custom draw - Page 203 - Developer IT

How to create an MSI package that installs no files and only executes some commands using Wix

- by Sevas

I am trying to create an MSI package that uses the AppCmd application to configure IIS7. It only has to execute some commands that call AppCmd. Some commands need to be called when installing, other commands need to be called when uninstalling. Here is what I have now: I have a property that points to AppCmd: <Property Id="APPCMD" Value="C:\Windows\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe" /> I have my custom actions: <CustomAction Id="UnlockHandlerSection" Return="check" Property="APPCMD" ExeCommand="unlock config /section:system.webServer/handlers" /> I have Custom elements that call the actions: <InstallExecuteSequence> <Custom Action="UnlockHandlerSection" After="InstallFiles">NOT Installed AND NOT PATCH</Custom> <InstallExecuteSequence> The problem with this is is that the commands are not called when I try to install the resulting MSI package. Could anyone please advise me on what I am doing wrong? Thank you!

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JQuery form validator that is W3C Valid

- by Rudiger

Im doing some form validation on a website and I've tried to use JQuery Validator and it works find but isn't valid as it uses custom attributes. I've tried every which way to make it valid but it seems besides some other custom javascript, which is not an option, it isn't valid. Has anyone come across one that is valid? Or some other way to make it valid? I've tried custom dtds, adding the attribute to the doctype but that leaves a ] on the page. Cheers

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AbstractPhoneListener not responding second time:

- by java-webline

--I use custom screen on call initiated , connected, disconnected with blackberry5.0. First time when invike call , application can get respond of every event like call initiated , call connected, call disconnected and shows respected custom screens. --After call disconnected , it shows the custom call history of my application. --Now from my application when user click back button, it shows device call logs. --Now on back it will return control to my application from where user can initiate call. --But this time, When user invoke call from application ,phone listener is added but it shows device call screens not mine custom call screens.Phone listener not responding this time.

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How do I automatically update hundreds of images in an HTML page using jquery?

- by Chris

I have an HTML page where I want to refresh a lot of images every 30 seconds after the HTML page has been downloaded. I understand how to do this with Jquery and a single image, but I want to use about 200 custom urls to determine the current image to display for over 200 images. I need to find an efficient way to have jquery call the custom url associated with each image to download the url for the needed image as it changes, and then update the image in the page when it changes. Current hyperlink example to demonstrate the custom urls. <A href="/urlThatReturnsCurrentImageURL/1234/4567">link to url for image</A> Each custom url will return an image tag like this (or any other text that makes this simpler for jquery) <img src="/static/someImage.jpg"> What is the simplest way to have jquery call the custom url for each image to download the image url, image html, or some other text that jquery can use to download the right image every 30 seconds? Please keep in mind that I will have about 200 of these on a page.

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Update a collection_select with user made field

- by Flexo

I have a collection_select that i want user to add custom fields to. I have a jQuery script that detects if the row "Custom" is chosen and adds a textfield to the page so the user can enter a custom name. How can i store that custom made name in the db and update the collection_select? <%= f.collection_select :kind_id, Kind.find(:all, :order => "created_at DESC"), :id, :name, {:prompt => "Select a Type" }, {:id => "selector", :onchange => "type_change(this)"} %>

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Generic Event Generator and Handler from User Supplied Types?

- by JaredBroad

I'm trying to allow the user to supply custom data and manage the data with custom types. The user's algorithm will get time synchronized events pushed into the event handlers they define. I'm not sure if this is possible but here's the "proof of concept" code I'd like to build. It doesn't detect T in the for loop: "The type or namespace name 'T' could not be found" class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { Algorithm algo = new Algorithm(); Dictionary<Type, string[]> userDataSources = new Dictionary<Type, string[]>(); // "User" adding custom type and data source for algorithm to consume userDataSources.Add(typeof(Weather), new string[] { "temperature data1", "temperature data2" }); for (int i = 0; i < 2; i++) { foreach (Type T in userDataSources.Keys) { string line = userDataSources[typeof(T)][i]; //Iterate over CSV data.. var userObj = new T(line); algo.OnData < typeof(T) > (userObj); } } } //User's algorithm pattern. interface IAlgorithm<TData> where TData : class { void OnData<TData>(TData data); } //User's algorithm. class Algorithm : IAlgorithm<Weather> { //Handle Custom User Data public void OnData<Weather>(Weather data) { Console.WriteLine(data.date.ToString()); Console.ReadKey(); } } //Example "user" custom type. public class Weather { public DateTime date = new DateTime(); public double temperature = 0; public Weather(string line) { Console.WriteLine("Initializing weather object with: " + line); date = DateTime.Now; temperature = -1; } } }

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WiX 3 Tutorial: Understanding main WXS and WXI file

- by Mladen Prajdic

In the previous post we’ve taken a look at the WiX solution/project structure and project properties. We’re still playing with our super SuperForm application and today we’ll take a look at the general parts of the main wxs file, SuperForm.wxs, and the wxi include file. For wxs file we’ll just go over the general description of what each part does in the code comments. The more detailed descriptions will be in future posts about features themselves. WXI include file Include files are exactly what their name implies. To include a wxi file into the wxs file you have to put the wxi at the beginning of each .wxs file you wish to include it in. If you’ve ever worked with C++ you can think of the include files as .h files. For example if you include SuperFormVariables.wxi into the SuperForm.wxs, the variables in the wxi won’t be seen in FilesFragment.wxs or RegistryFragment.wxs. You’d have to include it manually into those two wxs files too. For preprocessor variable $(var.VariableName) to be seen by every file in the project you have to include them in the WiX project properties->Build->“Define preprocessor variables” textbox. This is why I’ve chosen not to go this route because in multi developer teams not everyone has the same directory structure and having a single variable would mean each developer would have to checkout the wixproj file to edit the variable. This is pretty much unacceptable by my standards. This is why we’ve added a System Environment variable named SuperFormFilesDir as is shown in the previous Wix Tutorial post. Because the FilesFragment.wxs is autogenerated on every project build we don’t want to change it manually each time by adding the include wxi at the beginning of the file. This way we couldn’t recreate it in each pre-build event. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><Include>  <?define MajorVersion="1" ?> <?define MinorVersion="0" ?> <?define BuildVersion="0" ?>  <?define Revision="0" ?>  <?define VersionNumber="$(var.MajorVersion).$(var.MinorVersion).$(var.BuildVersion).$(var.Revision)" ?>  <?define UpgradeCode="YOUR-GUID-HERE" ?>  <?define ResourcesDir="$(var.ProjectDir)\Resources" ?>  <?define ExeProcessName="SuperForm.MainApp.exe" ?></Include> For now there’s no way to tell WiX in Visual Studio to have a wxi include file available to the whole project, so you have to include it in each file separately. Only variables set in “Define preprocessor variables” or System Environment variables are accessible to the whole project for now. The main WXS file: SuperForm.wxs We’ll only take a look at the general structure of the main SuperForm.wxs and not its the details. We’ll cover the details in future posts. The code comments should provide plenty info about what each part does in general. Basically there are 5 major parts. The update part, the conditions and actions part, the UI install sequence, the directory structure and the features we want to include. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><Wix xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/2006/wi" xmlns:util="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/UtilExtension">  <?include $(sys.CURRENTDIR)Includes\SuperFormVariables.wxi ?>  <Product Id="*" Name="!(loc.ProductName) $(var.VersionNumber)" Language="!(loc.LANG)" Version="$(var.VersionNumber)" Manufacturer="!(loc.ManufacturerName)" UpgradeCode="$(var.UpgradeCode)">  <Package InstallerVersion="300" Compressed="yes" InstallScope="perMachine"/> <Media Id="1" Cabinet="media1.cab" EmbedCab="yes" />  <Upgrade Id="$(var.UpgradeCode)"> <UpgradeVersion OnlyDetect="yes" Minimum="$(var.VersionNumber)" IncludeMinimum="no" Property="NEWER_VERSION_FOUND" /> <UpgradeVersion Minimum="0.0.0.0" IncludeMinimum="yes" Maximum="$(var.VersionNumber)" IncludeMaximum="no" Property="OLDER_VERSION_FOUND" /> </Upgrade>  <PropertyRef Id="NETFRAMEWORK35"/>  <Condition Message="!(loc.DotNetFrameworkNeeded)"> <![CDATA[Installed OR NETFRAMEWORK35]]> </Condition> <Condition Message="!(loc.AppNotSupported)"> <![CDATA[Installed OR ((VersionNT >= 501 AND ServicePackLevel >= 2) OR (VersionNT >= 502))]]> </Condition>  <CustomAction Id="NewerVersionFound" Error="!(loc.SuperFormNewerVersionInstalled)" /> <InstallExecuteSequence>  <Custom Action="NewerVersionFound" After="FindRelatedProducts"> <![CDATA[NEWER_VERSION_FOUND]]> </Custom>  <RemoveExistingProducts After="InstallInitialize"/>  <Custom Action="WixCloseApplications" Before="InstallInitialize" /> </InstallExecuteSequence>  <util:CloseApplication Id="CloseSuperForm" CloseMessage="no" Description="!(loc.MustCloseSuperForm)" ElevatedCloseMessage="no" RebootPrompt="no" Target="$(var.ExeProcessName)" />  <UIRef Id="WixUI_InstallDir" /> <UI>  <DialogRef Id="FilesInUse" /> <DialogRef Id="MsiRMFilesInUse" />  </UI>  <Icon Id="SuperFormIcon.ico" SourceFile="$(var.ResourcesDir)\Exclam.ico" /> <Property Id="ARPPRODUCTICON" Value="SuperFormIcon.ico" />   <Directory Id="TARGETDIR" Name="SourceDir"> <Directory Id="ProgramFilesFolder"> <Directory Id="INSTALLLOCATION" Name="!(loc.ProductName)" /> </Directory> </Directory>  <Property Id="WIXUI_INSTALLDIR" Value="INSTALLLOCATION" />  <Feature Id="SuperFormFeature" Title="!(loc.ProductName)" Level="1"> <ComponentGroupRef Id="SuperFormFiles" /> <ComponentRef Id="cmpVersionInRegistry" /> <ComponentRef Id="cmpIsThisUpdateInRegistry" /> </Feature> </Product></Wix> For more info on what certain attributes mean you should look into the WiX Documentation. WiX 3 tutorial by Mladen Prajdic navigation WiX 3 Tutorial: Solution/Project structure and Dev resources WiX 3 Tutorial: Understanding main wxs and wxi file WiX 3 Tutorial: Generating file/directory fragments with Heat.exe

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How do I make an on-screen HUD in libgdx?

- by Devin Carless

I'm new to libgdx, and I am finding I am getting stumped by the simplest of things. It seems to want me to do things a specific way, but the documentation won't tell me what that is. I want to make a very simple 2d game in which the player controls a spaceship. The mouse wheel will zoom in and out, and information and controls are displayed on the screen. But I can't seem to make the mouse wheel NOT zoom the UI. I've tried futzing with the projection matrices in between Here's my (current) code: public class PlayStage extends Stage { ... public void draw() { // tell the camera to update its matrices. camera.update(); // tell the SpriteBatch to render in the // coordinate system specified by the camera. spriteBatch.setProjectionMatrix(camera.combined); spriteBatch.begin(); aButton.draw(spriteBatch, 1F); playerShip.draw(spriteBatch, 1F); spriteBatch.end(); } } camera.zoom is set by scrolled(int amount). I've tried about a dozen variations on the theme of changing the camera's projection matrix after the button is drawn but before the ship is, but no matter what I do, the same things happen to both the button and the ship. So: What is the usual libgdx way of implementing an on-screen UI that isn't transformed by the camera's projection matrix/zoom?

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SFML: Generate a background image

- by BlackMamba

I want to generate a background, which is used in the game, on every instance of the game based on certain conditions. To do so, I'm using a sf::RenderTexture and a sf::Texture like this: sf::RenderTexture image; std::vector<sf::Texture> textures; sf::Texture texture; // instantiating the vector of textures and the image not shown here for (int i = 0; i < certainSize; ++i) { if(certainContition) { texture.setTexture("file"); texture.setPosition(pos1, pos2); } else { ... } image.draw(texture); } The point here is that I draw single textures on a sf::RenderTexture, but because textures always are on the graphic cards memory, I can't exceed a certain map size which I have to. I also considered using an sf::Image, but I can't find a way to draw an image (i.e. a texture) to it. The third way I found was using an sf::VertexArray, but this seems to be a bit too low-level for my rather simple purposes. So is there a common way to dynamically generate a background image based on other existing images?

