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• Real Excel Templates I

  - by Tim Dexter

  As promised, I'm starting to document the new Excel templates that I teased you all with a few weeks back. Leslie is buried in 11g documentation and will not get to officially documenting the templates for a while. I'll do my best to be professional and not ramble on about this and that, although the weather here has finally turned and its 'scorchio' here in Colorado today. Maybe our stand of Aspen will finally come into leaf ... but I digress. Preamble These templates are not actually that new, I helped in a small way to develop them a few years back with Excel 'meistress' Shirley for a company that was trying to use the Report Manager(RR) Excel FSG outputs under EBS 12. The functionality they needed was just not there in the RR FSG templates, the templates are actually XSL that is created from the the RR Excel template builder and fed to BIP for processing. Think of Excel from our RTF templates and you'll be there ie not really Excel but HTML masquerading as Excel. Although still under controlled release in EBS they have now made their way to the standlone release and are willing to share their Excel goodness. You get everything you have with hte Excel Analyzer Excel templates plus so much more. Therein lies a question, what will happen to the Analyzer templates? My understanding is that both will come together into a single Excel template format some time in the post-11g release world. The new XLSX format for Exce 2007/10 is also in the mix too so watch this space. What more do these templates offer? Well, you can structure data in the Excel output. Similar to RTF templates you can create sheets of data that have master-detail n relationships. Although the analyzer templates can do this, you have to get into macros whereas BIP will do this all for you. You can also use native XSL functions in your data to manipulate it prior to rendering. BP functions are not currently supported. The most impressive, for me at least, is the sheet 'bursting'. You can split your hierarchical data across multiple sheets and dynamically name those sheets. Finally, you of course, still get all the native Excel functionality. Pre-reqs You must be on 10.1.3.4.1 plus the latest rollup patch, 9546699. You can patch upa BIP instance running with OBIEE, no problem You need Excel 2000 or above to build the templates Some patience - there is no Excel template builder for these new templates. So its all going to have to be done by hand. Its not that tough but can get a little 'fiddly'. You can not test the template from Excel , it has to be deployed and then run. Limitations The new templates are definitely superior to the Analyzer templates but there are a few limitations. Re-grouping is not supported. You can only follow a data hierarchy not bend it to your will unless you want to get into macros. No support for BIP functions. The templates support native XSL functions only. No template builder Getting Started The templates make the use of named cells and groups of cells to allow BIP to find the insertion point for data points. It also uses a hidden sheet to store calculation mappings from named cells to XML data elements. To start with, in the great BIP tradition, we need some sample XML data. Becasue I wanted to show the master-detail output we need some hierarchical data. If you have not yet gotten into the data templates, now is a good time, I wrote a post a while back starting from the simple to more complex. They generate ideal data sets for these templates. Im working with the following data set: <EMPLOYEES> <LIST_G_DEPT> <G_DEPT> <DEPARTMENT_ID>10</DEPARTMENT_ID> <DEPARTMENT_NAME>Administration</DEPARTMENT_NAME> <LIST_G_EMP> <G_EMP> <EMPLOYEE_ID>200</EMPLOYEE_ID> <EMP_NAME>Jennifer Whalen</EMP_NAME> <EMAIL>JWHALEN</EMAIL> <PHONE_NUMBER>515.123.4444</PHONE_NUMBER> <HIRE_DATE>1987-09-17T00:00:00.000-06:00</HIRE_DATE> <SALARY>4400</SALARY> </G_EMP> </LIST_G_EMP> <TOTAL_EMPS>1</TOTAL_EMPS> <TOTAL_SALARY>4400</TOTAL_SALARY> <AVG_SALARY>4400</AVG_SALARY> <MAX_SALARY>4400</MAX_SALARY> <MIN_SALARY>4400</MIN_SALARY> </G_DEPT> ... <LIST_G_DEPT> <EMPLOYEES> Simple enough to follow and bread and butter stuff for an RTF template. Building the Template For an Excel template we need to start by thinking about how we want to render the data. Come up with a sample output in Excel. Its all dummy data, nothing marked up yet with one row of data for each level. I have the department name and then a repeating row for the employees. You can apply Excel formatting to the layout. The total is going to be derived from a data element. We'll get to Excel functions later. Marking Up Cells Next we need to start marking up the cells with custom names to map them to data elements. The cell names need to follow a specific format: For data grouping, XDO_GROUP_?group_name? For data elements, XDO_?element_name? Notice the question mark delimter, the group_name and element_name are case sensitive. The next step is to find how to name cells; the easiest method is to highlight the cell and then type in the name. You can also find the Name Manager dialog. I use 2007 and its available on the ribbon under the Formulas section Go thorugh the process of naming all the cells for the element values you have. Using my data set from above.You should end up with something like this in your 'Name Manager' dialog. You can update any mistakes you might have made through this dialog. Creating Groups In the image above you can see there are a couple of named group cells. To create these its a simple case of highlighting the cells that make up the group and then naming them. For the EMP group, highlight the employee row and then type in the name, XDO_GROUP?G_EMP? Notice the 10,000 total is outside of the G_EMP group. Its actually named, XDO_?TOTAL_SALARY?, a query calculated value. For the department group, we need to include the department name cell and the sub EMP grouping and name it, XDO_GROUP?G_DEPT? Notice, the 10,000 total is included in the G_DEPT group. This will ensure it repeats at the department level. Lastly, we do need to include a special sheet in the workbook. We will not have anything meaningful in there for now, but it needs to be present. Create a new sheet and name it XDO_METADATA. The name is important as the BIP rendering engine will looking for it. For our current example we do not need anything other than the required stuff in our XDO_METADATA sheet but, it must be present. Easy enough to hide it. Here's what I have: The only cell that is important is the 'Data Constraints:' cell. The rest is optional. To save curious users getting distracted, hide the metadata sheet. Deploying & Running Templates We should now have a usable Excel template. Loading it into a report is easy enough using the browser UI, just like an RTF template. Set the template type to Excel. You will now be able to run the report and hopefully get something like this. You will not get the red highlighting, thats just some conditional formatting I added to the template using Excel functionality. Your dates are probably going to look raw too. I got around this for now using an Excel function on the cell: =--REPLACE(SUBSTITUTE(E8,"T"," "),LEN(E8)-6,6,"") Google to the rescue on that one. Try some other stuff out. To avoid constantly loading the template through the UI. If you have BIP running locally or you can access the reports repository, once you have loaded the template the first time. Just save the template directly into the report folder. I have put together a sample report using a sample data set, available here. Just drop the xml data file, EmpbyDeptExcelData.xml into 'demo files' folder and you should be good to go. Thats the basics, next we'll start using some XSL functions in the template and move onto the 'bursting' across sheets.

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• Parallelism in .NET – Part 3, Imperative Data Parallelism: Early Termination

  - by Reed

  Although simple data parallelism allows us to easily parallelize many of our iteration statements, there are cases that it does not handle well.  In my previous discussion, I focused on data parallelism with no shared state, and where every element is being processed exactly the same. Unfortunately, there are many common cases where this does not happen.  If we are dealing with a loop that requires early termination, extra care is required when parallelizing. Often, while processing in a loop, once a certain condition is met, it is no longer necessary to continue processing.  This may be a matter of finding a specific element within the collection, or reaching some error case.  The important distinction here is that, it is often impossible to know until runtime, what set of elements needs to be processed. In my initial discussion of data parallelism, I mentioned that this technique is a candidate when you can decompose the problem based on the data involved, and you wish to apply a single operation concurrently on all of the elements of a collection.  This covers many of the potential cases, but sometimes, after processing some of the elements, we need to stop processing. As an example, lets go back to our previous Parallel.ForEach example with contacting a customer.  However, this time, we’ll change the requirements slightly.  In this case, we’ll add an extra condition – if the store is unable to email the customer, we will exit gracefully.  The thinking here, of course, is that if the store is currently unable to email, the next time this operation runs, it will handle the same situation, so we can just skip our processing entirely.  The original, serial case, with this extra condition, might look something like the following: foreach(var customer in customers) { // Run some process that takes some time... DateTime lastContact = theStore.GetLastContact(customer); TimeSpan timeSinceContact = DateTime.Now - lastContact; // If it's been more than two weeks, send an email, and update... if (timeSinceContact.Days > 14) { // Exit gracefully if we fail to email, since this // entire process can be repeated later without issue. if (theStore.EmailCustomer(customer) == false) break; customer.LastEmailContact = DateTime.Now; } } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } Here, we’re processing our loop, but at any point, if we fail to send our email successfully, we just abandon this process, and assume that it will get handled correctly the next time our routine is run.  If we try to parallelize this using Parallel.ForEach, as we did previously, we’ll run into an error almost immediately: the break statement we’re using is only valid when enclosed within an iteration statement, such as foreach.  When we switch to Parallel.ForEach, we’re no longer within an iteration statement – we’re a delegate running in a method. This needs to be handled slightly differently when parallelized.  Instead of using the break statement, we need to utilize a new class in the Task Parallel Library: ParallelLoopState.  The ParallelLoopState class is intended to allow concurrently running loop bodies a way to interact with each other, and provides us with a way to break out of a loop.  In order to use this, we will use a different overload of Parallel.ForEach which takes an IEnumerable<T> and an Action<T, ParallelLoopState> instead of an Action<T>.  Using this, we can parallelize the above operation by doing: Parallel.ForEach(customers, (customer, parallelLoopState) => { // Run some process that takes some time... DateTime lastContact = theStore.GetLastContact(customer); TimeSpan timeSinceContact = DateTime.Now - lastContact; // If it's been more than two weeks, send an email, and update... if (timeSinceContact.Days > 14) { // Exit gracefully if we fail to email, since this // entire process can be repeated later without issue. if (theStore.EmailCustomer(customer) == false) parallelLoopState.Break(); else customer.LastEmailContact = DateTime.Now; } }); There are a couple of important points here.  First, we didn’t actually instantiate the ParallelLoopState instance.  It was provided directly to us via the Parallel class.  All we needed to do was change our lambda expression to reflect that we want to use the loop state, and the Parallel class creates an instance for our use.  We also needed to change our logic slightly when we call Break().  Since Break() doesn’t stop the program flow within our block, we needed to add an else case to only set the property in customer when we succeeded.  This same technique can be used to break out of a Parallel.For loop. That being said, there is a huge difference between using ParallelLoopState to cause early termination and to use break in a standard iteration statement.  When dealing with a loop serially, break will immediately terminate the processing within the closest enclosing loop statement.  Calling ParallelLoopState.Break(), however, has a very different behavior. The issue is that, now, we’re no longer processing one element at a time.  If we break in one of our threads, there are other threads that will likely still be executing.  This leads to an important observation about termination of parallel code: Early termination in parallel routines is not immediate.  Code will continue to run after you request a termination. This may seem problematic at first, but it is something you just need to keep in mind while designing your routine.  ParallelLoopState.Break() should be thought of as a request.  We are telling the runtime that no elements that were in the collection past the element we’re currently processing need to be processed, and leaving it up to the runtime to decide how to handle this as gracefully as possible.  Although this may seem problematic at first, it is a good thing.  If the runtime tried to immediately stop processing, many of our elements would be partially processed.  It would be like putting a return statement in a random location throughout our loop body – which could have horrific consequences to our code’s maintainability. In order to understand and effectively write parallel routines, we, as developers, need a subtle, but profound shift in our thinking.  We can no longer think in terms of sequential processes, but rather need to think in terms of requests to the system that may be handled differently than we’d first expect.  This is more natural to developers who have dealt with asynchronous models previously, but is an important distinction when moving to concurrent programming models. As an example, I’ll discuss the Break() method.  ParallelLoopState.Break() functions in a way that may be unexpected at first.  When you call Break() from a loop body, the runtime will continue to process all elements of the collection that were found prior to the element that was being processed when the Break() method was called.  This is done to keep the behavior of the Break() method as close to the behavior of the break statement as possible. We can see the behavior in this simple code: var collection = Enumerable.Range(0, 20); var pResult = Parallel.ForEach(collection, (element, state) => { if (element > 10) { Console.WriteLine("Breaking on {0}", element); state.Break(); } Console.WriteLine(element); }); If we run this, we get a result that may seem unexpected at first: 0 2 1 5 6 3 4 10 Breaking on 11 11 Breaking on 12 12 9 Breaking on 13 13 7 8 Breaking on 15 15 What is occurring here is that we loop until we find the first element where the element is greater than 10.  In this case, this was found, the first time, when one of our threads reached element 11.  It requested that the loop stop by calling Break() at this point.  However, the loop continued processing until all of the elements less than 11 were completed, then terminated.  This means that it will guarantee that elements 9, 7, and 8 are completed before it stops processing.  You can see our other threads that were running each tried to break as well, but since Break() was called on the element with a value of 11, it decides which elements (0-10) must be processed. If this behavior is not desirable, there is another option.  Instead of calling ParallelLoopState.Break(), you can call ParallelLoopState.Stop().  The Stop() method requests that the runtime terminate as soon as possible , without guaranteeing that any other elements are processed.  Stop() will not stop the processing within an element, so elements already being processed will continue to be processed.  It will prevent new elements, even ones found earlier in the collection, from being processed.  Also, when Stop() is called, the ParallelLoopState’s IsStopped property will return true.  This lets longer running processes poll for this value, and return after performing any necessary cleanup. The basic rule of thumb for choosing between Break() and Stop() is the following. Use ParallelLoopState.Stop() when possible, since it terminates more quickly.  This is particularly useful in situations where you are searching for an element or a condition in the collection.  Once you’ve found it, you do not need to do any other processing, so Stop() is more appropriate. Use ParallelLoopState.Break() if you need to more closely match the behavior of the C# break statement. Both methods behave differently than our C# break statement.  Unfortunately, when parallelizing a routine, more thought and care needs to be put into every aspect of your routine than you may otherwise expect.  This is due to my second observation: Parallelizing a routine will almost always change its behavior. This sounds crazy at first, but it’s a concept that’s so simple its easy to forget.  We’re purposely telling the system to process more than one thing at the same time, which means that the sequence in which things get processed is no longer deterministic.  It is easy to change the behavior of your routine in very subtle ways by introducing parallelism.  Often, the changes are not avoidable, even if they don’t have any adverse side effects.  This leads to my final observation for this post: Parallelization is something that should be handled with care and forethought, added by design, and not just introduced casually.

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• jQuery Templates and Data Linking (and Microsoft contributing to jQuery)

  - by ScottGu

  The jQuery library has a passionate community of developers, and it is now the most widely used JavaScript library on the web today. Two years ago I announced that Microsoft would begin offering product support for jQuery, and that we’d be including it in new versions of Visual Studio going forward. By default, when you create new ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC projects with VS 2010 you’ll find jQuery automatically added to your project. A few weeks ago during my second keynote at the MIX 2010 conference I announced that Microsoft would also begin contributing to the jQuery project.  During the talk, John Resig -- the creator of the jQuery library and leader of the jQuery developer team – talked a little about our participation and discussed an early prototype of a new client templating API for jQuery. In this blog post, I’m going to talk a little about how my team is starting to contribute to the jQuery project, and discuss some of the specific features that we are working on such as client-side templating and data linking (data-binding). Contributing to jQuery jQuery has a fantastic developer community, and a very open way to propose suggestions and make contributions.  Microsoft is following the same process to contribute to jQuery as any other member of the community. As an example, when working with the jQuery community to improve support for templating to jQuery my team followed the following steps: We created a proposal for templating and posted the proposal to the jQuery developer forum (http://forum.jquery.com/topic/jquery-templates-proposal and http://forum.jquery.com/topic/templating-syntax ). After receiving feedback on the forums, the jQuery team created a prototype for templating and posted the prototype at the Github code repository (http://github.com/jquery/jquery-tmpl ). We iterated on the prototype, creating a new fork on Github of the templating prototype, to suggest design improvements. Several other members of the community also provided design feedback by forking the templating code. There has been an amazing amount of participation by the jQuery community in response to the original templating proposal (over 100 posts in the jQuery forum), and the design of the templating proposal has evolved significantly based on community feedback. The jQuery team is the ultimate determiner on what happens with the templating proposal – they might include it in jQuery core, or make it an official plugin, or reject it entirely.  My team is excited to be able to participate in the open source process, and make suggestions and contributions the same way as any other member of the community. jQuery Template Support Client-side templates enable jQuery developers to easily generate and render HTML UI on the client.  Templates support a simple syntax that enables either developers or designers to declaratively specify the HTML they want to generate.  Developers can then programmatically invoke the templates on the client, and pass JavaScript objects to them to make the content rendered completely data driven.  These JavaScript objects can optionally be based on data retrieved from a server. Because the jQuery templating proposal is still evolving in response to community feedback, the final version might look very different than the version below. This blog post gives you a sense of how you can try out and use templating as it exists today (you can download the prototype by the jQuery core team at http://github.com/jquery/jquery-tmpl or the latest submission from my team at http://github.com/nje/jquery-tmpl).  jQuery Client Templates You create client-side jQuery templates by embedding content within a <script type="text/html"> tag.  For example, the HTML below contains a <div> template container, as well as a client-side jQuery “contactTemplate” template (within the <script type="text/html"> element) that can be used to dynamically display a list of contacts: The {{= name }} and {{= phone }} expressions are used within the contact template above to display the names and phone numbers of “contact” objects passed to the template. We can use the template to display either an array of JavaScript objects or a single object. The JavaScript code below demonstrates how you can render a JavaScript array of “contact” object using the above template. The render() method renders the data into a string and appends the string to the “contactContainer” DIV element: When the page is loaded, the list of contacts is rendered by the template.  All of this template rendering is happening on the client-side within the browser:   Templating Commands and Conditional Display Logic The current templating proposal supports a small set of template commands - including if, else, and each statements. The number of template commands was deliberately kept small to encourage people to place more complicated logic outside of their templates. Even this small set of template commands is very useful though. Imagine, for example, that each contact can have zero or more phone numbers. The contacts could be represented by the JavaScript array below: The template below demonstrates how you can use the if and each template commands to conditionally display and loop the phone numbers for each contact: If a contact has one or more phone numbers then each of the phone numbers is displayed by iterating through the phone numbers with the each template command: The jQuery team designed the template commands so that they are extensible. If you have a need for a new template command then you can easily add new template commands to the default set of commands. Support for Client Data-Linking The ASP.NET team recently submitted another proposal and prototype to the jQuery forums (http://forum.jquery.com/topic/proposal-for-adding-data-linking-to-jquery). This proposal describes a new feature named data linking. Data Linking enables you to link a property of one object to a property of another object - so that when one property changes the other property changes.  Data linking enables you to easily keep your UI and data objects synchronized within a page. If you are familiar with the concept of data-binding then you will be familiar with data linking (in the proposal, we call the feature data linking because jQuery already includes a bind() method that has nothing to do with data-binding). Imagine, for example, that you have a page with the following HTML <input> elements: The following JavaScript code links the two INPUT elements above to the properties of a JavaScript “contact” object that has a “name” and “phone” property: When you execute this code, the value of the first INPUT element (#name) is set to the value of the contact name property, and the value of the second INPUT element (#phone) is set to the value of the contact phone property. The properties of the contact object and the properties of the INPUT elements are also linked – so that changes to one are also reflected in the other. Because the contact object is linked to the INPUT element, when you request the page, the values of the contact properties are displayed: More interesting, the values of the linked INPUT elements will change automatically whenever you update the properties of the contact object they are linked to. For example, we could programmatically modify the properties of the “contact” object using the jQuery attr() method like below: Because our two INPUT elements are linked to the “contact” object, the INPUT element values will be updated automatically (without us having to write any code to modify the UI elements): Note that we updated the contact object above using the jQuery attr() method. In order for data linking to work, you must use jQuery methods to modify the property values. Two Way Linking The linkBoth() method enables two-way data linking. The contact object and INPUT elements are linked in both directions. When you modify the value of the INPUT element, the contact object is also updated automatically. For example, the following code adds a client-side JavaScript click handler to an HTML button element. When you click the button, the property values of the contact object are displayed using an alert() dialog: The following demonstrates what happens when you change the value of the Name INPUT element and click the Save button. Notice that the name property of the “contact” object that the INPUT element was linked to was updated automatically: The above example is obviously trivially simple.  Instead of displaying the new values of the contact object with a JavaScript alert, you can imagine instead calling a web-service to save the object to a database. The benefit of data linking is that it enables you to focus on your data and frees you from the mechanics of keeping your UI and data in sync. Converters The current data linking proposal also supports a feature called converters. A converter enables you to easily convert the value of a property during data linking. For example, imagine that you want to represent phone numbers in a standard way with the “contact” object phone property. In particular, you don’t want to include special characters such as ()- in the phone number - instead you only want digits and nothing else. In that case, you can wire-up a converter to convert the value of an INPUT element into this format using the code below: Notice above how a converter function is being passed to the linkFrom() method used to link the phone property of the “contact” object with the value of the phone INPUT element. This convertor function strips any non-numeric characters from the INPUT element before updating the phone property.  Now, if you enter the phone number (206) 555-9999 into the phone input field then the value 2065559999 is assigned to the phone property of the contact object: You can also use a converter in the opposite direction also. For example, you can apply a standard phone format string when displaying a phone number from a phone property. Combining Templating and Data Linking Our goal in submitting these two proposals for templating and data linking is to make it easier to work with data when building websites and applications with jQuery. Templating makes it easier to display a list of database records retrieved from a database through an Ajax call. Data linking makes it easier to keep the data and user interface in sync for update scenarios. Currently, we are working on an extension of the data linking proposal to support declarative data linking. We want to make it easy to take advantage of data linking when using a template to display data. For example, imagine that you are using the following template to display an array of product objects: Notice the {{link name}} and {{link price}} expressions. These expressions enable declarative data linking between the SPAN elements and properties of the product objects. The current jQuery templating prototype supports extending its syntax with custom template commands. In this case, we are extending the default templating syntax with a custom template command named “link”. The benefit of using data linking with the above template is that the SPAN elements will be automatically updated whenever the underlying “product” data is updated.  Declarative data linking also makes it easier to create edit and insert forms. For example, you could create a form for editing a product by using declarative data linking like this: Whenever you change the value of the INPUT elements in a template that uses declarative data linking, the underlying JavaScript data object is automatically updated. Instead of needing to write code to scrape the HTML form to get updated values, you can instead work with the underlying data directly – making your client-side code much cleaner and simpler. Downloading Working Code Examples of the Above Scenarios You can download this .zip file to get with working code examples of the above scenarios.  The .zip file includes 4 static HTML page: Listing1_Templating.htm – Illustrates basic templating. Listing2_TemplatingConditionals.htm – Illustrates templating with the use of the if and each template commands. Listing3_DataLinking.htm – Illustrates data linking. Listing4_Converters.htm – Illustrates using a converter with data linking. You can un-zip the file to the file-system and then run each page to see the concepts in action. Summary We are excited to be able to begin participating within the open-source jQuery project.  We’ve received lots of encouraging feedback in response to our first two proposals, and we will continue to actively contribute going forward.  These features will hopefully make it easier for all developers (including ASP.NET developers) to build great Ajax applications. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. [In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu]

