($Result,0,"p1"); $p2 = mysql_result($Result,0,"p2"); $newPiece = 0; //*default no player if($playerId == $p1) $newPiece = 1; if($playerId == $p2) $newPiece = 2; // if($newPiece != 0) // { $oldPiece = getBoardSpot($squareID, $bid); $oldLetter = $boardState{floor($squareID/3)}; $slot = $squareID%3; //***function updateCode($old, $new, $current, $slot)*** $newLetter = updateCode($oldPiece, $newPiece, $oldLetter, $slot); $newLetter = value2Letter($newLetter); $newBoard = substr_replace($boardState, $newLetter, floor($squareID/3), 1); //** Update Query for boardstate & turn $Query=("UPDATE board SET boardState = '$newBoard', turn = '$turnCount' WHERE bid = '$bid'"); mysql_query($Query); // } boardUpdate($turnCount); } function boardUpdate($turnCount) { $json = '{"turnCount":"'.$turnCount.'",'; //** turnCount ** $bid = $_GET['bid']; $Query=("SELECT boardstate FROM board WHERE bid='$bid'"); $Result=mysql_query($Query); $Board=mysql_result($Result,0,"boardstate"); $json.= '"boardState":"'.$Board.'"'; //** boardState ** $json.= '}'; echo $json; } function letter2Value($input) { if(ord($input) >= 48 && ord($input) <= 57) return ord($input) - 48; else return ord($input) - 87; } function value2Letter($input) { if($input >= 10) return chr($input += 87); else return chr($input += 48); } //*** UPDATE CODE *** updates an letter with a new peice change and returns result letter. //***** $old : peice value before update //***** $new : peice value after update //***** $current : letterValue of code before update. //***** $slot : which of the 3 sqaures the change needs to take place in. function updateCode($old, $new, $current, $slot) { if($slot == 0) {// echo $current,"+((",$new,"-",$old,")*9)"; return letter2Value($current)+(($new-$old)*9); } else if($slot == 1) {// echo $current,"+((",$new,"-",$old,")*3)"; return letter2Value($current)+(($new-$old)*3); } else //slot == 2 {// echo $current,"+((",$new,"-",$old,")"; return letter2Value($current)+($new-$old); } }//updateCode() //**** GETBOARDSPOT *** Returns the peice value at defined location on the board. //****** 0 is first sqaure increment +1 in reading order (0-254). function getBoardSpot($squareID, $bid) { $Query=("SELECT boardstate FROM board WHERE bid='$bid'"); $Result=mysql_query($Query); $Board=mysql_result($Result,0,"boardstate"); if($squareID %3 == 2) //**3rd spot** { if( letter2Value($Board{floor($squareID/3)} ) % 3 == 0) return 0; else if( letter2Value($Board{floor($squareID/3)} ) % 3 == 1) return 1; else return 2; } else if($squareID %3 == 0) //**1st spot** { if(letter2Value($Board{floor($squareID/3)} ) <= 8) return 0; else if(letter2Value($Board{floor($squareID/3)} ) >= 18) return 2; else return 1; } else //**2nd spot** { return floor(letter2Value($Board{floor($squareID/3)}))/3%3; } }//end getBoardSpot() ?> Please help, I'd be glad to provide more information if needed. Thanks in advance =)

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Create Downloadable CSV File from PHP Script

- by Aphex22

How would I create a formatted version of the following PHP script as a downloadable CSV file from the code below (1.0) At the moment the fputcsv function is currently dumping the unparsed PHP/HTML code into a CSV file. This is incorrect. The downloaded CSV file should contain the columns and rows generated from the code at (1.0) as shown in the image link below. I've tried using the following code at the top of the PHP file: // output headers so that the file is downloaded rather than displayed header('Content-Type: text/csv; charset=utf-8'); header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=amazon.csv'); // create a file pointer connected to the output stream $output = fopen('php://output', 'w'); $mysql_hostname = ""; $mysql_user = ""; $mysql_password = ""; $mysql_database = ""; $bd = mysql_connect($mysql_hostname, $mysql_user, $mysql_password) or die("Could not connect database"); mysql_select_db($mysql_database, $bd) or die("Could not select database"); $sql = "select * from product WHERE on_amazon = 'on' AND active = 'on'"; $result = mysql_query($sql) or die ( mysql_error() ); // loop over the rows, outputting them while ($sql_result = mysql_fetch_assoc($sql)) fputcsv($output, $sql_result); 1.0 The start of the code outputs the column headings for the CSV file: // set headers echo " item_sku, external_product_id, external_product_id_type, item_name, brand_name, manufacturer, product_description, feed_product_type, update_delete, part_number, model, standard_price, list_price, currency, quantity, product_tax_code, product_site_launch_date, merchant_release_date, restock_date ... <br>"; And then follows PHP script for the column values // load all stock while ($line = mysql_fetch_assoc($result) ) { ?> <?php $size_suffix = array ("",'_chain','_con_b','_con_c'); $arrayLength = count ($size_suffix); for($y=0;$y<$arrayLength;$y++) { //Possible size array to loop through when checking quantity $con_size = array (36,365,37,375,38,385,39,395,40,405,41,415,42,425,43,435,44,445,45,455,46,465,47,475,48,485); $arrlength=count($con_size); for($x=0;$x<$arrlength;$x++) { // check if size is available if($line['quantity_c_size_'.$con_size[$x].$size_suffix[$y]] > 0 ) { ?>  <?=$line['product_id']?>,  <?=$line['code_size_'.$con_size[$x].'']?>, <? // external product id type $barcode = $line['code_size_'.$con_size[$x]]; $trim_barcode = trim($barcode); $count = strlen($trim_barcode); if ($count == 12) { echo "UPC"; } if ($count == 13) { echo "EAN"; } elseif ($count < 12) { echo " "; } ?>,  <?=$line['title']?>, <? // brand_name $brand = $line['jys_brand']; echo ucfirst($brand); ?>, <? // manufacturer $brand = $line['jys_brand']; echo ucfirst($brand); ?>,  <?=preg_replace('/[^\da-z]/i', ' ', $line['amazon_desc']) ?>,  Shoes, , , ,  <?=$line['price']?>, ,  GBP,  <?=$line['quantity_size_'.$con_size[$x].$size_suffix[$y]]?>, ,  <?=$line['added_y']?>-<?=$line['added_m']?>-<?=$line['added_d']?>,  <?=$line['added_y']?>-<?=$line['added_m']?>-<?=$line['added_d']?>, , , , ,  1, , , , ,  2,  1, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  http://www.getashoe.co.uk/full/<?=$line['product_id']?>_1.jpg, http://www.getashoe.co.uk/full/<?=$line['product_id']?>_2.jpg, http://www.getashoe.co.uk/full/<?=$line['product_id']?>_3.jpg, http://www.getashoe.co.uk/full/<?=$line['product_id']?>_4.jpg, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  <?=$line['heel']?>, , , , , , , , , , ,  <?=$line['colour']?>,  <? $colour = preg_replace('/[()]/i', ' ', $line['colour']); if (preg_match( '/[\/].*/i', $colour)) { echo 'Multicolour'; } if (preg_match( '/off.*/i', $colour)) { echo 'Off-White'; } elseif( preg_match( '/white.*/i', $colour)) { echo 'White'; } elseif( preg_match( '/moro.*/i', $colour)) { echo 'Brown'; } elseif( preg_match( '/morado.*/i', $colour)) { echo 'Purple'; } elseif( preg_match( '/cream.*/i', $colour)) { echo 'Off-White'; } elseif( preg_match( '/pewter.*/i', $colour)) { echo 'Silver'; } elseif( preg_match( '/yellow.*/i', $colour)) { echo 'Yellow'; } elseif( preg_match( '/camel.*/i', $colour)) { echo 'Beige'; } elseif( preg_match( '/navy.*/i', $colour)) { echo 'Blue'; } elseif( preg_match( '/tan.*/i', $colour)) { echo 'Brown'; } elseif( preg_match( '/rainbow.*/i', $colour)) { echo 'Multicolour'; } elseif( preg_match( '/orange.*/i', $colour)) { echo 'Orange'; } elseif( preg_match( '/leopard.*/i', $colour)) { echo 'Multicolour'; } elseif( preg_match( '/red.*/i', $colour)) { echo 'Red'; } elseif( preg_match( '/pink.*/i', $colour)) { echo 'Pink'; } elseif( preg_match( '/purple.*/i', $colour)) { echo 'Purple'; } elseif( preg_match( '/blue.*/i', $colour)) { echo 'Blue'; } elseif( preg_match( '/green.*/i', $colour)) { echo 'Green'; } elseif( preg_match( '/brown.*/i', $colour)) { echo 'Brown'; } elseif( preg_match( '/grey.*/i', $colour)) { echo 'Grey'; } elseif( preg_match( '/black.*/i', $colour)) { echo 'Black'; } elseif( preg_match( '/gold.*/i', $colour)) { echo 'Gold'; } elseif( preg_match( '/silver.*/i', $colour)) { echo 'Silver'; } elseif( preg_match( '/multi.*/i', $colour)) { echo 'Multicolour'; } elseif( preg_match( '/beige.*/i', $colour)) { echo 'Beige'; } elseif( preg_match( '/nude.*/i', $colour)) { echo 'Beige'; } ?>,  <? echo $con_size[$x];?>,  <? if ($con_size[$x] == 36) { echo "3 UK"; } elseif ($con_size[$x] == 37 ) { echo "4 UK"; } elseif ($con_size[$x] == 38) { echo "5 UK"; } elseif ($con_size[$x] == 39 ) { echo "6 UK"; } elseif ($con_size[$x] == 40 ) { echo "7 UK"; } elseif ($con_size[$x] == 41) { echo "8 UK"; } elseif ($con_size[$x] == 42) { echo "9 UK"; } elseif ($con_size[$x] == 43) { echo "10 UK"; } elseif ($con_size[$x] == 44 ) { echo "11 UK"; } elseif ($con_size[$x] == 45 ) { echo "12 UK"; } elseif ($con_size[$x] == 46 ) { echo "13 UK"; } elseif ($con_size[$x] == 47 ) { echo "14 UK"; } elseif ($con_size[$x] == 48 ) { echo "15 UK"; } elseif ($con_size[$x] == 365) { echo "3.5 UK"; } elseif ($con_size[$x] == 375 ) { echo "4.5 UK"; } elseif ($con_size[$x] == 385) { echo "5.5 UK"; } elseif ($con_size[$x] == 395 ) { echo "6.5 UK"; } elseif ($con_size[$x] == 405 ) { echo "7.5 UK"; } elseif ($con_size[$x] == 415) { echo "8.5 UK"; } elseif ($con_size[$x] == 425) { echo "9.5 UK"; } elseif ($con_size[$x] == 435) { echo "10.5 UK"; } elseif ($con_size[$x] == 445 ) { echo "11.5 UK"; } elseif ($con_size[$x] == 455 ) { echo "12.5 UK"; } elseif ($con_size[$x] == 465 ) { echo "13.5 UK"; } elseif ($con_size[$x] == 475 ) { echo "14.5 UK"; } elseif ($con_size[$x] == 485 ) { echo "15.5 UK"; } ?>, <br> <? // finish checking if size is available } } } ?> I've included an image of how the CSV file should appear. https://i.imgur.com/ZU3IFer.png Any help would be great.

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Backbone events not firing (this.el undefined) & general feedback on use of the framework

- by Leo

I am very new to backbone.js and I am struggling a little. I figured out a way to get data from the server (in json) onto the screen successfully but am I doing it the right/best way? I know there is something wrong because the only view which contains a valid this.el is the parent view. I suspect that because of this, the events of the view are not firing ()... What is the best way forward? Here is the code: var surveyUrl = "/api/Survey?format=json&callback=?"; $(function () { AnswerOption = Backbone.Model.extend({}); AnswerOptionList = Backbone.Collection.extend({ initialize: function (models, options) { this.bind("add", options.view.render); } }); AnswerOptionView = Backbone.View.extend({ initialize: function () { this.answerOptionList = new AnswerOptionList(null, { view: this }); _.bindAll(this, 'render'); }, events: { "click .answerOptionControl": "updateCheckedState" //does not fire because there is no this.el }, render: function (model) { // Compile the template using underscore var template = _.template($("#questionAnswerOptionTemplate").html(), model.answerOption); $('#answerOptions' + model.answerOption.questionId + '>fieldset').append(template); return this; }, updateCheckedState: function (data) { //never hit... } }); Question = Backbone.Model.extend({}); QuestionList = Backbone.Collection.extend({ initialize: function (models, options) { this.bind("add", options.view.render); } }); QuestionView = Backbone.View.extend({ initialize: function () { this.questionlist = new QuestionList(null, { view: this }); _.bindAll(this, 'render'); }, render: function (model) { // Compile the template using underscore var template = _.template($("#questionTemplate").html(), model.question); $("#questions").append(template); //append answers using AnswerOptionView var view = new AnswerOptionView(); for (var i = 0; i < model.question.answerOptions.length; i++) { var qModel = new AnswerOption(); qModel.answerOption = model.question.answerOptions[i]; qModel.questionChoiceType = ChoiceType(); view.answerOptionList.add(qModel); } $('#questions').trigger('create'); return this; } }); Survey = Backbone.Model.extend({ url: function () { return this.get("id") ? surveyUrl + '/' + this.get("id") : surveyUrl; } }); SurveyList = Backbone.Collection.extend({ model: Survey, url: surveyUrl }); aSurvey = new Survey({ Id: 1 }); SurveyView = Backbone.View.extend({ model: aSurvey, initialize: function () { _.bindAll(this, 'render'); this.model.bind('refresh', this.render); this.model.bind('change', this.render); this.model.view = this; }, // Re-render the contents render: function () { var view = new QuestionView(); //{el:this.el}); for (var i = 0; i < this.model.attributes[0].questions.length; i++) { var qModel = new Question(); qModel.question = this.model.attributes[0].questions[i]; view.questionlist.add(qModel); } } }); window.App = new SurveyView(aSurvey); aSurvey.fetch(); }); -html <body> <div id="questions"></div>  <script type="text/template" id="questionAnswerOptionTemplate"> <input name="answerOptionGroup<%= questionId %>" id="answerOptionInput<%= id %>" type="checkbox" class="answerOptionControl"/> <label for="answerOptionInput<%= id %>"><%= text %></label> </script> <script type="text/template" id="questionTemplate"> <div id="question<%=id %>" class="questionWithCurve"> <h1><%= headerText %></h1> <h2><%= subText %></h2> <div data-role="fieldcontain" id="answerOptions<%= id %>" > <fieldset data-role="controlgroup" data-type="vertical"> <legend> </legend> </fieldset> </div> </div> </script> </body> And the JSON from the server: ? ({ "name": "Survey", "questions": [{ "surveyId": 1, "headerText": "Question 1", "subText": "subtext", "type": "Choice", "positionOrder": 1, "answerOptions": [{ "questionId": 1, "text": "Question 1 - Option 1", "positionOrder": 1, "id": 1, "createdOn": "\/Date(1333666034297+0100)\/" }, { "questionId": 1, "text": "Question 1 - Option 2", "positionOrder": 2, "id": 2, "createdOn": "\/Date(1333666034340+0100)\/" }, { "questionId": 1, "text": "Question 1 - Option 3", "positionOrder": 3, "id": 3, "createdOn": "\/Date(1333666034350+0100)\/" }], "questionValidators": [{ "questionId": 1, "value": "3", "type": "MaxAnswers", "id": 1, "createdOn": "\/Date(1333666034267+0100)\/" }, { "questionId": 1, "value": "1", "type": "MinAnswers", "id": 2, "createdOn": "\/Date(1333666034283+0100)\/" }], "id": 1, "createdOn": "\/Date(1333666034257+0100)\/" }, { "surveyId": 1, "headerText": "Question 2", "subText": "subtext", "type": "Choice", "positionOrder": 2, "answerOptions": [{ "questionId": 2, "text": "Question 2 - Option 1", "positionOrder": 1, "id": 4, "createdOn": "\/Date(1333666034427+0100)\/" }, { "questionId": 2, "text": "Question 2 - Option 2", "positionOrder": 2, "id": 5, "createdOn": "\/Date(1333666034440+0100)\/" }, { "questionId": 2, "text": "Question 2 - Option 3", "positionOrder": 3, "id": 6, "createdOn": "\/Date(1333666034447+0100)\/" }], "questionValidators": [{ "questionId": 2, "value": "3", "type": "MaxAnswers", "id": 3, "createdOn": "\/Date(1333666034407+0100)\/" }, { "questionId": 2, "value": "1", "type": "MinAnswers", "id": 4, "createdOn": "\/Date(1333666034417+0100)\/" }], "id": 2, "createdOn": "\/Date(1333666034377+0100)\/" }, { "surveyId": 1, "headerText": "Question 3", "subText": "subtext", "type": "Choice", "positionOrder": 3, "answerOptions": [{ "questionId": 3, "text": "Question 3 - Option 1", "positionOrder": 1, "id": 7, "createdOn": "\/Date(1333666034477+0100)\/" }, { "questionId": 3, "text": "Question 3 - Option 2", "positionOrder": 2, "id": 8, "createdOn": "\/Date(1333666034483+0100)\/" }, { "questionId": 3, "text": "Question 3 - Option 3", "positionOrder": 3, "id": 9, "createdOn": "\/Date(1333666034487+0100)\/" }], "questionValidators": [{ "questionId": 3, "value": "3", "type": "MaxAnswers", "id": 5, "createdOn": "\/Date(1333666034463+0100)\/" }, { "questionId": 3, "value": "1", "type": "MinAnswers", "id": 6, "createdOn": "\/Date(1333666034470+0100)\/" }], "id": 3, "createdOn": "\/Date(1333666034457+0100)\/" }, { "surveyId": 1, "headerText": "Question 4", "subText": "subtext", "type": "Choice", "positionOrder": 4, "answerOptions": [{ "questionId": 4, "text": "Question 4 - Option 1", "positionOrder": 1, "id": 10, "createdOn": "\/Date(1333666034500+0100)\/" }, { "questionId": 4, "text": "Question 4 - Option 2", "positionOrder": 2, "id": 11, "createdOn": "\/Date(1333666034507+0100)\/" }, { "questionId": 4, "text": "Question 4 - Option 3", "positionOrder": 3, "id": 12, "createdOn": "\/Date(1333666034507+0100)\/" }], "questionValidators": [{ "questionId": 4, "value": "3", "type": "MaxAnswers", "id": 7, "createdOn": "\/Date(1333666034493+0100)\/" }, { "questionId": 4, "value": "1", "type": "MinAnswers", "id": 8, "createdOn": "\/Date(1333666034497+0100)\/" }], "id": 4, "createdOn": "\/Date(1333666034490+0100)\/" }], "id": 1, "createdOn": "\/Date(1333666034243+0100)\/" })