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Using LINQ Distinct: With an Example on ASP.NET MVC SelectListItem

- by Joe Mayo

One of the things that might be surprising in the LINQ Distinct standard query operator is that it doesn’t automatically work properly on custom classes. There are reasons for this, which I’ll explain shortly. The example I’ll use in this post focuses on pulling a unique list of names to load into a drop-down list. I’ll explain the sample application, show you typical first shot at Distinct, explain why it won’t work as you expect, and then demonstrate a solution to make Distinct work with any custom class. The technologies I’m using are LINQ to Twitter, LINQ to Objects, Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC, ASP.NET MVC 2, and Visual Studio 2010. The function of the example program is to show a list of people that I follow. In Twitter API vernacular, these people are called “Friends”; though I’ve never met most of them in real life. This is part of the ubiquitous language of social networking, and Twitter in particular, so you’ll see my objects named accordingly. Where Distinct comes into play is because I want to have a drop-down list with the names of the friends appearing in the list. Some friends are quite verbose, which means I can’t just extract names from each tweet and populate the drop-down; otherwise, I would end up with many duplicate names. Therefore, Distinct is the appropriate operator to eliminate the extra entries from my friends who tend to be enthusiastic tweeters. The sample doesn’t do anything with the drop-down list and I leave that up to imagination for what it’s practical purpose could be; perhaps a filter for the list if I only want to see a certain person’s tweets or maybe a quick list that I plan to combine with a TextBox and Button to reply to a friend. When the program runs, you’ll need to authenticate with Twitter, because I’m using OAuth (DotNetOpenAuth), for authentication, and then you’ll see the drop-down list of names above the grid with the most recent tweets from friends. Here’s what the application looks like when it runs: As you can see, there is a drop-down list above the grid. The drop-down list is where most of the focus of this article will be. There is some description of the code before we talk about the Distinct operator, but we’ll get there soon. This is an ASP.NET MVC2 application, written with VS 2010. Here’s the View that produces this screen: <%@ Page Language="C#" MasterPageFile="~/Views/Shared/Site.Master" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage<TwitterFriendsViewModel>" %> <%@ Import Namespace="DistinctSelectList.Models" %> <asp:Content ID="Content1" ContentPlaceHolderID="TitleContent" runat="server"> Home Page </asp:Content><asp:Content ID="Content2" ContentPlaceHolderID="MainContent" runat="server"> <fieldset> <legend>Twitter Friends</legend> <div> <%= Html.DropDownListFor( twendVM => twendVM.FriendNames, Model.FriendNames, "<All Friends>") %> </div> <div> <% Html.Telerik().Grid<TweetViewModel>(Model.Tweets) .Name("TwitterFriendsGrid") .Columns(cols => { cols.Template(col => { %> <img src="<%= col.ImageUrl %>" alt="<%= col.ScreenName %>" /> <% }); cols.Bound(col => col.ScreenName); cols.Bound(col => col.Tweet); }) .Render(); %> </div> </fieldset> </asp:Content> As shown above, the Grid is from Telerik’s Extensions for ASP.NET MVC. The first column is a template that renders the user’s Avatar from a URL provided by the Twitter query. Both the Grid and DropDownListFor display properties that are collections from a TwitterFriendsViewModel class, shown below: using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Web.Mvc; namespace DistinctSelectList.Models { /// /// For finding friend info on screen /// public class TwitterFriendsViewModel { /// /// Display names of friends in drop-down list /// public List FriendNames { get; set; } /// /// Display tweets in grid /// public List Tweets { get; set; } } } I created the TwitterFreindsViewModel. The two Lists are what the View consumes to populate the DropDownListFor and Grid. Notice that FriendNames is a List of SelectListItem, which is an MVC class. Another custom class I created is the TweetViewModel (the type of the Tweets List), shown below: namespace DistinctSelectList.Models { /// /// Info on friend tweets /// public class TweetViewModel { /// /// User's avatar /// public string ImageUrl { get; set; } /// /// User's Twitter name /// public string ScreenName { get; set; } /// /// Text containing user's tweet /// public string Tweet { get; set; } } } The initial Twitter query returns much more information than we need for our purposes and this a special class for displaying info in the View. Now you know about the View and how it’s constructed. Let’s look at the controller next. The controller for this demo performs authentication, data retrieval, data manipulation, and view selection. I’ll skip the description of the authentication because it’s a normal part of using OAuth with LINQ to Twitter. Instead, we’ll drill down and focus on the Distinct operator. However, I’ll show you the entire controller, below, so that you can see how it all fits together: using System.Linq; using System.Web.Mvc; using DistinctSelectList.Models; using LinqToTwitter; namespace DistinctSelectList.Controllers { [HandleError] public class HomeController : Controller { private MvcOAuthAuthorization auth; private TwitterContext twitterCtx; /// /// Display a list of friends current tweets /// /// public ActionResult Index() { auth = new MvcOAuthAuthorization(InMemoryTokenManager.Instance, InMemoryTokenManager.AccessToken); string accessToken = auth.CompleteAuthorize(); if (accessToken != null) { InMemoryTokenManager.AccessToken = accessToken; } if (auth.CachedCredentialsAvailable) { auth.SignOn(); } else { return auth.BeginAuthorize(); } twitterCtx = new TwitterContext(auth); var friendTweets = (from tweet in twitterCtx.Status where tweet.Type == StatusType.Friends select new TweetViewModel { ImageUrl = tweet.User.ProfileImageUrl, ScreenName = tweet.User.Identifier.ScreenName, Tweet = tweet.Text }) .ToList(); var friendNames = (from tweet in friendTweets select new SelectListItem { Text = tweet.ScreenName, Value = tweet.ScreenName }) .Distinct() .ToList(); var twendsVM = new TwitterFriendsViewModel { Tweets = friendTweets, FriendNames = friendNames }; return View(twendsVM); } public ActionResult About() { return View(); } } } The important part of the listing above are the LINQ to Twitter queries for friendTweets and friendNames. Both of these results are used in the subsequent population of the twendsVM instance that is passed to the view. Let’s dissect these two statements for clarification and focus on what is happening with Distinct. The query for friendTweets gets a list of the 20 most recent tweets (as specified by the Twitter API for friend queries) and performs a projection into the custom TweetViewModel class, repeated below for your convenience: var friendTweets = (from tweet in twitterCtx.Status where tweet.Type == StatusType.Friends select new TweetViewModel { ImageUrl = tweet.User.ProfileImageUrl, ScreenName = tweet.User.Identifier.ScreenName, Tweet = tweet.Text }) .ToList(); The LINQ to Twitter query above simplifies what we need to work with in the View and the reduces the amount of information we have to look at in subsequent queries. Given the friendTweets above, the next query performs another projection into an MVC SelectListItem, which is required for binding to the DropDownList. This brings us to the focus of this blog post, writing a correct query that uses the Distinct operator. The query below uses LINQ to Objects, querying the friendTweets collection to get friendNames: var friendNames = (from tweet in friendTweets select new SelectListItem { Text = tweet.ScreenName, Value = tweet.ScreenName }) .Distinct() .ToList(); The above implementation of Distinct seems normal, but it is deceptively incorrect. After running the query above, by executing the application, you’ll notice that the drop-down list contains many duplicates. This will send you back to the code scratching your head, but there’s a reason why this happens. To understand the problem, we must examine how Distinct works in LINQ to Objects. Distinct has two overloads: one without parameters, as shown above, and another that takes a parameter of type IEqualityComparer<T>. In the case above, no parameters, Distinct will call EqualityComparer<T>.Default behind the scenes to make comparisons as it iterates through the list. You don’t have problems with the built-in types, such as string, int, DateTime, etc, because they all implement IEquatable<T>. However, many .NET Framework classes, such as SelectListItem, don’t implement IEquatable<T>. So, what happens is that EqualityComparer<T>.Default results in a call to Object.Equals, which performs reference equality on reference type objects. You don’t have this problem with value types because the default implementation of Object.Equals is bitwise equality. However, most of your projections that use Distinct are on classes, just like the SelectListItem used in this demo application. So, the reason why Distinct didn’t produce the results we wanted was because we used a type that doesn’t define its own equality and Distinct used the default reference equality. This resulted in all objects being included in the results because they are all separate instances in memory with unique references. As you might have guessed, the solution to the problem is to use the second overload of Distinct that accepts an IEqualityComparer<T> instance. If you were projecting into your own custom type, you could make that type implement IEqualityComparer<T>, but SelectListItem belongs to the .NET Framework Class Library. Therefore, the solution is to create a custom type to implement IEqualityComparer<T>, as in the SelectListItemComparer class, shown below: using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Web.Mvc; namespace DistinctSelectList.Models { public class SelectListItemComparer : EqualityComparer { public override bool Equals(SelectListItem x, SelectListItem y) { return x.Value.Equals(y.Value); } public override int GetHashCode(SelectListItem obj) { return obj.Value.GetHashCode(); } } } The SelectListItemComparer class above doesn’t implement IEqualityComparer<SelectListItem>, but rather derives from EqualityComparer<SelectListItem>. Microsoft recommends this approach for consistency with the behavior of generic collection classes. However, if your custom type already derives from a base class, go ahead and implement IEqualityComparer<T>, which will still work. EqualityComparer is an abstract class, that implements IEqualityComparer<T> with Equals and GetHashCode abstract methods. For the purposes of this application, the SelectListItem.Value property is sufficient to determine if two items are equal. Since SelectListItem.Value is type string, the code delegates equality to the string class. The code also delegates the GetHashCode operation to the string class.You might have other criteria in your own object and would need to define what it means for your object to be equal. Now that we have an IEqualityComparer<SelectListItem>, let’s fix the problem. The code below modifies the query where we want distinct values: var friendNames = (from tweet in friendTweets select new SelectListItem { Text = tweet.ScreenName, Value = tweet.ScreenName }) .Distinct(new SelectListItemComparer()) .ToList(); Notice how the code above passes a new instance of SelectListItemComparer as the parameter to the Distinct operator. Now, when you run the application, the drop-down list will behave as you expect, showing only a unique set of names. In addition to Distinct, other LINQ Standard Query Operators have overloads that accept IEqualityComparer<T>’s, You can use the same techniques as shown here, with SelectListItemComparer, with those other operators as well. Now you know how to resolve problems with getting Distinct to work properly and also have a way to fix problems with other operators that require equality comparisons. @JoeMayo

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July 2013 Release of the Ajax Control Toolkit