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• Parallelism in .NET – Part 2, Simple Imperative Data Parallelism

  - by Reed

  In my discussion of Decomposition of the problem space, I mentioned that Data Decomposition is often the simplest abstraction to use when trying to parallelize a routine.  If a problem can be decomposed based off the data, we will often want to use what MSDN refers to as Data Parallelism as our strategy for implementing our routine.  The Task Parallel Library in .NET 4 makes implementing Data Parallelism, for most cases, very simple. Data Parallelism is the main technique we use to parallelize a routine which can be decomposed based off data.  Data Parallelism refers to taking a single collection of data, and having a single operation be performed concurrently on elements in the collection.  One side note here: Data Parallelism is also sometimes referred to as the Loop Parallelism Pattern or Loop-level Parallelism.  In general, for this series, I will try to use the terminology used in the MSDN Documentation for the Task Parallel Library.  This should make it easier to investigate these topics in more detail. Once we’ve determined we have a problem that, potentially, can be decomposed based on data, implementation using Data Parallelism in the TPL is quite simple.  Let’s take our example from the Data Decomposition discussion – a simple contrast stretching filter.  Here, we have a collection of data (pixels), and we need to run a simple operation on each element of the pixel.  Once we know the minimum and maximum values, we most likely would have some simple code like the following: for (int row=0; row < pixelData.GetUpperBound(0); ++row) { for (int col=0; col < pixelData.GetUpperBound(1); ++col) { pixelData[row, col] = AdjustContrast(pixelData[row, col], minPixel, maxPixel); } } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } This simple routine loops through a two dimensional array of pixelData, and calls the AdjustContrast routine on each pixel. As I mentioned, when you’re decomposing a problem space, most iteration statements are potentially candidates for data decomposition.  Here, we’re using two for loops – one looping through rows in the image, and a second nested loop iterating through the columns.  We then perform one, independent operation on each element based on those loop positions. This is a prime candidate – we have no shared data, no dependencies on anything but the pixel which we want to change.  Since we’re using a for loop, we can easily parallelize this using the Parallel.For method in the TPL: Parallel.For(0, pixelData.GetUpperBound(0), row => { for (int col=0; col < pixelData.GetUpperBound(1); ++col) { pixelData[row, col] = AdjustContrast(pixelData[row, col], minPixel, maxPixel); } }); Here, by simply changing our first for loop to a call to Parallel.For, we can parallelize this portion of our routine.  Parallel.For works, as do many methods in the TPL, by creating a delegate and using it as an argument to a method.  In this case, our for loop iteration block becomes a delegate creating via a lambda expression.  This lets you write code that, superficially, looks similar to the familiar for loop, but functions quite differently at runtime. We could easily do this to our second for loop as well, but that may not be a good idea.  There is a balance to be struck when writing parallel code.  We want to have enough work items to keep all of our processors busy, but the more we partition our data, the more overhead we introduce.  In this case, we have an image of data – most likely hundreds of pixels in both dimensions.  By just parallelizing our first loop, each row of pixels can be run as a single task.  With hundreds of rows of data, we are providing fine enough granularity to keep all of our processors busy. If we parallelize both loops, we’re potentially creating millions of independent tasks.  This introduces extra overhead with no extra gain, and will actually reduce our overall performance.  This leads to my first guideline when writing parallel code: Partition your problem into enough tasks to keep each processor busy throughout the operation, but not more than necessary to keep each processor busy. Also note that I parallelized the outer loop.  I could have just as easily partitioned the inner loop.  However, partitioning the inner loop would have led to many more discrete work items, each with a smaller amount of work (operate on one pixel instead of one row of pixels).  My second guideline when writing parallel code reflects this: Partition your problem in a way to place the most work possible into each task. This typically means, in practice, that you will want to parallelize the routine at the “highest” point possible in the routine, typically the outermost loop.  If you’re looking at parallelizing methods which call other methods, you’ll want to try to partition your work high up in the stack – as you get into lower level methods, the performance impact of parallelizing your routines may not overcome the overhead introduced. Parallel.For works great for situations where we know the number of elements we’re going to process in advance.  If we’re iterating through an IList<T> or an array, this is a typical approach.  However, there are other iteration statements common in C#.  In many situations, we’ll use foreach instead of a for loop.  This can be more understandable and easier to read, but also has the advantage of working with collections which only implement IEnumerable<T>, where we do not know the number of elements involved in advance. As an example, lets take the following situation.  Say we have a collection of Customers, and we want to iterate through each customer, check some information about the customer, and if a certain case is met, send an email to the customer and update our instance to reflect this change.  Normally, this might look something like: foreach(var customer in customers) { // Run some process that takes some time... DateTime lastContact = theStore.GetLastContact(customer); TimeSpan timeSinceContact = DateTime.Now - lastContact; // If it's been more than two weeks, send an email, and update... if (timeSinceContact.Days > 14) { theStore.EmailCustomer(customer); customer.LastEmailContact = DateTime.Now; } } Here, we’re doing a fair amount of work for each customer in our collection, but we don’t know how many customers exist.  If we assume that theStore.GetLastContact(customer) and theStore.EmailCustomer(customer) are both side-effect free, thread safe operations, we could parallelize this using Parallel.ForEach: Parallel.ForEach(customers, customer => { // Run some process that takes some time... DateTime lastContact = theStore.GetLastContact(customer); TimeSpan timeSinceContact = DateTime.Now - lastContact; // If it's been more than two weeks, send an email, and update... if (timeSinceContact.Days > 14) { theStore.EmailCustomer(customer); customer.LastEmailContact = DateTime.Now; } }); Just like Parallel.For, we rework our loop into a method call accepting a delegate created via a lambda expression.  This keeps our new code very similar to our original iteration statement, however, this will now execute in parallel.  The same guidelines apply with Parallel.ForEach as with Parallel.For. The other iteration statements, do and while, do not have direct equivalents in the Task Parallel Library.  These, however, are very easy to implement using Parallel.ForEach and the yield keyword. Most applications can benefit from implementing some form of Data Parallelism.  Iterating through collections and performing “work” is a very common pattern in nearly every application.  When the problem can be decomposed by data, we often can parallelize the workload by merely changing foreach statements to Parallel.ForEach method calls, and for loops to Parallel.For method calls.  Any time your program operates on a collection, and does a set of work on each item in the collection where that work is not dependent on other information, you very likely have an opportunity to parallelize your routine.

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• When should I use Areas in TFS instead of Team Projects

  - by Martin Hinshelwood

  Well, it depends…. If you are a small company that creates a finite number of internal projects then you will find it easier to create a single project for each of your products and have TFS do the heavy lifting with reporting, SharePoint sites and Version Control. But what if you are not… Update 9th March 2010 Michael Fourie gave me some feedback which I have integrated. Ed Blankenship via @edblankenship offered encouragement and a nice quote. Ewald Hofman gave me a couple of Cons, and maybe a few more soon. Ewald’s company, Avanade, currently uses Areas, but it looks like the manual management is getting too much and the project is getting cluttered. What if you are likely to have hundreds of projects, possibly with a multitude of internal and external projects? You might have 1 project for a customer or 10. This is the situation that most consultancies find themselves in and thus they need a more sustainable and maintainable option. What I am advocating is that we should have 1 “Team Project” per customer, and use areas to create “sub projects” within that single “Team Project”. "What you describe is what we generally do internally and what we recommend. We make very heavy use of area path to categorize the work within a larger project." - Brian Harry, Microsoft Technical Fellow & Product Unit Manager for Team Foundation Server   "We tend to use areas to segregate multiple projects in the same team project and it works well." - Tiago Pascoal, Visual Studio ALM MVP   "In general, I believe this approach provides consistency [to multi-product engagements] and lowers the administration and maintenance costs. All good." - Michael Fourie, Visual Studio ALM MVP   “@MrHinsh BTW, I'm very much a fan of very large, if not huge, team projects in TFS. Just FYI :) Use Areas & Iterations.” Ed Blankenship, Visual Studio ALM MVP   This would mean that SSW would have a single Team Project called “SSW” that contains all of our internal projects and consequently all of the Areas and Iteration move down one hierarchy to accommodate this. Where we would have had “\SSW\Sprint 1” we now have “\SSW\SqlDeploy\Sprint1” with “SqlDeploy” being our internal project. At the moment SSW has over 70 internal projects and more than 170 total projects in TFS. This method has long term benefits that help to simplify the support model for companies that often have limited internal support time and many projects. But, there are implications as TFS does not provide this model “out-of-the-box”. These implications stretch across Areas, Iterations, Queries, Project Portal and Version Control. Michael made a good comment, he said: I agree with your approach, assuming that in a multi-product engagement with a client, they are happy to adopt the same process template across all products. If they are not, then it’ll either be easy to convince them or there is a valid reason for having a different template - Michael Fourie, Visual Studio ALM MVP   At SSW we have a standard template that we use and this is applied across the board, to all of our projects. We even apply any changes to the core process template to all of our existing projects as well. If you have multiple projects for the same clients on multiple templates and you want to keep it that way, then this approach will not work for you. However, if you want to standardise as we have at SSW then this approach may benefit you as well. Implications around Areas Areas should be used for topological classification/isolation of work items. You can think of this as architecture areas, organisational areas or even the main features of your application. In our scenario there is an additional top level item that represents the Project / Product that we want to chop our Team Project into. Figure: Creating a sub area to represent a product/project is easy. <teamproject> <teamproject>\<Functional Area/module whatever> Becomes: <teamproject> <teamproject>\<ProjectName>\ <teamproject>\<ProjectName>\<Functional Area/module whatever> Implications around Iterations Iterations should be used for chronological classification/isolation of work items. This could include isolated time boxes, milestones or release timelines and really depends on the logical flow of your project or projects. Due to the new level in Area we need to add the same level to Iteration. This is primarily because it is unlikely that the sprints in each of your projects/products will start and end at the same time. This is just a reality of managing multiple projects. Figure: Adding the same Area value to Iteration as the top level item adds flexibility to Iteration. <teamproject>\Sprint 1 Or <teamproject>\Release 1\Sprint 1 Becomes: <teamproject>\<ProjectName>\Sprint 1 Or <teamproject>\<ProjectName>\Release 1\Sprint 1 Implications around Queries Queries are used to filter your work items based on a specified level of granularity. There are a number of queries that are built into a project created using the MSF Agile 5.0 template, but we now have multiple projects and it would be a pain to have to edit all of the work items every time we changed project, and that would only allow one team to work on one project at a time.   Figure: The Queries that are created in a normal MSF Agile 5.0 project do not quite suit our new needs. In order for project contributors to be able to query based on their project we need a couple of things. The first thing I did was to create an “_Area Template” folder that has a copy of the project layout with all the queries setup to filter based on the “_Area Template” Area and the “_Sprint template” you can see in the Area and Iteration views. Figure: The template is currently easily drag and drop, but you then need to edit the queries to point at the right Area and Iteration. This needs a tool. I then created an “Areas” folder to hold all of the area specific queries. So, when you go to create a new TFS Sub-Project you just drag “_Area Template” while holding “Ctrl” and drop it onto “Areas”. There is a little setup here. That said I managed it in around 10 minutes which is not so bad, and I can imagine it being quite easy to build a tool to create these queries Figure: These new queries can be configured in around 10 minutes, which includes setting up the Area and Iteration as well. Version Control What about your source code? Well, that is the easiest of the lot. Just create a sub folder for each of your projects/products.   Figure: Creating sub folders in source control is easy as “Right click | Create new folder”. <teamproject>\DEV\Main\ Becomes: <teamproject>\<ProjectName>\DEV\Main\ Conclusion I think it is up to each company to make a call on how you want to configure your Team Projects and it depends completely on how many projects/products you are going to have for each customer including yourself. If we decide to utilise this route it will require some configuration to get our 170+ projects into this format, and I will probably be writing some tools to help. Pros You only have one project to upgrade when a process template changes – After going through an upgrade of over 170 project prior to the changes in the RC I can tell you that that many projects is no fun. Standardises your Process Template – You will always have the same Process implementation across projects/products without exception You get tighter control over the permissions – Yes, you can do this on a standard Team Project, but it gets a lot easier with practice. You can “move” work items from one “product” to another – Have we not always wanted to do that. You can rename your projects – Wahoo: everyone wants to do this, now you can. One set of Reporting Services reports to manage – You set an area and iteration to run reports anyway, so you may as well set both. Simplified Check-In Policies– There is only one set of check-in policies per client. This simplifies administration of policies. Simplified Alerts – As alerts are applied across multiple projects this simplifies your alert rules as per client. Cons All of these cons could be mitigated by a custom tool that helps automate creation of “Sub-projects” within Team Projects. This custom tool could create areas, Iteration, permissions, SharePoint and queries. It just does not exist yet :) You need to configure the Areas and Iterations You need to configure the permissions You may need to configure sub sites for SharePoint (depends on your requirement) – If you have two projects/products in the same Team Project then you will not see the burn down for each one out-of-the-box, but rather a cumulative for the Team Project. This is not really that much of a problem as you would have to configure your burndown graphs for your current iteration anyway. note: When you create a sub site to a TFS linked portal it will inherit the settings of its parent site :) This is fantastic as it means that you can easily create sub sites and then set the Area and Iteration path in each of the reports to be the correct one. Every team wants their own customization (via Ewald Hofman) - small teams of 2 persons against teams of 30 – or even outsourcing – need their own process, you cannot allow that because everybody gets the same work item types. note: Luckily at SSW this is not a problem as our template is standardised across all projects and customers. Large list of builds (via Ewald Hofman) – As the build list in Team Explorer is just a flat list it can get very cluttered. note: I would mitigate this by removing any build that has not been run in over 30 days. The build template and workflow will still be available in version control, but it will clean the list. Feedback Now that I have explained this method, what do you think? What other pros and cons can you see? What do you think of this approach? Will you be using it? What tools would you like to support you?   Technorati Tags: Visual Studio ALM,TFS Administration,TFS,Team Foundation Server,Project Planning,TFS Customisation

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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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• December release of Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework is available now.