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Trying to get around this Webservice call from Android using AsycTask

- by Kevin Rave

I am a fairly beginner in Android Development. I am developing an application that extensively relays on Webservice calls. First screen takes username and password and validates the user by calling the Webservice. If U/P is valid, then I need to fire up the 2nd activity. In that 2nd activity, I need to do 3 calls. But I haven't gotten to the 2nd part yet. In fact, I haven't completed the full coding yet. But I wanted to test if the app is working as far as I've come through. When calling webserivce, I am showing alert dialog. But the app is crashing somewhere. The LoginActivity shows up. When I enter U/P and press Login Button, it crashes. My classes: TaskHandler.java public class TaskHandler { private String URL; private User userObj; private String results; private JSONDownloaderTask task; ; public TaskHandler( String url, User user) { this.URL = url; this.userObj = user; } public String handleTask() { Log.d("Two", "In the function"); task = new JSONDownloaderTask(); Log.d("Three", "In the function"); task.execute(URL); return results; } private class JSONDownloaderTask extends AsyncTask<String, Void, String> { private String username;// = userObj.getUsername(); private String password; //= userObj.getPassword(); public HttpStatus status_code; public JSONDownloaderTask() { Log.d("con", "Success"); this.username = userObj.getUsername(); this.password = userObj.getPassword(); Log.d("User" + this.username , " Pass" + this.password); } private AsyncProgressActivity progressbar = new AsyncProgressActivity(); @Override protected void onPreExecute() { progressbar.showLoadingProgressDialog(); } @Override protected String doInBackground(String... params) { final String url = params[0]; //getString(R.string.api_staging_uri) + "Authenticate/"; // Populate the HTTP Basic Authentitcation header with the username and password HttpAuthentication authHeader = new HttpBasicAuthentication(username, password); HttpHeaders requestHeaders = new HttpHeaders(); requestHeaders.setAuthorization(authHeader); requestHeaders.setAccept(Collections.singletonList(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON)); // Create a new RestTemplate instance RestTemplate restTemplate = new RestTemplate(); restTemplate.getMessageConverters().add(new MappingJacksonHttpMessageConverter()); try { // Make the network request Log.d(this.getClass().getName(), url); ResponseEntity<Message> response = restTemplate.exchange(url, HttpMethod.GET, new HttpEntity<Object>(requestHeaders), Message.class); status_code = response.getStatusCode(); return response.getBody().toString(); } catch (HttpClientErrorException e) { status_code = e.getStatusCode(); return new Message(0, e.getStatusText(), e.getLocalizedMessage(), "error").toString(); } catch ( Exception e ) { Log.d(this.getClass().getName() ,e.getLocalizedMessage()); return "Unknown Exception"; } } @Override protected void onPostExecute(String result) { progressbar.dismissProgressDialog(); switch ( status_code ) { case UNAUTHORIZED: result = "Invalid username or passowrd"; break; case ACCEPTED: result = "Invalid username or passowrd" + status_code; break; case OK: result = "Successful!"; break; } } } } AsycProgressActivity.java public class AsyncProgressActivity extends Activity { protected static final String TAG = AsyncProgressActivity.class.getSimpleName(); private ProgressDialog progressDialog; private boolean destroyed = false; @Override protected void onDestroy() { super.onDestroy(); destroyed = true; } public void showLoadingProgressDialog() { Log.d("Here", "Progress"); this.showProgressDialog("Authenticating..."); Log.d("Here", "afer p"); } public void showProgressDialog(CharSequence message) { Log.d("Here", "Message"); if (progressDialog == null) { progressDialog = new ProgressDialog(this); progressDialog.setIndeterminate(true); } Log.d("Here", "Message 2"); progressDialog.setMessage(message); progressDialog.show(); } public void dismissProgressDialog() { if (progressDialog != null && !destroyed) { progressDialog.dismiss(); } } } LoginActivity.java public class LoginActivity extends AsyncProgressActivity implements OnClickListener { Button login_button; HttpStatus status_code; /** Called when the activity is first created. */ @Override public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); //this.requestWindowFeature(Window.FEATURE_NO_TITLE); setContentView(R.layout.main); login_button = (Button) findViewById(R.id.btnLogin); login_button.setOnClickListener(this); ViewServer.get(this).addWindow(this); } public void onDestroy() { super.onDestroy(); ViewServer.get(this).removeWindow(this); } public void onResume() { super.onResume(); ViewServer.get(this).setFocusedWindow(this); } public void onClick(View v) { if ( v.getId() == R.id.btnLogin ) { User userobj = new User(); String result; userobj.setUsername( ((EditText) findViewById(R.id.username)).getText().toString()); userobj.setPassword(((EditText) findViewById(R.id.password)).getText().toString() ); TaskHandler handler = new TaskHandler(getString(R.string.api_staging_uri) + "Authenticate/", userobj); Log.d(this.getClass().getName(), "One"); result = handler.handleTask(); Log.d(this.getClass().getName(), "After two"); Utilities.showAlert(result, LoginActivity.this); } } Utilities.java public class Utilities { public static void showAlert(String message, Context context) { AlertDialog.Builder alertDialogBuilder = new AlertDialog.Builder(context); alertDialogBuilder.setTitle("Login"); alertDialogBuilder.setMessage(message) .setCancelable(false) .setPositiveButton("OK",new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() { public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog,int id) { dialog.dismiss(); //dialog.cancel(); } }); alertDialogBuilder.setIcon(drawable.ic_dialog_alert); // create alert dialog AlertDialog alertDialog = alertDialogBuilder.create(); // show it alertDialog.show(); } }

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A free standing ASP.NET Pager Web Control