- by Stephen.Walther

I’m super excited to announce the July 2013 release of the Ajax Control Toolkit. You can download the new version of the Ajax Control Toolkit from CodePlex (http://ajaxControlToolkit.CodePlex.com) or install the Ajax Control Toolkit from NuGet: With this release, we have completely rewritten the way the Ajax Control Toolkit combines, minifies, gzips, and caches JavaScript files. The goal of this release was to improve the performance of the Ajax Control Toolkit and make it easier to create custom Ajax Control Toolkit controls. Improving Ajax Control Toolkit Performance Previous releases of the Ajax Control Toolkit optimized performance for a single page but not multiple pages. When you visited each page in an app, the Ajax Control Toolkit would combine all of the JavaScript files required by the controls in the page into a new JavaScript file. So, even if every page in your app used the exact same controls, visitors would need to download a new combined Ajax Control Toolkit JavaScript file for each page visited. Downloading new scripts for each page that you visit does not lead to good performance. In general, you want to make as few requests for JavaScript files as possible and take maximum advantage of caching. For most apps, you would get much better performance if you could specify all of the Ajax Control Toolkit controls that you need for your entire app and create a single JavaScript file which could be used across your entire app. What a great idea! Introducing Control Bundles With this release of the Ajax Control Toolkit, we introduce the concept of Control Bundles. You define a Control Bundle to indicate the set of Ajax Control Toolkit controls that you want to use in your app. You define Control Bundles in a file located in the root of your application named AjaxControlToolkit.config. For example, the following AjaxControlToolkit.config file defines two Control Bundles: <ajaxControlToolkit> <controlBundles> <controlBundle> <control name="CalendarExtender" /> <control name="ComboBox" /> </controlBundle> <controlBundle name="CalendarBundle"> <control name="CalendarExtender"></control> </controlBundle> </controlBundles> </ajaxControlToolkit> The first Control Bundle in the file above does not have a name. When a Control Bundle does not have a name then it becomes the default Control Bundle for your entire application. The default Control Bundle is used by the ToolkitScriptManager by default. For example, the default Control Bundle is used when you declare the ToolkitScriptManager like this: <ajaxToolkit:ToolkitScriptManager runat=”server” /> The default Control Bundle defined in the file above includes all of the scripts required for the CalendarExtender and ComboBox controls. All of the scripts required for both of these controls are combined, minified, gzipped, and cached automatically. The AjaxControlToolkit.config file above also defines a second Control Bundle with the name CalendarBundle. Here’s how you would use the CalendarBundle with the ToolkitScriptManager: <ajaxToolkit:ToolkitScriptManager runat="server"> <ControlBundles> <ajaxToolkit:ControlBundle Name="CalendarBundle" /> </ControlBundles> </ajaxToolkit:ToolkitScriptManager> In this case, only the JavaScript files required by the CalendarExtender control, and not the ComboBox, would be downloaded because the CalendarBundle lists only the CalendarExtender control. You can use multiple named control bundles with the ToolkitScriptManager and you will get all of the scripts from both bundles. Support for ControlBundles is a new feature of the ToolkitScriptManager that we introduced with this release. We extended the ToolkitScriptManager to support the Control Bundles that you can define in the AjaxControlToolkit.config file. Let me be explicit about the rules for Control Bundles: 1. If you do not create an AjaxControlToolkit.config file then the ToolkitScriptManager will download all of the JavaScript files required for all of the controls in the Ajax Control Toolkit. This is the easy but low performance option. 2. If you create an AjaxControlToolkit.config file and create a ControlBundle without a name then the ToolkitScriptManager uses that Control Bundle by default. For example, if you plan to use only the CalendarExtender and ComboBox controls in your application then you should create a default bundle that lists only these two controls. 3. If you create an AjaxControlToolkit.config file and create one or more named Control Bundles then you can use these named Control Bundles with the ToolkitScriptManager. For example, you might want to use different subsets of the Ajax Control Toolkit controls in different sections of your app. I should also mention that you can use the AjaxControlToolkit.config file with custom Ajax Control Toolkit controls – new controls that you write. For example, here is how you would register a set of custom controls from an assembly named MyAssembly: <ajaxControlToolkit> <controlBundles> <controlBundle name="CustomBundle"> <control name="MyAssembly.MyControl1" assembly="MyAssembly" /> <control name="MyAssembly.MyControl2" assembly="MyAssembly" /> </controlBundle> </ajaxControlToolkit> What about ASP.NET Bundling and Minification? The idea of Control Bundles is similar to the idea of Script Bundles used in ASP.NET Bundling and Minification. You might be wondering why we didn’t simply use Script Bundles with the Ajax Control Toolkit. There were several reasons. First, ASP.NET Bundling does not work with scripts embedded in an assembly. Because all of the scripts used by the Ajax Control Toolkit are embedded in the AjaxControlToolkit.dll assembly, ASP.NET Bundling was not an option. Second, Web Forms developers typically think at the level of controls and not at the level of individual scripts. We believe that it makes more sense for a Web Forms developer to specify the controls that they need in an app (CalendarExtender, ToggleButton) instead of the individual scripts that they need in an app (the 15 or so scripts required by the CalenderExtender). Finally, ASP.NET Bundling does not work with older versions of ASP.NET. The Ajax Control Toolkit needs to support ASP.NET 3.5, ASP.NET 4.0, and ASP.NET 4.5. Therefore, using ASP.NET Bundling was not an option. There is nothing wrong with using Control Bundles and Script Bundles side-by-side. The ASP.NET 4.0 and 4.5 ToolkitScriptManager supports both approaches to bundling scripts. Using the AjaxControlToolkit.CombineScriptsHandler Browsers cache JavaScript files by URL. For example, if you request the exact same JavaScript file from two different URLs then the exact same JavaScript file must be downloaded twice. However, if you request the same JavaScript file from the same URL more than once then it only needs to be downloaded once. With this release of the Ajax Control Toolkit, we have introduced a new HTTP Handler named the AjaxControlToolkit.CombineScriptsHandler. If you register this handler in your web.config file then the Ajax Control Toolkit can cache your JavaScript files for up to one year in the future automatically. You should register the handler in two places in your web.config file: in the <httpHandlers> section and the <system.webServer> section (don’t forget to register the handler for the AjaxFileUpload while you are there!). <httpHandlers> <add verb="*" path="AjaxFileUploadHandler.axd" type="AjaxControlToolkit.AjaxFileUploadHandler, AjaxControlToolkit" /> <add verb="*" path="CombineScriptsHandler.axd" type="AjaxControlToolkit.CombineScriptsHandler, AjaxControlToolkit" /> </httpHandlers> <system.webServer> <validation validateIntegratedModeConfiguration="false" /> <handlers> <add name="AjaxFileUploadHandler" verb="*" path="AjaxFileUploadHandler.axd" type="AjaxControlToolkit.AjaxFileUploadHandler, AjaxControlToolkit" /> <add name="CombineScriptsHandler" verb="*" path="CombineScriptsHandler.axd" type="AjaxControlToolkit.CombineScriptsHandler, AjaxControlToolkit" /> </handlers> <system.webServer> The handler is only used in release mode and not in debug mode. You can enable release mode in your web.config file like this: <compilation debug=”false”> You also can override the web.config setting with the ToolkitScriptManager like this: <act:ToolkitScriptManager ScriptMode=”Release” runat=”server”/> In release mode, scripts are combined, minified, gzipped, and cached with a far future cache header automatically. When the handler is not registered, scripts are requested from the page that contains the ToolkitScriptManager: When the handler is registered in the web.config file, scripts are requested from the handler: If you want the best performance, always register the handler. That way, the Ajax Control Toolkit can cache the bundled scripts across page requests with a far future cache header. If you don’t register the handler then a new JavaScript file must be downloaded whenever you travel to a new page. Dynamic Bundling and Minification Previous releases of the Ajax Control Toolkit used a Visual Studio build task to minify the JavaScript files used by the Ajax Control Toolkit controls. The disadvantage of this approach to minification is that it made it difficult to create custom Ajax Control Toolkit controls. Starting with this release of the Ajax Control Toolkit, we support dynamic minification. The JavaScript files in the Ajax Control Toolkit are minified at runtime instead of at build time. Scripts are minified only when in release mode. You can specify release mode with the web.config file or with the ToolkitScriptManager ScriptMode property. Because of this change, the Ajax Control Toolkit now depends on the Ajax Minifier. You must include a reference to AjaxMin.dll in your Visual Studio project or you cannot take advantage of runtime minification. If you install the Ajax Control Toolkit from NuGet then AjaxMin.dll is added to your project as a NuGet dependency automatically. If you download the Ajax Control Toolkit from CodePlex then the AjaxMin.dll is included in the download. This change means that you no longer need to do anything special to create a custom Ajax Control Toolkit. As an open source project, we hope more people will contribute to the Ajax Control Toolkit (Yes, I am looking at you.) We have been working hard on making it much easier to create new custom controls. More on this subject with the next release of the Ajax Control Toolkit. A Single Visual Studio Solution We also made substantial changes to the Visual Studio solution and projects used by the Ajax Control Toolkit with this release. This change will matter to you only if you need to work directly with the Ajax Control Toolkit source code. In previous releases of the Ajax Control Toolkit, we maintained separate solution and project files for ASP.NET 3.5, ASP.NET 4.0, and ASP.NET 4.5. Starting with this release, we now support a single Visual Studio 2012 solution that takes advantage of multi-targeting to build ASP.NET 3.5, ASP.NET 4.0, and ASP.NET 4.5 versions of the toolkit. This change means that you need Visual Studio 2012 to open the Ajax Control Toolkit project downloaded from CodePlex. For details on how we setup multi-targeting, please see Budi Adiono’s blog post: http://www.budiadiono.com/2013/07/25/visual-studio-2012-multi-targeting-framework-project/ Summary You can take advantage of this release of the Ajax Control Toolkit to significantly improve the performance of your website. You need to do two things: 1) You need to create an AjaxControlToolkit.config file which lists the controls used in your app and 2) You need to register the AjaxControlToolkit.CombineScriptsHandler in the web.config file. We made substantial changes to the Ajax Control Toolkit with this release. We think these changes will result in much better performance for multipage apps and make the process of building custom controls much easier. As always, we look forward to hearing your feedback.

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ASP.NET GZip Encoding Caveats

- by Rick Strahl

GZip encoding in ASP.NET is pretty easy to accomplish using the built-in GZipStream and DeflateStream classes and applying them to the Response.Filter property. While applying GZip and Deflate behavior is pretty easy there are a few caveats that you have watch out for as I found out today for myself with an application that was throwing up some garbage data. But before looking at caveats let’s review GZip implementation for ASP.NET. ASP.NET GZip/Deflate Basics Response filters basically are applied to the Response.OutputStream and transform it as data is written to it through the ASP.NET Response object. So a Response.Write eventually gets written into the output stream which if a filter is also written through the filter stream’s interface. To perform the actual GZip (and Deflate) encoding typically used by Web pages .NET includes the GZipStream and DeflateStream stream classes which can be readily assigned to the Repsonse.OutputStream. With these two stream classes in place it’s almost trivially easy to create a couple of reusable methods that allow you to compress your HTTP output. In my standard WebUtils utility class (from the West Wind West Wind Web Toolkit) created two static utility methods – IsGZipSupported and GZipEncodePage – that check whether the client supports GZip encoding and then actually encodes the current output (note that although the method includes ‘Page’ in its name this code will work with any ASP.NET output). /// <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; } /// <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()) { string AcceptEncoding = HttpContext.Current.Request.Headers["Accept-Encoding"]; if (AcceptEncoding.Contains("deflate")) { Response.Filter = new System.IO.Compression.DeflateStream(Response.Filter, System.IO.Compression.CompressionMode.Compress); Response.Headers.Remove("Content-Encoding"); Response.AppendHeader("Content-Encoding", "deflate"); } else { Response.Filter = new System.IO.Compression.GZipStream(Response.Filter, System.IO.Compression.CompressionMode.Compress); Response.Headers.Remove("Content-Encoding"); Response.AppendHeader("Content-Encoding", "gzip"); } } } As you can see the actual assignment of the Filter is as simple as: Response.Filter = new DeflateStream(Response.Filter, System.IO.Compression.CompressionMode.Compress); which applies the filter to the OutputStream. You also need to ensure that your response reflects the new GZip or Deflate encoding and ensure that any pages that are cached in Proxy servers can differentiate between pages that were encoded with the various different encodings (or no encoding). To use this utility function now is trivially easy: In any ASP.NET code that wants to compress its Response output you simply use: protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { WebUtils.GZipEncodePage(); Entry = WebLogFactory.GetEntry(); var entries = Entry.GetLastEntries(App.Configuration.ShowEntryCount, "pk,Title,SafeTitle,Body,Entered,Feedback,Location,ShowTopAd", "TEntries"); if (entries == null) throw new ApplicationException("Couldn't load WebLog Entries: " + Entry.ErrorMessage); this.repEntries.DataSource = entries; this.repEntries.DataBind(); } Here I use an ASP.NET page, but the above WebUtils.GZipEncode() method call will work in any ASP.NET application type including HTTP Handlers. The only requirement is that the filter needs to be applied before any other output is sent to the OutputStream. For example, in my CallbackHandler service implementation by default output over a certain size is GZip encoded. The output that is generated is JSON or XML and if the output is over 5k in size I apply WebUtils.GZipEncode(): if (sbOutput.Length > GZIP_ENCODE_TRESHOLD) WebUtils.GZipEncodePage(); Response.ContentType = ControlResources.STR_JsonContentType; HttpContext.Current.Response.Write(sbOutput.ToString()); Ok, so you probably get the idea: Encoding GZip/Deflate content is pretty easy. Hold on there Hoss –Watch your Caching Or is it? There are a few caveats that you need to watch out for when dealing with GZip content. The fist issue is that you need to deal with the fact that some clients don’t support GZip or Deflate content. Most modern browsers support it, but if you have a programmatic Http client accessing your content GZip/Deflate support is by no means guaranteed. For example, WinInet Http clients don’t support GZip out of the box – it has to be explicitly implemented. Other low level HTTP clients on other platforms too don’t support GZip out of the box. The problem is that your application, your Web Server and Proxy Servers on the Internet might be caching your generated content. If you return content with GZip once and then again without, either caching is not applied or worse the wrong type of content is returned back to the client from a cache or proxy. The result is an unreadable response for *some clients* which is also very hard to debug and fix once in production. You already saw the issue of Proxy servers addressed in the GZipEncodePage() function: // Allow proxy servers to cache encoded and unencoded versions separately Response.AppendHeader("Vary", "Content-Encoding"); This ensures that any Proxy servers also check for the Content-Encoding HTTP Header to cache their content – not just the URL. The same thing applies if you do OutputCaching in your own ASP.NET code. If you generate output for GZip on an OutputCached page the GZipped content will be cached (either by ASP.NET’s cache or in some cases by the IIS Kernel Cache). But what if the next client doesn’t support GZip? She’ll get served a cached GZip page that won’t decode and she’ll get a page full of garbage. Wholly undesirable. To fix this you need to add some custom OutputCache rules by way of the GetVaryByCustom() HttpApplication method in your global_ASAX file: public override string GetVaryByCustomString(HttpContext context, string custom) { // Override Caching for compression if (custom == "GZIP") { string acceptEncoding = HttpContext.Current.Response.Headers["Content-Encoding"]; if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(acceptEncoding)) return ""; else if (acceptEncoding.Contains("gzip")) return "GZIP"; else if (acceptEncoding.Contains("deflate")) return "DEFLATE"; return ""; } return base.GetVaryByCustomString(context, custom); } In a page that use Output caching you then specify: <%@ OutputCache Duration="180" VaryByParam="none" VaryByCustom="GZIP" %> To use that custom rule. It’s all Fun and Games until ASP.NET throws an Error Ok, so you’re up and running with GZip, you have your caching squared away and your pages that you are applying it to are jamming along. Then BOOM, something strange happens and you get a lovely garbled page that look like this: Lovely isn’t it? What’s happened here is that I have WebUtils.GZipEncode() applied to my page, but there’s an error in the page. The error falls back to the ASP.NET error handler and the error handler removes all existing output (good) and removes all the custom HTTP headers I’ve set manually (usually good, but very bad here). Since I applied the Response.Filter (via GZipEncode) the output is now GZip encoded, but ASP.NET has removed my Content-Encoding header, so the browser receives the GZip encoded content without a notification that it is encoded as GZip. The result is binary output. Here’s what Fiddler says about the raw HTTP header output when an error occurs when GZip encoding was applied: HTTP/1.1 500 Internal Server Error Cache-Control: private Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8 Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 22:21:08 GMT Content-Length: 2138 Connection: close ?`I?%&/m?{J?J??t??` … binary output striped here Notice: no Content-Encoding header and that’s why we’re seeing this garbage. ASP.NET has stripped the Content-Encoding header but left our filter intact. So how do we fix this? In my applications I typically have a global Application_Error handler set up and in this case I’ve been using that. One thing that you can do in the Application_Error handler is explicitly clear out the Response.Filter and set it to null at the top: protected void Application_Error(object sender, EventArgs e) { // Remove any special filtering especially GZip filtering Response.Filter = null; … } And voila I get my Yellow Screen of Death or my custom generated error output back via uncompressed content. BTW, the same is true for Page level errors handled in Page_Error or ASP.NET MVC Error handling methods in a controller. Another and possibly even better solution is to check whether a filter is attached just before the headers are sent to the client as pointed out by Adam Schroeder in the comments: protected void Application_PreSendRequestHeaders() { // ensure that if GZip/Deflate Encoding is applied that headers are set // also works when error occurs if filters are still active HttpResponse response = HttpContext.Current.Response; if (response.Filter is GZipStream && response.Headers["Content-encoding"] != "gzip") response.AppendHeader("Content-encoding", "gzip"); else if (response.Filter is DeflateStream && response.Headers["Content-encoding"] != "deflate") response.AppendHeader("Content-encoding", "deflate"); } This uses the Application_PreSendRequestHeaders() pipeline event to check for compression encoding in a filter and adjusts the content accordingly. This is actually a better solution since this is generic – it’ll work regardless of how the content is cleaned up. For example, an error Response.Redirect() or short error display might get changed and the filter not cleared and this code actually handles that. Sweet, thanks Adam. It’s unfortunate that ASP.NET doesn’t natively clear out Response.Filters when an error occurs just as it clears the Response and Headers. I can’t see where leaving a Filter in place in an error situation would make any sense, but hey - this is what it is and it’s easy enough to fix as long as you know where to look. Riiiight! IIS and GZip I should also mention that IIS 7 includes good support for compression natively. If you can defer encoding to let IIS perform it for you rather than doing it in your code by all means you should do it! Especially any static or semi-dynamic content that can be made static should be using IIS built-in compression. Dynamic caching is also supported but is a bit more tricky to judge in terms of performance and footprint. John Forsyth has a great article on the benefits and drawbacks of IIS 7 compression which gives some detailed performance comparisons and impact reviews. I’ll post another entry next with some more info on IIS compression since information on it seems to be a bit hard to come by. Related Content Built-in GZip/Deflate Compression in IIS 7.x HttpWebRequest and GZip Responses © Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2011Posted in ASP.NET IIS7

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How to properly scroll a 2D tilemap?