  - by Jialiang

  The code samples in Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework are updated on 2010-12-13. Download address: http://1code.codeplex.com/releases/view/57459#DownloadId=185534 Updated code sample index categorized by technologies: http://1code.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=All-In-One%20Code%20Framework%20Sample%20Catalog (it also allows you to download individual code samples instead of the entire All-In-One Code Framework sample package.) If it’s the first time that you hear about Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework, please watch the introduction video on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO5Li3APU58, or read the introduction on our homepage http://1code.codeplex.com/,  and this Port25 article http://port25.technet.com/archive/2010/01/18/the-all-in-one-code-framework.aspx.  -------------- New ASP.NET Code Samples VBASPNETAJAXWebChat and CSASPNETAJAXWebChat Most of you have some experience in chatting with friends on the web. So you may want to know how to make a web chat application, it seems to be quite complicated. But ASP.NET gives you the power to buiild a chat room easily. In this code sample, we will construct our own web chat room with the amazing AJAX feature. The principle is simple relatively. As we all know, a base chat application need 4 base controls: one List control to show the chat room members, one List control to show the message list, one TextBox control to input messages and one button to send message. User inputs his message in the textbox first and then presses Send button, it will send the message to the server. The message list will update every 2 seconds to get the newest message list in the chat room from the server. We need to know, it is hard for us to make an AJAX web chat application like a windows form application because we cannot keep the connection after one web request ended. So a lot of events which communicates between client side and server side cannot be realized. The common workaround is to make web requests in every some seconds to check whether the server side has been updated. But another technique called COMET makes it possible. But it is different with AJAX and will not be talked in details in this KB. For more details about COMET, we can get some clues from the Reference.   CSASPNETCurrentOnlineUserList and VBASPNETCurrentOnlineUserList This sample demos a system that needs to display a list of current online users' information. As a matter of fact, Membership.GetNumberOfUsersOnline Method  can get the number of online users and there is a convenient approach to check whether the user is online by using Membership.GetUser(string userName).IsOnline property,however many asp.net projects are not using membership.So in this case,the sample shows how to display a list of current online users' information without using membership provider. It is not difficult to check whether the user is online by using session.Many projects tend to be used “Session_End” event to mark a user as “Offline”,however ,it may not be a good idea,because it can’t detect the user status accurately. In addition, "Session_End" event is only available in the "InProc" session mode. If you are storing session states in the State Server or SQL Server, "Session_End" event will never fire. To handle this issue, we need to save the user online status to a  global DataTable or  DataBase. In the sample application, define a global DataTable to store the information of online users.Use XmlHttpRequest in the pages to update and check user's last active time at intervals and also retrieve information on how many users are still online. The sample project can auto delete offline users' information from a global DataTable by checking users’ last active time. A step-by-step guide illustrating how to display a list of current online users' information without using membership provider: 1. Login page. Let user sign in and add current user’s information to a global datatable while Initialize the global datatable which used to store information of current online users. 2. Current online user list page. Use XmlHttpRequest in this page to update and check user's last active time at intervals and also retrieve information on how many users are still online. 3. If user closes the page without clicking  the sign out link button ,the sample project can auto mark the user as offline and delete offline users' information from a global DataTable which used to store information of current online users  by checking users’ last active time. Then the current online user list will be like this:   CSASPNETIPtoLocation This sample demonstrates how to find the geographical location from an IP address. As we know, it is not hard for us to get the IP address of visitors via Request.ServerVariable property, but it is really difficult for us to know where they come from. To achieve this feature, the sample uses a free third party web service from http://freegeoip.appspot.com/, which returns the information about an IP address we send to the server in the format of XML, JSON or CSV. It makes all things easier.   CSASPNETBackgroundWorker Sometimes we do an operation which needs long time to complete. It will stop the response and the page is blank until the operation finished. In this case, we want the operation to run in the background, and in the page, we want to display the progress of the running operation. Therefore, the user can know the operation is running and can know the progress. CSASPNETInheritingFromTreeNode In windows forms TreeView, each tree node has a property called "Tag" which can be used to store a custom object. Many customers want to implement the same tag feature in ASP.NET TreeView. This project creates a custom TreeView control named "CustomTreeView" to achieve this goal. CSASPNETRemoteUploadAndDownload and VBASPNETRemoteUploadAndDownload This code sample was created in response to a code sample request in our new code sample request frunction for customers. The code samples demonstrate uploading files to and downloading files from a remote HTTP or FTP server. In .NET Framework 2.0 and higher versions, there are some lightweight class libraries which support HTTP and FTP protocol transmission. By using these classes, we can achieve this programming requirement.   CSASPNETImageEditUpload and VBASPNETImageEditUpload This demo will shows how to insert, edit and update a common image with the type of "jpg", "png", "gif" or "bmp" . We mainly use two different SqlDataSources with the same database to bind to GridView and FormView in order to establish the “cascading” effort. Besides we apply our self-made ImageHanlder to encoding or decoding images of different types, and use context to output the stream of images. We will explicitly assign the binary streams of images through the event of “FormView_ItemInserting” or “Form_ItemUpdating” to synchronize the stream both in what we can see on an aspx page as well as in what’s really stored in the database.   WebBrowser Control, Network and other Windows General New Code Samples   CSWebBrowserSuppressError and VBWebBrowserSuppressError The sample demonstrates how to make WebBrowser suppress errors, such as script error, navigation error and so on.   CSWebBrowserWithProxy and VBWebBrowserWithProxy The sample demonstrates how to make WebBrowser use a proxy server.   CSWebDownloadProgress and VBWebDownloadProgress The sample demonstrates how to show progress during the download. It also supplies the features to Start, Pause, Resume and Cancel a download.   CppSetDesktopWallpaper, CSSetDesktopWallpaper and VBSetDesktopWallpaper This code sample application allows you select an image, view a preview (resized smaller to fit if necessary), select a display style among Tile, Center, Stretch, Fit (Windows 7 and later) and Fill (Windows 7 and later), and set the image as the Desktop wallpaper. CSWindowsServiceRecoveryProperty and VBWindowsServiceRecoveryProperty CSWindowsServiceRecoveryProperty example demonstrates how to use ChangeServiceConfig2 to configure the service "Recovery" properties in C#. This example operates all the options you can see on the service "Recovery" tab, including setting the "Enable actions for stops with errors" option in Windows Vista and later operating systems. This example also include how to grant the shut down privilege to the process, so that we can configure a special option in the "Recovery" tab - "Restart Computer Options...".   New Office Development Code Samples   CSOneNoteRibbonAddIn and VBOneNoteRibbonAddIn The code sample demonstrates a OneNote 2010 COM add-in that implements IDTExtensibility2. The add-in also supports customizing the Ribbon by implementing the IRibbonExtensibility interface. It is a skeleton OneNote add-in that developers can extend it to implement more functions. The code sample was requested by a customer in our code sample request service. We expect that this could help developers in the community.   New Windows Shell Code Samples   CppShellExtPreviewHandler, CSShellExtPreviewHandler and VBShellExtPreviewHandler In the past two months, we released the code samples of Windows Context Menu Handler, Infotip Handler, and Thumbnail Handler. This is the fourth part of the shell extension series: Preview Handler. The code samples demo the C++, C# and VB.NET implementation of a preview handler for a new file type registered with the .recipe extension. Preview handlers are called when an item is selected to show a lightweight, rich, read-only preview of the file's contents in the view's reading pane. This is done without launching the file's associated application. Windows Vista and later operating systems support preview handlers. To be a valid preview handler, several interfaces must be implemented. This includes IPreviewHandler (shobjidl.h); IInitializeWithFile, IInitializeWithStream, or IInitializeWithItem (propsys.h); IObjectWithSite (ocidl.h); and IOleWindow (oleidl.h). There are also optional interfaces, such as IPreviewHandlerVisuals (shobjidl.h), that a preview handler can implement to provide extended support. Windows API Code Pack for Microsoft .NET Framework makes the implementation of these interfaces very easy in .NET. The example preview handler provides previews for .recipe files. The .recipe file type is simply an XML file registered as a unique file name extension. It includes the title of the recipe, its author, difficulty, preparation time, cook time, nutrition information, comments, an embedded preview image, and so on. The preview handler extracts the title, comments, and the embedded image, and display them in a preview window.   In response to many customers' request, we added setup projects in every shell extension samples in this release. Those setup projects allow you to deploy the shell extensions to your end users' machines. ---------- Download address: http://1code.codeplex.com/releases/view/57459#DownloadId=185534 Updated code sample index categorized by technologies: http://1code.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=All-In-One%20Code%20Framework%20Sample%20Catalog (it also allows you to download individual code samples instead of the entire All-In-One Code Framework sample package.) If you have any feedback for us, please email: [email protected]. We look forward to your comments.

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• SignalR Auto Disconnect when Page Changed in AngularJS

  - by Shaun

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/shaunxu/archive/2014/05/30/signalr-auto-disconnect-when-page-changed-in-angularjs.aspxIf we are using SignalR, the connection lifecycle was handled by itself very well. For example when we connect to SignalR service from browser through SignalR JavaScript Client the connection will be established. And if we refresh the page, close the tab or browser, or navigate to another URL then the connection will be closed automatically. This information had been well documented here. In a browser, SignalR client code that maintains a SignalR connection runs in the JavaScript context of a web page. That's why the SignalR connection has to end when you navigate from one page to another, and that's why you have multiple connections with multiple connection IDs if you connect from multiple browser windows or tabs. When the user closes a browser window or tab, or navigates to a new page or refreshes the page, the SignalR connection immediately ends because SignalR client code handles that browser event for you and calls the "Stop" method. But unfortunately this behavior doesn't work if we are using SignalR with AngularJS. AngularJS is a single page application (SPA) framework created by Google. It hijacks browser's address change event, based on the route table user defined, launch proper view and controller. Hence in AngularJS we address was changed but the web page still there. All changes of the page content are triggered by Ajax. So there's no page unload and load events. This is the reason why SignalR cannot handle disconnect correctly when works with AngularJS. If we dig into the source code of SignalR JavaScript Client source code we will find something below. It monitors the browser page "unload" and "beforeunload" event and send the "stop" message to server to terminate connection. But in AngularJS page change events were hijacked, so SignalR will not receive them and will not stop the connection. 1: // wire the stop handler for when the user leaves the page 2: _pageWindow.bind("unload", function () { 3: connection.log("Window unloading, stopping the connection."); 4:  5: connection.stop(asyncAbort); 6: }); 7:  8: if (isFirefox11OrGreater) { 9: // Firefox does not fire cross-domain XHRs in the normal unload handler on tab close. 10: // #2400 11: _pageWindow.bind("beforeunload", function () { 12: // If connection.stop() runs runs in beforeunload and fails, it will also fail 13: // in unload unless connection.stop() runs after a timeout. 14: window.setTimeout(function () { 15: connection.stop(asyncAbort); 16: }, 0); 17: }); 18: }   Problem Reproduce In the codes below I created a very simple example to demonstrate this issue. Here is the SignalR server side code. 1: public class GreetingHub : Hub 2: { 3: public override Task OnConnected() 4: { 5: Debug.WriteLine(string.Format("Connected: {0}", Context.ConnectionId)); 6: return base.OnConnected(); 7: } 8:  9: public override Task OnDisconnected() 10: { 11: Debug.WriteLine(string.Format("Disconnected: {0}", Context.ConnectionId)); 12: return base.OnDisconnected(); 13: } 14:  15: public void Hello(string user) 16: { 17: Clients.All.hello(string.Format("Hello, {0}!", user)); 18: } 19: } Below is the configuration code which hosts SignalR hub in an ASP.NET WebAPI project with IIS Express. 1: public class Startup 2: { 3: public void Configuration(IAppBuilder app) 4: { 5: app.Map("/signalr", map => 6: { 7: map.UseCors(CorsOptions.AllowAll); 8: map.RunSignalR(new HubConfiguration() 9: { 10: EnableJavaScriptProxies = false 11: }); 12: }); 13: } 14: } Since we will host AngularJS application in Node.js in another process and port, the SignalR connection will be cross domain. So I need to enable CORS above. In client side I have a Node.js file to host AngularJS application as a web server. You can use any web server you like such as IIS, Apache, etc.. Below is the "index.html" page which contains a navigation bar so that I can change the page/state. As you can see I added jQuery, AngularJS, SignalR JavaScript Client Library as well as my AngularJS entry source file "app.js". 1: <html data-ng-app="demo"> 2: <head> 3: <script type="text/javascript" src="jquery-2.1.0.js"></script> 1:  2: <script type="text/javascript" src="angular.js"> 1: </script> 2: <script type="text/javascript" src="angular-ui-router.js"> 1: </script> 2: <script type="text/javascript" src="jquery.signalR-2.0.3.js"> 1: </script> 2: <script type="text/javascript" src="app.js"></script> 4: </head> 5: <body> 6: <h1>SignalR Auto Disconnect with AngularJS by Shaun</h1> 7: <div> 8: <a href="javascript:void(0)" data-ui-sref="view1">View 1</a> | 9: <a href="javascript:void(0)" data-ui-sref="view2">View 2</a> 10: </div> 11: <div data-ui-view></div> 12: </body> 13: </html> Below is the "app.js". My SignalR logic was in the "View1" page and it will connect to server once the controller was executed. User can specify a user name and send to server, all clients that located in this page will receive the server side greeting message through SignalR. 1: 'use strict'; 2:  3: var app = angular.module('demo', ['ui.router']); 4:  5: app.config(['$stateProvider', '$locationProvider', function ($stateProvider, $locationProvider) { 6: $stateProvider.state('view1', { 7: url: '/view1', 8: templateUrl: 'view1.html', 9: controller: 'View1Ctrl' }); 10:  11: $stateProvider.state('view2', { 12: url: '/view2', 13: templateUrl: 'view2.html', 14: controller: 'View2Ctrl' }); 15:  16: $locationProvider.html5Mode(true); 17: }]); 18:  19: app.value('$', $); 20: app.value('endpoint', 'http://localhost:60448'); 21: app.value('hub', 'GreetingHub'); 22:  23: app.controller('View1Ctrl', function ($scope, $, endpoint, hub) { 24: $scope.user = ''; 25: $scope.response = ''; 26:  27: $scope.greeting = function () { 28: proxy.invoke('Hello', $scope.user) 29: .done(function () {}) 30: .fail(function (error) { 31: console.log(error); 32: }); 33: }; 34:  35: var connection = $.hubConnection(endpoint); 36: var proxy = connection.createHubProxy(hub); 37: proxy.on('hello', function (response) { 38: $scope.$apply(function () { 39: $scope.response = response; 40: }); 41: }); 42: connection.start() 43: .done(function () { 44: console.log('signlar connection established'); 45: }) 46: .fail(function (error) { 47: console.log(error); 48: }); 49: }); 50:  51: app.controller('View2Ctrl', function ($scope, $) { 52: }); When we went to View1 the server side "OnConnect" method will be invoked as below. And in any page we send the message to server, all clients will got the response. If we close one of the client, the server side "OnDisconnect" method will be invoked which is correct. But is we click "View 2" link in the page "OnDisconnect" method will not be invoked even though the content and browser address had been changed. This might cause many SignalR connections remain between the client and server. Below is what happened after I clicked "View 1" and "View 2" links four times. As you can see there are 4 live connections.   Solution Since the reason of this issue is because, AngularJS hijacks the page event that SignalR need to stop the connection, we can handle AngularJS route or state change event and stop SignalR connect manually. In the code below I moved the "connection" variant to global scope, added a handler to "$stateChangeStart" and invoked "stop" method of "connection" if its state was not "disconnected". 1: var connection; 2: app.run(['$rootScope', function ($rootScope) { 3: $rootScope.$on('$stateChangeStart', function () { 4: if (connection && connection.state && connection.state !== 4 /* disconnected */) { 5: console.log('signlar connection abort'); 6: connection.stop(); 7: } 8: }); 9: }]); Now if we refresh the page and navigated to View 1, the connection will be opened. At this state if we clicked "View 2" link the content will be changed and the SignalR connection will be closed automatically.   Summary In this post I demonstrated an issue when we are using SignalR with AngularJS. The connection cannot be closed automatically when we navigate to other page/state in AngularJS. And the solution I mentioned below is to move the SignalR connection as a global variant and close it manually when AngularJS route/state changed. You can download the full sample code here. Moving the SignalR connection as a global variant might not be a best solution. It's just for easy to demo here. In production code I suggest wrapping all SignalR operations into an AngularJS factory. Since AngularJS factory is a singleton object, we can safely put the connection variant in the factory function scope.   Hope this helps, Shaun All documents and related graphics, codes are provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. Copyright © Shaun Ziyan Xu. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License.

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• Gone With the Wind?

  - by antony.reynolds

  Where Have All the Composites Gone? I was just asked to help out with an interesting problem at a customer.  All their composites had disappeared from the EM console, none of them showed as loading in the log files and there was an ominous error message in the logs. Symptoms After a server restart the customer noticed that none of his composites were available, they didn’t show in the EM console and in the log files they saw this error message: SEVERE: WLSFabricKernelInitializer.getCompositeList Error during parsing and processing of deployed-composites.xml file This indicates some sort of problem when parsing the deployed-composites.xml file.  This is very bad because the deployed-composites.xml file is basically the table of contents that tells SOA Infrastructure what composites to load and where to find them in MDS.  If you can’t read this file you can’t load any composites and your SOA Server now has all the utility of a chocolate teapot. Verification We can look at the deployed-composites.xml file from MDS either by connecting JDeveloper to MDS, exporting the file using WLST or exporting the whole soa-infra MDS partition by using EM->SOA->soa-infra->Administration->MDS Configuration.  Exporting via EM is probably the easiest because it then prepares you to fix the problem later.  After exporting the partition to local storage on the SOA Server I then ran an XSLT transform across the file deployed-composites/deployed-composites.xml. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <xsl:stylesheet version="2.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">     <xsl:output indent="yes"/>     <xsl:template match="/">         <testResult>             <composite-series>                 <xsl:attribute name="elementCount"><xsl:value-of select="count(deployed-composites/composite-series)"/></xsl:attribute>                 <xsl:attribute name="nameAttributeCount"><xsl:value-of select="count(deployed-composites/composite-series[@name])"/></xsl:attribute>                 <xsl:attribute name="defaultAttributeCount"><xsl:value-of select="count(deployed-composites/composite-series[@default])"/></xsl:attribute>                 <composite-revision>                     <xsl:attribute name="elementCount"><xsl:value-of select="count(deployed-composites/composite-series/composite-revision)"/></xsl:attribute>                     <xsl:attribute name="dnAttributeCount"><xsl:value-of select="count(deployed-composites/composite-series/composite-revision[@dn])"/></xsl:attribute>                     <xsl:attribute name="stateAttributeCount"><xsl:value-of select="count(deployed-composites/composite-series/composite-revision[@state])"/></xsl:attribute>                     <xsl:attribute name="modeAttributeCount"><xsl:value-of select="count(deployed-composites/composite-series/composite-revision[@mode])"/></xsl:attribute>                     <xsl:attribute name="locationAttributeCount"><xsl:value-of select="count(deployed-composites/composite-series/composite-revision[@location])"/></xsl:attribute>                     <composite>                         <xsl:attribute name="elementCount"><xsl:value-of select="count(deployed-composites/composite-series/composite-revision/composite)"/></xsl:attribute>                         <xsl:attribute name="dnAttributeCount"><xsl:value-of select="count(deployed-composites/composite-series/composite-revision/composite[@dn])"/></xsl:attribute>                         <xsl:attribute name="deployedTimeAttributeCount"><xsl:value-of select="count(deployed-composites/composite-series/composite-revision/composite[@deployedTime])"/></xsl:attribute>                     </composite>                 </composite-revision>                 <xsl:apply-templates select="deployed-composites/composite-series"/>             </composite-series>         </testResult>     </xsl:template>     <xsl:template match="composite-series">             <xsl:if test="not(@name) or not(@default) or composite-revision[not(@dn) or not(@state) or not(@mode) or not(@location)]">                 <ErrorNode>                     <xsl:attribute name="elementPos"><xsl:value-of select="position()"/></xsl:attribute>                     <xsl:copy-of select="."/>                 </ErrorNode>             </xsl:if>     </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet> The output from this is not pretty but it shows any <composite-series> tags that are missing expected attributes (name and default).  It also shows how many composites are in the file (111) and how many revisions of those composites (115). <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <testResult xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">    <composite-series elementCount="111" nameAttributeCount="110" defaultAttributeCount="110">       <composite-revision elementCount="115" dnAttributeCount="114" stateAttributeCount="115"                           modeAttributeCount="115"                           locationAttributeCount="114">          <composite elementCount="115" dnAttributeCount="114" deployedTimeAttributeCount="115"/>       </composite-revision>       <ErrorNode elementPos="82">          <composite-series xmlns="">             <composite-revision state="on" mode="active">                <composite deployedTime="2010-12-15T11:50:16.067+01:00"/>             </composite-revision>          </composite-series>       </ErrorNode>    </composite-series> </testResult> From this I could see that one of the <composite-series> elements (number 82 of 111) seemed to be corrupt. Having found the problem I now needed to fix it. Fixing the Problem The solution was really quite easy.  First for safeties sake I took a backup of the exported MDS partition.  I then edited the deployed-composites/deployed-composites.xml file to remove the offending <composite-series> tag. Finally I restarted the SOA domain and was rewarded by seeing that the deployed composites were now visible. Summary One possible cause of not being able to see deployed composites after a SOA 11g system restart is a corrupt deployed-composites.xml file.  Retrieving this file from MDS, repairing it, and replacing it back into MDS can solve the problem.  This still leaves the problem of how did this file become corrupt!