- by Rick Strahl

Paging in ASP.NET has been relatively easy with stock controls supporting basic paging functionality. However, recently I built an MVC application and one of the things I ran into was that I HAD TO build manual paging support into a few of my pages. Dealing with list controls and rendering markup is easy enough, but doing paging is a little more involved. I ended up with a small but flexible component that can be dropped anywhere. As it turns out the task of creating a semi-generic Pager control for MVC was fairly easily. Now I’m back to working in Web Forms and thought to myself that the way I created the pager in MVC actually would also work in ASP.NET – in fact quite a bit easier since the whole thing can be conveniently wrapped up into an easily reusable control. A standalone pager would provider easier reuse in various pages and a more consistent pager display regardless of what kind of 'control’ the pager is associated with. Why a Pager Control? At first blush it might sound silly to create a new pager control – after all Web Forms has pretty decent paging support, doesn’t it? Well, sort of. Yes the GridView control has automatic paging built in and the ListView control has the related DataPager control. The built in ASP.NET paging has several issues though: Postback and JavaScript requirements If you look at paging links in ASP.NET they are always postback links with javascript:__doPostback() calls that go back to the server. While that works fine and actually has some benefit like the fact that paging saves changes to the page and post them back, it’s not very SEO friendly. Basically if you use javascript based navigation nosearch engine will follow the paging links which effectively cuts off list content on the first page. The DataPager control does support GET based links via the QueryStringParameter property, but the control is effectively tied to the ListView control (which is the only control that implements IPageableItemContainer). DataSource Controls required for Efficient Data Paging Retrieval The only way you can get paging to work efficiently where only the few records you display on the page are queried for and retrieved from the database you have to use a DataSource control - only the Linq and Entity DataSource controls support this natively. While you can retrieve this data yourself manually, there’s no way to just assign the page number and render the pager based on this custom subset. Other than that default paging requires a full resultset for ASP.NET to filter the data and display only a subset which can be very resource intensive and wasteful if you’re dealing with largish resultsets (although I’m a firm believer in returning actually usable sets :-}). If you use your own business layer that doesn’t fit an ObjectDataSource you’re SOL. That’s a real shame too because with LINQ based querying it’s real easy to retrieve a subset of data that is just the data you want to display but the native Pager functionality doesn’t support just setting properties to display just the subset AFAIK. DataPager is not Free Standing The DataPager control is the closest thing to a decent Pager implementation that ASP.NET has, but alas it’s not a free standing component – it works off a related control and the only one that it effectively supports from the stock ASP.NET controls is the ListView control. This means you can’t use the same data pager formatting for a grid and a list view or vice versa and you’re always tied to the control. Paging Events In order to handle paging you have to deal with paging events. The events fire at specific time instances in the page pipeline and because of this you often have to handle data binding in a way to work around the paging events or else end up double binding your data sources based on paging. Yuk. Styling The GridView pager is a royal pain to beat into submission for styled rendering. The DataPager control has many more options and template layout and it renders somewhat cleaner, but it too is not exactly easy to get a decent display for. Not a Generic Solution The problem with the ASP.NET controls too is that it’s not generic. GridView, DataGrid use their own internal paging, ListView can use a DataPager and if you want to manually create data layout – well you’re on your own. IOW, depending on what you use you likely have very different looking Paging experiences. So, I figured I’ve struggled with this once too many and finally sat down and built a Pager control. The Pager Control My goal was to create a totally free standing control that has no dependencies on other controls and certainly no requirements for using DataSource controls. The idea is that you should be able to use this pager control without any sort of data requirements at all – you should just be able to set properties and be able to display a pager. The Pager control I ended up with has the following features: Completely free standing Pager control – no control or data dependencies Complete manual control – Pager can render without any data dependency Easy to use: Only need to set PageSize, ActivePage and TotalItems Supports optional filtering of IQueryable for efficient queries and Pager rendering Supports optional full set filtering of IEnumerable<T> and DataTable Page links are plain HTTP GET href Links Control automatically picks up Page links on the URL and assigns them (automatic page detection no page index changing events to hookup) Full CSS Styling support On the downside there’s no templating support for the control so the layout of the pager is relatively fixed. All elements however are stylable and there are options to control the text, and layout options such as whether to display first and last pages and the previous/next buttons and so on. To give you an idea what the pager looks like, here are two differently styled examples (all via CSS): The markup for these two pagers looks like this: <ww:Pager runat="server" id="ItemPager" PageSize="5" PageLinkCssClass="gridpagerbutton" SelectedPageCssClass="gridpagerbutton-selected" PagesTextCssClass="gridpagertext" CssClass="gridpager" RenderContainerDiv="true" ContainerDivCssClass="gridpagercontainer" MaxPagesToDisplay="6" PagesText="Item Pages:" NextText="next" PreviousText="previous" /> <ww:Pager runat="server" id="ItemPager2" PageSize="5" RenderContainerDiv="true" MaxPagesToDisplay="6" /> The latter example uses default style settings so it there’s not much to set. The first example on the other hand explicitly assigns custom styles and overrides a few of the formatting options. Styling The styling is based on a number of CSS classes of which the the main pager, pagerbutton and pagerbutton-selected classes are the important ones. Other styles like pagerbutton-next/prev/first/last are based on the pagerbutton style. The default styling shown for the red outlined pager looks like this: .pagercontainer { margin: 20px 0; background: whitesmoke; padding: 5px; } .pager { float: right; font-size: 10pt; text-align: left; } .pagerbutton,.pagerbutton-selected,.pagertext { display: block; float: left; text-align: center; border: solid 2px maroon; min-width: 18px; margin-left: 3px; text-decoration: none; padding: 4px; } .pagerbutton-selected { font-size: 130%; font-weight: bold; color: maroon; border-width: 0px; background: khaki; } .pagerbutton-first { margin-right: 12px; } .pagerbutton-last,.pagerbutton-prev { margin-left: 12px; } .pagertext { border: none; margin-left: 30px; font-weight: bold; } .pagerbutton a { text-decoration: none; } .pagerbutton:hover { background-color: maroon; color: cornsilk; } .pagerbutton-prev { background-image: url(images/prev.png); background-position: 2px center; background-repeat: no-repeat; width: 35px; padding-left: 20px; } .pagerbutton-next { background-image: url(images/next.png); background-position: 40px center; background-repeat: no-repeat; width: 35px; padding-right: 20px; margin-right: 0px; } Yup that’s a lot of styling settings although not all of them are required. The key ones are pagerbutton, pager and pager selection. The others (which are implicitly created by the control based on the pagerbutton style) are for custom markup of the ‘special’ buttons. In my apps I tend to have two kinds of pages: Those that are associated with typical ‘grid’ displays that display purely tabular data and those that have a more looser list like layout. The two pagers shown above represent these two views and the pager and gridpager styles in my standard style sheet reflect these two styles. Configuring the Pager with Code Finally lets look at what it takes to hook up the pager. As mentioned in the highlights the Pager control is completely independent of other controls so if you just want to display a pager on its own it’s as simple as dropping the control and assigning the PageSize, ActivePage and either TotalPages or TotalItems. So for this markup: <ww:Pager runat="server" id="ItemPagerManual" PageSize="5" MaxPagesToDisplay="6" /> I can use code as simple as: ItemPagerManual.PageSize = 3; ItemPagerManual.ActivePage = 4;ItemPagerManual.TotalItems = 20; Note that ActivePage is not required - it will automatically use any Page=x query string value and assign it, although you can override it as I did above. TotalItems can be any value that you retrieve from a result set or manually assign as I did above. A more realistic scenario based on a LINQ to SQL IQueryable result is even easier. In this example, I have a UserControl that contains a ListView control that renders IQueryable data. I use a User Control here because there are different views the user can choose from with each view being a different user control. This incidentally also highlights one of the nice features of the pager: Because the pager is independent of the control I can put the pager on the host page instead of into each of the user controls. IOW, there’s only one Pager control, but there are potentially many user controls/listviews that hold the actual display data. The following code demonstrates how to use the Pager with an IQueryable that loads only the records it displays: protected voidPage_Load(objectsender, EventArgs e) { Category = Request.Params["Category"] ?? string.Empty; IQueryable<wws_Item> ItemList = ItemRepository.GetItemsByCategory(Category); // Update the page and filter the list down ItemList = ItemPager.FilterIQueryable<wws_Item>(ItemList); // Render user control with a list view Control ulItemList = LoadControl("~/usercontrols/" + App.Configuration.ItemListType + ".ascx"); ((IInventoryItemListControl)ulItemList).InventoryItemList = ItemList; phItemList.Controls.Add(ulItemList); // placeholder } The code uses a business object to retrieve Items by category as an IQueryable which means that the result is only an expression tree that hasn’t execute SQL yet and can be further filtered. I then pass this IQueryable to the FilterIQueryable() helper method of the control which does two main things: Filters the IQueryable to retrieve only the data displayed on the active page Sets the Totaltems property and calculates TotalPages on the Pager and that’s it! When the Pager renders it uses those values, plus the PageSize and ActivePage properties to render the Pager. In addition to IQueryable there are also filter methods for IEnumerable<T> and DataTable, but these versions just filter the data by removing rows/items from the entire already retrieved data. Output Generated and Paging Links The output generated creates pager links as plain href links. Here’s what the output looks like: <div id="ItemPager" class="pagercontainer"> <div class="pager"> <span class="pagertext">Pages: </span><a href="http://localhost/WestWindWebStore/itemlist.aspx?Page=1" class="pagerbutton" />1</a> <a href="http://localhost/WestWindWebStore/itemlist.aspx?Page=2" class="pagerbutton" />2</a> <a href="http://localhost/WestWindWebStore/itemlist.aspx?Page=3" class="pagerbutton" />3</a> <span class="pagerbutton-selected">4</span> <a href="http://localhost/WestWindWebStore/itemlist.aspx?Page=5" class="pagerbutton" />5</a> <a href="http://localhost/WestWindWebStore/itemlist.aspx?Page=6" class="pagerbutton" />6</a> <a href="http://localhost/WestWindWebStore/itemlist.aspx?Page=20" class="pagerbutton pagerbutton-last" />20</a> <a href="http://localhost/WestWindWebStore/itemlist.aspx?Page=3" class="pagerbutton pagerbutton-prev" />Prev</a> <a href="http://localhost/WestWindWebStore/itemlist.aspx?Page=5" class="pagerbutton pagerbutton-next" />Next</a></div> <br clear="all" /> </div> </div> The links point back to the current page and simply append a Page= page link into the page. When the page gets reloaded with the new page number the pager automatically detects the page number and automatically assigns the ActivePage property which results in the appropriate page to be displayed. The code shown in the previous section is all that’s needed to handle paging. Note that HTTP GET based paging is different than the Postback paging ASP.NET uses by default. Postback paging preserves modified page content when clicking on pager buttons, but this control will simply load a new page – no page preservation at this time. The advantage of not using Postback paging is that the URLs generated are plain HTML links that a search engine can follow where __doPostback() links are not. Pager with a Grid The pager also works in combination with grid controls so it’s easy to bypass the grid control’s paging features if desired. In the following example I use a gridView control and binds it to a DataTable result which is also filterable by the Pager control. The very basic plain vanilla ASP.NET grid markup looks like this: <div style="width: 600px; margin: 0 auto;padding: 20px; "> <asp:DataGrid runat="server" AutoGenerateColumns="True" ID="gdItems" CssClass="blackborder" style="width: 600px;"> <AlternatingItemStyle CssClass="gridalternate" /> <HeaderStyle CssClass="gridheader" /> </asp:DataGrid> <ww:Pager runat="server" ID="Pager" CssClass="gridpager" ContainerDivCssClass="gridpagercontainer" PageLinkCssClass="gridpagerbutton" SelectedPageCssClass="gridpagerbutton-selected" PageSize="8" RenderContainerDiv="true" MaxPagesToDisplay="6" /> </div> and looks like this when rendered: using custom set of CSS styles. The code behind for this code is also very simple: protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { string category = Request.Params["category"] ?? ""; busItem itemRep = WebStoreFactory.GetItem(); var items = itemRep.GetItemsByCategory(category) .Select(itm => new {Sku = itm.Sku, Description = itm.Description}); // run query into a DataTable for demonstration DataTable dt = itemRep.Converter.ToDataTable(items,"TItems"); // Remove all items not on the current page dt = Pager.FilterDataTable(dt,0); // bind and display gdItems.DataSource = dt; gdItems.DataBind(); } A little contrived I suppose since the list could already be bound from the list of elements, but this is to demonstrate that you can also bind against a DataTable if your business layer returns those. Unfortunately there’s no way to filter a DataReader as it’s a one way forward only reader and the reader is required by the DataSource to perform the bindings. However, you can still use a DataReader as long as your business logic filters the data prior to rendering and provides a total item count (most likely as a second query). Control Creation The control itself is a pretty brute force ASP.NET control. Nothing clever about this other than some basic rendering logic and some simple calculations and update routines to determine which buttons need to be shown. You can take a look at the full code from the West Wind Web Toolkit’s Repository (note there are a few dependencies). To give you an idea how the control works here is the Render() method: /// <summary> /// overridden to handle custom pager rendering for runtime and design time /// </summary> /// <param name="writer"></param> protected override void Render(HtmlTextWriter writer) { base.Render(writer); if (TotalPages == 0 && TotalItems > 0) TotalPages = CalculateTotalPagesFromTotalItems(); if (DesignMode) TotalPages = 10; // don't render pager if there's only one page if (TotalPages < 2) return; if (RenderContainerDiv) { if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(ContainerDivCssClass)) writer.AddAttribute("class", ContainerDivCssClass); writer.RenderBeginTag("div"); } // main pager wrapper writer.WriteBeginTag("div"); writer.AddAttribute("id", this.ClientID); if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(CssClass)) writer.WriteAttribute("class", this.CssClass); writer.Write(HtmlTextWriter.TagRightChar + "\r\n"); // Pages Text writer.WriteBeginTag("span"); if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(PagesTextCssClass)) writer.WriteAttribute("class", PagesTextCssClass); writer.Write(HtmlTextWriter.TagRightChar); writer.Write(this.PagesText); writer.WriteEndTag("span"); // if the base url is empty use the current URL FixupBaseUrl(); // set _startPage and _endPage ConfigurePagesToRender(); // write out first page link if (ShowFirstAndLastPageLinks && _startPage != 1) { writer.WriteBeginTag("a"); string pageUrl = StringUtils.SetUrlEncodedKey(BaseUrl, QueryStringPageField, (1).ToString()); writer.WriteAttribute("href", pageUrl); if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(PageLinkCssClass)) writer.WriteAttribute("class", PageLinkCssClass + " " + PageLinkCssClass + "-first"); writer.Write(HtmlTextWriter.SelfClosingTagEnd); writer.Write("1"); writer.WriteEndTag("a"); writer.Write(" "); } // write out all the page links for (int i = _startPage; i < _endPage + 1; i++) { if (i == ActivePage) { writer.WriteBeginTag("span"); if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(SelectedPageCssClass)) writer.WriteAttribute("class", SelectedPageCssClass); writer.Write(HtmlTextWriter.TagRightChar); writer.Write(i.ToString()); writer.WriteEndTag("span"); } else { writer.WriteBeginTag("a"); string pageUrl = StringUtils.SetUrlEncodedKey(BaseUrl, QueryStringPageField, i.ToString()).TrimEnd('&'); writer.WriteAttribute("href", pageUrl); if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(PageLinkCssClass)) writer.WriteAttribute("class", PageLinkCssClass); writer.Write(HtmlTextWriter.SelfClosingTagEnd); writer.Write(i.ToString()); writer.WriteEndTag("a"); } writer.Write("\r\n"); } // write out last page link if (ShowFirstAndLastPageLinks && _endPage < TotalPages) { writer.WriteBeginTag("a"); string pageUrl = StringUtils.SetUrlEncodedKey(BaseUrl, QueryStringPageField, TotalPages.ToString()); writer.WriteAttribute("href", pageUrl); if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(PageLinkCssClass)) writer.WriteAttribute("class", PageLinkCssClass + " " + PageLinkCssClass + "-last"); writer.Write(HtmlTextWriter.SelfClosingTagEnd); writer.Write(TotalPages.ToString()); writer.WriteEndTag("a"); } // Previous link if (ShowPreviousNextLinks && !string.IsNullOrEmpty(PreviousText) && ActivePage > 1) { writer.Write(" "); writer.WriteBeginTag("a"); string pageUrl = StringUtils.SetUrlEncodedKey(BaseUrl, QueryStringPageField, (ActivePage - 1).ToString()); writer.WriteAttribute("href", pageUrl); if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(PageLinkCssClass)) writer.WriteAttribute("class", PageLinkCssClass + " " + PageLinkCssClass + "-prev"); writer.Write(HtmlTextWriter.SelfClosingTagEnd); writer.Write(PreviousText); writer.WriteEndTag("a"); } // Next link if (ShowPreviousNextLinks && !string.IsNullOrEmpty(NextText) && ActivePage < TotalPages) { writer.Write(" "); writer.WriteBeginTag("a"); string pageUrl = StringUtils.SetUrlEncodedKey(BaseUrl, QueryStringPageField, (ActivePage + 1).ToString()); writer.WriteAttribute("href", pageUrl); if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(PageLinkCssClass)) writer.WriteAttribute("class", PageLinkCssClass + " " + PageLinkCssClass + "-next"); writer.Write(HtmlTextWriter.SelfClosingTagEnd); writer.Write(NextText); writer.WriteEndTag("a"); } writer.WriteEndTag("div"); if (RenderContainerDiv) { if (RenderContainerDivBreak) writer.Write("<br clear=\"all\" />\r\n"); writer.WriteEndTag("div"); } } As I said pretty much brute force rendering based on the control’s property settings of which there are quite a few: You can also see the pager in the designer above. unfortunately the VS designer (both 2010 and 2008) fails to render the float: left CSS styles properly and starts wrapping after margins are applied in the special buttons. Not a big deal since VS does at least respect the spacing (the floated elements overlay). Then again I’m not using the designer anyway :-}. Filtering Data What makes the Pager easy to use is the filter methods built into the control. While this functionality is clearly not the most politically correct design choice as it violates separation of concerns, it’s very useful for typical pager operation. While I actually have filter methods that do something similar in my business layer, having it exposed on the control makes the control a lot more useful for typical databinding scenarios. Of course these methods are optional – if you have a business layer that can provide filtered page queries for you can use that instead and assign the TotalItems property manually. There are three filter method types available for IQueryable, IEnumerable and for DataTable which tend to be the most common use cases in my apps old and new. The IQueryable version is pretty simple as it can simply rely on on .Skip() and .Take() with LINQ: /// <summary> /// <summary> /// Queries the database for the ActivePage applied manually /// or from the Request["page"] variable. This routine /// figures out and sets TotalPages, ActivePage and /// returns a filtered subset IQueryable that contains /// only the items from the ActivePage. /// </summary> /// <param name="query"></param> /// <param name="activePage"> /// The page you want to display. Sets the ActivePage property when passed. /// Pass 0 or smaller to use ActivePage setting. /// </param> /// <returns></returns> public IQueryable<T> FilterIQueryable<T>(IQueryable<T> query, int activePage) where T : class, new() { ActivePage = activePage < 1 ? ActivePage : activePage; if (ActivePage < 1) ActivePage = 1; TotalItems = query.Count(); if (TotalItems <= PageSize) { ActivePage = 1; TotalPages = 1; return query; } int skip = ActivePage - 1; if (skip > 0) query = query.Skip(skip * PageSize); _TotalPages = CalculateTotalPagesFromTotalItems(); return query.Take(PageSize); } The IEnumerable<T> version simply converts the IEnumerable to an IQuerable and calls back into this method for filtering. The DataTable version requires a little more work to manually parse and filter records (I didn’t want to add the Linq DataSetExtensions assembly just for this): /// <summary> /// Filters a data table for an ActivePage. /// /// Note: Modifies the data set permanently by remove DataRows /// </summary> /// <param name="dt">Full result DataTable</param> /// <param name="activePage">Page to display. 0 to use ActivePage property </param> /// <returns></returns> public DataTable FilterDataTable(DataTable dt, int activePage) { ActivePage = activePage < 1 ? ActivePage : activePage; if (ActivePage < 1) ActivePage = 1; TotalItems = dt.Rows.Count; if (TotalItems <= PageSize) { ActivePage = 1; TotalPages = 1; return dt; } int skip = ActivePage - 1; if (skip > 0) { for (int i = 0; i < skip * PageSize; i++ ) dt.Rows.RemoveAt(0); } while(dt.Rows.Count > PageSize) dt.Rows.RemoveAt(PageSize); return dt; } Using the Pager Control The pager as it is is a first cut I built a couple of weeks ago and since then have been tweaking a little as part of an internal project I’m working on. I’ve replaced a bunch of pagers on various older pages with this pager without any issues and have what now feels like a more consistent user interface where paging looks and feels the same across different controls. As a bonus I’m only loading the data from the database that I need to display a single page. With the preset class tags applied too adding a pager is now as easy as dropping the control and adding the style sheet for styling to be consistent – no fuss, no muss. Schweet. Hopefully some of you may find this as useful as I have or at least as a baseline to build ontop of… Resources The Pager is part of the West Wind Web & Ajax Toolkit Pager.cs Source Code (some toolkit dependencies) Westwind.css base stylesheet with .pager and .gridpager styles Pager Example Page © Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2010Posted in ASP.NET

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Capturing and Transforming ASP.NET Output with Response.Filter