- by Sri Harsha Chilakapati

Hello and I'm trying to make my own game engine in Java. I have completed all the necessary ones but I can't figure it out with the TileGame class. It just can't scroll. Also there are no exceptions. Here I'm listing the code. TileGame.java @Override public void draw(Graphics2D g) { if (back!=null){ back.render(g); } if (follower!=null){ follower.render(g); follower.draw(g); } for (int i=0; i<actors.size(); i++){ Actor actor = actors.get(i); if (actor!=follower&&getVisibleRect().intersects(actor.getBounds())){ g.drawImage(actor.getAnimation().getFrameImage(), actor.x - OffSetX, actor.y - OffSetY, null); actor.draw(g); } } } /** * This method returns the visible rectangle * @return The visible rectangle */ public Rectangle getVisibleRect(){ return new Rectangle(OffSetX, OffSetY, global.WIDTH, global.HEIGHT); } @Override public void update(){ if (follower!=null){ if (scrollHorizontally){ OffSetX = global.WIDTH/2 - Math.round((float)follower.x) - tileSize; OffSetX = Math.min(OffSetX, 0); OffSetX = Math.max(OffSetX, global.WIDTH - mapWidth); } if (scrollVertically){ OffSetY = global.HEIGHT/2 - Math.round((float)follower.y) - tileSize; OffSetY = Math.min(OffSetY, 0); OffSetY = Math.max(OffSetY, global.HEIGHT - mapHeight); } } for (int i=0; i<actors.size(); i++){ Actor actor1 = actors.get(i); if (getVisibleRect().contains(actor1.x, actor1.y)){ actor1.update(); for (int j=0; j<actors.size(); j++){ Actor actor2 = actors.get(j); if (actor1.isCollidingWith(actor2)){ actor1.collision(actor2); actor2.collision(actor1); } } } } } but the problem is that all the actors are working, but it just won't scroll. Help Please.. Thanks in Advance.

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HTML5 Form Validation

- by Stephen.Walther

The latest versions of Google Chrome (16+), Mozilla Firefox (8+), and Internet Explorer (10+) all support HTML5 client-side validation. It is time to take HTML5 validation seriously. The purpose of the blog post is to describe how you can take advantage of HTML5 client-side validation regardless of the type of application that you are building. You learn how to use the HTML5 validation attributes, how to perform custom validation using the JavaScript validation constraint API, and how to simulate HTML5 validation on older browsers by taking advantage of a jQuery plugin. Finally, we discuss the security issues related to using client-side validation. Using Client-Side Validation Attributes The HTML5 specification discusses several attributes which you can use with INPUT elements to perform client-side validation including the required, pattern, min, max, step, and maxlength attributes. For example, you use the required attribute to require a user to enter a value for an INPUT element. The following form demonstrates how you can make the firstName and lastName form fields required: <!DOCTYPE html> <html > <head> <title>Required Demo</title> </head> <body> <form> <label> First Name: <input required title="First Name is Required!" /> </label> <label> Last Name: <input required title="Last Name is Required!" /> </label> <button>Register</button> </form> </body> </html> If you attempt to submit this form without entering a value for firstName or lastName then you get the validation error message: Notice that the value of the title attribute is used to display the validation error message “First Name is Required!”. The title attribute does not work this way with the current version of Firefox. If you want to display a custom validation error message with Firefox then you need to include an x-moz-errormessage attribute like this: <input required title="First Name is Required!" x-moz-errormessage="First Name is Required!" /> The pattern attribute enables you to validate the value of an INPUT element against a regular expression. For example, the following form includes a social security number field which includes a pattern attribute: <!DOCTYPE html> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title>Pattern</title> </head> <body> <form> <label> Social Security Number: <input required pattern="^d{3}-d{2}-d{4}$" title="###-##-####" /> </label> <button>Register</button> </form> </body> </html> The regular expression in the form above requires the social security number to match the pattern ###-##-####: Notice that the input field includes both a pattern and a required validation attribute. If you don’t enter a value then the regular expression is never triggered. You need to include the required attribute to force a user to enter a value and cause the value to be validated against the regular expression. Custom Validation You can take advantage of the HTML5 constraint validation API to perform custom validation. You can perform any custom validation that you need. The only requirement is that you write a JavaScript function. For example, when booking a hotel room, you might want to validate that the Arrival Date is in the future instead of the past: <!DOCTYPE html> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title>Constraint Validation API</title> </head> <body> <form> <label> Arrival Date: <input id="arrivalDate" type="date" required /> </label> <button>Submit Reservation</button> </form> <script type="text/javascript"> var arrivalDate = document.getElementById("arrivalDate"); arrivalDate.addEventListener("input", function() { var value = new Date(arrivalDate.value); if (value < new Date()) { arrivalDate.setCustomValidity("Arrival date must be after now!"); } else { arrivalDate.setCustomValidity(""); } }); </script> </body> </html> The form above contains an input field named arrivalDate. Entering a value into the arrivalDate field triggers the input event. The JavaScript code adds an event listener for the input event and checks whether the date entered is greater than the current date. If validation fails then the validation error message “Arrival date must be after now!” is assigned to the arrivalDate input field by calling the setCustomValidity() method of the validation constraint API. Otherwise, the validation error message is cleared by calling setCustomValidity() with an empty string. HTML5 Validation and Older Browsers But what about older browsers? For example, what about Apple Safari and versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer older than Internet Explorer 10? What the world really needs is a jQuery plugin which provides backwards compatibility for the HTML5 validation attributes. If a browser supports the HTML5 validation attributes then the plugin would do nothing. Otherwise, the plugin would add support for the attributes. Unfortunately, as far as I know, this plugin does not exist. I have not been able to find any plugin which supports both the required and pattern attributes for older browsers, but does not get in the way of these attributes in the case of newer browsers. There are several jQuery plugins which provide partial support for the HTML5 validation attributes including: · jQuery Validation — http://docs.jquery.com/Plugins/Validation · html5Form — http://www.matiasmancini.com.ar/jquery-plugin-ajax-form-validation-html5.html · h5Validate — http://ericleads.com/h5validate/ The jQuery Validation plugin – the most popular JavaScript validation library – supports the HTML5 required attribute, but it does not support the HTML5 pattern attribute. Likewise, the html5Form plugin does not support the pattern attribute. The h5Validate plugin provides the best support for the HTML5 validation attributes. The following page illustrates how this plugin supports both the required and pattern attributes: <!DOCTYPE html> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title>h5Validate</title> <style type="text/css"> .validationError { border: solid 2px red; } .validationValid { border: solid 2px green; } </style> </head> <body> <form id="customerForm"> <label> First Name: <input id="firstName" required /> </label> <label> Social Security Number: <input id="ssn" required pattern="^d{3}-d{2}-d{4}$" title="Expected pattern is ###-##-####" /> </label> <input type="submit" /> </form> <script type="text/javascript" src="Scripts/jquery-1.4.4.min.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="Scripts/jquery.h5validate.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> // Enable h5Validate plugin $("#customerForm").h5Validate({ errorClass: "validationError", validClass: "validationValid" }); // Prevent form submission when errors $("#customerForm").submit(function (evt) { if ($("#customerForm").h5Validate("allValid") === false) { evt.preventDefault(); } }); </script> </body> </html> When an input field fails validation, the validationError CSS class is applied to the field and the field appears with a red border. When an input field passes validation, the validationValid CSS class is applied to the field and the field appears with a green border. From the perspective of HTML5 validation, the h5Validate plugin is the best of the plugins. It adds support for the required and pattern attributes to browsers which do not natively support these attributes such as IE9. However, this plugin does not include everything in my wish list for a perfect HTML5 validation plugin. Here’s my wish list for the perfect back compat HTML5 validation plugin: 1. The plugin would disable itself when used with a browser which natively supports HTML5 validation attributes. The plugin should not be too greedy – it should not handle validation when a browser could do the work itself. 2. The plugin should simulate the same user interface for displaying validation error messages as the user interface displayed by browsers which natively support HTML5 validation. Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer all display validation errors in a popup. The perfect plugin would also display a popup. 3. Finally, the plugin would add support for the setCustomValidity() method and the other methods of the HTML5 validation constraint API. That way, you could implement custom validation in a standards compatible way and you would know that it worked across all browsers both old and new. Security It would be irresponsible of me to end this blog post without mentioning the issue of security. It is important to remember that any client-side validation — including HTML5 validation — can be bypassed. You should use client-side validation with the intention to create a better user experience. Client validation is great for providing a user with immediate feedback when the user is in the process of completing a form. However, client-side validation cannot prevent an evil hacker from submitting unexpected form data to your web server. You should always enforce your validation rules on the server. The only way to ensure that a required field has a value is to verify that the required field has a value on the server. The HTML5 required attribute does not guarantee anything. Summary The goal of this blog post was to describe the support for validation contained in the HTML5 standard. You learned how to use both the required and the pattern attributes in an HTML5 form. We also discussed how you can implement custom validation by taking advantage of the setCustomValidity() method. Finally, I discussed the available jQuery plugins for adding support for the HTM5 validation attributes to older browsers. Unfortunately, I am unaware of any jQuery plugin which provides a perfect solution to the problem of backwards compatibility.

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ASP.NET Web Forms Extensibility: Providers