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• Internationalize WebCenter Portal - Content Presenter

  - by Stefan Krantz

  Lately we have been involved in engagements where internationalization has been holding the project back from success. In this post we are going to explain how to get Content Presenter and its editorials to comply with the current selected locale for the WebCenter Portal session. As you probably know by now WebCenter Portal leverages the Localization support from Java Server Faces (JSF), in this post we will assume that the localization is controlled and enforced by switching the current browsers locale between English and Spanish. There is two main scenarios in internationalization of a content enabled pages, since Content Presenter offers both presentation of information as well as contribution of information, in this post we will look at how to enable seamless integration of correct localized version of the back end content file and how to enable the editor/author to edit the correct localized version of the file based on the current browser locale. Solution Scenario 1 - Localization aware content presentation Due to the amount of steps required to implement the enclosed solution proposal I have decided to share the solution with you in group components for each facet of the solution. If you want to get more details on each step, you can review the enclosed components. This post will guide you through the steps of enabling each component and what it enables/changes in each section of the system. Enable Content Presenter Customization By leveraging a predictable naming convention of the data files used to hold the content for the Content Presenter instance we can easily develop a component that will dynamically switch the name out before presenting the information. The naming convention we have leverage is the industry best practice by having a shared identifier as prefix (ContentABC) and a language enabled suffix (_EN) (_ES). So the assumption is that each file pair in above example should look like following:- English version - (ContentABC_EN)- Spanish version - (ContentABC_ES) Based on above theory we can now easily regardless of the primary version assigned to the content presenter instance switch the language out by using the localization support from JSF. Below java bean (oracle.webcenter.doclib.internal.view.presenter.NLSHelperBean) is enclosed in the customization project available for download at the bottom of the post: 1: public static final String CP_D_DOCNAME_FORMAT = "%s_%s"; 2: public static final int CP_UNIQUE_ID_INDEX = 0; 3: private ContentPresenter presenter = null; 4:   5:   6: public NLSHelperBean() { 7: super(); 8: } 9:   10: /** 11: * This method updates the configuration for the pageFlowScope to have the correct datafile 12: * for the current Locale 13: */ 14: public void initLocaleForDataFile() { 15: String dataFile = null; 16: // Checking that state of presenter is present, also make sure the item is eligible for localization by locating the "_" in the name 17: if(presenter.getConfiguration().getDatasource() != null && 18: presenter.getConfiguration().getDatasource().isNodeDatasource() && 19: presenter.getConfiguration().getDatasource().getNodeIdDatasource() != null && 20: !presenter.getConfiguration().getDatasource().getNodeIdDatasource().equals("") && 21: presenter.getConfiguration().getDatasource().getNodeIdDatasource().indexOf("_") > 0) { 22: dataFile = presenter.getConfiguration().getDatasource().getNodeIdDatasource(); 23: FacesContext fc = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance(); 24: //Leveraging the current faces contenxt to get current localization language 25: String currentLocale = fc.getViewRoot().getLocale().getLanguage().toUpperCase(); 26: String newDataFile = dataFile; 27: String [] uniqueIdArr = dataFile.split("_"); 28: if(uniqueIdArr.length > 0) { 29: newDataFile = String.format(CP_D_DOCNAME_FORMAT, uniqueIdArr[CP_UNIQUE_ID_INDEX], currentLocale); 30: } 31: //Replacing the current Node datasource with localized datafile. 32: presenter.getConfiguration().getDatasource().setNodeIdDatasource(newDataFile); 33: } 34: } With this bean code available to our WebCenter Portal implementation we can start the next step, by overriding the standard behavior in content presenter by applying a MDS Taskflow customization to the content presenter taskflow, following taskflow customization has been applied to the customization project attached to this post:- Library: WebCenter Document Library Service View- Path: oracle.webcenter.doclib.view.jsf.taskflows.presenter- File: contentPresenter.xml Changes made in above customization view:1. A new method invocation activity has been added (initLocaleForDataFile)2. The method invocation invokes the new NLSHelperBean3. The default activity is moved to the new Method invocation (initLocaleForDataFile)4. The outcome from the method invocation goes to determine-navigation (original default activity) The above changes concludes the presentation modification to support a compatible localization scenario for a content driven page. In addition this customization do not limit or disables the out of the box capabilities of WebCenter Portal. Steps to enable above customization Start JDeveloper and open your WebCenter Portal Application Select "Open Project" and include the extracted project you downloaded (CPNLSCustomizations.zip) Make sure the build out put from CPNLSCustomizations project is a dependency to your Portal project Deploy your Portal Application to your WC_CustomPortal managed server Make sure your naming convention of the two data files follow above recommendation Example result of the solution: Solution Scenario 2 - Localization aware content creation and authoring As you could see from Solution Scenario 1 we require the naming convention to be strictly followed, this means in the hands of a user with limited technology knowledge this can be one of the failing links in this solutions. Therefore I strongly recommend that you also follow this part since this will eliminate this risk and also increase the editors/authors usability with a magnitude. The current WebCenter Portal Architecture leverages WebCenter Content today to maintain, publish and manage content, therefore we need to make few efforts in making sure this part of the architecture is on board with our new naming practice and also simplifies the creation of content for our end users. As you probably remember the naming convention required a prefix to be common so I propose we enable a new component that help you auto name the content items dDocName (this means that the readable title can still be in a human readable format). The new component (WCP-LocalizationSupport.zip) built for this scenario will enable a couple of things: 1. A new service where a sequential number can be generate on request - service name: GET_WCP_LOCALE_CONTENTID 2. The content presenter is leveraging a specific function when launching the content creation wizard from within Content Presenter. Assumption is that users will create the content by clicking "Create Web Content" button. When clicking the button the wizard opened is actually running in side of WebCenter Content server, file executed (contentwizard.hcsp). This file uses JSON commands that will generate operations in the content server, I have extend this file to create two identical data files instead of one.- First it creates the English version by leveraging the new Service and a Global Rule to set the dDocName on the original check in screen, this global rule is available in a configuration package attached to this blog (NLSContentProfileRule.zip)- Secondly we run a set of JSON javascripts to create the Spanish version with the same details except for the name where we replace the suffix with (_ES)- Then content creation wizard ends with its out of the box behavior and assigns the Content Presenter instance the English versionSee Javascript markup below - this can be changed in the (WCP-LocalizationSupport.zip/component/WCP-LocalizationSupport/publish/webcenter) 1: //---------------------------------------A-TEAM--------------------------------------- 2: WCM.ContentWizard.CheckinContentPage.OnCheckinComplete = function(returnParams) 3: { 4: var callback = WCM.ContentWizard.CheckinContentPage.checkinCompleteCallback; 5: WCM.ContentWizard.ChooseContentPage.OnSelectionComplete(returnParams, callback); 6: // Load latest DOC_INFO_SIMPLE 7: var cgiPath = DOCLIB.config.httpCgiPath; 8: var jsonBinder = new WCM.Idc.JSONBinder(); 9: jsonBinder.SetLocalDataValue('IdcService', 'DOC_INFO_SIMPLE'); 10: jsonBinder.SetLocalDataValue('dID', returnParams.dID); 11: jsonBinder.Send(cgiPath, $CB(this, function(http) { 12: var ret = http.GetResponseText(); 13: var binder = new WCM.Idc.JSONBinder(ret); 14: var dDocName = binder.GetResultSetValue('DOC_INFO', 'dDocName', 0); 15: if(dDocName.indexOf("_") > 0){ 16: var ssBinder = new WCM.Idc.JSONBinder(); 17: ssBinder.SetLocalDataValue('IdcService', 'SS_CHECKIN_NEW'); 18: //Additional Localization dDocName generated 19: ssBinder.SetLocalDataValue('dDocName', getLocalizedDocName(dDocName, "es")); 20: ssBinder.SetLocalDataValue('primaryFile', 'default.xml'); 21: ssBinder.SetLocalDataValue('ssDefaultDocumentToken', 'SSContributorDataFile'); 22:   23: for(var n = 0 ; n < binder.GetResultSetFields('DOC_INFO').length ; n++) { 24: var field = binder.GetResultSetFields('DOC_INFO')[n]; 25: if(field != 'dID' && 26: field != 'dDocName' && 27: field != 'dID' && 28: field != 'dReleaseState' && 29: field != 'dRevClassID' && 30: field != 'dRevisionID' && 31: field != 'dRevLabel') { 32: ssBinder.SetLocalDataValue(field, binder.GetResultSetValue('DOC_INFO', field, 0)); 33: } 34: } 35: ssBinder.Send(cgiPath, $CB(this, function(http) {})); 36: } 37: })); 38: } 39:   40: //Support function to create localized dDocNames 41: function getLocalizedDocName(dDocName, lang) { 42: var result = dDocName.replace("_EN", ("_" + lang)); 43: return result; 44: } 45: //---------------------------------------A-TEAM--------------------------------------- 3. By applying the enclosed NLSContentProfileRule.zip, the check in screen for DataFile creation will have auto naming enabled with localization suffix (default is English)You can change the default language by updating the GlobalNlsRule and assign preferred prefix.See Rule markup for dDocName field below: <$executeService("GET_WCP_LOCALE_CONTENTID")$><$dprDefaultValue=WCP_LOCALE.LocaleContentId & "_EN"$> Steps to enable above extensions and configurations Install WebCenter Component (WCP-LocalizationSupport.zip), via the AdminServer in WebCenter Content Administration menus Enable the component and restart the content server Apply the configuration bundle to enable the new Global Rule (GlobalNlsRule), via the WebCenter Content Administration/Config Migration Admin New Content Creation Experience Result Content EditingContent editing will by default be enabled for authoring in the current select locale since the content file is selected by (Solution Scenario 1), this means that a user can switch his browser locale and then get the editing experience adaptable to the current selected locale. NotesA-Team are planning to post a solution on how to inline switch the locale of the WebCenter Portal Session, so the Content Presenter, Navigation Model and other Face related features are localized accordingly. Content Presenter examples used in this post is an extension to following post:https://blogs.oracle.com/ATEAM_WEBCENTER/entry/enable_content_editing_of_iterative Downloads CPNLSCustomizations.zip - WebCenter Portal, Content Presenter Customization https://blogs.oracle.com/ATEAM_WEBCENTER/resource/stefan.krantz/CPNLSCustomizations.zip WCP-LocalizationSupport.zip - WebCenter Content, Extension Component to enable localization creation of files with compliant auto naminghttps://blogs.oracle.com/ATEAM_WEBCENTER/resource/stefan.krantz/WCP-LocalizationSupport.zip NLSContentProfileRule.zip - WebCenter Content, Configuration Update Bundle to enable Global rule for new check in naming of data fileshttps://blogs.oracle.com/ATEAM_WEBCENTER/resource/stefan.krantz/NLSContentProfileRule.zip

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• Fitting it together, database, reporting, applications in C#

  - by alvonellos

  Introduction Preamble I was hesitant to post this, since it's an application whose intricate details are defined elsewhere, and answers may not be helpful to others. Within the past few weeks (I was actually going to write a blog post about this after I finished) I've discovered that the barrier I'm encountering is one that's actually quite common for newer developers. This question is not so much about a specific thing as it is about piecing those things together. I've searched the internet far and wide, and found many tutorials on how to create applications that are kind of similar to what I'm looking for. I've also looked at hiring another, more experienced, developer to help me along, but all I've gotten are unqualified candidates that don't have the experience necessary and won't take care of the client or project like I will. I'd rather have the project never transpire than to release a solution that is half-baked. I've asked professors at my school, but they've not turned up answers to my question. I'm an experienced developer, and I've written many applications that are -- very abstractly -- close to what I'm doing, but my experiences from those applications aren't giving me enough leverage to solve this particular problem. I just hope that posting this article isn't a mistake for me to write. Project Description I have a project I'm working on for a client that is a rewrite of an application, originally written in Foxpro 2.6 by someone before me, that performs some analysis (which, sadly, I'm not allowed to disclose as per of my employment contract) on financial data. One day, after a long talk between the client and I -- where he intimately described his frustrations with all the bugs I've been hacking out of this code for 6 months now -- he told me to just rewrite it and gave me a month to write a good 1/8 of this 65k LOC Foxpro monstrosity. this 65k line of code foxpro monstrosity. It'll take me a good 3 - 6 months to rewrite this software (I know things the original programmer did not, like inheritance) going as I am right now, but I'm quickly discovering that I'm going to need to use databases. Prior to this contract I didn't even know about foxpro, and so I've had to learn foxpro on the fly, write procedures and make modifications to the database. I've actually come to like it, and this project would be rewritten in Foxpro if it were still a supported language, because over the past few months, I've come to like the features of Foxpro that make it so easy to develop data-driven applications. I once perfomed an experiment, comparing C# to Foxpro. What took me 45 minutes in C# took me two in Foxpro, and I knew C# prior to Foxpro. I was hoping to leverage the power of C#, but it intimidates me that in foxpro, you can have one line of code and be using a database. Prior to this, I have never written any serious database development from scratch. All the applications that I've written are in a different league. They are either completely data-naive or data-naive enough that I can get away with not using a database through serialization or by designing algorithms that work with the data in a manner that is stateless, so there is no need to worry about databases. I've come to realize, very quickly, that serialization and my efficacy with data structures has been my crutch all these years that's prevented me from adventuring into databases, and has consequently hindered my success in real-world programming. Sure, I've written some database stuff in Perl and Python, and I've done forms and worked with relational databases and tables, I'm a wizard in Access and Excel (seriously) and can do just about anything, but it just feels unnatural writing SQL code in another language... I don't mind writing SQL, and I don't It's that bridge between the database and the program code that drives me absolutely bonkers. I hope I'm not the only one to think this, but it bothers me that I have to create statements like the following string sSql = "SELECT * from tablename" When there's really no reason for that kind of unchecked language binding between two languages and two API's. Don't get my wrong, SQL is great, but I don't like the idea that, when executing commands on a SQL database, that one must intermix database and application software, and there's no database independence, which means that different versions of different databases can break code. This isn't very nice. The nicest thing about Foxpro is the cohesiveness between programming language and database. It's so easy, and Foxpro makes it easy, because the tool just fits the task. I can see why so many developers have created a career with this language, because it lowered the barrier of entry to data-driven applications that so many businesses need. It was wonderful. For my purposes today, with the demands and need for community support, extensibility, and language features, Foxpro isn't a solution that I feel would be the right tool for the job. I'm also worried about working too heavy with the database, because I've seen data-driven .NET applications have issues with database caches, running out of memory, and objects in the database not being collected. (Memory leaks) And OH the queries. Which one, how, and why? There are a plethora of different ways that a database can be setup, I think I counted 5 or 6 different kinds of database applications alone that I can chose from. That is a great mountain for me to climb when I don't even know where to begin when it comes to writing data-driven applications. The problem isn't that I don't know SQL or that I don't know C#. I know both and have worked with both extensively. It's making them work together that's the problem, and it's something I've never done in C# before. Reports The client likes paper. The data needs to be printed out in a format that is extensible, layered, and easy to use. I have never done reporting before, and so this is a bit of a problem. From the data source comes crystal reports, and so there's a dependency on the database, from what I understand. Code reuse A large part of the design decision that I've gone through so far is to break the task of writing a piece of this software into routines and modular DLL's and so forth such that much of the code can be reused. For example, when I setup this database, I want to be able to reuse the same database code over and over again. I also want to make sure that when the day comes that another developer is here, that he/she will be able to pick up just where I left off. The quicker I develop these applications, the better off I am. Tasks & Goals In my project, I need to write routines that apply algorithms and look for predefined patterns in financial data. Additionally, I need to simulate trading based on predefined algorithms and data. Then I need to prepare reports on that data. Additionally, I need to have a way to change the code base for this application quickly and effectively, without hacking together some band-aid solution for a problem that really needs a trauma ward. Special Considerations The solution must be fast, run quickly on existing hardware, and not be too much of a pain to maintain and write. I understand that anything I write I'm married to -- I'm responsible for the things that I write because my reputation and livelihood is dependent on it. Do I really need a database? What about performance? Performance was such a big issue that I hand wrote a data structure that is capable of performing 2 billion operations, using a total of 4 gigs of memory in under 1/4 of a second using the standard core two duo processor. I could not find a similar, pre-written data structure in C# to perform this task. What setup do I use in terms of database? What about reporting? I'd prefer to have PDF's generated, but I'd like to be able to visually sketch those reports and then just have a ReportFactory of some sort, that when I pass some variables in, it just does that data. About Me I'm a lone developer for a small business in this area. This is the first time I've done this and I've never had the breadth and depth of my knowledge tested. I'm incredibly frustrated with this project because I feel incredibly overwhelmed with the task at hand. I'm looking for that entry level point where I can draw a line and say "this is what I need to do" Conclusion I may have not been clear enough on my post. I'm still new to this whole thing, and I've been doing my best to contribute back to the community that I've leached so much knowledge from. I'd be glad to edit my post and add more information if possible. I'm looking for a big-picture solution or design process that helps me get off the ground in this world of data-driven applications, because I have a feeling that it's going to be concentric to my entire career as a programmer for some time. Specifically, if you didn't get it from the rest of the post (I may not have been clear enough) I really need some guidance as to where to go in terms of the design decisions for this project. Some things that'll be useful will be a pro/con list for the different kinds of database projects available in VS2010. I've tried, but generating that list has been as hard as solving the problem itself... If you could walk a developer writing a data-driven application for the first time in C#, how would you do that? Where would you point them to?