- by Rick Strahl

During one of my Handlers and Modules session at DevConnections this week one of the attendees asked a question that I didn’t have an immediate answer for. Basically he wanted to capture response output completely and then apply some filtering to the output – effectively injecting some additional content into the page AFTER the page had completely rendered. Specifically the output should be captured from anywhere – not just a page and have this code injected into the page. Some time ago I posted some code that allows you to capture ASP.NET Page output by overriding the Render() method, capturing the HtmlTextWriter() and reading its content, modifying the rendered data as text then writing it back out. I’ve actually used this approach on a few occasions and it works fine for ASP.NET pages. But this obviously won’t work outside of the Page class environment and it’s not really generic – you have to create a custom page class in order to handle the output capture. [updated 11/16/2009 – updated ResponseFilterStream implementation and a few additional notes based on comments] Enter Response.Filter However, ASP.NET includes a Response.Filter which can be used – well to filter output. Basically Response.Filter is a stream through which the OutputStream is piped back to the Web Server (indirectly). As content is written into the Response object, the filter stream receives the appropriate Stream commands like Write, Flush and Close as well as read operations although for a Response.Filter that’s uncommon to be hit. The Response.Filter can be programmatically replaced at runtime which allows you to effectively intercept all output generation that runs through ASP.NET. A common Example: Dynamic GZip Encoding A rather common use of Response.Filter hooking up code based, dynamic GZip compression for requests which is dead simple by applying a GZipStream (or DeflateStream) to Response.Filter. The following generic routines can be used very easily to detect GZip capability of the client and compress response output with a single line of code and a couple of library helper routines: WebUtils.GZipEncodePage(); which is handled with a few lines of reusable code and a couple of static helper methods: /// <summary> ///Sets up the current page or handler to use GZip through a Response.Filter ///IMPORTANT: ///You have to call this method before any output is generated! /// </summary> public static void GZipEncodePage() { HttpResponse Response = HttpContext.Current.Response; if(IsGZipSupported()) { stringAcceptEncoding = HttpContext.Current.Request.Headers["Accept-Encoding"]; if(AcceptEncoding.Contains("deflate")) { Response.Filter = newSystem.IO.Compression.DeflateStream(Response.Filter, System.IO.Compression.CompressionMode.Compress); Response.AppendHeader("Content-Encoding", "deflate"); } else { Response.Filter = newSystem.IO.Compression.GZipStream(Response.Filter, System.IO.Compression.CompressionMode.Compress); Response.AppendHeader("Content-Encoding", "gzip"); } } // Allow proxy servers to cache encoded and unencoded versions separately Response.AppendHeader("Vary", "Content-Encoding"); } /// <summary> /// Determines if GZip is supported /// </summary> /// <returns></returns> public static bool IsGZipSupported() { string AcceptEncoding = HttpContext.Current.Request.Headers["Accept-Encoding"]; if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(AcceptEncoding) && (AcceptEncoding.Contains("gzip") || AcceptEncoding.Contains("deflate"))) return true; return false; } GZipStream and DeflateStream are streams that are assigned to Response.Filter and by doing so apply the appropriate compression on the active Response. Response.Filter content is chunked So to implement a Response.Filter effectively requires only that you implement a custom stream and handle the Write() method to capture Response output as it’s written. At first blush this seems very simple – you capture the output in Write, transform it and write out the transformed content in one pass. And that indeed works for small amounts of content. But you see, the problem is that output is written in small buffer chunks (a little less than 16k it appears) rather than just a single Write() statement into the stream, which makes perfect sense for ASP.NET to stream data back to IIS in smaller chunks to minimize memory usage en route. Unfortunately this also makes it a more difficult to implement any filtering routines since you don’t directly get access to all of the response content which is problematic especially if those filtering routines require you to look at the ENTIRE response in order to transform or capture the output as is needed for the solution the gentleman in my session asked for. So in order to address this a slightly different approach is required that basically captures all the Write() buffers passed into a cached stream and then making the stream available only when it’s complete and ready to be flushed. As I was thinking about the implementation I also started thinking about the few instances when I’ve used Response.Filter implementations. Each time I had to create a new Stream subclass and create my custom functionality but in the end each implementation did the same thing – capturing output and transforming it. I thought there should be an easier way to do this by creating a re-usable Stream class that can handle stream transformations that are common to Response.Filter implementations. Creating a semi-generic Response Filter Stream Class What I ended up with is a ResponseFilterStream class that provides a handful of Events that allow you to capture and/or transform Response content. The class implements a subclass of Stream and then overrides Write() and Flush() to handle capturing and transformation operations. By exposing events it’s easy to hook up capture or transformation operations via single focused methods. ResponseFilterStream exposes the following events: CaptureStream, CaptureString Captures the output only and provides either a MemoryStream or String with the final page output. Capture is hooked to the Flush() operation of the stream. TransformStream, TransformString Allows you to transform the complete response output with events that receive a MemoryStream or String respectively and can you modify the output then return it back as a return value. The transformed output is then written back out in a single chunk to the response output stream. These events capture all output internally first then write the entire buffer into the response. TransformWrite, TransformWriteString Allows you to transform the Response data as it is written in its original chunk size in the Stream’s Write() method. Unlike TransformStream/TransformString which operate on the complete output, these events only see the current chunk of data written. This is more efficient as there’s no caching involved, but can cause problems due to searched content splitting over multiple chunks. Using this implementation, creating a custom Response.Filter transformation becomes as simple as the following code. To hook up the Response.Filter using the MemoryStream version event: ResponseFilterStream filter = new ResponseFilterStream(Response.Filter); filter.TransformStream += filter_TransformStream; Response.Filter = filter; and the event handler to do the transformation: MemoryStream filter_TransformStream(MemoryStream ms) { Encoding encoding = HttpContext.Current.Response.ContentEncoding; string output = encoding.GetString(ms.ToArray()); output = FixPaths(output); ms = new MemoryStream(output.Length); byte[] buffer = encoding.GetBytes(output); ms.Write(buffer,0,buffer.Length); return ms; } private string FixPaths(string output) { string path = HttpContext.Current.Request.ApplicationPath; // override root path wonkiness if (path == "/") path = ""; output = output.Replace("\"~/", "\"" + path + "/").Replace("'~/", "'" + path + "/"); return output; } The idea of the event handler is that you can do whatever you want to the stream and return back a stream – either the same one that’s been modified or a brand new one – which is then sent back to as the final response. The above code can be simplified even more by using the string version events which handle the stream to string conversions for you: ResponseFilterStream filter = new ResponseFilterStream(Response.Filter); filter.TransformString += filter_TransformString; Response.Filter = filter; and the event handler to do the transformation calling the same FixPaths method shown above: string filter_TransformString(string output) { return FixPaths(output); } The events for capturing output and capturing and transforming chunks work in a very similar way. By using events to handle the transformations ResponseFilterStream becomes a reusable component and we don’t have to create a new stream class or subclass an existing Stream based classed. By the way, the example used here is kind of a cool trick which transforms “~/” expressions inside of the final generated HTML output – even in plain HTML controls not HTML controls – and transforms them into the appropriate application relative path in the same way that ResolveUrl would do. So you can write plain old HTML like this: <a href=”~/default.aspx”>Home</a> and have it turned into: <a href=”/myVirtual/default.aspx”>Home</a> without having to use an ASP.NET control like Hyperlink or Image or having to constantly use: <img src=”<%= ResolveUrl(“~/images/home.gif”) %>” /> in MVC applications (which frankly is one of the most annoying things about MVC especially given the path hell that extension-less and endpoint-less URLs impose). I can’t take credit for this idea. While discussing the Response.Filter issues on Twitter a hint from Dylan Beattie who pointed me at one of his examples which does something similar. I thought the idea was cool enough to use an example for future demos of Response.Filter functionality in ASP.NET next I time I do the Modules and Handlers talk (which was great fun BTW). How practical this is is debatable however since there’s definitely some overhead to using a Response.Filter in general and especially on one that caches the output and the re-writes it later. Make sure to test for performance anytime you use Response.Filter hookup and make sure it' doesn’t end up killing perf on you. You’ve been warned :-}. How does ResponseFilterStream work? The big win of this implementation IMHO is that it’s a reusable component – so for implementation there’s no new class, no subclassing – you simply attach to an event to implement an event handler method with a straight forward signature to retrieve the stream or string you’re interested in. The implementation is based on a subclass of Stream as is required in order to handle the Response.Filter requirements. What’s different than other implementations I’ve seen in various places is that it supports capturing output as a whole to allow retrieving the full response output for capture or modification. The exception are the TransformWrite and TransformWrite events which operate only active chunk of data written by the Response. For captured output, the Write() method captures output into an internal MemoryStream that is cached until writing is complete. So Write() is called when ASP.NET writes to the Response stream, but the filter doesn’t pass on the Write immediately to the filter’s internal stream. The data is cached and only when the Flush() method is called to finalize the Stream’s output do we actually send the cached stream off for transformation (if the events are hooked up) and THEN finally write out the returned content in one big chunk. Here’s the implementation of ResponseFilterStream: /// <summary> /// A semi-generic Stream implementation for Response.Filter with /// an event interface for handling Content transformations via /// Stream or String. /// <remarks> /// Use with care for large output as this implementation copies /// the output into a memory stream and so increases memory usage. /// </remarks> /// </summary> public class ResponseFilterStream : Stream { /// <summary> /// The original stream /// </summary> Stream _stream; /// <summary> /// Current position in the original stream /// </summary> long _position; /// <summary> /// Stream that original content is read into /// and then passed to TransformStream function /// </summary> MemoryStream _cacheStream = new MemoryStream(5000); /// <summary> /// Internal pointer that that keeps track of the size /// of the cacheStream /// </summary> int _cachePointer = 0; /// <summary> /// /// </summary> /// <param name="responseStream"></param> public ResponseFilterStream(Stream responseStream) { _stream = responseStream; } /// <summary> /// Determines whether the stream is captured /// </summary> private bool IsCaptured { get { if (CaptureStream != null || CaptureString != null || TransformStream != null || TransformString != null) return true; return false; } } /// <summary> /// Determines whether the Write method is outputting data immediately /// or delaying output until Flush() is fired. /// </summary> private bool IsOutputDelayed { get { if (TransformStream != null || TransformString != null) return true; return false; } } /// <summary> /// Event that captures Response output and makes it available /// as a MemoryStream instance. Output is captured but won't /// affect Response output. /// </summary> public event Action<MemoryStream> CaptureStream; /// <summary> /// Event that captures Response output and makes it available /// as a string. Output is captured but won't affect Response output. /// </summary> public event Action<string> CaptureString; /// <summary> /// Event that allows you transform the stream as each chunk of /// the output is written in the Write() operation of the stream. /// This means that that it's possible/likely that the input /// buffer will not contain the full response output but only /// one of potentially many chunks. /// /// This event is called as part of the filter stream's Write() /// operation. /// </summary> public event Func<byte[], byte[]> TransformWrite; /// <summary> /// Event that allows you to transform the response stream as /// each chunk of bytep[] output is written during the stream's write /// operation. This means it's possibly/likely that the string /// passed to the handler only contains a portion of the full /// output. Typical buffer chunks are around 16k a piece. /// /// This event is called as part of the stream's Write operation. /// </summary> public event Func<string, string> TransformWriteString; /// <summary> /// This event allows capturing and transformation of the entire /// output stream by caching all write operations and delaying final /// response output until Flush() is called on the stream. /// </summary> public event Func<MemoryStream, MemoryStream> TransformStream; /// <summary> /// Event that can be hooked up to handle Response.Filter /// Transformation. Passed a string that you can modify and /// return back as a return value. The modified content /// will become the final output. /// </summary> public event Func<string, string> TransformString; protected virtual void OnCaptureStream(MemoryStream ms) { if (CaptureStream != null) CaptureStream(ms); } private void OnCaptureStringInternal(MemoryStream ms) { if (CaptureString != null) { string content = HttpContext.Current.Response.ContentEncoding.GetString(ms.ToArray()); OnCaptureString(content); } } protected virtual void OnCaptureString(string output) { if (CaptureString != null) CaptureString(output); } protected virtual byte[] OnTransformWrite(byte[] buffer) { if (TransformWrite != null) return TransformWrite(buffer); return buffer; } private byte[] OnTransformWriteStringInternal(byte[] buffer) { Encoding encoding = HttpContext.Current.Response.ContentEncoding; string output = OnTransformWriteString(encoding.GetString(buffer)); return encoding.GetBytes(output); } private string OnTransformWriteString(string value) { if (TransformWriteString != null) return TransformWriteString(value); return value; } protected virtual MemoryStream OnTransformCompleteStream(MemoryStream ms) { if (TransformStream != null) return TransformStream(ms); return ms; } /// <summary> /// Allows transforming of strings /// /// Note this handler is internal and not meant to be overridden /// as the TransformString Event has to be hooked up in order /// for this handler to even fire to avoid the overhead of string /// conversion on every pass through. /// </summary> /// <param name="responseText"></param> /// <returns></returns> private string OnTransformCompleteString(string responseText) { if (TransformString != null) TransformString(responseText); return responseText; } /// <summary> /// Wrapper method form OnTransformString that handles /// stream to string and vice versa conversions /// </summary> /// <param name="ms"></param> /// <returns></returns> internal MemoryStream OnTransformCompleteStringInternal(MemoryStream ms) { if (TransformString == null) return ms; //string content = ms.GetAsString(); string content = HttpContext.Current.Response.ContentEncoding.GetString(ms.ToArray()); content = TransformString(content); byte[] buffer = HttpContext.Current.Response.ContentEncoding.GetBytes(content); ms = new MemoryStream(); ms.Write(buffer, 0, buffer.Length); //ms.WriteString(content); return ms; } /// <summary> /// /// </summary> public override bool CanRead { get { return true; } } public override bool CanSeek { get { return true; } } /// <summary> /// /// </summary> public override bool CanWrite { get { return true; } } /// <summary> /// /// </summary> public override long Length { get { return 0; } } /// <summary> /// /// </summary> public override long Position { get { return _position; } set { _position = value; } } /// <summary> /// /// </summary> /// <param name="offset"></param> /// <param name="direction"></param> /// <returns></returns> public override long Seek(long offset, System.IO.SeekOrigin direction) { return _stream.Seek(offset, direction); } /// <summary> /// /// </summary> /// <param name="length"></param> public override void SetLength(long length) { _stream.SetLength(length); } /// <summary> /// /// </summary> public override void Close() { _stream.Close(); } /// <summary> /// Override flush by writing out the cached stream data /// </summary> public override void Flush() { if (IsCaptured && _cacheStream.Length > 0) { // Check for transform implementations _cacheStream = OnTransformCompleteStream(_cacheStream); _cacheStream = OnTransformCompleteStringInternal(_cacheStream); OnCaptureStream(_cacheStream); OnCaptureStringInternal(_cacheStream); // write the stream back out if output was delayed if (IsOutputDelayed) _stream.Write(_cacheStream.ToArray(), 0, (int)_cacheStream.Length); // Clear the cache once we've written it out _cacheStream.SetLength(0); } // default flush behavior _stream.Flush(); } /// <summary> /// /// </summary> /// <param name="buffer"></param> /// <param name="offset"></param> /// <param name="count"></param> /// <returns></returns> public override int Read(byte[] buffer, int offset, int count) { return _stream.Read(buffer, offset, count); } /// <summary> /// Overriden to capture output written by ASP.NET and captured /// into a cached stream that is written out later when Flush() /// is called. /// </summary> /// <param name="buffer"></param> /// <param name="offset"></param> /// <param name="count"></param> public override void Write(byte[] buffer, int offset, int count) { if ( IsCaptured ) { // copy to holding buffer only - we'll write out later _cacheStream.Write(buffer, 0, count); _cachePointer += count; } // just transform this buffer if (TransformWrite != null) buffer = OnTransformWrite(buffer); if (TransformWriteString != null) buffer = OnTransformWriteStringInternal(buffer); if (!IsOutputDelayed) _stream.Write(buffer, offset, buffer.Length); } } The key features are the events and corresponding OnXXX methods that handle the event hookups, and the Write() and Flush() methods of the stream implementation. All the rest of the members tend to be plain jane passthrough stream implementation code without much consequence. I do love the way Action<t> and Func<T> make it so easy to create the event signatures for the various events – sweet. A few Things to consider Performance Response.Filter is not great for performance in general as it adds another layer of indirection to the ASP.NET output pipeline, and this implementation in particular adds a memory hit as it basically duplicates the response output into the cached memory stream which is necessary since you may have to look at the entire response. If you have large pages in particular this can cause potentially serious memory pressure in your server application. So be careful of wholesale adoption of this (or other) Response.Filters. Make sure to do some performance testing to ensure it’s not killing your app’s performance. Response.Filter works everywhere A few questions came up in comments and discussion as to capturing ALL output hitting the site and – yes you can definitely do that by assigning a Response.Filter inside of a module. If you do this however you’ll want to be very careful and decide which content you actually want to capture especially in IIS 7 which passes ALL content – including static images/CSS etc. through the ASP.NET pipeline. So it is important to filter only on what you’re looking for – like the page extension or maybe more effectively the Response.ContentType. Response.Filter Chaining Originally I thought that filter chaining doesn’t work at all due to a bug in the stream implementation code. But it’s quite possible to assign multiple filters to the Response.Filter property. So the following actually works to both compress the output and apply the transformed content: WebUtils.GZipEncodePage(); ResponseFilterStream filter = new ResponseFilterStream(Response.Filter); filter.TransformString += filter_TransformString; Response.Filter = filter; However the following does not work resulting in invalid content encoding errors: ResponseFilterStream filter = new ResponseFilterStream(Response.Filter); filter.TransformString += filter_TransformString; Response.Filter = filter; WebUtils.GZipEncodePage(); In other words multiple Response filters can work together but it depends entirely on the implementation whether they can be chained or in which order they can be chained. In this case running the GZip/Deflate stream filters apparently relies on the original content length of the output and chokes when the content is modified. But if attaching the compression first it works fine as unintuitive as that may seem. Resources Download example code Capture Output from ASP.NET Pages © Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2010Posted in ASP.NET