- by Ricardo Peres

Introduction This will be the first of a number of posts on ASP.NET extensibility. At this moment I don’t know exactly how many will be and I only know a couple of subjects that I want to talk about, so more will come in the next days. I have the sensation that the providers offered by ASP.NET are not widely know, although everyone uses, for example, sessions, they may not be aware of the extensibility points that Microsoft included. This post won’t go into details of how to configure and extend each of the providers, but will hopefully give some pointers on that direction. Canonical These are the most widely known and used providers, coming from ASP.NET 1, chances are, you have used them already. Good support for invoking client side, either from a .NET application or from JavaScript. Lots of server-side controls use them, such as the Login control for example. Membership The Membership provider is responsible for managing registered users, including creating new ones, authenticating them, changing passwords, etc. ASP.NET comes with two implementations, one that uses a SQL Server database and another that uses the Active Directory. The base class is Membership and new providers are registered on the membership section on the Web.config file, as well as parameters for specifying minimum password lengths, complexities, maximum age, etc. One reason for creating a custom provider would be, for example, storing membership information in a different database engine. 1: <membership defaultProvider="MyProvider"> 2: <providers> 3: <add name="MyProvider" type="MyClass, MyAssembly"/> 4: </providers> 5: </membership> Role The Role provider assigns roles to authenticated users. The base class is Role and there are three out of the box implementations: XML-based, SQL Server and Windows-based. Also registered on Web.config through the roleManager section, where you can also say if your roles should be cached on a cookie. If you want your roles to come from a different place, implement a custom provider. 1: <roleManager defaultProvider="MyProvider"> 2: <providers> 3: <add name="MyProvider" type="MyClass, MyAssembly" /> 4: </providers> 5: </roleManager> Profile The Profile provider allows defining a set of properties that will be tied and made available to authenticated or even anonymous ones, which must be tracked by using anonymous authentication. The base class is Profile and the only included implementation stores these settings in a SQL Server database. Configured through profile section, where you also specify the properties to make available, a custom provider would allow storing these properties in different locations. 1: <profile defaultProvider="MyProvider"> 2: <providers> 3: <add name="MyProvider" type="MyClass, MyAssembly"/> 4: </providers> 5: </profile> Basic OK, I didn’t know what to call these, so Basic is probably as good as a name as anything else. Not supported client-side (doesn’t even make sense). Session The Session provider allows storing data tied to the current “session”, which is normally created when a user first accesses the site, even when it is not yet authenticated, and remains all the way. The base class and only included implementation is SessionStateStoreProviderBase and it is capable of storing data in one of three locations: In the process memory (default, not suitable for web farms or increased reliability); A SQL Server database (best for reliability and clustering); The ASP.NET State Service, which is a Windows Service that is installed with the .NET Framework (ok for clustering). The configuration is made through the sessionState section. By adding a custom Session provider, you can store the data in different locations – think for example of a distributed cache. 1: <sessionState customProvider=”MyProvider”> 2: <providers> 3: <add name=”MyProvider” type=”MyClass, MyAssembly” /> 4: </providers> 5: </sessionState> Resource A not so known provider, allows you to change the origin of localized resource elements. By default, these come from RESX files and are used whenever you use the Resources expression builder or the GetGlobalResourceObject and GetLocalResourceObject methods, but if you implement a custom provider, you can have these elements come from some place else, such as a database. The base class is ResourceProviderFactory and there’s only one internal implementation which uses these RESX files. Configuration is through the globalization section. 1: <globalization resourceProviderFactoryType="MyClass, MyAssembly" /> Health Monitoring Health Monitoring is also probably not so well known, and actually not a good name for it. First, in order to understand what it does, you have to know that ASP.NET fires “events” at specific times and when specific things happen, such as when logging in, an exception is raised. These are not user interface events and you can create your own and fire them, nothing will happen, but the Health Monitoring provider will detect it. You can configure it to do things when certain conditions are met, such as a number of events being fired in a certain amount of time. You define these rules and route them to a specific provider, which must inherit from WebEventProvider. Out of the box implementations include sending mails, logging to a SQL Server database, writing to the Windows Event Log, Windows Management Instrumentation, the IIS 7 Trace infrastructure or the debugger Trace. Its configuration is achieved by the healthMonitoring section and a reason for implementing a custom provider would be, for example, locking down a web application in the event of a significant number of failed login attempts occurring in a small period of time. 1: <healthMonitoring> 2: <providers> 3: <add name="MyProvider" type="MyClass, MyAssembly"/> 4: </providers> 5: </healthMonitoring> Sitemap The Sitemap provider allows defining the site’s navigation structure and associated required permissions for each node, in a tree-like fashion. Usually this is statically defined, and the included provider allows it, by supplying this structure in a Web.sitemap XML file. The base class is SiteMapProvider and you can extend it in order to supply you own source for the site’s structure, which may even be dynamic. Its configuration must be done through the siteMap section. 1: <siteMap defaultProvider="MyProvider"> 2: <providers><add name="MyProvider" type="MyClass, MyAssembly" /> 3: </providers> 4: </siteMap> Web Part Personalization Web Parts are better known by SharePoint users, but since ASP.NET 2.0 they are included in the core Framework. Web Parts are server-side controls that offer certain possibilities of configuration by clients visiting the page where they are located. The infrastructure handles this configuration per user or globally for all users and this provider is responsible for just that. The base class is PersonalizationProvider and the only included implementation stores settings on SQL Server. Add new providers through the personalization section. 1: <webParts> 2: <personalization defaultProvider="MyProvider"> 3: <providers> 4: <add name="MyProvider" type="MyClass, MyAssembly"/> 5: </providers> 6: </personalization> 7: </webParts> Build The Build provider is responsible for compiling whatever files are present on your web folder. There’s a base class, BuildProvider, and, as can be expected, internal implementations for building pages (ASPX), master pages (Master), user web controls (ASCX), handlers (ASHX), themes (Skin), XML Schemas (XSD), web services (ASMX, SVC), resources (RESX), browser capabilities files (Browser) and so on. You would write a build provider if you wanted to generate code from any kind of non-code file so that you have strong typing at development time. Configuration goes on the buildProviders section and it is per extension. 1: <buildProviders> 2: <add extension=".ext" type="MyClass, MyAssembly” /> 3: </buildProviders> New in ASP.NET 4 Not exactly new since they exist since 2010, but in ASP.NET terms, still new. Output Cache The Output Cache for ASPX pages and ASCX user controls is now extensible, through the Output Cache provider, which means you can implement a custom mechanism for storing and retrieving cached data, for example, in a distributed fashion. The base class is OutputCacheProvider and the only implementation is private. Configuration goes on the outputCache section and on each page and web user control you can choose the provider you want to use. 1: <caching> 2: <outputCache defaultProvider="MyProvider"> 3: <providers> 4: <add name="MyProvider" type="MyClass, MyAssembly"/> 5: </providers> 6: </outputCache> 7: </caching> Request Validation A big change introduced in ASP.NET 4 (and refined in 4.5, by the way) is the introduction of extensible request validation, by means of a Request Validation provider. This means we are not limited to either enabling or disabling event validation for all pages or for a specific page, but we now have fine control over each of the elements of the request, including cookies, headers, query string and form values. The base provider class is RequestValidator and the configuration goes on the httpRuntime section. 1: <httpRuntime requestValidationType="MyClass, MyAssembly" /> Browser Capabilities The Browser Capabilities provider is new in ASP.NET 4, although the concept exists from ASP.NET 2. The idea is to map a browser brand and version to its supported capabilities, such as JavaScript version, Flash support, ActiveX support, and so on. Previously, this was all hardcoded in .Browser files located in %WINDIR%\Microsoft.NET\Framework(64)\vXXXXX\Config\Browsers, but now you can have a class inherit from HttpCapabilitiesProvider and implement your own mechanism. Register in on the browserCaps section. 1: <browserCaps provider="MyClass, MyAssembly" /> Encoder The Encoder provider is responsible for encoding every string that is sent to the browser on a page or header. This includes for example converting special characters for their standard codes and is implemented by the base class HttpEncoder. Another implementation takes care of Anti Cross Site Scripting (XSS) attacks. Build your own by inheriting from one of these classes if you want to add some additional processing to these strings. The configuration will go on the httpRuntime section. 1: <httpRuntime encoderType="MyClass, MyAssembly" /> Conclusion That’s about it for ASP.NET providers. It was by no means a thorough description, but I hope I managed to raise your interest on this subject. There are lots of pointers on the Internet, so I only included direct references to the Framework classes and configuration sections. Stay tuned for more extensibility!

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Tile Engine - Procedural generation, Data structures, Rendering methods - A lot of effort question!

- by Trixmix

Isometric Tile and GameObject rendering. To achive the desired looking game I need to take into consideration which tiles need to be drawn first and which last. What I used is a Object that is TileRenderQueue that you would give it a tile list and it will give you a queue on which ones to draw based on their Z coordinate, so that if the Z is higher then it needs to be drawn last. Now if you read above you would know that I want the location data to instead of being stored in the tile instance i want it to be that the index in the array is the location. and then maybe based on the array i could draw the tiles instead of taking a long time in for looping and ordering them by Z. This is the hardest part for me. It's hard for me to find a simple solution to the which one to draw when problem. Also there is the fact that if the X is larger than the gameobject where the X is larger needs to be drawn over the rest of the tiles and so on. Here is an example: All the parts work together to create an efficient engine so its important to me that you would answer all of the parts. I hope you will work on the answers hard just as much that I worked on this question! If there is any unclear part tell me so in the comments! Thanks for the help!

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Ajax Control Toolkit November 2011 Release

- by Stephen Walther

I’m happy to announce the November 2011 Release of the Ajax Control Toolkit. This release introduces a new Balloon Popup control and several enhancements to the existing Tabs control including support for on-demand loading of tab content, support for vertical tabs, and support for keyboard tab navigation. We also fixed the top-voted bugs associated with the Tabs control reported at CodePlex.com. You can download the new release by visiting the CodePlex website: http://AjaxControlToolkit.CodePlex.com Alternatively, the fast and easy way to get the latest release of the Ajax Control Toolkit is to use NuGet. Open your Library Package Manager console in Visual Studio 2010 and type: After you install the Ajax Control Toolkit through NuGet, please do a Rebuild of your project (the menu option Build, Rebuild). After you do a Rebuild, the ajaxToolkit prefix will appear in Intellisense: Using the Balloon Popup Control Why a new Balloon Popup control? The Balloon Popup control is the second most requested new feature for the Ajax Control Toolkit according to CodePlex votes: The Balloon Popup displays a message in a balloon when you shift focus to a control, click a control, or hover over a control. You can use the Balloon Popup, for example, to display instructions for TextBoxes which appear in a form: Here’s the code used to create the Balloon Popup: <ajaxToolkit:ToolkitScriptManager ID="tsm1" runat="server" /> <asp:TextBox ID="txtFirstName" Runat="server" /> <asp:Panel ID="pnlFirstNameHelp" runat="server"> Please enter your first name </asp:Panel> <ajaxToolkit:BalloonPopupExtender TargetControlID="txtFirstName" BalloonPopupControlID="pnlFirstNameHelp" BalloonSize="Small" UseShadow="true" runat="server" /> You also can use the Balloon Popup to explain hard to understand words in a text document: Here’s how you display the Balloon Popup when you hover over the link: The point of the conversation was <asp:HyperLink ID="lnkObfuscate" Text="obfuscated" CssClass="hardWord" runat="server" /> by his incessant coughing. <ajaxToolkit:ToolkitScriptManager ID="tsm1" runat="server" /> <asp:Panel id="pnlObfuscate" Runat="server"> To bewilder or render something obscure </asp:Panel> <ajaxToolkit:BalloonPopupExtender TargetControlID="lnkObfuscate" BalloonPopupControlID="pnlObfuscate" BalloonStyle="Cloud" UseShadow="true" DisplayOnMouseOver="true" Runat="server" /> There are four important properties which you need to know about when using the Balloon Popup control: BalloonSize – The three balloon sizes are Small, Medium, and Large. BalloonStyle -- The two built-in styles are Rectangle and Cloud. UseShadow – When true, a drop shadow appears behind the popup. Position – Can have the values Auto, BottomLeft, BottomRight, TopLeft, TopRight. When set to Auto, which is the default, the Balloon Popup will appear where it has the most screen real estate. The following screenshots illustrates how these settings affect the appearance of the Balloon Popup: Customizing the Balloon Popup You can customize the appearance of the Balloon Popup by creating your own Cascading Style Sheet and Sprite. The Ajax Control Toolkit sample site includes a sample of a custom Oval Balloon Popup style: This custom style was created by using a custom Cascading Style Sheet and image. You point the Balloon Popup at a custom Cascading Style Sheet and Cascading Style Sheet class by using the CustomCssUrl and CustomClassName properties like this: <asp:TextBox ID="txtCustom" autocomplete="off" runat="server" /> <br /> <asp:Panel ID="Panel3" runat="server"> This is a custom BalloonPopupExtender style created with a custom Cascading Style Sheet. </asp:Panel> <ajaxToolkit:BalloonPopupExtender ID="bpe1" TargetControlID="txtCustom" BalloonPopupControlID="Panel3" BalloonStyle="Custom" CustomCssUrl="CustomStyle/BalloonPopupOvalStyle.css" CustomClassName="oval" UseShadow="true" runat="server" /> Learn More about the Balloon Popup To learn more about the Balloon Popup control, visit the sample page for the Balloon Popup at the Ajax Control Toolkit sample site: http://www.asp.net/ajaxLibrary/AjaxControlToolkitSampleSite/BalloonPopup/BalloonPopupExtender.aspx Improvements to the Tabs Control In this release, we introduced several important new features for the existing Tabs control. We also fixed all of the top-voted bugs for the Tabs control. On-Demand Loading of Tab Content Here is the scenario. Imagine that you are using the Tabs control in a Web Forms page. The Tabs control displays two tabs: Customers and Products. When you click the Customers tab then you want to see a list of customers and when you click on the Products tab then you want to see a list of products. In this scenario, you don’t want the list of customers and products to be retrieved from the database when the page is initially opened. The user might never click on the Products tab and all of the work to load the list of products from the database would be wasted. In this scenario, you want the content of a tab panel to be loaded on demand. The products should only be loaded from the database and rendered to the browser when you click the Products tab and not before. The Tabs control in the November 2011 Release of the Ajax Control Toolkit includes a new property named OnDemand. When OnDemand is set to the value True, a tab panel won’t be loaded until you click its associated tab. Here is the code for the aspx page: <ajaxToolkit:ToolkitScriptManager ID="tsm1" runat="server" /> <ajaxToolkit:TabContainer ID="tabs" OnDemand="false" runat="server"> <ajaxToolkit:TabPanel HeaderText="Customers" runat="server"> <ContentTemplate> <h2>Customers</h2> <asp:GridView ID="grdCustomers" DataSourceID="srcCustomers" runat="server" /> <asp:SqlDataSource ID="srcCustomers" SelectCommand="SELECT * FROM Customers" ConnectionString="<%$ ConnectionStrings:StoreDB %>" runat="server" /> </ContentTemplate> </ajaxToolkit:TabPanel> <ajaxToolkit:TabPanel HeaderText="Products" runat="server"> <ContentTemplate> <h2>Products</h2> <asp:GridView ID="grdProducts" DataSourceID="srcProducts" runat="server" /> <asp:SqlDataSource ID="srcProducts" SelectCommand="SELECT * FROM Products" ConnectionString="<%$ ConnectionStrings:StoreDB %>" runat="server" /> </ContentTemplate> </ajaxToolkit:TabPanel> </ajaxToolkit:TabContainer> Notice that the TabContainer includes an OnDemand=”True” property. The Tabs control contains two Tab Panels. The first tab panel uses a DataGrid and SqlDataSource to display a list of customers and the second tab panel uses a DataGrid and SqlDataSource to display a list of products. And here is the code-behind for the page: using System; using System.Diagnostics; using System.Web.UI.WebControls; namespace ACTSamples { public partial class TabsOnDemand : System.Web.UI.Page { protected override void OnInit(EventArgs e) { srcProducts.Selecting += new SqlDataSourceSelectingEventHandler(srcProducts_Selecting); } void srcProducts_Selecting(object sender, SqlDataSourceSelectingEventArgs e) { Debugger.Break(); } } } The code-behind file includes an event handler for the Products SqlDataSource Selecting event. The handler breaks into the debugger by calling the Debugger.Break() method. That way, we can know when the Products SqlDataSource actually retrieves the list of products. When the OnDemand property has the value False then the Selecting event handler is called immediately when the page is first loaded. The contents of all of the tabs are loaded (and the contents of the unselected tabs are hidden) when the page is first loaded. When the OnDemand property has the value True then the Selecting event handler is not called when the page is first loaded. The event handler is not called until you click on the Products tab. If you never click on the Products tab then the list of products is never retrieved from the database. If you want even more control over when the contents of a tab panel gets loaded then you can use the TabPanel OnDemandMode property. This property accepts the following three values: None – Never load the contents of the tab panel again after the page is first loaded. Once – Wait until the tab is selected to load the contents of the tab panel Always – Load the contents of the tab panel each and every time you select the tab. There is a live demonstration of the OnDemandMode property here in the sample page for the Tabs control: http://www.asp.net/ajaxLibrary/AjaxControlToolkitSampleSite/Tabs/Tabs.aspx Displaying Vertical Tabs With the November 2011 Release, the Tabs control now supports vertical tabs. To create vertical tabs, just set the TabContainer UserVerticalStripPlacement property to the value True like this: <ajaxToolkit:TabContainer ID="tabs" OnDemand="false" UseVerticalStripPlacement="true" runat="server"> <ajaxToolkit:TabPanel ID="TabPanel1" HeaderText="First Tab" runat="server"> <ContentTemplate> <p> Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Maecenas porttitor congue massa. Fusce posuere, magna sed pulvinar ultricies, purus lectus malesuada libero, sit amet commodo magna eros quis urna. </p> </ContentTemplate> </ajaxToolkit:TabPanel> <ajaxToolkit:TabPanel ID="TabPanel2" HeaderText="Second Tab" runat="server"> <ContentTemplate> <p> Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Maecenas porttitor congue massa. Fusce posuere, magna sed pulvinar ultricies, purus lectus malesuada libero, sit amet commodo magna eros quis urna. </p> </ContentTemplate> </ajaxToolkit:TabPanel> </ajaxToolkit:TabContainer> In addition, you can use the TabStripPlacement property to control whether the tab strip appears at the left or right or top or bottom of the tab panels: Tab Keyboard Navigation Another highly requested feature for the Tabs control is support for keyboard navigation. The Tabs control now supports the arrow keys and the Home and End keys. In order for the arrow keys to work, you must first move focus to the tab control on the page by either clicking on a tab with your mouse or repeatedly hitting the Tab key. You can try out the new keyboard navigation support by trying any of the demos included in the Tabs sample page: http://www.asp.net/ajaxLibrary/AjaxControlToolkitSampleSite/Tabs/Tabs.aspx Summary I hope that you take advantage of the new Balloon Popup control and the new features which we introduced for the Tabs control. We added a lot of new features to the Tabs control in this release including support for on-demand tabs, support for vertical tabs, and support for tab keyboard navigation. I want to thank the developers on the Superexpert team for all of the hard work which they put into this release.