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• Top tweets SOA Partner Community – October 2013

  - by JuergenKress

  Send your tweets @soacommunity #soacommunity and follow us at http://twitter.com/soacommunity Ronald Luttikhuizen ?My latest upload: SOA Made Simple | Introduction to SOA on @slideshare http://www.slideshare.net/rluttikhuizen/soa-made-simple-introduction-to-soa … via @SlideShare OTNArchBeat ?ArchBeat Link-o-Rama for October 4, 2013 #cloud #linux #oaam #soa http://pub.vitrue.com/y4SK Lucas Jellema ?My blog article shows news on the new SOA Suite 12c release - as it was publicly available during #oow13 see: http://technology.amis.nl/2013/09/27/oow13-soa-suite-12c/ … Yogesh Sontakke ?Introducing OER's new Express Workflows - Simplified Lifecycle Management. Blog post: http://bit.ly/16JKHCf @soacommunity #soagovernance SrinivasPadmanabhuni ?"@OTNArchBeat: SOA and User Interfaces - by @soacommunity @HajoNormann @gschmutz @t_winterberg et al #industrialsoa http://pub.vitrue.com/KmOp " SOA Community ?SOA and User-Interfaces http://servicetechmag.com/I76/0913-2 article published part of #industrialSOA at Service Technology Magazine #soacommunity Estafet Limited ?@Estafet win @UKOUG Middleware Partner of the Year 2013 Yogesh Sontakke ?RT @VikasAatOracle: #Oracle #B2B - written by experts #soa #soacommunity #oraclesoa - time to get a copy ! @SOAScott Danilo Schmiedel ?Thanks a lot to Juergen @soacommunity for the super interesting and well-organized Partner Advisory Council yesterday! Such a Great Value! OTNArchBeat ?Case management supporting re-landscaping application portfolios | @leonsmiers http://pub.vitrue.com/MC5j Samantha Searle ?Apply for the #GartnerBPM 2014 Excellence Awards - find out how via this link http://ow.ly/ptaNQ #Gartner #bpm #process #entarch #cio OTNArchBeat ?SOA and User Interfaces - by @soacommunity @hajonormann @gschmutz @t_winterberg et al #industrialsoa http://pub.vitrue.com/KmOp Dain Hansen ?Hybrid #cloud is on the rise, but is the IT department's culture standing in the way? http://add.vc/eJN #CloudIntegration #OracleSOA OTNArchBeat #SOASuite 11g ps6 - Download your log files directly from the Enterprise Manager | @whitehorsenl http://pub.vitrue.com/KrJ2 Whitehorses ?Whiteblog: SOA Suite 11g ps6 - Download your log files directly from the Enterprise Manager (http://goo.gl/2Gqiax ) Rajesh Raheja ?Cloud integration session recap #oow13 http://blog.raastech.com/2013/09/recap-of-real-world-cloud-integration.html?m=1 … Vikas Anand ?@Ahmed_Aboulnaga thanks for the excellent summary and kind words. #oow13 #cloud #oraclesoa http://blog.raastech.com/2013/09/recap-of-real-world-cloud-integration.html?m=1 … Luis Augusto Weir ?REST is also SOA. Check it out http://www.soa4u.co.uk/2013/09/restful-is-also-soa.html?m=1 … #soacommunity Graham ?“@OracleBPM & @soacommunity: 5 Ways to Modernize Applications with BPM #AppAdvantage" #oracleday http://bit.ly/15yC6e3 SOA Community ?#ACED director asked me for BPM references in FSI - ever visited my #SOACommunity workspace? https://beehiveonline.oracle.com/teamcollab/overview/SOA_Community_Workspace … #soacommunity #bpm OracleBlogs ?SOA Community Newsletter September 2013 http://ow.ly/2Aj6oK OTNArchBeat ?OOW13: First glimpses of the new #SOASuite12c | @LucasJellema http://pub.vitrue.com/2YgX sbernhardt ?Just published new blog entry on OOW 2013 wrap up. http://thecattlecrew.wordpress.com/2013/09/30/oracle-open-world-2013-wrap-up/ … #oow13 @OC_WIRE @soacommunity Emiel Paasschens ?Home with family after an overwhelming #OOW week in San Francisco with lot of info & meetings. Special thanx to @OracleBelux & @soacommunity Robert van Mölken ?Had a awesome week at #OOW13 in SF. Highlights were the @soacommunity Wine tour, @OracleBelux meet-ups and @OracleSOA CAB. Thanks to all :) SOA Community ?The place Oracle Fusion middleware comes from - Oracle 200 - TKs office - next Oracle 100 - SOA & BPM #soacommunity pic.twitter.com/qibFOQVbRo Oracle BPM ?5 Ways to Modernize Applications with BPM #AppAdvantage http://pub.vitrue.com/l2dn Simon Haslam ?Ha ha - how did we miss that! RT @lucasjellema: Post conference announcement of a new middleware appliance? #oow13 pic.twitter.com/3NvcjPfjXb OTNArchBeat ?The OTNArchBeat Daily is out! http://paper.li/OTNArchBeat/1329828521 … ? Top stories today via @lucasjellema @myfear @TylerJewell Packt Publishing ?Get 50% off ALL our DRM-free eBooks - this weekend only! Go to http://www.packtpub.com/ and use code BIG50, as often as you like! #BIG50 OracleBlogs ?Global Perspective: ACE Director from EMEA Weighs in on AppAdvantage http://ow.ly/2Afek2 orclateamsoa ?#orclateamsoa Blog: BPM Auditing Demystified - I've heard from a couple of customers recently asking about BPM aud... http://ow.ly/2AfbAn AMIS, Oracle & Java ?Cool #soasuite 12c feature managed file transfer - visit Dave Barry at demo point sr212 #oow #soacommunity pic.twitter.com/gb4HLbUarR SOA Community ?Let us know what was best at #OOW @soacommunity save trip home - thanks for coming to #SF ;-) see you at #OOW2014 pic.twitter.com/xbWXjRapqh Lonneke Dikmans ?Nice @dschmied is talking about the different steps in his project. He starts with explaining the user interface design #oow13 #ux #acm Lonneke Dikmans ?Saving the best for the end: managing knowledge worker processes by @dschmied and Prasen.#oow13 #acm cool stuff: adaptive case management Luis Augusto Weir ?SOA Governance is more than just OER. Requires people, processes and tools. Check it out #SOA #soacommunity http://youtu.be/Ohn06smVKVw Lonneke Dikmans ?“@OracleSOA: #oow Join us for:Enterprise SOA Infrastructure Best Practices Thu 9/26 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM Moscone West - 2020 SOA Community ?Business Process Management (BPM) 11g PS6 Awareness Course http://wp.me/p10C8u-1as Ajay Khanna ?Detect, Analyze, Act - Fast! http://wp.me/p10C8u-1ao via @soacommunity #OracleBPM Simone Geib ?It took a while, but I finally reached 500 followers. Thanks everybody and especially @soacommunity :) SOA Community ?Functional Testing Business Processes In Oracle BPM Suite 11g by Arun Pareek http://wp.me/p10C8u-1aq SOA Community Distribute the September edition of the SOA Community newsletter READ it! Didn't receive it register http://www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa #soacommunity SOA Community ?Detect, Analyze, Act - Fast! by Ajay Khanna http://wp.me/p10C8u-1ao Robert van Mölken ?Finalised my #OOW presentation #CON8736 and live demo on wednesday 25th at 11:45am. Also giving a short version at the SOA CAB on thursday. Rajesh Raheja ?"The AppAdvantage of Oracle Cloud & On-premises Integration" http://bit.ly/14RYHmZ SOA Community ?Additional new content SOA & BPM Partner Community http://wp.me/p10C8u-1aw Dain Hansen ?Right now #oow13 SOA, BPM - Customer Advisory Boards. 'No tweeting' says @SOASimone. Instagram of funny cats still ok. leonsmiers ?Case Management with Oracle BPM Suite our presentation on #oow13 http://www.slideshare.net/leonsmiers/oracle-open-world-2013-case-management-smiers-kitson … #capgemini @nkitson72 Mark Simpson ?Flextronics reduced cost of processing an invoice to <$1 from $7 due to BPM @OracleBPM #oow13 saving millions. Way less than industry avg. Holger Mueller ?#Siemens Shared Services CIO says that #Fusion #Middleware made the difference for #Oracle over #Workday. #Integration matters. #OOW13 oracleopenworld ?Miss any #oow13 keynotes, or simply want to rewatch? Check out the live streaming site for keynotes on demand: http://pub.vitrue.com/RG4D SOA Community ?Analyze your m2m data and act on it! Big data Pattern matching, fast data & soa #soacommunity #oow pic.twitter.com/48Q1z4ckh7 SOA Community ?Top tweets SOA Partner Community – September 2013 http://wp.me/p10C8u-1cR Simone Geib ?#oraclesoa hands on lab at #oow13 pic.twitter.com/IJJrqXIMiu Danilo Schmiedel #oow13 CON8436: Managing Knowledge Worker Processes. Come & get a free Adaptive Case Management poster @soacommunity pic.twitter.com/FRc2CSyLwb John Sim ?Great job again Jurgen @soacommunity helping bring Ace Community together! Danilo Schmiedel ?Excellent #OracleBPM Adaptive Case Management intro by @heidibuelowBPM and Prasen at the #oow13 demo ground.Last chance today @soacommunity SOA Community ?Thanks to all our #bpm #soa and #weblogic partners for the great middleware business #oow #soacommunity pic.twitter.com/dBwZ8DMHfH Whitehorses ?Thanks @soacommunity for the party tonight. Great to meet product management & see all the talented EMEA middleware specialists. #oow13 Danilo Schmiedel ?Great tool demo from Link Consulting about managing your SOA with OER #oow13 @soacommunity Torsten Winterberg ?“@soacommunity: thanks to @dschmied and @OC_WIRE for making it happen to have our case management poster as printed version hier at #oow13 Ronald Luttikhuizen ?These were the architects involved in the diagram excitement :) just after State of SOA podcast with @OTNArchBeat pic.twitter.com/5B8jIrVTA9 SOA Community ?Tanks to AVIO for the excellent #bpmn poster and the great bpm business - visit then at #OOW & get the poster pic.twitter.com/ebTg9pFY1C Dain Hansen ?Kurian introducing Oracle Platform-as-a-Service developments. #oow13 #OracleCloud pic.twitter.com/evJLTU53rx Bruce Tierney ?API Management "multi-level pie chart" at #oow13 by Oracle's Tim Hall pic.twitter.com/q12OIRdaue Dain Hansen ?This is not your Daddy's BAM @soacommunity: Is this BAM? Very cool in #soasuite 12c get a demo at sr225 pic.twitter.com/EvwqXW9U5j SOA Community ?Is this BAM? Very cool in #soasuite 12c get a demo at sr225 pic.twitter.com/LybHxyF362 SOA Community ?SOA governance by @Yogesh_Sontakke at demo point sr214 many good new features - key for soa projects #oow #soa pic.twitter.com/DFK0ummsK1 SOA Community ?Cool #soasuite 12c feature managed file transfer - visit Dave Barry at demo point sr212 #oow #soacommunity pic.twitter.com/GDKcqDGhCF SOA Community ?Adaptive Case Management demo point at #OOW visit @heidibuelowBPM get a demo and cmmn notation poster #soacommunity pic.twitter.com/T7yEyI7tdn Lonneke Dikmans ?In case you missed it: http://blog.vennster.nl/2013/09/case-management-part-1.html?spref=tw … Lucas Jellema ?SOA Suite news: Cloud Adapters RightNow and SalesForce plus SDK to develop custom cloud adapters (CY13); REST/JSON support in SB/SCA (12c) Oracle SOA ?Cloud Integration and AppAdvantage: Transform your Enterprise #soa #oow13 http://pub.vitrue.com/UfPB Dain Hansen ?Cloud Integration and AppAdvantage: Transform your Enterprise #soa #oow13 http://pub.vitrue.com/4QWA Hajo Normann ?#BigData, eventing & real time #analytics suggest timely next actions in #oracleBPM & #oracleACM; #oow13 #FastData pic.twitter.com/aFVGrTXPqu Mark Simpson ?OEP CQL engine now used in BAM12c for event stream summary computation with temporal and pattern match features to feed dashboards. #oow13 Mark Simpson ?BAM12c virtually a new product. Analytics that senses ahead of time and also compares to historical trends to guide process or case #oow13 Andrejus Baranovskis ?Enabling UI Shell 12c/11g Multitasking Behavior http://fb.me/18l9vxQfA Amit Zavery ?Oracle Fusion Middleware Empowers Business Users, EVP Thomas Kurian's session summary http://onforb.es/18Ta1jf #oow13 #oraclemiddle #oracle Vikas Anand ?#oow13 #oracleopenworld BPM on display at Middleware keynote by Thomas Kurian pic.twitter.com/PMm719S0Ui SOA Community ?BPM composer - business user empowerment #oow #soacommunity #bpmsuite pic.twitter.com/0Qgl6oVh0h SOA Community ?Model your process in BPMN - make is executable and analyze & improve them #oow #soacommunity pic.twitter.com/jkLlObDdoi Bruce Tierney ?@demed and Thomas Kurian talk mobile and cloud at #oow13 pic.twitter.com/bAAeqn5a2V Amit Zavery ?Thomas Kurian showcasing all the new features of Oracle Fusion Middleware #oraclemiddle #oow13 SOA Community ?Demo time cloud adapters in #soasuite at Thomas Kurian keynote. Build and integrate mobile apps in minutes #oow pic.twitter.com/qTnCOJLLwS SOA Community ?Soa suite cloud adapters and mobile apps by @demed at Thomas Kurian keynote #oow #oracle #soacommunity pic.twitter.com/5aMLkNH4Ng Danilo Schmiedel ?First impressions from Oracle Open World 2013 http://wp.me/p2fG8x-77 @soacommunity @OC_WIRE SOA Community ?Good morning SFO let us know if you attend #OOW & #OPN keynote - #soacommunity pic.twitter.com/hzLYGDlRgE Simon Haslam ?Had a very useful @wlscommunity PAC meeting yesterday... & probably the best swag to date! pic.twitter.com/Lqus8ysbp7 Vikas Anand ?Oracle SOA Suite - Team Blog http://bit.ly/18I1Zj7 Rajesh Raheja ?Introducing new Cloud Connectivity Adapters #soa #demopod #oow13. I'll be there Sep 23 & 24 3-6pm to meetup http://bit.ly/18I1Zj7 leonsmiers ?..and again a very successful Oracle SOA/BPM partner council on the eve of #oow13. Thanks Jurgen! @soacommunity pic.twitter.com/aM1LMlb7Yw Vikas Anand ?#oow13 #soa #oep #exalogic Canon Delivers Fast Data with Oracle Event Processing (Oracle SOA Suite) http://bit.ly/1dwPeHb #soacommunity Rolf Scheuch ?The ACM poster is a big success. Great talks and .... I am soon out of posters! #bpmcon #ACM pic.twitter.com/TriaUyXRWK Oracle SOA ?British Telecom Sucess with Oracle B2B #oow #soa #b2b http://pub.vitrue.com/1RWi leonsmiers ?(Oracle) Case Management supporting re-platforming, a pre-read before our presentation at #oow13 http://leonsmiers.blogspot.com/2013/09/case-management-supporting-re.html … #capgemini #yammer SOA & BPM Partner CommunityFor regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Wiki Mix Forum Technorati Tags: Twitter,SOA,Oracle BPM,Community,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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• Azure Grid Computing - Worker Roles as HPC Compute Nodes