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You Might Be a DBA

- by BuckWoody

With all apologies to Jeff Foxworthy, I was up late Friday night on a holiday weekend (which translated into T-SQL becomes “Maintenance Window”) and I got bored in between the two or three minutes I had between clicks. So I started a “Twitter” meme – and it just took off. I haven’t cleaned these up much, but here, in author order as of Saturday the 29th of May is the list “You might be a DBA” from around the Twitterverse: buckwoody Your two main enemies are developers and SAN admins #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody People can use Access as a cross or garlic on you #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You always plan an exit strategy, even when entering a McDonald's #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You can't explain to your family what you really do for a living #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You have at least one set of scripts you won't share #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You have an opinion on the best code-beautifier #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You have children older than the rest of your team #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You and the Oracle DBA would kill each other, but you'll happily fight off a developer together first #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You've threatened to quit if they give anyone the sa password on production #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You've sent a vendor suggestions on improving their database design or code (and been ignored) #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You've sent a vendor suggestions on improving their database design or code (and been ignored) #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You have an opinion on the best code-beautifier #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You have at least one set of scripts you won't share #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You refer to co-workers as "carbon-units" #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody Being paranoid is on your resume at the top #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody Everyone comes to your cube to find the MSDN DVD's #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You always plan an exit strategy, even when entering a McDonald's #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You've worn down developers to get your way by explaining normalization levels #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You refer to clothes as "Data Abstractions" #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody Users pester you to be able to put data in a database, then they pester you to take it out and put it in Excel #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody Others try to de-duplicate data, you try to copy it to more than three locations #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You have at least one DLT tape in the trunk of your car #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You use twitter and facebook to talk with colleagues because there's no one else in your company that does what you do #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody Your spouse knows what "ETL" means #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You've referred to yourself as the "Data Janitor" #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You don't have positive connotations of the word "upgrade" #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You get your coffee before you check your servers, because you know you won't get any if you don't #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You always come to work through the back door so no one hijacks you on the way to your cube #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You check your server logs before you check your e-mail in the morning so you can reply "Yeah, I already fixed that." #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You have more conference badges than clean socks #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody Your coffee mug says "It depends" #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You can convince a boss that you need 16GB of RAM in your laptop #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You've used ebay to find production equipment #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You pad all project timelines by 2X, and you still miss them #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You know when your company is acquiring another even before the CFO #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You pad all project timelines by 2X, and you still miss them #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You call aspirin "work vitamins" #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You get the same amount of sleep even after you have a child #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You obsess about performance metrics from over one year ago #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody The first thing you buy after the database software is aftermarket tools to manage the database software #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You've tried to convince someone else to become a DBA #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You use twitter and facebook to talk with colleagues because there's no one else in your company that does what you do #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You only know other DBA's by their Tweet Handle #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You've explained the difference between 32 and 64-bit to more than one manager in terms they can understand, using puppets #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody Your two main enemies are developers and SAN admins #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You've driven to the Datacenter to install SQL Server because "you don't trust those NOC admins" #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You pay more for faster Internet connections than cable at home so you don't have to drive in #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You call texting a "queuing system" #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You know that if someone can read Perl, they manage an Oracle system #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You have an e-mail rule for backup notifications #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody Your food pyramid includes coffee, salt and fat #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You wish everything had a graphical query plan #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You refactor your e-mails #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You've gotten more help from twitter and facebook than all your years in college #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You would pay money for a license plate that has the letters S-Q-L together #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You have actually considered making a RAID array from thumb drives #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody Everything on your laptop is installed from your MSDN subscription #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You've written blog posts on technology you've never actually implemented in production #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody Everything on your laptop is installed from your MSDN subscription #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody @MidnightDBA Click the #youmightbeaDBA tag. I've had WAY too much coffee today. buckwoody There is no other position that is 1-deep except you and the CEO #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody When you watch "The Office" you call it "OJT" #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You would pay money for a license plate that has the letters S-Q-L together #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody Your blog would make a "best practices" or "worst practices" book #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You have actually considered making a RAID array from thumb drives #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody The first thing you install on your netbook is SSMS #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody Everything on your laptop is installed from your MSDN subscription #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody Your watch is set to UTC because it's just easier #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You make plenty of money, but you're excited to get a $2.00 squeeze-ball from Quest and Redgate #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You make plenty of money, but you're excited to get a $2.00 squeeze-ball from Quest and Redgate #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You think data can be represented as something OTHER than XML #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You tell people that you made a database query go faster, and expect them to be happy for you #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You take the word "NoSQL" as a personal attack #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody People can use Access as a cross or garlic on you #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody * == bad #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody * == bad #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody There are just as many females in your technical field as males #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody People can use Access as a cross or garlic on you #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You've gotten more help from twitter and facebook than all your years in college #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You think that something OTHER than the database might be the performance bottleneck #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You refer to time as a "Clustered Index" #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You know why "user" refers to both business people and crack addicts #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You make plenty of money, but you're excited to get a $2.00 squeeze-ball from Quest and Redgate #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You can't explain to your family what you really do for a living #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You tell people that you made a database query go faster, and expect them to be happy for you #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You think a millisecond is a really long time #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You're sitting and typing #youmightbeaDBA when you could be outside #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You can't wait for a technical conference so you can wear a kilt - and you're not Scottish #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You know that "DBA" stands for "Default Blame Acceptor" #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody People can use Access as a cross or garlic on you #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You know what "the truth, thole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me Codd" means #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You've gotten more help from twitter and facebook than all your years in college #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You can't talk fast enough to get a concept out of your head so you tweet it instead #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You cry when someone doesn't use a WHERE clause #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You think data can be represented as something OTHER than XML #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You think "Set theory" is not an verb but a noun #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You try to convince random strangers to vote on your Connect item #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You think 3 hours of contiguous sleep is a good thing #youmightbeaDBA or #youmightbeamother buckwoody You don't like Oracle, and not just because of what she did to Neo #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You know when to say "sequel" and "s-q-l" #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You know where the data is #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You refer to your children as "Fully Redundant Mirrors" #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody Holiday == "Maintenance Window" #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody Your laptop is more powerful than the servers in most companies - including your own #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You capitalize SELECTed words #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You take the word "NoSQL" as a personal attack #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You know why "user" refers to both business people and crack addicts #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You cringe in public when the word "upgrade" is used in a sentence #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody Holiday == "Maintenance Window" #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody All Data Is MetaData means something to you #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You've never seen the driveway to your house in the daylight #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You think that something OTHER than the database might be the performance bottleneck #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody Most of your bloodstream is composed of caffeine #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody Your task list is labeled "CRUD Matrix" #youmightbeaDBA buckwoody You call your wife/husband a "Linked Server" #youmightbeaDBA anonythemouse When someone tells you they are going to take a dump and you wonder of which database then #youmightbeaDBA anonythemouse When it's 11pm on a holiday weekend and you are working #youmightbeaDBA anonythemouse When you sit down at a table and look for it's primary key #youmightbeaDBA anonythemouse When getting milk from the fridge you check the expiry date is > getdate() #youmightbeaDBA blakmk when you wake up dreaming about sql #youmightbeaDBA CharlesGarver You think a @buckwoody bobblehead would be a cool thing to have on the dashboard of your car #youmightbeaDBA CharlesGarver Your friends don't understand why you think there's a difference between single and double quotes #youmightbeaDBA CharlesGarver Even the newest employees know your name from all the downtime notices you've sent out #youmightbeaDBA CharlesGarver You sometimes feel anxious and think "I should test restoring those backups" and then the feeling passes #youmightbeadba CharlesGarver You know what a co-worker means when they ask "how is your squirrel server?" #youmightbeadba CharlesGarver You can't sleep at night and you ponder the logisitcs of collecting every copy of Access for the world's biggest bonfire #youmightbeaDBA CharlesGarver You can't sleep at night and you ponder the logisitcs of collecting every copy of Access for the world's biggest bonfire #youmightbeaDBA CharlesGarver You're willing to move someone's job up in priority for a box of #voodoodonuts #youmightbeaDBA CharlesGarver Each person in your company seems to think you work for THEM #youmightbeaDBA CharlesGarver You have a Love/Hate relationship going on with #Microsoft #youmightbeaDBA CharlesGarver People ask you to troubleshoot their Access program #youmightbeaDBA CharlesGarver The first words you hear in the morning are 'your voicemail box is full' #youmightbeaDBA CharlesGarver The thought of disrupting 500 people's work so you can do something doesn't phase you #youmightbeaDBA CharlesGarver You can't sleep at night and you ponder the logisitcs of collecting every copy of Access for the world's biggest bonfire #youmightbeaDBA CharlesGarver Your home computer is backed up in 3 different places #youmightbeaDBA CharlesGarver Your wardrobe for work includes pajamas #youmightbeaDBA CharlesGarver Someone tells you to look in the INDEX and you look puzzled before finally going to the back of the book. #youmightbeaDBA chuckboycejr If you have ever set up a SQLAgent job to email your mobile phone to serve as an alarm clock #youmightbeaDBA chuckboycejr If you'd rather meet Itzik than Jay Z #youmightbeaDBA chuckboycejr If you'd rather meet Itzik than Jay Z #youmightbeaDBA chuckboycejr If you'd wrestle a SysAdmin to the ground to implement #DPA best practices as per @aspiringgeek #youmightbeaDBA databaseguy I need to be up in 7 hours, so I'm off to bed! I'll have to read the rest of @buckwoody's #youmightbeaDBA posts in the AM. (g'night Buck!) databaseguy When people ask you about your house, the first thing you describe is the network. #youmightbeaDBA databaseguy The last thing you say at the office each day is, "is anybody else here? I'm shutting off the lights!" #youmightbeaDBA databaseguy Your blood pressure rises when you read application specs drafted by marketing. #youmightbeaDBA databaseguy A good day at work is one when nobody pays you no mind. #youmightbeaDBA databaseguy You care about latches and wait states. #youmightbeaDBA databaseguy You have worked over 200 hours on a performance tuning project that required no application changes at all. #youmightbeaDBA databaseguy The late-night security guard knows the names of your spouse and kids. #youmightbeaDBA databaseguy You have had vigorous debates about whether it should be pronounced "sequel" or "ess-queue-ell". #youmightbeaDBA databaseguy You have VPN and RDP software installed on your phone ... just in case. #youmightbeaDBA databaseguy You have edited a data file by hand, just to see what would happen. #youmightbeaDBA databaseguy You decorate your office walls with database catalog posters. #youmightbeaDBA databaseguy You've built programs that access data just to keep other developers from asking you to run queries all the time. #youmightbeaDBA databaseguy When you watch movies like The Matrix, you find yourself calculating the fasibility of storing all that data. #youmightbeaDBA databaseguy You have tried to convince someone to spend money on an SSD storage array. #youmightbeaDBA databaseguy When CPU is spiked on a server, you want to gather forensic evidence. #youmightbeaDBA databaseguy You have to remind developers not to push code to production without checking if the database is ready. #youmightbeaDBA databaseguy Nobody cares what you wear to work, as long as the thing keeps running. #youmightbeaDBA databaseguy Telepathy is a job requirement when working with app dev teams. #youmightbeaDBA databaseguy You read database statistics for the educational value. #youmightbeaDBA databaseguy And your boss freely admits this to anyone within earshot. #youmightbeaDBA databaseguy Your boss cannot explain or understand what you do. #youmightbeaDBA databaseguy You envision ERDs when you see a GUI. #youmightbeaDBA databaseguy You say things like "applications come and go, but data lasts forever." #youmightbeaDBA databaseguy You have memorized the names of several of the AdventureWorks employees. #youmightbeaDBA databaseguy You know what MAXDOP setting you can get away with for a big query based on current server load. #youmightbeaDBA databaseguy And you immediately recognize the recursion in my last tweet. #youmightbeaDBA databaseguy You find 50 simultaneous tweets from @buckwoody about #youmightbeaDBA :O) DBAishness You have "funny stories" about the times your developers accidentally deleted the T-log in their test environment. #youmightbeaDBA DBAishness Planning to slice and dice your MDW data with PowerPivot makes you giggle like a schoolgirl. #youmightbeaDBA donalddotfarmer You think @buckwoody lives in the "real world." #youmightbeaDBA jamach09 @buckwoody #youmightbeaDBA Why go outside when you can sit in the nice cool server room? jamach09 If you refer to procreation as "Replication", #youmightbeaDBA. jamach09 If you think ORM is a four-letter word, #youmightbeaDBA JamesMarsh If you have ever preached the value of Source Code Control, #YouMightBeADBA jethrocarr @venzann You store your shopping list in a ACID compliant DB #youmightbeaDBA joe_positive @buckwoody thought it stood for "Don't Bother Asking" #youmightbeaDBA joe_positive when you check your IT Events Calendar before making weekend plans #youmightbeaDBA LadyRuna You cringe whenever someone calls Excel a database #youmightbeaDBA LadyRuna When the waiter says he'll be your server today, you ask how many terabytes he is #youmightbeaDBA LadyRuna you always call the asterisk