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CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, April 07, 2010

CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, April 07, 2010New ProjectsAStar.net: AStar.net is a project for compute the A* path finding algorithm. It expose classes and interface that can be used for all purpose with multi-threa...Auto Complete for MOSS 2007: Auto Complete for MOSS 2007 (WSS 3.0) makes it easier for all user to fill list of nessesary string in the field. AutoPoco: AutoPoco is a framework with the purpose of fluently building test data from Plain Old CLR ObjectsBlueProject: BlueProjectColor Picker for MOSS 2007: Color picker for MOSS 2007 (WSS 3.0) makes it easier for some user to choose color in the field. ComBrowser2: ComBrowser2DCommunication: Communication Components and Software By Delphi On Windows.DirST: Allows one to replicate a DIRectory STructure without copying files. Written in C#.Discussion column for MOSS 2007: Discussion column for MOSS 2007/ (WSS 3.0) is a field column for different type lists such as Custom List, Document Library, Issue Tracking, not on...Effect Custom Tool for Visual Studio: Effect Custom Tool for Visual Studio is a visual studio 2008 extension that helps you generate c# classes from effect (*.fx) files for use with Xna...Energon: Energon is a framework to create and run software energy consumption tests. Requires a couple of PC with a TCP connections, a phidgets ammeter and ...Fiansa: Proyecto FiansaFirstSpark: FirstSpark is a sample Spark View Engine projectISOM: Internetowy System Obsługi Magisterek La Carta Mas Alta: La Carta Mas Alta is an open source card game totally written in PHP and HTML. This cross-platform and cross-browser game was tested under BeOS, Li...Near forums - ASP.NET MVC forum engine: Open source SEO friendly ASP.NET MVC forum engine. Features: Navigation in forums, topics and tags; login with Facebook Connect and Single sign-on;...PEC: Still editingPowershell Zip Export/Import Cmdlet Module: Powershellzip is a powershell module with a set of Cmdlets for zip file export, import and processingProgress bar for MOSS 2007: Progress bar for MOSS 2007 (WSS 3.0) makes it easier for some user to display progress in the field in percent (0-100%). SharePoint Accelerators: This project delivers a number of SharePoint accelerators that make your every-day SharePoint life easier.Shweet: SharePoint 2010 Team Messaging built with Pex: Shweet is a simple SharePoint Foundation 2010 application that allows teams to do messaging and subscriptions in the style similar to twitter. De...SilverlightEncoder: Video and audio encoder for Silverlight 4 Out-of-BrowserStarMath: Static Array Math Library: While there are already countless math libraries for performing common matrix/array functions, StarMath is distinguished by its simplicity and flex...StringToNumber: StringToNumber is a .NET library for parsing numbers in their written form into their numeric equivalent. It's developed in C#. It was created to...SubstitutionITIS: <project name="Substitution" language="c-sharp" to="myschool" whatdo="manageSubstitutionTeachers" />TamTam.SharePoint2010.LinkedIn: SP2010 and LinkedIn working togetherThink And Explore: Think my own wayusenet-o-matic: small mobile optimised webscript to search various NZB sources like newzbin and NZBmatrix and send donwloads to your SABnzbd server. Valid HTML5 Templates for VisualStudio: This project will host valid HTML templates for Visual Studio. The primary focus however will be on the newer standard HTML5 and Visual Studio 2010XSS Attack: This tool will simulate an attack on your database and update up to 5000 rows in every table and replace your strings in your database with random ...Yazgelistir Beta: Yazgelistir'in beta sitesiNew ReleasesAStar.net: AStar.net 1.0 downloads: AStar.net 1.0 downloadsAvalaible downloads:Astar.net dll - Runtime library ready to be included in a project. Astar.net source project - The Visu...AutoPoco: 0.1 - Initial Release: This is the initial release, changes pending, lots left to do, check it out though!Bag of Tricks: Bag of Tricks - WPF - Libraries and Sample App: Here is a drop of the Bag of Tricks. It targets the 3.5 Client Profile.Boxee Launcher: Boxee Launcher 1.0.1.4: Taskbar will now be hiddenDesignit Umbraco Newsletter Package: ver 1.0.0 beta1: Please remember this is a beta version. If you have any problems or issues, don't hesitate to use the issue tracker and/or forum on this site. Ple...Effect Custom Tool for Visual Studio: Effect Custom Tool for Visual Studio 2008: Effect Custom Tool for Visual Studio is a visual studio 2008 extension that helps you generate c# classes from effect (*.fx) files for use with Xna...Fluent Ribbon Control Suite: Fluent Ribbon Control Suite 1.1: Fluent Ribbon Control Suite 1.1 Includes: Fluent.dll (with .pdb and .xml) Showcase Application Samples Foundation (Tabs, Groups, Contextual Tab...GsGrid: gsgrid 1.6.5: gsgrid 1.6.5Home Access Plus+: v3.2.5.2: v3.2.5.1 Release Change Log: Attempt to fix Domain Admin Lookup box File Changes: ~/bin/CHS Extranet.dll ~/bin/CHS Extranet.pdbHulu Launcher: Hulu Launcher 1.0.1.4: Will now hide taskbar.Icarus Scene Engine: Icarus Professional 2 Alpha 2a v 1.10.404.936: Alpha release 2 of Icarus Professional. This release includes: IcarusX: The ActiveX-based browser control for rendering IPX projects online. Icaru...kdar: KDAR 0.0.19: KDAR - Kernel Debugger Anti Rootkit - thread start notifier routine check added - registry callback сheck added - NDIS6 checks added - some bug i...Mobile Device Browser File: Mobile Device Browser File (2010-04-07): The Mobile Browser Definition File contains definitions for individual mobile devices and browsers. At run time, ASP.NET uses the information in th...MvcContrib: a Codeplex Foundation project: Portable Area Template: Use this Visual Studio 2008 Project template to create new portable areas. Drop this file in your Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Templates\ProjectTe...Office Apps: 0.8.8: new ui for Document.Viewer bug fix'sProtoforma | Tactica Adversa: Skilful 0.3.4.477: RC1ROOT Builder: ROOT Builder 1.41: Simplifies building of ROOT on the windows platform by generating a Visual Studio C make project that will build and run (and debug ROOT). See Inst...SharePoint Accelerators: Search AutoComplete for SharePoint Lists: Search AutoComplete for SharePoint List is a Web Part that allows you to search contents of a SharePoint. Search is interactive and offers you resu...SharePoint Labs: SPLab4002A-FRA-Level100: SPLab4002A-FRA-Level100 This SharePoint Lab will teach you the 2nd best practice you should apply when writing code with the SharePoint API. Lab La...SharePoint Labs: SPLab4003A-FRA-Level100: SPLab4003A-FRA-Level100 This SharePoint Lab will teach you the 3rd best practice you should apply when writing code with the SharePoint API. Lab La...SQL Compact data and schema script utility: Version 3.0: This release contains 4 downloadable files: - SSMS 2008 scripting add-in - SQL Server 2005/2008 command line utility to generate a script with sch...StarMath: Static Array Math Library: StarMath Source Files: The source file package includes the main library StarMath.dll (and it's source files), and an example exe project to invoke commands from StarMath.stefvanhooijdonk.com: Powershell Solution Install Script: Powershell Example script to install a SP2010 Solution, which actually waits for the Retraction and Deployment jobs.TamTam.SharePoint2010.LinkedIn: 0.0.0.1: How to use/install Small instruction to use this code/solution step 1 Add the Farm Solution to your SP2010 installation step 2 Go to the MySite H...usenet-o-matic: V 0.2: supports Newzbin and NZBmatrix as index sources and SABnzbd as download serverVCC: Latest build, v2.1.30406.0: Automatic drop of latest buildVisual Studio DSite: E-Z Image To PDF Converter Beta: This simple little program can convert all common image formats into pdfs and can even encrypt the pdf with an encrpytion key.Web and Load Test Plugins for Visual Studio Team Test: Release 2.0: Release 2.0 is targeted at VS 2010. VS 2010 exposes major new extensibility points: 1) Recorder plugins enable you to do custom correlations and o...Wicked Compression ASP.NET HTTP Module: WickedCompressionModule 4.0 Alpha: New Features, New Enhancements! - Visual Studio 2010 Projects! - Support for ASP.NET 2.0, 3.5, and 4.0 - AJAX Support for ASP.NET 3.5 and 4.0 - Bu...x5s - test encodings and character transformations to find XSS hotspots: x5s v1.0.0 beta: This is the v1.0 beta release of x5s. All feedback welcome in planning for the next release. Make sure Fiddler is installed prior to running th...xvanneste: Silverlight SharePoint: Fichiers du webcast sur silverlight: Silverlight OM Silverlight Webpart Silverlight Embedded ressource Silverlight List ViewYet Another Web App Monitoring Tool (YAWAMT): yawamt v0.5: A new release has seen the light :-) I've lowered the release to version 0.5 but changed some major things: - deletion of URLS works - settings can...Zinc Launcher: Zinc Launcher 1.0.1.1: Taskbar will now be hidden Delay to show Zinc was reduced to improve responsiveness.Most Popular ProjectsRawrWBFS ManagerMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseASP.NET Ajax LibrarySilverlight ToolkitAJAX Control ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)ASP.NETMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesFacebook Developer ToolkitMost Active ProjectsGraffiti CMSnopCommerce. Open Source online shop e-commerce solution.RawrFacebook Developer ToolkitShweet: SharePoint 2010 Team Messaging built with Pexpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryNcqrs Framework - The CQRS framework for .NETjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesIonics Isapi Rewrite FilterAcadsys

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Unity – Part 5: Injecting Values