  - by JoshReuben

  Overview ·        With HPC 2008 R2 SP1 You can add Azure worker roles as compute nodes in a local Windows HPC Server cluster. ·        The subscription for Windows Azure like any other Azure Service - charged for the time that the role instances are available, as well as for the compute and storage services that are used on the nodes. ·        Win-Win ? - Azure charges the computer hour cost (according to vm size) amortized over a month – so you save on purchasing compute node hardware. Microsoft wins because you need to purchase HPC to have a local head node for managing this compute cluster grid distributed in the cloud. ·        Blob storage is used to hold input & output files of each job. I can see how Parametric Sweep HPC jobs can be supported (where the same job is run multiple times on each node against different input units), but not MPI.NET (where different HPC Job instances function as coordinated agents and conduct master-slave inter-process communication), unless Azure is somehow tunneling MPI communication through inter-WorkerRole Azure Queues. ·        this is not the end of the story for Azure Grid Computing. If MS requires you to purchase a local HPC license (and administrate it), what's to stop a 3rd party from doing this and encapsulating exposing HPC WCF Broker Service to you for managing compute nodes? If MS doesn’t  provide head node as a service, someone else will! Process ·        requires creation of a worker node template that specifies a connection to an existing subscription for Windows Azure + an availability policy for the worker nodes. ·        After worker nodes are added to the cluster, you can start them, which provisions the Windows Azure role instances, and then bring them online to run HPC cluster jobs. ·        A Windows Azure worker role instance runs a HPC compatible Azure guest operating system which runs on the VMs that host your service. The guest operating system is updated monthly. You can choose to upgrade the guest OS for your service automatically each time an update is released - All role instances defined by your service will run on the guest operating system version that you specify. see Windows Azure Guest OS Releases and SDK Compatibility Matrix (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=190549). ·        use the hpcpack command to upload file packages and install files to run on the worker nodes. see hpcpack (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=205514). Requirements ·        assuming you have an azure subscription account and the HPC head node installed and configured. ·        Install HPC Pack 2008 R2 SP 1 -  see Microsoft HPC Pack 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 Release Notes (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=202812). ·        Configure the head node to connect to the Internet - connectivity is provided by the connection of the head node to the enterprise network. You may need to configure a proxy client on the head node. Any cluster network topology (1-5) is supported). ·        Configure the firewall - allow outbound TCP traffic on the following ports: 80,       443, 5901, 5902, 7998, 7999 ·        Note: HPC Server  uses Admin Mode (Elevated Privileges) in Windows Azure to give the service administrator of the subscription the necessary privileges to initialize HPC cluster services on the worker nodes. ·        Obtain a Windows Azure subscription certificate - the Windows Azure subscription must be configured with a public subscription (API) certificate -a valid X.509 certificate with a key size of at least 2048 bits. Generate a self-sign certificate & upload a .cer file to the Windows Azure Portal Account page > Manage my API Certificates link. see Using the Windows Azure Service Management API (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=205526). ·        import the certificate with an associated private key on the HPC cluster head node - into the trusted root store of the local computer account. Obtain Windows Azure Connection Information for HPC Server ·        required for each worker node template ·        copy from azure portal - Get from: navigation pane > Hosted Services > Storage Accounts & CDN ·        Subscription ID - a 32-char hex string in the form xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx. In Properties pane. ·        Subscription certificate thumbprint - a 40-char hex string (you need to remove spaces). In Management Certificates > Properties pane. ·        Service name - the value of <ServiceName> configured in the public URL of the service (http://<ServiceName>.cloudapp.net). In Hosted Services > Properties pane. ·        Blob Storage account name - the value of <StorageAccountName> configured in the public URL of the account (http://<StorageAccountName>.blob.core.windows.net). In Storage Accounts > Properties pane. Import the Azure Subscription Certificate on the HPC Head Node ·        enable the services for Windows HPC Server  to authenticate properly with the Windows Azure subscription. ·        use the Certificates MMC snap-in to import the certificate to the Trusted Root Certification Authorities store of the local computer account. The certificate must be in PFX format (.pfx or .p12 file) with a private key that is protected by a password. ·        see Certificates (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=163918). ·        To open the certificates snapin: Run > mmc. File > Add/Remove Snap-in > certificates > Computer account > Local Computer ·        To import the certificate via wizard - Certificates > Trusted Root Certification Authorities > Certificates > All Tasks > Import ·        After the certificate is imported, it appears in the details pane in the Certificates snap-in. You can open the certificate to check its status. Configure a Proxy Client on the HPC Head Node ·        the following Windows HPC Server services must be able to communicate over the Internet (through the firewall) with the services for Windows Azure: HPCManagement, HPCScheduler, HPCBrokerWorker. ·        Create a Windows Azure Worker Node Template ·        Edit HPC node templates in HPC Node Template Editor. ·        Specify: 1) Windows Azure subscription connection info (unique service name) for adding a set of worker nodes to the cluster + 2)worker node availability policy – rules for deploying / removing worker role instances in Windows Azure o   HPC Cluster Manager > Configuration > Navigation Pane > Node Templates > Actions pane > New à Create Node Template Wizard or Edit à Node Template Editor o   Choose Node Template Type page - Windows Azure worker node template o   Specify Template Name page – template name & description o   Provide Connection Information page – Azure Subscription ID (text) & Subscription certificate (browse) o   Provide Service Information page - Azure service name + blob storage account name (optionally click Retrieve Connection Information to get list of available from azure – possible LRT). o   Configure Azure Availability Policy page - how Windows Azure worker nodes start / stop (online / offline the worker role instance -  add / remove) – manual / automatic o   for automatic - In the Configure Windows Azure Worker Availability Policy dialog -select days and hours for worker nodes to start / stop. ·        To validate the Windows Azure connection information, on the template's Connection Information tab > Validate connection information. ·        You can upload a file package to the storage account that is specified in the template - eg upload application or service files that will run on the worker nodes. see hpcpack (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=205514). Add Azure Worker Nodes to the HPC Cluster ·        Use the Add Node Wizard – specify: 1) the worker node template, 2) The number of worker nodes   (within the quota of role instances in the azure subscription), and 3)           The VM size of the worker nodes : ExtraSmall, Small, Medium, Large, or ExtraLarge.  ·        to add worker nodes of different sizes, must run the Add Node Wizard separately for each size. ·        All worker nodes that are added to the cluster by using a specific worker node template define a set of worker nodes that will be deployed and managed together in Windows Azure when you start the nodes. This includes worker nodes that you add later by using the worker node template and, if you choose, worker nodes of different sizes. You cannot start, stop, or delete individual worker nodes. ·        To add Windows Azure worker nodes o   In HPC Cluster Manager: Node Management > Actions pane > Add Node à Add Node Wizard o   Select Deployment Method page - Add Azure Worker nodes o   Specify New Nodes page - select a worker node template, specify the number and size of the worker nodes ·        After you add worker nodes to the cluster, they are in the Not-Deployed state, and they have a health state of Unapproved. Before you can use the worker nodes to run jobs, you must start them and then bring them online. ·        Worker nodes are numbered consecutively in a naming series that begins with the root name AzureCN – this is non-configurable. Deploying Windows Azure Worker Nodes ·        To deploy the role instances in Windows Azure - start the worker nodes added to the HPC cluster and bring the nodes online so that they are available to run cluster jobs. This can be configured in the HPC Azure Worker Node Template – Azure Availability Policy -  to be automatic or manual. ·        The Start, Stop, and Delete actions take place on the set of worker nodes that are configured by a specific worker node template. You cannot perform one of these actions on a single worker node in a set. You also cannot perform a single action on two sets of worker nodes (specified by two different worker node templates). ·        ·          Starting a set of worker nodes deploys a set of worker role instances in Windows Azure, which can take some time to complete, depending on the number of worker nodes and the performance of Windows Azure. ·        To start worker nodes manually and bring them online o   In HPC Node Management > Navigation Pane > Nodes > List / Heat Map view - select one or more worker nodes. o   Actions pane > Start – in the Start Azure Worker Nodes dialog, select a node template. o   the state of the worker nodes changes from Not Deployed to track the provisioning progress – worker node Details Pane > Provisioning Log tab. o   If there were errors during the provisioning of one or more worker nodes, the state of those nodes is set to Unknown and the node health is set to Unapproved. To determine the reason for the failure, review the provisioning logs for the nodes. o   After a worker node starts successfully, the node state changes to Offline. To bring the nodes online, select the nodes that are in the Offline state > Bring Online. ·        Troubleshooting o   check node template. o   use telnet to test connectivity: telnet <ServiceName>.cloudapp.net 7999 o   check node status - Deployment status information appears in the service account information in the Windows Azure Portal - HPC queries this -  see  node status information for any failed nodes in HPC Node Management. ·        When role instances are deployed, file packages that were previously uploaded to the storage account using the hpcpack command are automatically installed. You can also upload file packages to storage after the worker nodes are started, and then manually install them on the worker nodes. see hpcpack (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=205514). ·        to remove a set of role instances in Windows Azure - stop the nodes by using HPC Cluster Manager (apply the Stop action). This deletes the role instances from the service and changes the state of the worker nodes in the HPC cluster to Not Deployed. ·        Each time that you start a set of worker nodes, two proxy role instances (size Small) are configured in Windows Azure to facilitate communication between HPC Cluster Manager and the worker nodes. The proxy role instances are not listed in HPC Cluster Manager after the worker nodes are added. However, the instances appear in the Windows Azure Portal. The proxy role instances incur charges in Windows Azure along with the worker node instances, and they count toward the quota of role instances in the subscription.

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• Day 2 - Game Design Documentation

  - by dapostolov

  So yesterday I didn't cut any code for my game but I was able to do a tiny bit of research on the XNA Game Development Technology and the communities out there and do you know what? I feel I'm a bit closer to my goal. The bad news is today I didn't cut code either. However, not all is lost because I wanted to get my ideas on paper and today I just did that.  Today, I began to jot down notes about the game and how I felt the visual elements would interact with each other. Unlike my workplace, my personal level of documentation is nothing more than a task list or a mind map of my ideas; it helps me streamline my solutions quiet effectively and circumvent the long process of articulating each thought to the n-th degree. I truly dislike documentation (because I have an extremely hard time articulating my thought and solutions); however, because I tend to do a really good job with documentation I tend to get stuck writing the buggers. But as a generalist remark: 'No Developer likes documentation.' For now let's stick with my basic notes and call this post a living document. Here are my notes, fresh, from after watching the new first episode of Merlin second season! Actually, a quick recommendation to anyone who is reading this (if anyone is): I truly recommend you envelope yourself in the medium or task you're trying to tackle. Be one with moment and feel it! For instance: Are you writing a fantasy script / game? What would the music of the genre sound like? For me the Conan the Barbarian soundtrack by Basil Poledouris is frackin awesome. There are many other good CD's out there, which I listen to (some who even use medival instruments, but Conan I keep returning to. It's a creative trigger for me. Ask yourself what would the imagery look like? Time to surf google for artist renditions of fantasy! What would the game feel like? Start playing some of your favorite games that inspire you, be wary though, have some self control and don't let it absorb your time. Anyhow, onto the documentation... Screens, Scenes, and Sprites. Oh My! (groan...) The first thing that came to mind were the screens, I thought the following would suffice: Menu Screen Character Customisation Screen Loading Screen? Battle Ground The Menu Screen Ok. So, the thought here is when the game loads a huge title is displayed: Wizard Wars. The player is prompted with 3 menu items: 1 Player Game, 2 Player Game, and Exit. Since I'm targetting the PC platform, as a non-networked game to start, I picture myself running my mouse over each menu option and the visual element of the menu item changes, along with a sound to indicate that I am over a curent menu item. And as I move my mouse away, it changes back, and possibly an exit mouse sound. Maybe on the screen somewhere is a brazier alit with a magical tome open right beside it, OR, maybe the tome is the menu! I hear the menu music as mellow, not obtrusive or piercing. On a menu item select, a confirmation sound bellows to indicate the players selection. The Esc key will always return me to the previous screens or desktop. The menu screen must feel...dark, like a really important ritual is about to happen and thus the music should build up. 1 Player Game - > Customize Character(s) 2 Player Game - > Customize Character(s) Exit - > Back to Windows Notes: So the first thing I pick up here are a couple things: First and foremost, my artistic abilities suck crap, so I may have to hire an artist (now that i've said that, lets get techy) graphical objects will be positioned within a scene on each screen / window. Menu items will be represented grapically, possibly animated, and have sound / animation effects triggered by user input or a time line. I have an animated scene involving a brazier or fire on a stick IF I was to move this game to the xbox, I'd have to track which menu item is currently selected (unless I do a mouse pointer type thing.) WindowObject has a scene A Scene has many GameObjects GameObject has a position graphic or animation MenuObject is a GameObject which has a mouse in, mouse out, and click event which either does something graphically (animation), does something with sound, or moves to another screen.  Character Customisation Screen With either the 1 or 2 player option selected, both selections will come to this screen; a wizard requires a name, powers, and vestements of course! Player one will configure his character first and then player two. I considered a split screen for PC but to have two people fighting over a keyboard would probably suck. For XBox, a split screen could work; maybe when I get into the networking portion (phase 2 blog?) of this game I will remove the 2 player option for PC and provide only multiplayer and I will leave 2 player for xbox...hmm... Anyhow...I picture the creation process as follows: Name: (textbox / keyboard entry) - for xbox, this would have to be different. Robe Color: (color box, or something) Stats: Speed, Oomph, and Health. (as sliders) 1 as minimum and 10 as maximum. Ok, Back, and Cancel buttons / options. Each stat has a benefit which are listed below. The idea is the player decides if he wants his wizard to run fast, be a tank and ... hit with a purse.Regardless, the player will have a pool of 12 points to use. Ideally, A balanced wizard will have 5 in each attribute. Spells? The only spell of choice is a ball of fire which comes without question. The music and screen should still feel like a ritual. The Character Speed Basically, how fast your character moves and casts. Oomph (Best Monster Truck Voice): PURE POWAH!!! The damage output of your fireball. Health How much damage you can take. Notes: I realise the game dynamics may sound uninteresting at the moment; but I think after a couple releases, we could have some other grand ideas such as: saved profiles, gold to upgrade arsenal of spells, talents, etc...but for now...a vanilla fireball thrower mage will suffice for this experiment. OK. So... a MenuObject  may need to be loosely coupled to allow future items such as networking? may be a button? a CharacterObject has a name speed oomph health and a funky robe color. cap on the three stats (1-10) an arsenal of 1 spell (possibly could expand this) The Loading Screen As is. The Battleground Screen For now, I'm keeping the screen as max resolution for the PC. The screen isn't going to move or even be a split screen. I'm not aiming high here because I want to see what level of change is involved when new features / concepts are added to game content. I'm interested to find out if we could apply techniques such as MVC or MVVM to this type of development or is it too tightly coupled? This reminds me when when my best friend and I were brainstorming our game idea (this is going back a while...1994, 6?) and he cringed at the thought of bringing business technology into games, especially when I suggested a database to store character information and COM / DCOM as the medium, but it seems I wasn't far off (reflecting); just like his implementation of a xml "config file" for dynamic direct-x menus back before .net in 1999...anyhow...i digress... The Battle One screen, two characters lobing balls of fire at each other...It doesn't get better than that. Every so often a scroll appears...and the fireballs bounce off walls, or the wizard has rapid fire, or even scrolls of healing! The scroll options are endless. Two bars at the top, each the color of the wizard (with their name beside the bar) indicate how much health they have. Possibly the appearance of the scrolls means the battle is taking too long? I'm thinking 1 player controls: up, down, left, right and space to fire the button. Or even possibly, mouse click and shift - mouse button to fire a spell in the direction they are facing. Two player controls: a, s, d, f and space AND arrows (up, down, left, right) and Del key or Crtl. The game ends when a player has 0 health and a dialog box appears asking for a rematch / reconfigure / exit. Health goes down when a fireball (friendly or not), connects with a wizard. When a wizard connects with a scroll, a countdown clock / icon appears near the health bar and the wizard begins to glow. For the most part, a wizard can have only scroll 1 effect on him at a time. Notes: Ok, there's alot to cover here. a CharacterObject is a GameObject it travels at a set velocity it travels in a direction it has sounds (walking, running, casting, impact, dying, laughing, whistling, other?) it has animations (walking, running, casting, impact, dying, laughing, idle, other?) it has a lifespan (determined by health) it is alive or dead it has a position a ScrollObject is a GameObject it carries a transferance of points "damage" (or healing, bad scroll effect?) (determinde by caster) it carries a transferance of "other" it is stationary it has a sound on impact it has a stationary animation it has an impact animation / or transfers an impact animation it has a fade animation? it has a lifespan (determined by game) it is alive or dead it has a position a WallObject is a GameObject it has a sound on fireball impact? it is a still image / stationary it has an impact animation / or transfers an impact animation it is dead it has a position A FireBall is a GameObject it carries a transferance of poinst "damage" (or healing, bad scroll effect?) (determinde by caster) it travels at a set velocity it travels in a direction it has a sound it has a travel animation it has an impact animation / or transfers an impact animation it has a fade animation? it has a lifespan (determined by caster) it is alive or dead it has a position As I look at this, I can see some common attributes in each object that I can carry up to the GameObject. I think I'm going to end the documentation here, it's taken me a bit of time to type this all out, tomorrow. I'll load up my IDE and my paint studio to get some good old fashioned cowboy hacking going!   D.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, April 30, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, April 30, 2010New ProjectsAcres2: This is the new hotnessAsoraX.de - AirlineTycoon: EntwicklungsPhase von AsoraX.deazshop: Ecommerce macros and user controls based on Commerce4Umbraco from Umbraco CMS Project.BioPhotoAnalyzer: Some exercises with F#, WPF and Mathematical methods for quantitative analysis of biological photos, such as those obtained from microscopy, PAGE etcCECS622 - Simulations - South Computing Center: This simulation will be used to study the traffic flow of the South Computing Center (SCC) on the UofL campus. Document.Viewer: Basic document viewer for Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 that supports FlowDocument, Rich and Plan Text FormatsDotNetNuke 5 Thai Language Pack: DotNetNuke Thai Language PackDotNetNuke Skins Pack: We derive html/css template from www.freecsstemplates.org and apply to DotNetNuke 4 & 5 Skins Pack.Dynamics AX Business Intelligence: Sample code for creating and using Dynamics AX Business Intelligence Easy Chat: Very simple kind of chat; it got DOS interface. It's just to start the server start the client enter the IP, enter your name, and you're ready to go!Html Source Transmitter Control: This web control allows getting a source of a web page, that will displayed before submit. So, developer can store a view of the html page, that wa...HydroServer - CUAHSI Hydrologic Information System Server: HydroServer is a set of software applications for publishing hydrologic datasets on the Internet. HydroServer leverages commercial software such a...Lisp.NET: Lisp.NET is a project that demonstrates how the Embedded Common Lisp (ECL) environment can be loaded and used from .NET. This enables Common Lisp ...Live-Exchange Calendar Sync: Live - Exchange Calendar Sync synchronizes calendars of users between 2 Exchange servers (it can be Live Calendar also). It's developed in C#. It u...MaLoRT : Mac Lovin' RayTracer: RaytracerMojo Workflow Web UI: Mojo Workflow Web UIMoonRover - Enter Island: Simple Graphics consumer application that simulates Moon RoversMVC Music Store: MVC Music Store is a tutorial application built on ASP.NET MVC 2. It's a lightweight sample store which sells albums online, demonstrating ASP.NET ...OpenPOS: OpenPOS, a completely open and free point-of-sale systemPgcDemuxCLI: A modified version of PgcDemux (http://download.videohelp.com/jsoto/dvdtools.htm) that has better CLI support and progress reporting.Sample 01: basic summarySharedEx: App dev in VS2010 RTM and Silverlight 4.0 for Windows Phone 7!SharePoint 2010 Managed Metadata WebPart: This SharePoint 2010 webpart creates a navigation control from a Managed Metadata column assigned to a list/library. The Termset the column relates...SharePoint 2010 Service Manager: The SharePoint Service manager let's you start and stop all the SharePoint 2010 services on your workstation. This is useful if you are running S...Sharp DOM: Sharp DOM is a view engine for ASP.NET MVC platform allowing developers to design extendable and maintenable dynamic HTML layouts using C# 4.0 lang...simple fx: simple framework written in javascriptSimpleGFC.NET: Simple GFC is a .NET library written in C# for simplifying the connection to Google Friend Connect. It is designed to be simple and concise, not a...SPSS & PSPP file library: Library for importing SPSS (now called PASW) & PSPP .sav datafiles, developed in C#. Support for writing and SPSS portable-files will be implemente...TailspinSpyworks - WebForms Sample Application: Tailspin Spyworks demonstrates how extraordinarily simple it is to create powerful, scalable applications for the .NET platform. It shows off how t...VividBed: Business website.卢融凯的个人主页: 卢融凯的个人主页New ReleasesAssemblyVerifier: 4.0.0.0 Release: Updated to target .NET 4.0Bricks' Bane: Bricks' Bane Editor v1.0.0.4: I've added functionality to the editor, after some personal use. Plus I fixed a bug that was occurring on file loading mostly when the file was mod...Dambach Linear Algebra Framework: Linear Algebra Framework - Sneak Peak: This is just to get the code out there into the hands of potential users and to elicit feedback.DevTreks -social budgeting that improves lives and livelihoods: Social Budgeting Web Software, DevTreks alpha 4a: DevTreks calculators, analyzers, and story tellers are being upgraded so that they can be extended by third parties using either add-ins (Managed ...DirectQ: Release 1.8.3c: Fixes some more late-breaking bugs and adds some optimizations from the forthcoming 1.8.4 release. No Windows 98 build this time. I may add one a...Document Assembly from a SharePoint Library using the Open XML SDK: Solution for March 2010 rel of the Open XML SDK: Microsoft changed some class names between the December 2009 CTP and the March 2010 release of the Open XML SDK which means that old solution will ...Document.Viewer: 0.9.0: Whats New?: New icon set Bug fix'sDotNetNuke Skins Pack: DNN 80 Skins Pack: This released is the first for DNN 4 & 5 with Skin Token Design (legacy skin support on DNN 4 & 5)DotNetWinService: Release 1.0.0.0: This release includes four different scheduled tasks: 1) TaskURL: Petition a specific URL: when working on a ASP.NET website, it's sometimes ...Hammock for REST: Hammock v1.0.1: v1.0.1 ChangesFixes to improve OAuth stability Fixes for asynchronous timeouts Fixes and simplification for retries v1.0 FeaturesSimple, clean...Home Access Plus+: v4.1.1: v4.1.1 Change Log: Added Enable for Booking Resource to allow Resources to be disabled but not deleted Updated HAP.Config for above File Changes...HouseFly controls: HouseFly controls alpha 0.9.6.0: HouseFly controls release 0.9.6.0 alphaHydroServer - CUAHSI Hydrologic Information System Server: ODM Data Loader 1.1.3: Version 1.1.3 of the ODM Data Loader is only compatible with version 1.1 of ODM This Version Addresses : Memory issues in Version 1.1.2 that were ...Jobping Url Shortener: Source Code v0.1: Source code for the 0.1 release.LinkedIn® for Windows Mobile: LinkedIn for Windows Mobile v0.6: Fixed the crash after accepting the use of internet access.mojoPortal: 2.3.4.3: see release notes on mojoportal.com http://www.mojoportal.com/mojoportal-2343-released.aspxMoonRover - Enter Island: Moon Rover: Simulates Rover Moves on MoonNanoPrompt: Release 0.4.1 - Beta 1.1: Now released: Beta 1.1 for .NET 4.0ORAYLIS BI.SmartDiff: Release 1.0.0: see change log for detailsQuickStart Engine (3D Game Engine for XNA): QuickStart Engine v0.22: Main FeaturesClean engine architecture Makes it easy to make your own game using the engine. Messaging system allows you to communicate between s...SharePoint 2010 Managed Metadata WebPart: Taxonomy WebPart 0.0.1: Initial version releasedSharePoint 2010 Service Manager: SharePoint Service Manager 2010 v1: Starts and stops all SharePoint services Works with both Microsoft SQL Server and SQL Server Express Edition (for SharePoint) Supports disablin...Shweet: SharePoint 2010 Team Messaging built with Pex: Shweet RTM Release: Shweet has been updated to work with the RTM of SharePoint and the latest version of Pex Visual Studio 2010 Power Tools. Know issues: Continuous I...Silverlight Testing Automation Tool: StatLight v1.0 - Beta 1: Things still to accomplish (before official v1 release)Item # 10716: Release build hangs on x64 machine Still awaiting UnitDriven change feedback...SPSS & PSPP file library: 0.1 alpha: This first test release allows to read an .sav SPSS/PSPP/PASW file and retreive the data, either in the form of a .net DataReader or as a custom Sp...SqlDiffFramework-A Visual Differencing Engine for Dissimilar Data Sources: SqlDiffFramework 1.0.0.0: Initial Public Release Requirements: .NET Framework 2.0 SqlDiffFramework is designed for the enterprise! Check with your system administrator (or...sqwarea: Sqwarea 0.0.210.0 (alpha): First public release. Deploy package contains : the documentation for classes. the azure package with the Web Role. the zip with assemblies wh...Sweeper: Sweeper Alpha 2: SweeperA Visual Studio Add-in for C# Code Formatting - Visual Studio 2008 Includes: A UI for options, Enable or disable any specific task you want ...TailspinSpyworks - WebForms Sample Application: TailspinSpyworks-v0.8: ASP.NET 4 ECommerce ApplicationTweetSharp: TweetSharp Release Candidate: New FeaturesComplete core rewrite for stability and speed, introducing Hammock http://hammock.codeplex.com Windows Phone 7, Silverlight 4 OOB (El...Wicked Compression ASP.NET HTTP Module: Wicked Compression ASP.NET HTTP Module Beta: Now supports AJAX from .NET Framework 2.0 through 4.0! Bug Fix for Excluded Paths! Binary Release Included for .NET Framework 2.0 through 4.0!Most Popular ProjectsRawrWBFS ManagerAJAX Control Toolkitpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)iTuner - The iTunes CompanionASP.NETDotNetNuke® Community EditionMost Active ProjectsRawrpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryIonics Isapi Rewrite FilterHydroServer - CUAHSI Hydrologic Information System ServerGMap.NET - Great Maps for Windows Forms & PresentationParticle Plot Pivotpatterns & practices: Azure Security GuidanceSqlDiffFramework-A Visual Differencing Engine for Dissimilar Data SourcesNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog ModuleN2 CMS