a "Star" #youmightbeaDBA LadyRuna You walk into a server room, say "Nice RACK!" and everyone there knows you're talking about server rack... #youmightbeaDBA LadyRuna You receive more messages from servers than from friends #youmightbeaDBA LadyRuna hmmm... #youmightbeaDBA if your recipe for gumbo is "SELECT * FROM Refrigerator" markjholmes @SQLSoldier Heh. #youmightbeaDBA if you correct other DBAs' spelling of @PaulRandal markjholmes #youmightbeaDBA if you actually test RAID5 vs RAID10 on your SAN because when it comes to configuration, "it depends." markjholmes #youmightbeaDBA if you have at least 3 definitions of the word "cluster" MarlonRibunal 3 Words: @BrentO, snicker, & Access #youmightbeaDBA MarlonRibunal @onpnt @mikeSQL my appeal was a couple of mins late. Enjoying #youmightbeaDBA MarlonRibunal @mikeSQL @onpnt pls, don't mention bacon #youmightbeaDBA merv @buckwoody You HATE 3-way joins #youmightbeaDBA MidnightDBA If you're up at midnight Tweeting about SQL #youmightbeaDBA MidnightDBA @buckwoody I'd noticed that. :) #youmightbeaDBA mikeSQL when people talk about "their type" you're thinking varchar, bigint, binary, etc #youmightbeadba mikeSQL people ask you to go to lunch , but you can't go because you're attending #SQLlunch #youmightbeadba mikeSQL you laugh for hours at all of the #sqlmoviequotes ....things in which a normal individual would scratch their head at. #youmightbeadba mikeSQL you laugh for hours at all of the #sqlmoviequotes ....things in which a normal individual would scratch their head at. #youmightbeadba mrdenny If you think that @buckwoody's demo using PowerPivot to analyze index usage data from DMVs is awesome then #youmightbeaDBA mrdenny You wish @PaulRandal still worked at Microsoft so that they would make a bobble head of him #youmightbeadba mrdenny When it's 11pm on a holiday weekend, and your posting stupid jokes on Twitter then #youmightbeadba mrdenny If you go out with friends and wonder why no one's wearing a kilt then #YouMightBeADBA mrdenny You can't do basic math, but you know off the top of your head how many CALs $14,412 can buy you. #YoumightbeaDBA mrdenny If you've ever setup a SQL Job to email you to get you out of a regularly scheduled meeting #YouMightBeADBA. mrdenny You throw up in your mouth a little when ever you here the word "Access". Even if it doesn't relate to a MS product. #YouMightBeADBA msdtjones You spend more time listening to @buckwoody than your wife #youmightbeaDBA NFDotCom You perform "hail deltas" on a regular basis. #YouMightBeADBA NoelMcKinney If you tell your wife you want to go to Columbus Ohio for your wedding anniversary so you can attend #sqlsat42 then #youmightbeaDBA NoelMcKinney You read a union is on strike and wonder if it's a UNION ALL #youmightbeaDBA NoelMcKinney You read a union is on strike and wonder if it's a UNION ALL #youmightbeaDBA NoelMcKinney Someone asks you to throw another log on the fire and you tell them not to worry about it because Autogrowth is turned on #youmightbeaDBA Nuurdygirl Even if you have a girlfriend...its possible #youmightbeadba. Yeah-i said its possible! Nuurdygirl When your girlfriend has to lean around the laptop to kiss you goodnight #youmightbeadba Old_Man_Fish If you worry about how big your package is and how long it takes to finish #youmightbeaDBA Old_Man_Fish If you no longer wonder if someone is in trouble or died if you are getting calls at 2AM #youmightbeaDBA Old_Man_Fish If, when you hear the word ACCESS with no connotation you blood pressure jumps 50 points, #youmightbeaDBA onpnt When you hear the word inject you immediately get concerned if your databases are OK #youmightbeaDBA onpnt Your servers haven't been rebooted in a year #youmightbeaDBA onpnt You know why it's funny when @PaulRandal has the word, "Sheep" in a tweet #youmightbeaDBA onpnt You have read BOL without actually having a problem to figure out #youmightbeaDBA onpnt You can type "SELECT columns FROM tables" without typos but tipen ni Banglish ares a messis #youmightbeaDBA onpnt DR strategies doesn't include the word, RAID in them #youmightbeaDBA onpnt you can move a SQL Server instance to a new server without the users ever knowing #youmightbeaDBA onpnt You have made an SSIS package that is more than one step #youmightbeaDBA onpnt You have the balls to say no to your boss when they ask for the sa password #youmightbeaDBA onpnt you google to trouble shoot a problem and end up at your own blog (and it fixes it) #youmightbeaDBA onpnt You talk your wife into moving the family vacation a week earlier so you can attend the areas local SSUG meeting #youmightbeaDBA onpnt you can explain to a nontechnical person what a deadlock is #youmightbeaDBA onpnt You hope a girl asks you what your collation is #youmightbeaDBA onpnt you make jokes that include the words shrink, truncate and 1205. And you are the only one that laughs at them #youmightbeaDBA onpnt You rate your ability to stay awake to work longer on blogs, twitter, forums and your day to day job with the 5 9's goal #youmightbeaDBA onpnt you have major surgery and beg the doctor to release you back to work 5 days later because you miss your servers #youmightbeaDBA #TrueStory onpnt You do have backups and you know how to use them #youmightbeaDBA onpnt It's the network #youmightbeaDBA onpnt When the developers get to work your mood changes rapidly #youmightbeaDBA onpnt When someone says, "PASS", you first think of karaoke #youmightbeaDBA onpnt Recruiters try to get you to call them *just* because they think you'll give them @BrentO contact info #youmightbeaDBA onpnt You chuckle every time you go to grab the "CLR" Calcium, Lime and Rust Remover to clean something #youmightbeaDBA onpnt @MarlonRibunal @mikeSQL Sorry man, it was already in motion ;-) #youmightbeaDBA onpnt When you have an "I love bacon" sticker on your laptop. #youmightbeaDBA http://twitpic.com/1ry671 onpnt You sing SELECT statements in the shower #youmightbeaDBA onpnt When you see a chicken it doesn't remind you of food. It reminds you of a guy named Jorge #youmightbeaDBA onpnt At time, SQL is your mistress #youmightbeaDBA onpnt Your wife wonders if SQL is the code name of your mistress at times #youmightbeaDBA onpnt it's Friday and you are on twitter thinking really hard about what would be funny for hash tag #youmightbeaDBA onpnt You organize your wife's "decorative"pillows on the bed in a B-Tree structure #youmightbeaDBA PaulWhiteNZ If you: SELECT TOP (1) milk FROM fridge WHERE use_by_date >= GET_DATE() ORDER BY use_by_date ASC #YouMightBeaDBA RonDBA #youmightbeaDBA if you read @buckwoody's and @BrentO's blogs. ryaneastabrook @buckwoody omg, you have to stand up a website with these on them, they are awesome #youmightbeaDBA soulvy @StrateSQL @LadyRuna Or a "Splat" #youmightbeaDBA speedracer You can still fall asleep after three cups of coffee #youmightbeaDBA speedracer You retweet @buckwoody on a Friday night #youmightbeaDBA speedracer You can still fall asleep after three cups of coffee #youmightbeaDBA speedracer Developers make you twitch #youmightbeaDBA sqlagentman You know what X/1024*8 is. #YouMightBeADBA SqlAsylum Your still in the office at 5:00 on memorial day weekend. #youmightbeadba :) SQLBob Whenever someone you know gets pregnant you bring up INNER JOINs or SQL Injection attacks... #youmightbeaDBA SQLChicken You know one or more SQL folks in the community with an animal in their username #youmightbeaDBA SQLChicken You've used one or more car analogies to explain how a database works #youmightbeaDBA SQLChicken “@sqljoe: #youmightbeaDBA if you applied to attend #sqlu and requested @SQLChicken to pull strings for you” lmao nice! SQLChicken When talking about SSIS your discussions break down into various jokes about packages #youmightbeaDBA SQLChicken Just SEEING the code for cursors makes you break out in hives #youmightbeaDBA SQLChicken Just SEEING the code for cursors makes you break out in hives #youmightbeaDBA SQLCraftsman You coined the phrase "Magic SAN Dust" because calling a vendor's marketing claims BS is not acceptable in a meeting. #YouMightBeADBA SQLCraftsman If you hear about a new feature with the acronym "DAC" and wonder what disaster of a feature it is attached to this time. #YouMightBeADBA SQLCraftsman You really own a "Stick of Much Developer Whacking" #YouMightBeADBA SQLCraftsman You coined the phrase "Magic SAN Dust" because calling a vendor's marketing claims BS is not acceptable in a meeting. #YouMightBeADBA SQLCraftsman Default Blame Acceptor #YouMightBeADBA SQLCraftsman If you hear about a new feature with the acronym "DAC" and wonder what disaster of a feature it is attached to this time. #YouMightBeADBA SQLCraftsman Default Blame Acceptor #YouMightBeADBA SQLCraftsman If you hear about a new feature with the acronym "DAC" and wonder what disaster of a feature it is attached to this time. #YouMightBeADBA sqljoe #youmightbeaDBA if you wished your wife knew T-sql. USE ShoppingList SELECT NecessaryItems from Supermarket WHERE Category<> ("junk food") sqljoe #youmightbeaDBA if the first thing you kiss when you wake up is your mobile for not waking you up in the middle of the night sqljoe #youmightbeaDBA if your wife has a "Do Not Fly" family vacation list of her own including your laptop and mobile sqljoe #youmightbeaDBA if you have researched for DBA Anonymous groups and attended a #SSUG willing to drop your database (vice) sqljoe #youmightbeaDBA if your only maintenance windows are staff meetings sqljoe #youmightbeaDBA if you think of yourself as "The One" in The Matrix "balancing the equation" from The Architect's (developers) poor coding sqljoe #youmightbeaDBA if you think @PaulRandal should have played the Oracle in The Matrix sqljoe #youmightbeaDBA if home CD & Movie collection is stored in secured containers,in logical order & naming convention,and with a backup copy sqljoe #youmightbeaDBA if you applied to attend #sqlu and requested @SQLChicken to pull strings for you sqljoe #youmightbeaDBA if you have tried to TiVo @MidnightDBA broadcasts sqljoe #youmightbeaDBA if your #sql user group feels like #AA meetings sqljoe #youmightbeaDBA if you thought of bringing your #sql books to #sqlsaturday and #sqlpass for autographs sqljoe #youmightbeaDBA if #sqlpass feels like the #oscars sqljoe #youmightbeaDBA if you are proud of your small package SQLLawman #youmightbeaDBA when you hear MDX and Acura is not first thought that comes to mind. sqlrunner If your wife double checks that there isn't a SQLSat within 200 miles of your vacation destination #youmightbeaDBA sqlrunner When you're on a conference call and your wife thinks your speaking in a foreign language #youmightbeaDBA sqlrunner When you're on a conference call and your wife thinks your speaking in a foreign language #youmightbeaDBA sqlrunner You treat the word 'access' as a verb, not a noun #youmightbeaDBA sqlrunner If you are happy with sub-second performance #youmightbeaDBA sqlrunner When you know the names of the NOC people AND their families #youmightbeadba sqlrunner When you know the names of the NOC people AND their families #youmightbeadba sqlrunner Your company set's up international phone coverage for your cruise #youmightbeaDBA sqlsamson @buckwoody if your manager asks you for data and you respond with "there's a script for that" #youmightbeadba sqlsamson @buckwoody If you receive more messages from your server then your spouse #youmightbeadba SQLSoldier You've spent all night Valentines Day upgrading the SQL Servers and forgot to tell your wife you'd be working late. #youmightbeadba SQLSoldier You're flattered when someone calls you a geek. #youmightbeadba SQLSoldier @llangit @mrdenny it's 11pm on a holiday weekend, & your reading stupid jokes on Twitter then #youmightbeadba SQLSoldier Your manager borrows lunch money from you because your salary is 30% higher than his. #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier You think "intellisense" is a double negative because it's not intelligent nor makes sense. #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier 75% of the emails you receive at home have the phrase "now following you on Twitter!" in the subject line. #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier You petition Ken Burns to remake Office Space because it should have been 18 hours long. #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier You select a candidate for a Jr DBA position because his resume said he's willing to get your coffee. #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier Somebody misquotes @PaulRandall and you call him on your cell to verify. #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier You wish the elevator in your building was slower because it's the last time you'll be left alone all day. #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier The developers sacrifice small animals before giving you their code for review. #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier Developers bring you coffee and a BLT when you review their code. #youmightbeaDBA #IWish SQLSoldier You can get out of any family get-together by saying you have to work and nobody questions it. #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier You've requested a HP Superdome for you "test" box. #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier Your leave work early because your internet connection to the data center is better at home #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier The new CEO asks you to justify your salary, so you go on vacation for 2 weeks. And he never questions you again. #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier You cheer when Milton burns down the company in Office Space #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier A dev. asks if you've heard about some great new feature in SQL and you show the 16 blog posts you wrote on it ... last year #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier Your dev team is still testing SQL 2008 and you're already planning for SQL 11. #youmightbeaDBA #TrueStory SQLSoldier The new CEO asks you to justify your salary, so you go on vacation for 2 weeks. And he never questions you again. #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier Your dev team is still testing SQL 2008 and you're already planning for SQL 11. #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier You use a cell phone service coverage map to plan your next vacation. #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier You come in to work at 7 AM because it gives you at least 3 hours without any developers around. #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier You figure out a way to make take your wife on a cruise and deduct it as a business expense. #youmightbeaDBA #sqlcruise SQLSoldier You name your cat SQLDog because the name @SQLCat was already taken. #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier You rate your blog posts based on the number of retweets you get. #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier You disable random logins just to mess with people. #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier You fall for the pickup line, "Hey baby, what's your collation?" #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier You can blame an outage on anyone in the company because you're the only one that knows how to find out what really happened #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier You can blame an outage on anyone in the company because you're the only one that knows how to find out what really happened #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier You cheer when Milton burns down the company in Office Space #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier Your leave work early because your internet connection to the data center is better at home #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier You cheer when Milton burns down the company in Office Space #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier Your think the 4 food groups are coffee, bacon, fast food, and Mountain Dew. #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier You tell someone your job title and they ask "What?" You describe it and they ask "What?". So you say "computer geek". #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier The #1 referrer to your blog is Twitter.com. #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier Your idea of a good time on a Saturday involves free training. #youmightbeaDBA #sqlsat43 SQLSoldier You write a book that all of your co-workers have and none have read it. #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier You write a book that sells a couple thousand copies and is heralded a best seller. #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier No matter how sick you are, you go to work if it's time to pass the pager on to the next guy. #youmightbeaDBA #TrueStory SQLSoldier You go out on the town, and strangers walk up to you and say, "Hey you're that SQL guy" #youmightbeaDBA #TrueStory SQLSoldier Your wife asks you to fix something, and you request a downtime window. #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier Your wife asks when you'll be home, and you tell her that you wish you knew. #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier Your best pickup line, "Hey baby, what's your collation?" #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier Your wife asks when you'll be home, and you tell her that you wish you knew. #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier You know that @BuckWoody is not someone's porno name. #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier You list TSQL as your native language on the 2010 census. #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier Starbucks' stock price drops every time you go on vacation. #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier You're happy when the web master says that the website is down. #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier You know that @BuckWoody is not someone's porno name. #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier You get mad when someone calls your car a "heap" because you've always considered it to be a "clustered index". #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier Your blog has more hits than your company's website. #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier You systematically remove the asterisk key from all keyboards in the company except yours. #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier When asked if you recycle, you reply that you run sp_cycle_errorlog every night at midnight #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier You wouldn't allow someone named @AdamMachanic to work on your car. #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier You switch offices every 3 days to avoid developers #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier PSS has your number on speed dial. #youmightbeaDBA SQLSoldier You frown when you they tell Neo that he's going to the Oracle #youmightbeaDBA swhaley you regretted saying "This shouldn't effect production" #youmightbeaDBA swhaley you regretted saying "This shouldn't effect production" #youmightbeaDBA Tarwn A pleasurable saturday means spending the day learning more about what you already do the rest of the week #youmightbeaDBA ...oh, wait... thelostforum For great justice; all our base are belong to YOU !! #youmightbeadba thelostforum @SQLSoldier: You need a witness to use a mirror #youmightbeaDBA ;) TimCost you capitalize key words. always. everywhere. you can't help it, usually don't even notice. #youmightbeaDBA Toshana Your the only one in your company not impressed with the developers new application. #youmightbeaDBA venzann Coming soon from a (respected) book publisher - @buckwoody's #youmightbeaDBA venzann He's on a role tonight. @buckwoody is summing up my life with his #youmightbeaDBA tweets... venzann I love the #youmightbeaDBA tag. Found at least 6 new DBAs to follow.. venzann He's on a role tonight. @buckwoody is summing up my life with his #youmightbeaDBA tweets... venzann You use #sqlhelp as a primary resource during troubleshooting #youmightbeaDBA venzann You insist on stricter password security for your sql servers than you implement on your own laptop #youmightbeaDBA WesBrownSQL @buckwoody you are up so late the only tweets you see are from @buckwoody #youmightbeaDBA WesBrownSQL @SQLSoldier you are upgrading all your 2005 prod servers to 2008 R2 on a three day weekend... #youmightbeaDBA zippy1981 #youmightbeaDBA if everytime you do something with #mongodb you think of the Vulcan proverb "only Nixon could go to China." Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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Silverlight Recruiting Application Part 5 - Jobs Module / View