- by Ricardo Peres

Introduction This is the fifth post on Unity. You can find the introductory post here, the second post, on dependency injection here, a third one on Aspect Oriented Programming (AOP) here and the latest so far, on writing custom extensions, here. This time we will talk about injecting simple values. An Inversion of Control (IoC) / Dependency Injector (DI) container like Unity can be used for things other than injecting complex class dependencies. It can also be used for setting property values or method/constructor parameters whenever a class is built. The main difference is that these values do not have a lifetime manager associated with them and do not come from the regular IoC registration store. Unlike, for instance, MEF, Unity won’t let you register as a dependency a string or an integer, so you have to take a different approach, which I will describe in this post. Scenario Let’s imagine we have a base interface that describes a logger – the same as in previous examples: 1: public interface ILogger 2: { 3: void Log(String message); 4: } And a concrete implementation that writes to a file: 1: public class FileLogger : ILogger 2: { 3: public String Filename 4: { 5: get; 6: set; 7: } 8: 9: #region ILogger Members 10: 11: public void Log(String message) 12: { 13: using (Stream file = File.OpenWrite(this.Filename)) 14: { 15: Byte[] data = Encoding.Default.GetBytes(message); 16: 17: file.Write(data, 0, data.Length); 18: } 19: } 20: 21: #endregion 22: } And let’s say we want the Filename property to come from the application settings (appSettings) section on the Web/App.config file. As usual with Unity, there is an extensibility point that allows us to automatically do this, both with code configuration or statically on the configuration file. Extending Injection We start by implementing a class that will retrieve a value from the appSettings by inheriting from ValueElement: 1: sealed class AppSettingsParameterValueElement : ValueElement, IDependencyResolverPolicy 2: { 3: #region Private methods 4: private Object CreateInstance(Type parameterType) 5: { 6: Object configurationValue = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings[this.AppSettingsKey]; 7: 8: if (parameterType != typeof(String)) 9: { 10: TypeConverter typeConverter = this.GetTypeConverter(parameterType); 11: 12: configurationValue = typeConverter.ConvertFromInvariantString(configurationValue as String); 13: } 14: 15: return (configurationValue); 16: } 17: #endregion 18: 19: #region Private methods 20: private TypeConverter GetTypeConverter(Type parameterType) 21: { 22: if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(this.TypeConverterTypeName) == false) 23: { 24: return (Activator.CreateInstance(TypeResolver.ResolveType(this.TypeConverterTypeName)) as TypeConverter); 25: } 26: else 27: { 28: return (TypeDescriptor.GetConverter(parameterType)); 29: } 30: } 31: #endregion 32: 33: #region Public override methods 34: public override InjectionParameterValue GetInjectionParameterValue(IUnityContainer container, Type parameterType) 35: { 36: Object value = this.CreateInstance(parameterType); 37: return (new InjectionParameter(parameterType, value)); 38: } 39: #endregion 40: 41: #region IDependencyResolverPolicy Members 42: 43: public Object Resolve(IBuilderContext context) 44: { 45: Type parameterType = null; 46: 47: if (context.CurrentOperation is ResolvingPropertyValueOperation) 48: { 49: ResolvingPropertyValueOperation op = (context.CurrentOperation as ResolvingPropertyValueOperation); 50: PropertyInfo prop = op.TypeBeingConstructed.GetProperty(op.PropertyName); 51: parameterType = prop.PropertyType; 52: } 53: else if (context.CurrentOperation is ConstructorArgumentResolveOperation) 54: { 55: ConstructorArgumentResolveOperation op = (context.CurrentOperation as ConstructorArgumentResolveOperation); 56: String args = op.ConstructorSignature.Split('(')[1].Split(')')[0]; 57: Type[] types = args.Split(',').Select(a => Type.GetType(a.Split(' ')[0])).ToArray(); 58: ConstructorInfo ctor = op.TypeBeingConstructed.GetConstructor(types); 59: parameterType = ctor.GetParameters().Where(p => p.Name == op.ParameterName).Single().ParameterType; 60: } 61: else if (context.CurrentOperation is MethodArgumentResolveOperation) 62: { 63: MethodArgumentResolveOperation op = (context.CurrentOperation as MethodArgumentResolveOperation); 64: String methodName = op.MethodSignature.Split('(')[0].Split(' ')[1]; 65: String args = op.MethodSignature.Split('(')[1].Split(')')[0]; 66: Type[] types = args.Split(',').Select(a => Type.GetType(a.Split(' ')[0])).ToArray(); 67: MethodInfo method = op.TypeBeingConstructed.GetMethod(methodName, types); 68: parameterType = method.GetParameters().Where(p => p.Name == op.ParameterName).Single().ParameterType; 69: } 70: 71: return (this.CreateInstance(parameterType)); 72: } 73: 74: #endregion 75: 76: #region Public properties 77: [ConfigurationProperty("appSettingsKey", IsRequired = true)] 78: public String AppSettingsKey 79: { 80: get 81: { 82: return ((String)base["appSettingsKey"]); 83: } 84: 85: set 86: { 87: base["appSettingsKey"] = value; 88: } 89: } 90: #endregion 91: } As you can see from the implementation of the IDependencyResolverPolicy.Resolve method, this will work in three different scenarios: When it is applied to a property; When it is applied to a constructor parameter; When it is applied to an initialization method. The implementation will even try to convert the value to its declared destination, for example, if the destination property is an Int32, it will try to convert the appSettings stored string to an Int32. Injection By Configuration If we want to configure injection by configuration, we need to implement a custom section extension by inheriting from SectionExtension, and registering our custom element with the name “appSettings”: 1: sealed class AppSettingsParameterInjectionElementExtension : SectionExtension 2: { 3: public override void AddExtensions(SectionExtensionContext context) 4: { 5: context.AddElement<AppSettingsParameterValueElement>("appSettings"); 6: } 7: } And on the configuration file, for setting a property, we use it like this: 1: <appSettings> 2: <add key="LoggerFilename" value="Log.txt"/> 3: </appSettings> 4: <unity xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/practices/2010/unity"> 5: <container> 6: <register type="MyNamespace.ILogger, MyAssembly" mapTo="MyNamespace.ConsoleLogger, MyAssembly"/> 7: <register type="MyNamespace.ILogger, MyAssembly" mapTo="MyNamespace.FileLogger, MyAssembly" name="File"> 8: <lifetime type="singleton"/> 9: <property name="Filename"> 10: <appSettings appSettingsKey="LoggerFilename"/> 11: </property> 12: </register> 13: </container> 14: </unity> If we would like to inject the value as a constructor parameter, it would be instead: 1: <unity xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/practices/2010/unity"> 2: <sectionExtension type="MyNamespace.AppSettingsParameterInjectionElementExtension, MyAssembly" /> 3: <container> 4: <register type="MyNamespace.ILogger, MyAssembly" mapTo="MyNamespace.ConsoleLogger, MyAssembly"/> 5: <register type="MyNamespace.ILogger, MyAssembly" mapTo="MyNamespace.FileLogger, MyAssembly" name="File"> 6: <lifetime type="singleton"/> 7: <constructor> 8: <param name="filename" type="System.String"> 9: <appSettings appSettingsKey="LoggerFilename"/> 10: </param> 11: </constructor> 12: </register> 13: </container> 14: </unity> Notice the appSettings section, where we add a LoggerFilename entry, which is the same as the one referred by our AppSettingsParameterInjectionElementExtension extension. For more advanced behavior, you can add a TypeConverterName attribute to the appSettings declaration, where you can pass an assembly qualified name of a class that inherits from TypeConverter. This class will be responsible for converting the appSettings value to a destination type. Injection By Attribute If we would like to use attributes instead, we need to create a custom attribute by inheriting from DependencyResolutionAttribute: 1: [Serializable] 2: [AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Parameter | AttributeTargets.Property, AllowMultiple = false, Inherited = true)] 3: public sealed class AppSettingsDependencyResolutionAttribute : DependencyResolutionAttribute 4: { 5: public AppSettingsDependencyResolutionAttribute(String appSettingsKey) 6: { 7: this.AppSettingsKey = appSettingsKey; 8: } 9: 10: public String TypeConverterTypeName 11: { 12: get; 13: set; 14: } 15: 16: public String AppSettingsKey 17: { 18: get; 19: private set; 20: } 21: 22: public override IDependencyResolverPolicy CreateResolver(Type typeToResolve) 23: { 24: return (new AppSettingsParameterValueElement() { AppSettingsKey = this.AppSettingsKey, TypeConverterTypeName = this.TypeConverterTypeName }); 25: } 26: } As for file configuration, there is a mandatory property for setting the appSettings key and an optional TypeConverterName for setting the name of a TypeConverter. Both the custom attribute and the custom section return an instance of the injector AppSettingsParameterValueElement that we implemented in the first place. Now, the attribute needs to be placed before the injected class’ Filename property: 1: public class FileLogger : ILogger 2: { 3: [AppSettingsDependencyResolution("LoggerFilename")] 4: public String Filename 5: { 6: get; 7: set; 8: } 9: 10: #region ILogger Members 11: 12: public void Log(String message) 13: { 14: using (Stream file = File.OpenWrite(this.Filename)) 15: { 16: Byte[] data = Encoding.Default.GetBytes(message); 17: 18: file.Write(data, 0, data.Length); 19: } 20: } 21: 22: #endregion 23: } Or, if we wanted to use constructor injection: 1: public class FileLogger : ILogger 2: { 3: public String Filename 4: { 5: get; 6: set; 7: } 8: 9: public FileLogger([AppSettingsDependencyResolution("LoggerFilename")] String filename) 10: { 11: this.Filename = filename; 12: } 13: 14: #region ILogger Members 15: 16: public void Log(String message) 17: { 18: using (Stream file = File.OpenWrite(this.Filename)) 19: { 20: Byte[] data = Encoding.Default.GetBytes(message); 21: 22: file.Write(data, 0, data.Length); 23: } 24: } 25: 26: #endregion 27: } Usage Just do: 1: ILogger logger = ServiceLocator.Current.GetInstance<ILogger>("File"); And off you go! A simple way do avoid hardcoded values in component registrations. Of course, this same concept can be applied to registry keys, environment values, XML attributes, etc, etc, just change the implementation of the AppSettingsParameterValueElement class. Next stop: custom lifetime managers.

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Using Table-Valued Parameters With SQL Server Reporting Services

- by Jesse

In my last post I talked about using table-valued parameters to pass a list of integer values to a stored procedure without resorting to using comma-delimited strings and parsing out each value into a TABLE variable. In this post I’ll extend the “Customer Transaction Summary” report example to see how we might leverage this same stored procedure from within an SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) report. I’ve worked with SSRS off and on for the past several years and have generally found it to be a very useful tool for building nice-looking reports for end users quickly and easily. That said, I’ve been frustrated by SSRS from time to time when seemingly simple things are difficult to accomplish or simply not supported at all. I thought that using table-valued parameters from within a SSRS report would be simple, but unfortunately I was wrong. Customer Transaction Summary Example Let’s take the “Customer Transaction Summary” report example from the last post and try to plug that same stored procedure into an SSRS report. Our report will have three parameters: Start Date – beginning of the date range for which the report will summarize customer transactions End Date – end of the date range for which the report will summarize customer transactions Customer Ids – One or more customer Ids representing the customers that will be included in the report The simplest way to get started with this report will be to create a new dataset and point it at our Customer Transaction Summary report stored procedure (note that I’m using SSRS 2012 in the screenshots below, but there should be little to no difference with SSRS 2008): When you initially create this dataset the SSRS designer will try to invoke the stored procedure to determine what the parameters and output fields are for you automatically. As part of this process the following dialog pops-up: Obviously I can’t use this dialog to specify a value for the ‘@customerIds’ parameter since it is of the IntegerListTableType user-defined type that we created in the last post. Unfortunately this really throws the SSRS designer for a loop, and regardless of what combination of Data Type, Pass Null Value, or Parameter Value I used here, I kept getting this error dialog with the message, "Operand type clash: nvarchar is incompatible with IntegerListTableType". This error message makes some sense considering that the nvarchar type is indeed incompatible with the IntegerListTableType, but there’s little clue given as to how to remedy the situation. I don’t know for sure, but I think that behind-the-scenes the SSRS designer is trying to give the @customerIds parameter an nvarchar-typed SqlParameter which is causing the issue. When I first saw this error I figured that this might just be a limitation of the dataset designer and that I’d be able to work around the issue by manually defining the parameters. I know that there are some special steps that need to be taken when invoking a stored procedure with a table-valued parameter from ADO .NET, so I figured that I might be able to use some custom code embedded in the report to create a SqlParameter instance with the needed properties and value to make this work, but the “Operand type clash" error message persisted. The Text Query Approach Just because we’re using a stored procedure to create the dataset for this report doesn’t mean that we can’t use the ‘Text’ Query Type option and construct an EXEC statement that will invoke the stored procedure. In order for this to work properly the EXEC statement will also need to declare and populate an IntegerListTableType variable to pass into the stored procedure. Before I go any further I want to make one point clear: this is a really ugly hack and it makes me cringe to do it. Simply put, I strongly feel that it should not be this difficult to use a table-valued parameter with SSRS. With that said, let’s take a look at what we’ll have to do to make this work. Manually Define Parameters First, we’ll need to manually define the parameters for report by right-clicking on the ‘Parameters’ folder in the ‘Report Data’ window. We’ll need to define the ‘@startDate’ and ‘@endDate’ as simple date parameters. We’ll also create a parameter called ‘@customerIds’ that will be a mutli-valued Integer parameter: In the ‘Available Values’ tab we’ll point this parameter at a simple dataset that just returns the CustomerId and CustomerName of each row in the Customers table of the database or manually define a handful of Customer Id values to make available when the report runs. Once we have these parameters properly defined we can take another crack at creating the dataset that will invoke the ‘rpt_CustomerTransactionSummary’ stored procedure. This time we’ll choose the ‘Text’ query type option and put the following into the ‘Query’ text area: 1: exec('declare @customerIdList IntegerListTableType ' + @customerIdInserts + 2: ' EXEC rpt_CustomerTransactionSummary 3: @startDate=''' + @startDate + ''', 4: @endDate='''+ @endDate + ''', 5: @customerIds=@customerIdList') By using the ‘Text’ query type we can enter any arbitrary SQL that we we want to and then use parameters and string concatenation to inject pieces of that query at run time. It can be a bit tricky to parse this out at first glance, but from the SSRS designer’s point of view this query defines three parameters: @customerIdInserts – This will be a Text parameter that we use to define INSERT statements that will populate the @customerIdList variable that is being declared in the SQL. This parameter won’t actually ever get passed into the stored procedure. I’ll go into how this will work in a bit. @startDate – This is a simple date parameter that will get passed through directly into the @startDate parameter of the stored procedure on line 3. @endDate – This is another simple data parameter that will get passed through into the @endDate parameter of the stored procedure on line 4. At this point the dataset designer will be able to correctly parse the query and should even be able to detect the fields that the stored procedure will return without needing to specify any values for query when prompted to. Once the dataset has been correctly defined we’ll have a @customerIdInserts parameter listed in the ‘Parameters’ tab of the dataset designer. We need to define an expression for this parameter that will take the values selected by the user for the ‘@customerIds’ parameter that we defined earlier and convert them into INSERT statements that will populate the @customerIdList variable that we defined in our Text query. In order to do this we’ll need to add some custom code to our report using the ‘Report Properties’ dialog: Any custom code defined in the Report Properties dialog gets embedded into the .rdl of the report itself and (unfortunately) must be written in VB .NET. Note that you can also add references to custom .NET assemblies (which could be written in any language), but that’s outside the scope of this post so we’ll stick with the “quick and dirty” VB .NET approach for now. Here’s the VB .NET code (note that any embedded code that you add here must be defined in a static/shared function, though you can define as many functions as you want): 1: Public Shared Function BuildIntegerListInserts(ByVal variableName As String, ByVal paramValues As Object()) As String 2: Dim insertStatements As New System.Text.StringBuilder() 3: For Each paramValue As Object In paramValues 4: insertStatements.AppendLine(String.Format("INSERT {0} VALUES ({1})", variableName, paramValue)) 5: Next 6: Return insertStatements.ToString() 7: End Function This method takes a variable name and an array of objects. We use an array of objects here because that is how SSRS will pass us the values that were selected by the user at run-time. The method uses a StringBuilder to construct INSERT statements that will insert each value from the object array into the provided variable name. Once this method has been defined in the custom code for the report we can go back into the dataset designer’s Parameters tab and update the expression for the ‘@customerIdInserts’ parameter by clicking on the button with the “function” symbol that appears to the right of the parameter value. We’ll set the expression to: 1: =Code.BuildIntegerListInserts("@customerIdList ", Parameters!customerIds.Value) In order to invoke our custom code method we simply need to invoke “Code.<method name>” and pass in any needed parameters. The first parameter needs to match the name of the IntegerListTableType variable that we used in the EXEC statement of our query. The second parameter will come from the Value property of the ‘@customerIds’ parameter (this evaluates to an object array at run time). Finally, we’ll need to edit the properties of the ‘@customerIdInserts’ parameter on the report to mark it as a nullable internal parameter so that users aren’t prompted to provide a value for it when running the report. Limitations And Final Thoughts When I first started looking into the text query approach described above I wondered if there might be an upper limit to the size of the string that can be used to run a report. Obviously, the size of the actual query could increase pretty dramatically if you have a parameter that has a lot of potential values or you need to support several different table-valued parameters in the same query. I tested the example Customer Transaction Summary report with 1000 selected customers without any issue, but your mileage may vary depending on how much data you might need to pass into your query. If you think that the text query hack is a lot of work just to use a table-valued parameter, I agree! I think that it should be a lot easier than this to use a table-valued parameter from within SSRS, but so far I haven’t found a better way. It might be possible to create some custom .NET code that could build the EXEC statement for a given set of parameters automatically, but exploring that will have to wait for another post. For now, unless there’s a really compelling reason or requirement to use table-valued parameters from SSRS reports I would probably stick with the tried and true “join-multi-valued-parameter-to-CSV-and-split-in-the-query” approach for using mutli-valued parameters in a stored procedure.