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• Entity Framework version 1- Brief Synopsis and Tips &ndash; Part 1

  - by Rohit Gupta

  To Do Eager loading use Projections (for e.g. from c in context.Contacts select c, c.Addresses)  or use Include Query Builder Methods (Include(“Addresses”)) If there is multi-level hierarchical Data then to eager load all the relationships use Include Query Builder methods like customers.Include("Order.OrderDetail") to include Order and OrderDetail collections or use customers.Include("Order.OrderDetail.Location") to include all Order, OrderDetail and location collections with a single include statement =========================================================================== If the query uses Joins then Include() Query Builder method will be ignored, use Nested Queries instead If the query does projections then Include() Query Builder method will be ignored Use Address.ContactReference.Load() OR Contact.Addresses.Load() if you need to Deferred Load Specific Entity – This will result in extra round trips to the database ObjectQuery<> cannot return anonymous types... it will return a ObjectQuery<DBDataRecord> Only Include method can be added to Linq Query Methods Any Linq Query method can be added to Query Builder methods. If you need to append a Query Builder Method (other than Include) after a LINQ method  then cast the IQueryable<Contact> to ObjectQuery<Contact> and then append the Query Builder method to it =========================================================================== Query Builder methods are Select, Where, Include Methods which use Entity SQL as parameters e.g. "it.StartDate, it.EndDate" When Query Builder methods do projection then they return ObjectQuery<DBDataRecord>, thus to iterate over this collection use contact.Item[“Name”].ToString() When Linq To Entities methods do projection, they return collection of anonymous types --- thus the collection is strongly typed and supports Intellisense EF Object Context can track changes only on Entities, not on Anonymous types. If you use a Defining Query for a EntitySet then the EntitySet becomes readonly since a Defining Query is the same as a View (which is treated as a ReadOnly by default). However if you want to use this EntitySet for insert/update/deletes then we need to map stored procs (as created in the DB) to the insert/update/delete functions of the Entity in the Designer You can use either Execute method or ToList() method to bind data to datasources/bindingsources If you use the Execute Method then remember that you can traverse through the ObjectResult<> collection (returned by Execute) only ONCE. In WPF use ObservableCollection to bind to data sources , for keeping track of changes and letting EF send updates to the DB automatically. Use Extension Methods to add logic to Entities. For e.g. create extension methods for the EntityObject class. Create a method in ObjectContext Partial class and pass the entity as a parameter, then call this method as desired from within each entity. ================================================================ DefiningQueries and Stored Procedures: For Custom Entities, one can use DefiningQuery or Stored Procedures. Thus the Custom Entity Collection will be populated using the DefiningQuery (of the EntitySet) or the Sproc. If you use Sproc to populate the EntityCollection then the query execution is immediate and this execution happens on the Server side and any filters applied will be applied in the Client App. If we use a DefiningQuery then these queries are composable, meaning the filters (if applied to the entityset) will all be sent together as a single query to the DB, returning only filtered results. If the sproc returns results that cannot be mapped to existing entity, then we first create the Entity/EntitySet in the CSDL using Designer, then create a dummy Entity/EntitySet using XML in the SSDL. When creating a EntitySet in the SSDL for this dummy entity, use a TSQL that does not return any results, but does return the relevant columns e.g. select ContactID, FirstName, LastName from dbo.Contact where 1=2 Also insure that the Entity created in the SSDL uses the SQL DataTypes and not .NET DataTypes. If you are unable to open the EDMX file in the designer then note the Errors ... they will give precise info on what is wrong. The Thrid option is to simply create a Native Query in the SSDL using <Function Name="PaymentsforContact" IsComposable="false">   <CommandText>SELECT ActivityId, Activity AS ActivityName, ImagePath, Category FROM dbo.Activities </CommandText></FuncTion> Then map this Function to a existing Entity. This is a quick way to get a custom Entity which is regular Entity with renamed columns or additional columns (which are computed columns). The disadvantage to using this is that It will return all the rows from the Defining query and any filter (if defined) will be applied only at the Client side (after getting all the rows from DB). If you you DefiningQuery instead then we can use that as a Composable Query. The Fourth option (for mapping a READ stored proc results to a non-existent Entity) is to create a View in the Database which returns all the fields that the sproc also returns, then update the Model so that the model contains this View as a Entity. Then map the Read Sproc to this View Entity. The other option would be to simply create the View and remove the sproc altogether. ================================================================ To Execute a SProc that does not return a entity, use a EntityCommand to execute that proc. You cannot call a sproc FunctionImport that does not return Entities From Code, the only way is to use SSDL function calls using EntityCommand.  This changes with EntityFramework Version 4 where you can return Scalar Types, Complex Types, Entities or NonQuery ================================================================ UDF when created as a Function in SSDL, we need to set the Name & IsComposable properties for the Function element. IsComposable is always false for Sprocs, for UDF's set this to true. You cannot call UDF "Function" from within code since you cannot import a UDF Function into the CSDL Model (with Version 1 of EF). only stored procedures can be imported and then mapped to a entity ================================================================ Entity Framework requires properties that are involved in association mappings to be mapped in all of the function mappings for the entity (Insert, Update and Delete). Because Payment has an association to Reservation... hence we need to pass both the paymentId and reservationId to the Delete sproc even though just the paymentId is the PK on the Payment Table. ================================================================ When mapping insert, update and delete procs to a Entity, insure that all the three or none are mapped. Further if you have a base class and derived class in the CSDL, then you must map (ins, upd, del) sprocs to all parent and child entities in the inheritance relationship. Note that this limitation that base and derived entity methods must all must be mapped does not apply when you are mapping Read Stored Procedures.... ================================================================ You can write stored procedures SQL directly into the SSDL by creating a Function element in the SSDL and then once created, you can map this Function to a CSDL Entity directly in the designer during Function Import ================================================================ You can do Entity Splitting such that One Entity maps to multiple tables in the DB. For e.g. the Customer Entity currently derives from Contact Entity...in addition it also references the ContactPersonalInfo Entity. One can copy all properties from the ContactPersonalInfo Entity into the Customer Entity and then Delete the CustomerPersonalInfo entity, finall one needs to map the copied properties to the ContactPersonalInfo Table in Table Mapping (by adding another table (ContactPersonalInfo) to the Table Mapping... this is called Entity Splitting. Thus now when you insert a Customer record, it will automatically create SQL to insert records into the Contact, Customers and ContactPersonalInfo tables even though you have a Single Entity called Customer in the CSDL =================================================================== There is Table by Type Inheritance where another EDM Entity can derive from another EDM entity and absorb the inherted entities properties, for example in the Break Away Geek Adventures EDM, the Customer entity derives (inherits) from the Contact Entity and absorbs all the properties of Contact entity. Thus when you create a Customer Entity in Code and then call context.SaveChanges the Object Context will first create the TSQL to insert into the Contact Table followed by a TSQL to insert into the Customer table =================================================================== Then there is the Table per Hierarchy Inheritance..... where different types are created based on a condition (similar applying a condition to filter a Entity to contain filtered records)... the diference being that the filter condition populates a new Entity Type (derived from the base Entity). In the BreakAway sample the example is Lodging Entity which is a Abstract Entity and Then Resort and NonResort Entities which derive from Lodging Entity and records are filtered based on the value of the Resort Boolean field =================================================================== Then there is Table per Concrete Type Hierarchy where we create a concrete Entity for each table in the database. In the BreakAway sample there is a entity for the Reservation table and another Entity for the OldReservation table even though both the table contain the same number of fields. The OldReservation Entity can then inherit from the Reservation Entity and configure the OldReservation Entity to remove all Scalar Properties from the Entity (since it inherits the properties from Reservation and filters based on ReservationDate field) =================================================================== Complex Types (Complex Properties) Entities in EF can also contain Complex Properties (in addition to Scalar Properties) and these Complex Properties reference a ComplexType (not a EntityType) DropdownList, ListBox, RadioButtonList, CheckboxList, Bulletedlist are examples of List server controls (not data bound controls) these controls cannot use Complex properties during databinding, they need Scalar Properties. So if a Entity contains Complex properties and you need to bind those to list server controls then use projections to return Scalar properties and bind them to the control (the disadvantage is that projected collections are not tracked by the Object Context and hence cannot persist changes to the projected collections bound to controls) ObjectDataSource and EntityDataSource do account for Complex properties and one can bind entities with Complex Properties to Data Source controls and they will be tracked for changes... with no additional plumbing needed to persist changes to these collections bound to controls So DataBound controls like GridView, FormView need to use EntityDataSource or ObjectDataSource as a datasource for entities that contain Complex properties so that changes to the datasource done using the GridView can be persisted to the DB (enabling the controls for updates)....if you cannot use the EntityDataSource you need to flatten the ComplexType Properties using projections With EF Version 4 ComplexTypes are supported by the Designer and can add/remove/compose Complex Types directly using the Designer =================================================================== Conditional Mapping ... is like Table per Hierarchy Inheritance where Entities inherit from a base class and then used conditions to populate the EntitySet (called conditional Mapping). Conditional Mapping has limitations since you can only use =, is null and IS NOT NULL Conditions to do conditional mapping. If you need more operators for filtering/mapping conditionally then use QueryView(or possibly Defining Query) to create a readonly entity. QueryView are readonly by default... the EntitySet created by the QueryView is enabled for change tracking by the ObjectContext, however the ObjectContext cannot create insert/update/delete TSQL statements for these Entities when SaveChanges is called since it is QueryView. One way to get around this limitation is to map stored procedures for the insert/update/delete operations in the Designer. =================================================================== Difference between QueryView and Defining Query : QueryView is defined in the (MSL) Mapping File/section of the EDM XML, whereas the DefiningQuery is defined in the store schema (SSDL). QueryView is written using Entity SQL and is this database agnostic and can be used against any database/Data Layer. DefiningQuery is written using Database Lanaguage i.e. TSQL or PSQL thus you have more control =================================================================== Performance: Lazy loading is deferred loading done automatically. lazy loading is supported with EF version4 and is on by default. If you need to turn it off then use context.ContextOptions.lazyLoadingEnabled = false To improve Performance consider PreCompiling the ObjectQuery using the CompiledQuery.Compile method

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• The HTG Guide to Using a Bluetooth Keyboard with Your Android Device

  - by Matt Klein

  Android devices aren’t usually associated with physical keyboards. But, since Google is now bundling their QuickOffice app with the newly-released Kit-Kat, it appears inevitable that at least some Android tablets (particularly 10-inch models) will take on more productivity roles. In recent years, physical keyboards have been rendered obsolete by swipe style input methods such as Swype and Google Keyboard. Physical keyboards tend to make phones thick and plump, and that won’t fly today when thin (and even flexible and curved) is in vogue. So, you’ll be hard-pressed to find smartphone manufacturers launching new models with physical keyboards, thus rendering sliders to a past chapter in mobile phone evolution. It makes sense to ditch the clunky keyboard phone in favor of a lighter, thinner model. You’re going to carry around in your pocket or purse all day, why have that extra bulk and weight? That said, there is sound logic behind pairing tablets with keyboards. Microsoft continues to plod forward with its Surface models, and while critics continue to lavish praise on the iPad, its functionality is obviously enhanced and extended when you add a physical keyboard. Apple even has an entire page devoted specifically to iPad-compatible keyboards. But an Android tablet and a keyboard? Does such a thing even exist? They do actually. There are docking keyboards and keyboard/case combinations, there’s the Asus Transformer family, Logitech markets a Windows 8 keyboard that speaks “Android”, and these are just to name a few. So we know that keyboard products that are designed to work with Android exist, but what about an everyday Bluetooth keyboard you might use with Windows or OS X? How-To Geek wanted look at how viable it is to use such a keyboard with Android. We conducted some research and examined some lists of Android keyboard shortcuts. Most of what we found was long outdated. Many of the shortcuts don’t even apply anymore, while others just didn’t work. Regardless, after a little experimentation and a dash of customization, it turns out using a keyboard with Android is kind of fun, and who knows, maybe it will catch on. Setting things up Setting up a Bluetooth keyboard with Android is very easy. First, you’ll need a Bluetooth keyboard and of course an Android device, preferably running version 4.1 (Jelly Bean) or higher. For our test, we paired a second-generation Google Nexus 7 running Android 4.3 with a Samsung Series 7 keyboard. In Android, enable Bluetooth if it isn’t already on. We’d like to note that if you don’t normally use Bluetooth accessories and peripherals with your Android device (or any device really), it’s best practice to leave Bluetooth off because, like GPS, it drains the device’s battery more quickly. To enable Bluetooth, simply go to “Settings” -> “Bluetooth” and tap the slider button to “On”. To set up the keyboard, make sure it is on and then tap “Bluetooth” in the Android settings. On the resulting screen, your Android device should automatically search for and hopefully find your keyboard. If you don’t get it right the first time, simply turn the keyboard on again and then tap “Search for Devices” to try again. If it still doesn’t work, make sure you have fresh batteries and the keyboard isn’t paired to another device. If it is, you will need to unpair it before it will work with your Android device (consult your keyboard manufacturer’s documentation or Google if you don’t know how to do this). When Android finds your keyboard, select it under “Available Devices” … … and you should be prompted to type in a code: If successful, you will see that device is now “Connected” and you’re ready to go. If you want to test things out, try pressing the “Windows” key (“Apple” or “Command”) + ESC, and you will be whisked to your Home screen. So, what can you do? Traditional Mac and Windows users know there’s usually a keyboard shortcut for just about everything (and if there isn’t, there’s all kinds of ways to remap keys to do a variety of commands, tasks, and functions). So where does Android fall in terms of baked-in keyboard commands? There answer to that is kind of enough, but not too much. There are definitely established combos you can use to get around, but they aren’t clear and there doesn’t appear to be any one authority on what they are. Still, there is enough keyboard functionality in Android to make it a viable option, if only for those times when you need to get something done (long e-mail or important document) and an on-screen keyboard simply won’t do. It’s important to remember that Android is, and likely always will be a touch-first interface. That said, it does make some concessions to physical keyboards. In other words, you can get around Android fairly well without having to lift your hands off the keys, but you will still have to tap the screen regularly, unless you add a mouse. For example, you can wake your device by tapping a key rather than pressing its power button. However, if your device is slide or pattern-locked, then you’ll have to use the touchscreen to unlock it – a password or PIN however, works seamlessly with a keyboard – other things like widgets and app controls and features, have to be tapped. You get the idea. Keyboard shortcuts and navigation As we said, baked-in keyboard shortcut combos aren’t necessarily abundant nor apparent. The one thing you can always do is search. Any time you want to Google something, start typing from the Home screen and the search screen will automatically open and begin displaying results. Other than that, here is what we were able to figure out: ESC = go back CTRL + ESC = menu CTRL + ALT + DEL = restart (no questions asked) ALT + SPACE = search page (say “OK Google” to voice search) ALT + TAB (ALT + SHIFT + TAB) = switch tasks Also, if you have designated volume function keys, those will probably work too. There’s also some dedicated app shortcuts like calculator, Gmail, and a few others: CMD + A = calculator CMD + C = contacts CMD + E = e-mail CMD + G = Gmail CMD + L = Calendar CMD + P = Play Music CMD + Y = YouTube Overall, it’s not a long comprehensive list and there’s no dedicated keyboard combos for the full array of Google’s products. Granted, it’s hard to imagine getting a lot of mileage out of a keyboard with Maps but with something like Keep, you could type out long, detailed lists on your tablet, and then view them on your smartphone when you go out shopping. You can also use the arrow keys to navigate your Home screen over shortcuts and open the app drawer. When something on the screen is selected, it will be highlighted in blue. Press “Enter” to open your selection. Additionally, if an app has its own set of shortcuts, e.g. Gmail has quite a few unique shortcuts to it, as does Chrome, some – though not many – will work in Android (not for YouTube though). Also, many “universal” shortcuts such as Copy (CTRL + C), Cut (CTRL + X), Paste (CTRL + V), and Select All (CTRL + A) work where needed – such as in instant messaging, e-mail, social media apps, etc. Creating custom application shortcuts What about custom shortcuts? When we were researching this article, we were under the impression that it was possible to assign keyboard combinations to specific apps, such as you could do on older Android versions such as Gingerbread. This no long seems to be the case and nowhere in “Settings” could we find a way to assign hotkey combos to any of our favorite, oft-used apps or functions. If you do want custom keyboard shortcuts, what can you do? Luckily, there’s an app on Google Play that allows you to, among other things, create custom app shortcuts. It is called External Keyboard Helper (EKH) and while there is a free demo version, the pay version is only a few bucks. We decided to give EKH a whirl and through a little experimentation and finally reading the developer’s how-to, we found we could map custom keyboard combos to just about anything. To do this, first open the application and you’ll see the main app screen. Don’t worry about choosing a custom layout or anything like that, you want to go straight to the “Advanced settings”: In the “Advanced settings” select “Application shortcuts” to continue: You can have up to 16 custom application shortcuts. We are going to create a custom shortcut to the Facebook app. We choose “A0”, and from the resulting list, Facebook. You can do this for any number of apps, services, and settings. As you can now see, the Facebook app has now been linked to application-zero (A0): Go back to the “Advanced settings” and choose “Customize keyboard mappings”: You will be prompted to create a custom keyboard layout so we choose “Custom 1”: When you choose to create a custom layout, you can do a great many more things with your keyboard. For example, many keyboards have predefined function (Fn) keys, which you can map to your tablet’s brightness controls, toggle WiFi on/off, and much more. A word of advice, the application automatically remaps certain keys when you create a custom layout. This might mess up some existing keyboard combos. If you simply want to add some functionality to your keyboard, you can go ahead and delete EKH’s default changes and start your custom layout from scratch. To create a new combo, select “Add new key mapping”: For our new shortcut, we are going to assign the Facebook app to open when we key in “ALT + F”. To do this, we press the “F” key while in the “Scancode” field and we see it returns a value of “33”. If we wanted to use a different key, we can press “Change” and scan another key’s numerical value. We now want to assign the “ALT” key to application “A0”, previously designated as the Facebook app. In the “AltGr” field, we enter “A0” and then “Save” our custom combo. And now we see our new application shortcut. Now, as long as we’re using our custom layout, every time we press “ALT + F”, the Facebook app will launch: External Keyboard Helper extends far beyond simple application shortcuts and if you are looking for deeper keyboard customization options, you should definitely check it out. Among other things, EKH also supports dozens of languages, allows you to quickly switch between layouts using a key or combo, add up to 16 custom text shortcuts, and much more! It can be had on Google Play for $2.53 for the full version, but you can try the demo version for free. More extensive documentation on how to use the app is also available. Android? Keyboard? Sure, why not? Unlike traditional desktop operating systems, you don’t need a physical keyboard and mouse to use a mobile operating system. You can buy an iPad or Nexus 10 or Galaxy Note, and never need another accessory or peripheral – they work as intended right out of the box. It’s even possible you can write the next great American novel on one these devices, though that might require a lot of practice and patience. That said, using a keyboard with Android is kind of fun. It’s not revelatory but it does elevate the experience. You don’t even need to add customizations (though they are nice) because there are enough existing keyboard shortcuts in Android to make it usable. Plus, when it comes to inputting text such as in an editor or terminal application, we fully advocate big, physical keyboards. Bottom line, if you’re looking for a way to enhance your Android tablet, give a keyboard a chance. Do you use your Android device for productivity? Is a physical keyboard an important part of your setup? Do you have any shortcuts that we missed? Sound off in the comments and let us know what you think.     