Now we starting getting into a more code-heavy portion of this series, thankfully though this means the groundwork is all set for the most part and after adding the modules we will have a complete application that can be provided with full source. The Jobs module will have two concerns- adding and maintaining jobs that can then be broadcast out to the website. How they are displayed on the site will be handled by our admin system (which will just poll from this common database), so we aren't too concerned with that, but rather with getting the information into the system and allowing the backend administration/HR users to keep things up to date. Since there is a fair bit of information that we want to display, we're going to move editing to a separate view so we can get all that information in an easy-to-use spot. With all the files created for this module, the project looks something like this: And now... on to the code. XAML for the Job Posting View All we really need for the Job Posting View is a RadGridView and a few buttons. This will let us both show off records and perform operations on the records without much hassle. That XAML is going to look something like this: 01.<Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot" 02.Background="White"> 03.<Grid.RowDefinitions> 04.<RowDefinition Height="30" /> 05.<RowDefinition /> 06.</Grid.RowDefinitions> 07.<StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal"> 08.<Button x:Name="xAddRecordButton" 09.Content="Add Job" 10.Width="120" 11.cal:Click.Command="{Binding AddRecord}" 12.telerik:StyleManager.Theme="Windows7" /> 13.<Button x:Name="xEditRecordButton" 14.Content="Edit Job" 15.Width="120" 16.cal:Click.Command="{Binding EditRecord}" 17.telerik:StyleManager.Theme="Windows7" /> 18.</StackPanel> 19.<telerikGrid:RadGridView x:Name="xJobsGrid" 20.Grid.Row="1" 21.IsReadOnly="True" 22.AutoGenerateColumns="False" 23.ColumnWidth="*" 24.RowDetailsVisibilityMode="VisibleWhenSelected" 25.ItemsSource="{Binding MyJobs}" 26.SelectedItem="{Binding SelectedJob, Mode=TwoWay}" 27.command:SelectedItemChangedEventClass.Command="{Binding SelectedItemChanged}"> 28.<telerikGrid:RadGridView.Columns> 29.<telerikGrid:GridViewDataColumn Header="Job Title" 30.DataMemberBinding="{Binding JobTitle}" 31.UniqueName="JobTitle" /> 32.<telerikGrid:GridViewDataColumn Header="Location" 33.DataMemberBinding="{Binding Location}" 34.UniqueName="Location" /> 35.<telerikGrid:GridViewDataColumn Header="Resume Required" 36.DataMemberBinding="{Binding NeedsResume}" 37.UniqueName="NeedsResume" /> 38.<telerikGrid:GridViewDataColumn Header="CV Required" 39.DataMemberBinding="{Binding NeedsCV}" 40.UniqueName="NeedsCV" /> 41.<telerikGrid:GridViewDataColumn Header="Overview Required" 42.DataMemberBinding="{Binding NeedsOverview}" 43.UniqueName="NeedsOverview" /> 44.<telerikGrid:GridViewDataColumn Header="Active" 45.DataMemberBinding="{Binding IsActive}" 46.UniqueName="IsActive" /> 47.</telerikGrid:RadGridView.Columns> 48.</telerikGrid:RadGridView> 49.</Grid> I'll explain what's happening here by line numbers: Lines 11 and 16: Using the same type of click commands as we saw in the Menu module, we tie the button clicks to delegate commands in the viewmodel. Line 25: The source for the jobs will be a collection in the viewmodel. Line 26: We also bind the selected item to a public property from the viewmodel for use in code. Line 27: We've turned the event into a command so we can handle it via code in the viewmodel. So those first three probably make sense to you as far as Silverlight/WPF binding magic is concerned, but for line 27... This actually comes from something I read onDamien Schenkelman's blog back in the day for creating an attached behavior from any event. So, any time you see me using command:Whatever.Command, the backing for it is actually something like this: SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior.cs: 01.public class SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior : CommandBehaviorBase<Telerik.Windows.Controls.DataControl> 02.{ 03.public SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior(DataControl element) 04.: base(element) 05.{ 06.element.SelectionChanged += new EventHandler<SelectionChangeEventArgs>(element_SelectionChanged); 07.} 08.void element_SelectionChanged(object sender, SelectionChangeEventArgs e) 09.{ 10.// We'll only ever allow single selection, so will only need item index 0 11.base.CommandParameter = e.AddedItems[0]; 12.base.ExecuteCommand(); 13.} 14.} SelectedItemChangedEventClass.cs: 01.public class SelectedItemChangedEventClass 02.{ 03.#region The Command Stuff 04.public static ICommand GetCommand(DependencyObject obj) 05.{ 06.return (ICommand)obj.GetValue(CommandProperty); 07.} 08.public static void SetCommand(DependencyObject obj, ICommand value) 09.{ 10.obj.SetValue(CommandProperty, value); 11.} 12.public static readonly DependencyProperty CommandProperty = 13.DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached("Command", typeof(ICommand), 14.typeof(SelectedItemChangedEventClass), new PropertyMetadata(OnSetCommandCallback)); 15.public static void OnSetCommandCallback(DependencyObject dependencyObject, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e) 16.{ 17.DataControl element = dependencyObject as DataControl; 18.if (element != null) 19.{ 20.SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior behavior = GetOrCreateBehavior(element); 21.behavior.Command = e.NewValue as ICommand; 22.} 23.} 24.#endregion 25.public static SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior GetOrCreateBehavior(DataControl element) 26.{ 27.SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior behavior = element.GetValue(SelectedItemChangedEventBehaviorProperty) as SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior; 28.if (behavior == null) 29.{ 30.behavior = new SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior(element); 31.element.SetValue(SelectedItemChangedEventBehaviorProperty, behavior); 32.} 33.return behavior; 34.} 35.public static SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior GetSelectedItemChangedEventBehavior(DependencyObject obj) 36.{ 37.return (SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior)obj.GetValue(SelectedItemChangedEventBehaviorProperty); 38.} 39.public static void SetSelectedItemChangedEventBehavior(DependencyObject obj, SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior value) 40.{ 41.obj.SetValue(SelectedItemChangedEventBehaviorProperty, value); 42.} 43.public static readonly DependencyProperty SelectedItemChangedEventBehaviorProperty = 44.DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached("SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior", 45.typeof(SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior), typeof(SelectedItemChangedEventClass), null); 46.} These end up looking very similar from command to command, but in a nutshell you create a command based on any event, determine what the parameter for it will be, then execute. It attaches via XAML and ties to a DelegateCommand in the viewmodel, so you get the full event experience (since some controls get a bit event-rich for added functionality). Simple enough, right? Viewmodel for the Job Posting View The Viewmodel is going to need to handle all events going back and forth, maintaining interactions with the data we are using, and both publishing and subscribing to events. Rather than breaking this into tons of little pieces, I'll give you a nice view of the entire viewmodel and then hit up the important points line-by-line: 001.public class JobPostingViewModel : ViewModelBase 002.{ 003.private readonly IEventAggregator eventAggregator; 004.private readonly IRegionManager regionManager; 005.public DelegateCommand<object> AddRecord { get; set; } 006.public DelegateCommand<object> EditRecord { get; set; } 007.public DelegateCommand<object> SelectedItemChanged { get; set; } 008.public RecruitingContext context; 009.private QueryableCollectionView _myJobs; 010.public QueryableCollectionView MyJobs 011.{ 012.get { return _myJobs; } 013.} 014.private QueryableCollectionView _selectionJobActionHistory; 015.public QueryableCollectionView SelectedJobActionHistory 016.{ 017.get { return _selectionJobActionHistory; } 018.} 019.private JobPosting _selectedJob; 020.public JobPosting SelectedJob 021.{ 022.get { return _selectedJob; } 023.set 024.{ 025.if (value != _selectedJob) 026.{ 027._selectedJob = value; 028.NotifyChanged("SelectedJob"); 029.} 030.} 031.} 032.public SubscriptionToken editToken = new SubscriptionToken(); 033.public SubscriptionToken addToken = new SubscriptionToken(); 034.public JobPostingViewModel(IEventAggregator eventAgg, IRegionManager regionmanager) 035.{ 036.// set Unity items 037.this.eventAggregator = eventAgg; 038.this.regionManager = regionmanager; 039.// load our context 040.context = new RecruitingContext(); 041.this._myJobs = new QueryableCollectionView(context.JobPostings); 042.context.Load(context.GetJobPostingsQuery()); 043.// set command events 044.this.AddRecord = new DelegateCommand<object>(this.AddNewRecord); 045.this.EditRecord = new DelegateCommand<object>(this.EditExistingRecord); 046.this.SelectedItemChanged = new DelegateCommand<object>(this.SelectedRecordChanged); 047.SetSubscriptions(); 048.} 049.#region DelegateCommands from View 050.public void AddNewRecord(object obj) 051.{ 052.this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<AddJobEvent>().Publish(true); 053.} 054.public void EditExistingRecord(object obj) 055.{ 056.if (_selectedJob == null) 057.{ 058.this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<NotifyUserEvent>().Publish("No job selected."); 059.} 060.else 061.{ 062.this._myJobs.EditItem(this._selectedJob); 063.this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<EditJobEvent>().Publish(this._selectedJob); 064.} 065.} 066.public void SelectedRecordChanged(object obj) 067.{ 068.if (obj.GetType() == typeof(ActionHistory)) 069.{ 070.// event bubbles up so we don't catch items from the ActionHistory grid 071.} 072.else 073.{ 074.JobPosting job = obj as JobPosting; 075.GrabHistory(job.PostingID); 076.} 077.} 078.#endregion 079.#region Subscription Declaration and Events 080.public void SetSubscriptions() 081.{ 082.EditJobCompleteEvent editComplete = eventAggregator.GetEvent<EditJobCompleteEvent>(); 083.if (editToken != null) 084.editComplete.Unsubscribe(editToken); 085.editToken = editComplete.Subscribe(this.EditCompleteEventHandler); 086.AddJobCompleteEvent addComplete = eventAggregator.GetEvent<AddJobCompleteEvent>(); 087.if (addToken != null) 088.addComplete.Unsubscribe(addToken); 089.addToken = addComplete.Subscribe(this.AddCompleteEventHandler); 090.} 091.public void EditCompleteEventHandler(bool complete) 092.{ 093.if (complete) 094.{ 095.JobPosting thisJob = _myJobs.CurrentEditItem as JobPosting; 096.this._myJobs.CommitEdit(); 097.this.context.SubmitChanges((s) => 098.{ 099.ActionHistory myAction = new ActionHistory(); 100.myAction.PostingID = thisJob.PostingID; 101.myAction.Description = String.Format("Job '{0}' has been edited by {1}", thisJob.JobTitle, "default user"); 102.myAction.TimeStamp = DateTime.Now; 103.eventAggregator.GetEvent<AddActionEvent>().Publish(myAction); 104.} 105., null); 106.} 107.else 108.{ 109.this._myJobs.CancelEdit(); 110.} 111.this.MakeMeActive(this.regionManager, "MainRegion", "JobPostingsView"); 112.} 113.public void AddCompleteEventHandler(JobPosting job) 114.{ 115.if (job == null) 116.{ 117.// do nothing, new job add cancelled 118.} 119.else 120.{ 121.this.context.JobPostings.Add(job); 122.this.context.SubmitChanges((s) => 123.{ 124.ActionHistory myAction = new ActionHistory(); 125.myAction.PostingID = job.PostingID; 126.myAction.Description = String.Format("Job '{0}' has been added by {1}", job.JobTitle, "default user"); 127.myAction.TimeStamp = DateTime.Now; 128.eventAggregator.GetEvent<AddActionEvent>().Publish(myAction); 129.} 130., null); 131.} 132.this.MakeMeActive(this.regionManager, "MainRegion", "JobPostingsView"); 133.} 134.#endregion 135.public void GrabHistory(int postID) 136.{ 137.context.ActionHistories.Clear(); 138._selectionJobActionHistory = new QueryableCollectionView(context.ActionHistories); 139.context.Load(context.GetHistoryForJobQuery(postID)); 140.} Taking it from the top, we're injecting an Event Aggregator and Region Manager for use down the road and also have the public DelegateCommands (just like in the Menu module). We also grab a reference to our context, which we'll obviously need for data, then set up a few fields with public properties tied to them. We're also setting subscription tokens, which we have not yet seen but I will get into below. The AddNewRecord (50) and EditExistingRecord (54) methods should speak for themselves for functionality, the one thing of note is we're sending events off to the Event Aggregator which some module, somewhere will take care of. Since these aren't entirely relying on one another, the Jobs View doesn't care if anyone is listening, but it will publish AddJobEvent (52), NotifyUserEvent (58) and EditJobEvent (63)regardless. Don't mind the GrabHistory() method so much, that is just grabbing history items (visibly being created in the SubmitChanges callbacks), and adding them to the database. Every action will trigger a history event, so we'll know who modified what and when, just in case. ;) So where are we at? Well, if we click to Add a job, we publish an event, if we edit a job, we publish an event with the selected record (attained through the magic of binding). Where is this all going though? To the Viewmodel, of course! XAML for the AddEditJobView This is pretty straightforward except for one thing, noted below: 001.<Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot" 002.Background="White"> 003.<Grid x:Name="xEditGrid" 004.Margin="10" 005.validationHelper:ValidationScope.Errors="{Binding Errors}"> 006.<Grid.Background> 007.<LinearGradientBrush EndPoint="0.5,1" 008.StartPoint="0.5,0"> 009.<GradientStop Color="#FFC7C7C7" 010.Offset="0" /> 011.<GradientStop Color="#FFF6F3F3" 012.Offset="1" /> 013.</LinearGradientBrush> 014.</Grid.Background> 015.<Grid.RowDefinitions> 016.<RowDefinition Height="40" /> 017.<RowDefinition Height="40" /> 018.<RowDefinition Height="40" /> 019.<RowDefinition Height="100" /> 020.<RowDefinition Height="100" /> 021.<RowDefinition Height="100" /> 022.<RowDefinition Height="40" /> 023.<RowDefinition Height="40" /> 024.<RowDefinition Height="40" /> 025.</Grid.RowDefinitions> 026.<Grid.ColumnDefinitions> 027.<ColumnDefinition Width="150" /> 028.<ColumnDefinition Width="150" /> 029.<ColumnDefinition Width="300" /> 030.<ColumnDefinition Width="100" /> 031.</Grid.ColumnDefinitions> 032. 033.<TextBlock Margin="8" 034.Text="{Binding AddEditString}" 035.TextWrapping="Wrap" 036.Grid.Column="1" 037.Grid.ColumnSpan="2" 038.FontSize="16" /> 039. 040. 041.<TextBlock Margin="8,0,0,0" 042.Style="{StaticResource LabelTxb}" 043.Grid.Row="1" 044.Text="Job Title" 045.VerticalAlignment="Center" /> 046.<TextBox x:Name="xJobTitleTB" 047.Margin="0,8" 048.Grid.Column="1" 049.Grid.Row="1" 050.Text="{Binding activeJob.JobTitle, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}" 051.Grid.ColumnSpan="2" /> 052.<TextBlock Margin="8,0,0,0" 053.Grid.Row="2" 054.Text="Location" 055.d:LayoutOverrides="Height" 056.VerticalAlignment="Center" /> 057.<TextBox x:Name="xLocationTB" 058.Margin="0,8" 059.Grid.Column="1" 060.Grid.Row="2" 061.Text="{Binding activeJob.Location, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}" 062.Grid.ColumnSpan="2" /> 063. 064.<TextBlock Margin="8,11,8,0" 065.Grid.Row="3" 066.Text="Description" 067.TextWrapping="Wrap" 068.VerticalAlignment="Top" /> 069. 070.<TextBox x:Name="xDescriptionTB" 071.Height="84" 072.TextWrapping="Wrap" 073.ScrollViewer.VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Auto" 074.Grid.Column="1" 075.Grid.Row="3" 076.Text="{Binding activeJob.Description, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}" 077.Grid.ColumnSpan="2" /> 078.<TextBlock Margin="8,11,8,0" 079.Grid.Row="4" 080.Text="Requirements" 081.TextWrapping="Wrap" 082.VerticalAlignment="Top" /> 083. 084.