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HTML5 Form Validation

- by Stephen.Walther

The latest versions of Google Chrome (16+), Mozilla Firefox (8+), and Internet Explorer (10+) all support HTML5 client-side validation. It is time to take HTML5 validation seriously. The purpose of the blog post is to describe how you can take advantage of HTML5 client-side validation regardless of the type of application that you are building. You learn how to use the HTML5 validation attributes, how to perform custom validation using the JavaScript validation constraint API, and how to simulate HTML5 validation on older browsers by taking advantage of a jQuery plugin. Finally, we discuss the security issues related to using client-side validation. Using Client-Side Validation Attributes The HTML5 specification discusses several attributes which you can use with INPUT elements to perform client-side validation including the required, pattern, min, max, step, and maxlength attributes. For example, you use the required attribute to require a user to enter a value for an INPUT element. The following form demonstrates how you can make the firstName and lastName form fields required: <!DOCTYPE html> <html > <head> <title>Required Demo</title> </head> <body> <form> <label> First Name: <input required title="First Name is Required!" /> </label> <label> Last Name: <input required title="Last Name is Required!" /> </label> <button>Register</button> </form> </body> </html> If you attempt to submit this form without entering a value for firstName or lastName then you get the validation error message: Notice that the value of the title attribute is used to display the validation error message “First Name is Required!”. The title attribute does not work this way with the current version of Firefox. If you want to display a custom validation error message with Firefox then you need to include an x-moz-errormessage attribute like this: <input required title="First Name is Required!" x-moz-errormessage="First Name is Required!" /> The pattern attribute enables you to validate the value of an INPUT element against a regular expression. For example, the following form includes a social security number field which includes a pattern attribute: <!DOCTYPE html> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title>Pattern</title> </head> <body> <form> <label> Social Security Number: <input required pattern="^\d{3}-\d{2}-\d{4}$" title="###-##-####" /> </label> <button>Register</button> </form> </body> </html> The regular expression in the form above requires the social security number to match the pattern ###-##-####: Notice that the input field includes both a pattern and a required validation attribute. If you don’t enter a value then the regular expression is never triggered. You need to include the required attribute to force a user to enter a value and cause the value to be validated against the regular expression. Custom Validation You can take advantage of the HTML5 constraint validation API to perform custom validation. You can perform any custom validation that you need. The only requirement is that you write a JavaScript function. For example, when booking a hotel room, you might want to validate that the Arrival Date is in the future instead of the past: <!DOCTYPE html> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title>Constraint Validation API</title> </head> <body> <form> <label> Arrival Date: <input id="arrivalDate" type="date" required /> </label> <button>Submit Reservation</button> </form> <script type="text/javascript"> var arrivalDate = document.getElementById("arrivalDate"); arrivalDate.addEventListener("input", function() { var value = new Date(arrivalDate.value); if (value < new Date()) { arrivalDate.setCustomValidity("Arrival date must be after now!"); } else { arrivalDate.setCustomValidity(""); } }); </script> </body> </html> The form above contains an input field named arrivalDate. Entering a value into the arrivalDate field triggers the input event. The JavaScript code adds an event listener for the input event and checks whether the date entered is greater than the current date. If validation fails then the validation error message “Arrival date must be after now!” is assigned to the arrivalDate input field by calling the setCustomValidity() method of the validation constraint API. Otherwise, the validation error message is cleared by calling setCustomValidity() with an empty string. HTML5 Validation and Older Browsers But what about older browsers? For example, what about Apple Safari and versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer older than Internet Explorer 10? What the world really needs is a jQuery plugin which provides backwards compatibility for the HTML5 validation attributes. If a browser supports the HTML5 validation attributes then the plugin would do nothing. Otherwise, the plugin would add support for the attributes. Unfortunately, as far as I know, this plugin does not exist. I have not been able to find any plugin which supports both the required and pattern attributes for older browsers, but does not get in the way of these attributes in the case of newer browsers. There are several jQuery plugins which provide partial support for the HTML5 validation attributes including: · jQuery Validation — http://docs.jquery.com/Plugins/Validation · html5Form — http://www.matiasmancini.com.ar/jquery-plugin-ajax-form-validation-html5.html · h5Validate — http://ericleads.com/h5validate/ The jQuery Validation plugin – the most popular JavaScript validation library – supports the HTML5 required attribute, but it does not support the HTML5 pattern attribute. Likewise, the html5Form plugin does not support the pattern attribute. The h5Validate plugin provides the best support for the HTML5 validation attributes. The following page illustrates how this plugin supports both the required and pattern attributes: <!DOCTYPE html> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title>h5Validate</title> <style type="text/css"> .validationError { border: solid 2px red; } .validationValid { border: solid 2px green; } </style> </head> <body> <form id="customerForm"> <label> First Name: <input id="firstName" required /> </label> <label> Social Security Number: <input id="ssn" required pattern="^\d{3}-\d{2}-\d{4}$" title="Expected pattern is ###-##-####" /> </label> <input type="submit" /> </form> <script type="text/javascript" src="Scripts/jquery-1.4.4.min.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="Scripts/jquery.h5validate.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> // Enable h5Validate plugin $("#customerForm").h5Validate({ errorClass: "validationError", validClass: "validationValid" }); // Prevent form submission when errors $("#customerForm").submit(function (evt) { if ($("#customerForm").h5Validate("allValid") === false) { evt.preventDefault(); } }); </script> </body> </html> When an input field fails validation, the validationError CSS class is applied to the field and the field appears with a red border. When an input field passes validation, the validationValid CSS class is applied to the field and the field appears with a green border. From the perspective of HTML5 validation, the h5Validate plugin is the best of the plugins. It adds support for the required and pattern attributes to browsers which do not natively support these attributes such as IE9. However, this plugin does not include everything in my wish list for a perfect HTML5 validation plugin. Here’s my wish list for the perfect back compat HTML5 validation plugin: 1. The plugin would disable itself when used with a browser which natively supports HTML5 validation attributes. The plugin should not be too greedy – it should not handle validation when a browser could do the work itself. 2. The plugin should simulate the same user interface for displaying validation error messages as the user interface displayed by browsers which natively support HTML5 validation. Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer all display validation errors in a popup. The perfect plugin would also display a popup. 3. Finally, the plugin would add support for the setCustomValidity() method and the other methods of the HTML5 validation constraint API. That way, you could implement custom validation in a standards compatible way and you would know that it worked across all browsers both old and new. Security It would be irresponsible of me to end this blog post without mentioning the issue of security. It is important to remember that any client-side validation — including HTML5 validation — can be bypassed. You should use client-side validation with the intention to create a better user experience. Client validation is great for providing a user with immediate feedback when the user is in the process of completing a form. However, client-side validation cannot prevent an evil hacker from submitting unexpected form data to your web server. You should always enforce your validation rules on the server. The only way to ensure that a required field has a value is to verify that the required field has a value on the server. The HTML5 required attribute does not guarantee anything. Summary The goal of this blog post was to describe the support for validation contained in the HTML5 standard. You learned how to use both the required and the pattern attributes in an HTML5 form. We also discussed how you can implement custom validation by taking advantage of the setCustomValidity() method. Finally, I discussed the available jQuery plugins for adding support for the HTM5 validation attributes to older browsers. Unfortunately, I am unaware of any jQuery plugin which provides a perfect solution to the problem of backwards compatibility.

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Suggestions for implementing a dynamic 2D level

- by Wouter

I am working on a game that needs a level that is completely generated. Currently my approach is to draw textures for the levels pixel by pixel during the game (in XNA with SpriteBatch). This is too intensive unfortunately. The game has frame drops even when I only draw 1 level texture each draw cycle. Here is an example of the current prototype. It is a simple sidescroller with the avatar swimming through a cave. The shape of this cave will alter throughout the level (textures and physics collision shapes). You can clearly see the boundaries of the level tiles in the screenshot below. These are generated just before they move into camera view. For inspiration I looked at PixelJunk Shooter 2. These levels are obviously not generated, but some of the levels have movement. How do you guys think they implemented it? My guess is that the level and other objects in the game are actually flat 3d models, but I am not sure..

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I can't scroll my tilemap ... HELP!

- by Sri Harsha Chilakapati

Hello and I'm trying to make my own game engine in Java. I have completed all the necessary ones but I can't figure it out with the TileGame class. It just can't scroll. Also there are no exceptions. Here I'm listing the code. TileGame.java @Override public void draw(Graphics2D g) { if (back!=null){ back.render(g); } if (follower!=null){ follower.render(g); follower.draw(g); } for (int i=0; i<actors.size(); i++){ Actor actor = actors.get(i); if (actor!=follower&&getVisibleRect().intersects(actor.getBounds())){ g.drawImage(actor.getAnimation().getFrameImage(), actor.x - OffSetX, actor.y - OffSetY, null); actor.draw(g); } } } /** * This method returns the visible rectangle * @return The visible rectangle */ public Rectangle getVisibleRect(){ return new Rectangle(OffSetX, OffSetY, global.WIDTH, global.HEIGHT); } @Override public void update(){ if (follower!=null){ if (scrollHorizontally){ OffSetX = global.WIDTH/2 - Math.round((float)follower.x) - tileSize; OffSetX = Math.min(OffSetX, 0); OffSetX = Math.max(OffSetX, global.WIDTH - mapWidth); } if (scrollVertically){ OffSetY = global.HEIGHT/2 - Math.round((float)follower.y) - tileSize; OffSetY = Math.min(OffSetY, 0); OffSetY = Math.max(OffSetY, global.HEIGHT - mapHeight); } } for (int i=0; i<actors.size(); i++){ Actor actor1 = actors.get(i); if (getVisibleRect().contains(actor1.x, actor1.y)){ actor1.update(); for (int j=0; j<actors.size(); j++){ Actor actor2 = actors.get(j); if (actor1.isCollidingWith(actor2)){ actor1.collision(actor2); actor2.collision(actor1); } } } } } but the problem is that all the actors are working, but it just won't scroll. Help Please.. Thanks in Advance.

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BlitzMax - generating 2D neon glowing line effect to png file

- by zanlok

Originally asked on StackOverflow, but it became tumbleweed. I'm looking to create a glowing line effect in BlitzMax, something like a Star Wars lightsaber or laserbeam. Doesn't have to be realtime, but just to TImage objects and then maybe saved to PNG for later use in animation. I'm happy to use 3D features, but it will be for use in a 2D game. Since it will be on black/space background, my strategy is to draw a series of white blurred lines with color and high transparency, then eventually central lines less blurred and more white. What I want to draw is actually bezier curved lines. Drawing curved lines is easy enough, but I can't use the technique above to create a good laser/neon effect because it comes out looking very segmented. So, I think it may be better to use a blur effect/shader on what does render well, which is a 1-pixel bezier curve. The problems I've been having are: Applying a shader to just a certain area of the screen where lines are drawn. If there's a way to do draw lines to a texture and then blur that texture and save the png, that would be great to hear about. There's got to be a way to do this, but I just haven't gotten the right elements working together yet. Any help from someone familiar with this stuff would be greatly appreciated. Using just 2D calls could be advantageous, simpler to understand and re-use. It would be very nice to know how to save a PNG that preserves the transparency/alpha stuff. p.s. I've reviewed this post (and many many others on the Blitz site), have samples working, and even developed my own 5x5 frag shaders. But, it's 3D and a scene-wide thing that doesn't seem to convert to 2D or just a certain area very well. I'd rather understand how to apply shading to a 2D scene, especially using the specifics of BlitzMax.

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How can I make a game like doodlejump XNA c#

- by Ramy

I wanted to know how can I make the background scroll down like doodlejump. I have a game made and I have to transform it so it's like doodle jump, but I'm wonder how or where to look so I can make he background keep moving as in progressing through the background till let's say the character dies. namespace IFM20884 { using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics; public abstract class BackgroundScroll : Sprite { private float speedOfBackground = 0.2f; // speed that the background moves public BackgroundScroll (GraphicsDeviceManager graphics) : base(graphics.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Width / 2f, graphics.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Height / 2f) { } //Getter public float speedOfBackground { get { return this.speedOfBackground ; } set { this.speedOfBackground = value; } } public override void Update(GameTime gameTime, GraphicsDeviceManager graphics) { //Makes background go down. ForcePosition(Position.X, Position.Y + (gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.Milliseconds * this.speedOfBackground )); if (Position.Y - (Height / 2) > graphics.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Height) { ForcePosition(Position.X, Position.Y - this.Height); } } public override void Draw(SpriteBatch spriteBatch) { ForcePosition(Position.X, Position.Y - this.Height); base.Draw(spriteBatch); ForcerPosition(Position.X, Position.Y + this.Height); base.Draw(spriteBatch); } } }

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