<TextBox x:Name="xRequirementsTB" 085.Height="84" 086.TextWrapping="Wrap" 087.ScrollViewer.VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Auto" 088.Grid.Column="1" 089.Grid.Row="4" 090.Text="{Binding activeJob.Requirements, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}" 091.Grid.ColumnSpan="2" /> 092.<TextBlock Margin="8,11,8,0" 093.Grid.Row="5" 094.Text="Qualifications" 095.TextWrapping="Wrap" 096.VerticalAlignment="Top" /> 097. 098.<TextBox x:Name="xQualificationsTB" 099.Height="84" 100.TextWrapping="Wrap" 101.ScrollViewer.VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Auto" 102.Grid.Column="1" 103.Grid.Row="5" 104.Text="{Binding activeJob.Qualifications, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}" 105.Grid.ColumnSpan="2" /> 106. 107. 108.<CheckBox x:Name="xResumeRequiredCB" Margin="8,8,8,15" 109.Content="Resume Required" 110.Grid.Row="6" 111.Grid.ColumnSpan="2" 112.IsChecked="{Binding activeJob.NeedsResume, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}"/> 113. 114.<CheckBox x:Name="xCoverletterRequiredCB" Margin="8,8,8,15" 115.Content="Cover Letter Required" 116.Grid.Column="2" 117.Grid.Row="6" 118.IsChecked="{Binding activeJob.NeedsCV, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}"/> 119. 120.<CheckBox x:Name="xOverviewRequiredCB" Margin="8,8,8,15" 121.Content="Overview Required" 122.Grid.Row="7" 123.Grid.ColumnSpan="2" 124.IsChecked="{Binding activeJob.NeedsOverview, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}"/> 125. 126.<CheckBox x:Name="xJobActiveCB" Margin="8,8,8,15" 127.Content="Job is Active" 128.Grid.Column="2" 129.Grid.Row="7" 130.IsChecked="{Binding activeJob.IsActive, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}"/> 131. 132. 133. 134.<Button x:Name="xAddEditButton" Margin="8,8,0,10" 135.Content="{Binding AddEditButtonString}" 136.cal:Click.Command="{Binding AddEditCommand}" 137.Grid.Column="2" 138.Grid.Row="8" 139.HorizontalAlignment="Left" 140.Width="125" 141.telerik:StyleManager.Theme="Windows7" /> 142. 143.<Button x:Name="xCancelButton" HorizontalAlignment="Right" 144.Content="Cancel" 145.cal:Click.Command="{Binding CancelCommand}" 146.Margin="0,8,8,10" 147.Width="125" 148.Grid.Column="2" 149.Grid.Row="8" 150.telerik:StyleManager.Theme="Windows7" /> 151.</Grid> 152.</Grid> The 'validationHelper:ValidationScope' line may seem odd. This is a handy little trick for catching current and would-be validation errors when working in this whole setup. This all comes from an approach found on theJoy Of Code blog, although it looks like the story for this will be changing slightly with new advances in SL4/WCF RIA Services, so this section can definitely get an overhaul a little down the road. The code is the fun part of all this, so let us see what's happening under the hood. Viewmodel for the AddEditJobView We are going to see some of the same things happening here, so I'll skip over the repeat info and get right to the good stuff: 001.public class AddEditJobViewModel : ViewModelBase 002.{ 003.private readonly IEventAggregator eventAggregator; 004.private readonly IRegionManager regionManager; 005. 006.public RecruitingContext context; 007. 008.private JobPosting _activeJob; 009.public JobPosting activeJob 010.{ 011.get { return _activeJob; } 012.set 013.{ 014.if (_activeJob != value) 015.{ 016._activeJob = value; 017.NotifyChanged("activeJob"); 018.} 019.} 020.} 021. 022.public bool isNewJob; 023. 024.private string _addEditString; 025.public string AddEditString 026.{ 027.get { return _addEditString; } 028.set 029.{ 030.if (_addEditString != value) 031.{ 032._addEditString = value; 033.NotifyChanged("AddEditString"); 034.} 035.} 036.} 037. 038.private string _addEditButtonString; 039.public string AddEditButtonString 040.{ 041.get { return _addEditButtonString; } 042.set 043.{ 044.if (_addEditButtonString != value) 045.{ 046._addEditButtonString = value; 047.NotifyChanged("AddEditButtonString"); 048.} 049.} 050.} 051. 052.public SubscriptionToken addJobToken = new SubscriptionToken(); 053.public SubscriptionToken editJobToken = new SubscriptionToken(); 054. 055.public DelegateCommand<object> AddEditCommand { get; set; } 056.public DelegateCommand<object> CancelCommand { get; set; } 057. 058.private ObservableCollection<ValidationError> _errors = new ObservableCollection<ValidationError>(); 059.public ObservableCollection<ValidationError> Errors 060.{ 061.get { return _errors; } 062.} 063. 064.private ObservableCollection<ValidationResult> _valResults = new ObservableCollection<ValidationResult>(); 065.public ObservableCollection<ValidationResult> ValResults 066.{ 067.get { return this._valResults; } 068.} 069. 070.public AddEditJobViewModel(IEventAggregator eventAgg, IRegionManager regionmanager) 071.{ 072.// set Unity items 073.this.eventAggregator = eventAgg; 074.this.regionManager = regionmanager; 075. 076.context = new RecruitingContext(); 077. 078.AddEditCommand = new DelegateCommand<object>(this.AddEditJobCommand); 079.CancelCommand = new DelegateCommand<object>(this.CancelAddEditCommand); 080. 081.SetSubscriptions(); 082.} 083. 084.#region Subscription Declaration and Events 085. 086.public void SetSubscriptions() 087.{ 088.AddJobEvent addJob = this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<AddJobEvent>(); 089. 090.if (addJobToken != null) 091.addJob.Unsubscribe(addJobToken); 092. 093.addJobToken = addJob.Subscribe(this.AddJobEventHandler); 094. 095.EditJobEvent editJob = this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<EditJobEvent>(); 096. 097.if (editJobToken != null) 098.editJob.Unsubscribe(editJobToken); 099. 100.editJobToken = editJob.Subscribe(this.EditJobEventHandler); 101.} 102. 103.public void AddJobEventHandler(bool isNew) 104.{ 105.this.activeJob = null; 106.this.activeJob = new JobPosting(); 107.this.activeJob.IsActive = true; // We assume that we want a new job to go up immediately 108.this.isNewJob = true; 109.this.AddEditString = "Add New Job Posting"; 110.this.AddEditButtonString = "Add Job"; 111. 112.MakeMeActive(this.regionManager, "MainRegion", "AddEditJobView"); 113.} 114. 115.public void EditJobEventHandler(JobPosting editJob) 116.{ 117.this.activeJob = null; 118.this.activeJob = editJob; 119.this.isNewJob = false; 120.this.AddEditString = "Edit Job Posting"; 121.this.AddEditButtonString = "Edit Job"; 122. 123.MakeMeActive(this.regionManager, "MainRegion", "AddEditJobView"); 124.} 125. 126.#endregion 127. 128.#region DelegateCommands from View 129. 130.public void AddEditJobCommand(object obj) 131.{ 132.if (this.Errors.Count > 0) 133.{ 134.List<string> errorMessages = new List<string>(); 135. 136.foreach (var valR in this.Errors) 137.{ 138.errorMessages.Add(valR.Exception.Message); 139.} 140. 141.this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<DisplayValidationErrorsEvent>().Publish(errorMessages); 142. 143.} 144.else if (!Validator.TryValidateObject(this.activeJob, new ValidationContext(this.activeJob, null, null), _valResults, true)) 145.{ 146.List<string> errorMessages = new List<string>(); 147. 148.foreach (var valR in this._valResults) 149.{ 150.errorMessages.Add(valR.ErrorMessage); 151.} 152. 153.this._valResults.Clear(); 154. 155.this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<DisplayValidationErrorsEvent>().Publish(errorMessages); 156.} 157.else 158.{ 159.if (this.isNewJob) 160.{ 161.this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<AddJobCompleteEvent>().Publish(this.activeJob); 162.} 163.else 164.{ 165.this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<EditJobCompleteEvent>().Publish(true); 166.} 167.} 168.} 169. 170.public void CancelAddEditCommand(object obj) 171.{ 172.if (this.isNewJob) 173.{ 174.this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<AddJobCompleteEvent>().Publish(null); 175.} 176.else 177.{ 178.this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<EditJobCompleteEvent>().Publish(false); 179.} 180.} 181. 182.#endregion 183.} 184.} We start seeing something new on line 103- the AddJobEventHandler will create a new job and set that to the activeJob item on the ViewModel. When this is all set, the view calls that familiar MakeMeActive method to activate itself. I made a bit of a management call on making views self-activate like this, but I figured it works for one reason. As I create this application, views may not exist that I have in mind, so after a view receives its 'ping' from being subscribed to an event, it prepares whatever it needs to do and then goes active. This way if I don't have 'edit' hooked up, I can click as the day is long on the main view and won't get lost in an empty region. Total personal preference here. :) Everything else should again be pretty straightforward, although I do a bit of validation checking in the AddEditJobCommand, which can either fire off an event back to the main view/viewmodel if everything is a success or sent a list of errors to our notification module, which pops open a RadWindow with the alerts if any exist. As a bonus side note, here's what my WCF RIA Services metadata looks like for handling all of the validation: private JobPostingMetadata() { } [StringLength(2500, ErrorMessage = "Description should be more than one and less than 2500 characters.", MinimumLength = 1)] [Required(ErrorMessage = "Description is required.")] public string Description; [Required(ErrorMessage="Active Status is Required")] public bool IsActive; [StringLength(100, ErrorMessage = "Posting title must be more than 3 but less than 100 characters.", MinimumLength = 3)] [Required(ErrorMessage = "Job Title is required.")] public bool JobTitle; [Required] public string Location; public bool NeedsCV; public bool NeedsOverview; public bool NeedsResume; public int PostingID; [Required(ErrorMessage="Qualifications are required.")] [StringLength(2500, ErrorMessage="Qualifications should be more than one and less than 2500 characters.", MinimumLength=1)] public string Qualifications; [StringLength(2500, ErrorMessage = "Requirements should be more than one and less than 2500 characters.", MinimumLength = 1)] [Required(ErrorMessage="Requirements are required.")] public string Requirements; The RecruitCB Alternative See all that Xaml I pasted above? Those are now two pieces sitting in the JobsView.xaml file now. The only real difference is that the xEditGrid now sits in the same place as xJobsGrid, with visibility swapping out between the two for a quick switch. I also took out all the cal: and command: command references and replaced Button events with clicks and the Grid selection command replaced with a SelectedItemChanged event. Also, at the bottom of the xEditGrid after the last button, I add a ValidationSummary (with Visibility=Collapsed) to catch any errors that are popping up. Simple as can be, and leads to this being the single code-behind file: 001.public partial class JobsView : UserControl 002.{ 003.public RecruitingContext context; 004.public JobPosting activeJob; 005.public bool isNew; 006.private ObservableCollection<ValidationResult> _valResults = new ObservableCollection<ValidationResult>(); 007.public ObservableCollection<ValidationResult> ValResults 008.{ 009.get { return this._valResults; } 010.} 011.public JobsView() 012.{ 013.InitializeComponent(); 014.this.Loaded += new RoutedEventHandler(JobsView_Loaded); 015.} 016.void JobsView_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) 017.{ 018.context = new RecruitingContext(); 019.xJobsGrid.ItemsSource = context.JobPostings; 020.context.Load(context.GetJobPostingsQuery()); 021.} 022.private void xAddRecordButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) 023.{ 024.activeJob = new JobPosting(); 025.isNew = true; 026.xAddEditTitle.Text = "Add a Job Posting"; 027.xAddEditButton.Content = "Add"; 028.xEditGrid.DataContext = activeJob; 029.HideJobsGrid(); 030.} 031.private void xEditRecordButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) 032.{ 033.activeJob = xJobsGrid.SelectedItem as JobPosting; 034.isNew = false; 035.xAddEditTitle.Text = "Edit a Job Posting"; 036.xAddEditButton.Content = "Edit"; 037.xEditGrid.DataContext = activeJob; 038.HideJobsGrid(); 039.} 040.private void xAddEditButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) 041.{ 042.if (!Validator.TryValidateObject(this.activeJob, new ValidationContext(this.activeJob, null, null), _valResults, true)) 043.{ 044.List<string> errorMessages = new List<string>(); 045.foreach (var valR in this._valResults) 046.{ 047.errorMessages.Add(valR.ErrorMessage); 048.} 049.this._valResults.Clear(); 050.ShowErrors(errorMessages); 051.} 052.else if (xSummary.Errors.Count > 0) 053.{ 054.List<string> errorMessages = new List<string>(); 055.foreach (var err in xSummary.Errors) 056.{ 057.errorMessages.Add(err.Message); 058.} 059.ShowErrors(errorMessages); 060.} 061.else 062.{ 063.if (this.isNew) 064.{ 065.context.JobPostings.Add(activeJob); 066.context.SubmitChanges((s) => 067.{ 068.ActionHistory thisAction = new ActionHistory(); 069.thisAction.PostingID = activeJob.PostingID; 070.thisAction.Description = String.Format("Job '{0}' has been edited by {1}", activeJob.JobTitle, "default user"); 071.thisAction.TimeStamp = DateTime.Now; 072.context.ActionHistories.Add(thisAction); 073.context.SubmitChanges(); 074.}, null); 075.} 076.else 077.{ 078.context.SubmitChanges((s) => 079.{ 080.ActionHistory thisAction = new ActionHistory(); 081.thisAction.PostingID = activeJob.PostingID; 082.thisAction.Description = String.Format("Job '{0}' has been added by {1}", activeJob.JobTitle, "default user"); 083.thisAction.TimeStamp = DateTime.Now; 084.context.ActionHistories.Add(thisAction); 085.context.SubmitChanges(); 086.}, null); 087.} 088.ShowJobsGrid(); 089.} 090.} 091.private void xCancelButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) 092.{ 093.ShowJobsGrid(); 094.} 095.private void ShowJobsGrid() 096.{ 097.xAddEditRecordButtonPanel.Visibility = Visibility.Visible; 098.xEditGrid.Visibility = Visibility.Collapsed; 099.xJobsGrid.Visibility = Visibility.Visible; 100.} 101.private void HideJobsGrid() 102.{ 103.xAddEditRecordButtonPanel.Visibility = Visibility.Collapsed; 104.xJobsGrid.Visibility = Visibility.Collapsed; 105.xEditGrid.Visibility = Visibility.Visible; 106.} 107.private void ShowErrors(List<string> errorList) 108.{ 109.string nm = "Errors received: \n"; 110.foreach (string anerror in errorList) 111.nm += anerror + "\n"; 112.RadWindow.Alert(nm); 113.} 114.} The first 39 lines should be pretty familiar, not doing anything too unorthodox to get this up and running. Once we hit the xAddEditButton_Click on line 40, we're still doing pretty much the same things except instead of checking the ValidationHelper errors, we both run a check on the current activeJob object as well as check the ValidationSummary errors list. Once that is set, we again use the callback of context.SubmitChanges (lines 68 and 78) to create an ActionHistory which we will use to track these items down the line. That's all? Essentially... yes. If you look back through this post, most of the code and adventures we have taken were just to get things working in the MVVM/Prism setup. Since I have the whole 'module' self-contained in a single JobView+code-behind setup, I don't have to worry about things like sending events off into space for someone to pick up, communicating through an Infrastructure project, or even re-inventing events to be used with attached behaviors. Everything just kinda works, and again with much less code. Here's a picture of the MVVM and Code-behind versions on the Jobs and AddEdit views, but since the functionality is the same in both apps you still cannot tell them apart (for two-strike): Looking ahead, the Applicants module is effectively the same thing as the Jobs module, so most of the code is being cut-and-pasted back and forth with minor tweaks here and there. So that one is being taken care of by me behind the scenes. Next time, we get into a new world of fun- the interview scheduling module, which will pull from available jobs and applicants for each interview being scheduled, tying everything together with RadScheduler to the rescue. Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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