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• Passing multiple simple POST Values to ASP.NET Web API

  - by Rick Strahl

  A few weeks backs I posted a blog post  about what does and doesn't work with ASP.NET Web API when it comes to POSTing data to a Web API controller. One of the features that doesn't work out of the box - somewhat unexpectedly -  is the ability to map POST form variables to simple parameters of a Web API method. For example imagine you have this form and you want to post this data to a Web API end point like this via AJAX: <form> Name: <input type="name" name="name" value="Rick" /> Value: <input type="value" name="value" value="12" /> Entered: <input type="entered" name="entered" value="12/01/2011" /> <input type="button" id="btnSend" value="Send" /> </form> <script type="text/javascript"> $("#btnSend").click( function() { $.post("samples/PostMultipleSimpleValues?action=kazam", $("form").serialize(), function (result) { alert(result); }); }); </script> or you might do this more explicitly by creating a simple client map and specifying the POST values directly by hand:$.post("samples/PostMultipleSimpleValues?action=kazam", { name: "Rick", value: 1, entered: "12/01/2012" }, $("form").serialize(), function (result) { alert(result); }); On the wire this generates a simple POST request with Url Encoded values in the content:POST /AspNetWebApi/samples/PostMultipleSimpleValues?action=kazam HTTP/1.1 Host: localhost User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.2; WOW64; rv:15.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/15.0.1 Accept: application/json Connection: keep-alive Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=UTF-8 X-Requested-With: XMLHttpRequest Referer: http://localhost/AspNetWebApi/FormPostTest.html Content-Length: 41 Pragma: no-cache Cache-Control: no-cachename=Rick&value=12&entered=12%2F10%2F2011 Seems simple enough, right? We are basically posting 3 form variables and 1 query string value to the server. Unfortunately Web API can't handle request out of the box. If I create a method like this:[HttpPost] public string PostMultipleSimpleValues(string name, int value, DateTime entered, string action = null) { return string.Format("Name: {0}, Value: {1}, Date: {2}, Action: {3}", name, value, entered, action); }You'll find that you get an HTTP 404 error and { "Message": "No HTTP resource was found that matches the request URI…"} Yes, it's possible to pass multiple POST parameters of course, but Web API expects you to use Model Binding for this - mapping the post parameters to a strongly typed .NET object, not to single parameters. Alternately you can also accept a FormDataCollection parameter on your API method to get a name value collection of all POSTed values. If you're using JSON only, using the dynamic JObject/JValue objects might also work. ModelBinding is fine in many use cases, but can quickly become overkill if you only need to pass a couple of simple parameters to many methods. Especially in applications with many, many AJAX callbacks the 'parameter mapping type' per method signature can lead to serious class pollution in a project very quickly. Simple POST variables are also commonly used in AJAX applications to pass data to the server, even in many complex public APIs. So this is not an uncommon use case, and - maybe more so a behavior that I would have expected Web API to support natively. The question "Why aren't my POST parameters mapping to Web API method parameters" is already a frequent one… So this is something that I think is fairly important, but unfortunately missing in the base Web API installation. Creating a Custom Parameter Binder Luckily Web API is greatly extensible and there's a way to create a custom Parameter Binding to provide this functionality! Although this solution took me a long while to find and then only with the help of some folks Microsoft (thanks Hong Mei!!!), it's not difficult to hook up in your own projects. It requires one small class and a GlobalConfiguration hookup. Web API parameter bindings allow you to intercept processing of individual parameters - they deal with mapping parameters to the signature as well as converting the parameters to the actual values that are returned. Here's the implementation of the SimplePostVariableParameterBinding class:public class SimplePostVariableParameterBinding : HttpParameterBinding { private const string MultipleBodyParameters = "MultipleBodyParameters"; public SimplePostVariableParameterBinding(HttpParameterDescriptor descriptor) : base(descriptor) { } /// <summary> /// Check for simple binding parameters in POST data. Bind POST /// data as well as query string data /// </summary> public override Task ExecuteBindingAsync(ModelMetadataProvider metadataProvider, HttpActionContext actionContext, CancellationToken cancellationToken) { // Body can only be read once, so read and cache it NameValueCollection col = TryReadBody(actionContext.Request); string stringValue = null; if (col != null) stringValue = col[Descriptor.ParameterName]; // try reading query string if we have no POST/PUT match if (stringValue == null) { var query = actionContext.Request.GetQueryNameValuePairs(); if (query != null) { var matches = query.Where(kv => kv.Key.ToLower() == Descriptor.ParameterName.ToLower()); if (matches.Count() > 0) stringValue = matches.First().Value; } } object value = StringToType(stringValue); // Set the binding result here SetValue(actionContext, value); // now, we can return a completed task with no result TaskCompletionSource<AsyncVoid> tcs = new TaskCompletionSource<AsyncVoid>(); tcs.SetResult(default(AsyncVoid)); return tcs.Task; } private object StringToType(string stringValue) { object value = null; if (stringValue == null) value = null; else if (Descriptor.ParameterType == typeof(string)) value = stringValue; else if (Descriptor.ParameterType == typeof(int)) value = int.Parse(stringValue, CultureInfo.CurrentCulture); else if (Descriptor.ParameterType == typeof(Int32)) value = Int32.Parse(stringValue, CultureInfo.CurrentCulture); else if (Descriptor.ParameterType == typeof(Int64)) value = Int64.Parse(stringValue, CultureInfo.CurrentCulture); else if (Descriptor.ParameterType == typeof(decimal)) value = decimal.Parse(stringValue, CultureInfo.CurrentCulture); else if (Descriptor.ParameterType == typeof(double)) value = double.Parse(stringValue, CultureInfo.CurrentCulture); else if (Descriptor.ParameterType == typeof(DateTime)) value = DateTime.Parse(stringValue, CultureInfo.CurrentCulture); else if (Descriptor.ParameterType == typeof(bool)) { value = false; if (stringValue == "true" || stringValue == "on" || stringValue == "1") value = true; } else value = stringValue; return value; } /// <summary> /// Read and cache the request body /// </summary> /// <param name="request"></param> /// <returns></returns> private NameValueCollection TryReadBody(HttpRequestMessage request) { object result = null; // try to read out of cache first if (!request.Properties.TryGetValue(MultipleBodyParameters, out result)) { // parsing the string like firstname=Hongmei&lastname=Ge result = request.Content.ReadAsFormDataAsync().Result; request.Properties.Add(MultipleBodyParameters, result); } return result as NameValueCollection; } private struct AsyncVoid { } }   The ExecuteBindingAsync method is fired for each parameter that is mapped and sent for conversion. This custom binding is fired only if the incoming parameter is a simple type (that gets defined later when I hook up the binding), so this binding never fires on complex types or if the first type is not a simple type. For the first parameter of a request the Binding first reads the request body into a NameValueCollection and caches that in the request.Properties collection. The request body can only be read once, so the first parameter request reads it and then caches it. Subsequent parameters then use the cached POST value collection. Once the form collection is available the value of the parameter is read, and the value is translated into the target type requested by the Descriptor. SetValue writes out the value to be mapped. Once you have the ParameterBinding in place, the binding has to be assigned. This is done along with all other Web API configuration tasks at application startup in global.asax's Application_Start:GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.ParameterBindingRules .Insert(0, (HttpParameterDescriptor descriptor) => { var supportedMethods = descriptor.ActionDescriptor.SupportedHttpMethods; // Only apply this binder on POST and PUT operations if (supportedMethods.Contains(HttpMethod.Post) || supportedMethods.Contains(HttpMethod.Put)) { var supportedTypes = new Type[] { typeof(string), typeof(int), typeof(decimal), typeof(double), typeof(bool), typeof(DateTime) }; if (supportedTypes.Where(typ => typ == descriptor.ParameterType).Count() > 0) return new SimplePostVariableParameterBinding(descriptor); } // let the default bindings do their work return null; });   The ParameterBindingRules.Insert method takes a delegate that checks which type of requests it should handle. The logic here checks whether the request is POST or PUT and whether the parameter type is a simple type that is supported. Web API calls this delegate once for each method signature it tries to map and the delegate returns null to indicate it's not handling this parameter, or it returns a new parameter binding instance - in this case the SimplePostVariableParameterBinding. Once the parameter binding and this hook up code is in place, you can now pass simple POST values to methods with simple parameters. The examples I showed above should now work in addition to the standard bindings. Summary Clearly this is not easy to discover. I spent quite a bit of time digging through the Web API source trying to figure this out on my own without much luck. It took Hong Mei at Micrsoft to provide a base example as I asked around so I can't take credit for this solution :-). But once you know where to look, Web API is brilliantly extensible to make it relatively easy to customize the parameter behavior. I'm very stoked that this got resolved  - in the last two months I've had two customers with projects that decided not to use Web API in AJAX heavy SPA applications because this POST variable mapping wasn't available. This might actually change their mind to still switch back and take advantage of the many great features in Web API. I too frequently use plain POST variables for communicating with server AJAX handlers and while I could have worked around this (with untyped JObject or the Form collection mostly), having proper POST to parameter mapping makes things much easier. I said this in my last post on POST data and say it again here: I think POST to method parameter mapping should have been shipped in the box with Web API, because without knowing about this limitation the expectation is that simple POST variables map to parameters just like query string values do. I hope Microsoft considers including this type of functionality natively in the next version of Web API natively or at least as a built-in HttpParameterBinding that can be just added. This is especially true, since this binding doesn't affect existing bindings. Resources SimplePostVariableParameterBinding Source on GitHub Global.asax hookup source Mapping URL Encoded Post Values in  ASP.NET Web API© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in Web Api  AJAX   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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• 2 way SSL between SOA and OSB

  - by Johnny Shum

  If you have a need to use 2 way SSL between SOA composite and external partner links, you can follow these steps. Create the identity keystores, trust keystores, and server certificates. Setup keystores and SSL on WebLogic Setup server to use 2 way SSL Configure your SOA composite's partner link to use 2 way SSL Configure SOA engine two ways SSL In this case,  I use SOA and OSB for the test.  I started with a separate OSB and SOA domains.  I deployed two soap based proxies on OSB and two composites on SOA.  In SOA, one composite invokes a OSB proxy service, the other is invoked by the OSB.  Similarly,  in OSB,  one proxy invokes a SOA composite and the other is invoked by SOA. 1. Create the identity keystores, trust keystores and the server certificates Since this is a development environment, I use JDK's keytool to create the stores and use self signing certificate.  For production environment, you should use certificates from a trusted certificate authority like Verisign.    I created a script below to show what is needed in this step.  The only requirement is when creating the SOA identity certificate, you MUST use the alias mykey. STOREPASS=welcome1KEYPASS=welcome1# generate identity keystore for soa and osb.  Note: For SOA, you MUST use alias mykeyecho "creating stores"keytool -genkey -alias mykey -keyalg "RSA" -sigalg "SHA1withRSA" -dname "CN=soa, C=US" -keystore soa-default-keystore.jks -storepass $STOREPASS -keypass $KEYPASS keytool -genkey -alias osbkey -keyalg "RSA" -sigalg "SHA1withRSA" -dname "CN=osb, C=US" -keystore osb-default-keystore.jks -storepass $STOREPASS -keypass $KEYPASS# listing keystore contentsecho "listing stores contents"keytool -list -alias mykey -keystore soa-default-keystore.jks -storepass $STOREPASSkeytool -list -alias osbkey -keystore osb-default-keystore.jks -storepass $STOREPASS# exporting certs from storesecho "export certs from  stores"keytool -exportcert -alias mykey -keystore soa-default-keystore.jks -storepass $STOREPASS -file soacert.derkeytool -exportcert -alias osbkey -keystore osb-default-keystore.jks -storepass $STOREPASS -file osbcert.der # import certs to trust storesecho "import certs"keytool -importcert -alias osbkey -keystore soa-trust-keystore.jks -storepass $STOREPASS -file osbcert.der -keypass $KEYPASSkeytool -importcert -alias mykey -keystore osb-trust-keystore.jks -storepass $STOREPASS -file soacert.der  -keypass $KEYPASS SOA suite uses the JDK's SSL implementation for outbound traffic instead of the WebLogic's implementation.  You will need to import the partner's public cert into the trusted keystore used by SOA.  The default trusted keystore for SOA is DemoTrust.jks and it is located in $MW_HOME/wlserver_10.3/server/lib.   (This is set in the startup script -Djavax.net.ssl.trustStore).   If you use your own trusted keystore, then you will need to import it into your own trusted keystore. keytool -importcert -alias osbkey -keystore $MW_HOME/wlserver_10.3/server/lib/DemoTrust.jks -storepass DemoTrustKeyStorePassPhrase  -file osbcert.der -keypass $KEYPASS If you do not perform this step, you will encounter this exception in runtime when SOA invokes OSB service using 2 way SSL Message send failed: sun.security.validator.ValidatorException: PKIX path building failed: sun.security.provider.certpath.SunCertPathBuilderException: unable to find valid certification path to requested target  2.  Setup keystores and SSL on WebLogic First, you will need to login to the WebLogic console, navigate to the server's configuration->Keystore's tab.   Change the Keystores type to Custom Identity and Custom Trust and enter the rest of the fields. Then you navigate to the SSL tab, enter the fields in the identity section and expand the Advanced section.  Since I am using self signing cert on my VM enviornment, I disabled Hostname verification.  In real production system, this should not be the case.   I also enabled the option "Use Server Certs", so that the application uses the server cert to initiate https traffic (it is important to enable this in OSB). Last, you enable SSL listening port in the Server's configuration->General tab. 3.  Setup server to use 2 way SSL If you follow the screen shot in previous step, you can see in the Server->Configuration->SSL->Advanced section, there is an option for Two Way Client Cert Behavior,  you should set this to Client Certs Requested and Enforced. Repeat step 2 and 3 done on OSB.  After all these configurations,  you have to restart all the servers. 4.  Configure your SOA composite's partner link to use 2 way SSL You do this by modifying the composite.xml in your project, locate the partner's link reference and add the property oracle.soa.two.way.ssl.enabled.   <reference name="callosb" ui:wsdlLocation="helloword.wsdl">    <interface.wsdl interface="http://www.examples.com/wsdl/HelloService.wsdl#wsdl.interface(Hello_PortType)"/>    <binding.ws port="http://www.examples.com/wsdl/HelloService.wsdl#wsdl.endpoint(Hello_Service/Hello_Port)"                location="helloword.wsdl" soapVersion="1.1">      <property name="weblogic.wsee.wsat.transaction.flowOption"                type="xs:string" many="false">WSDLDriven</property>   <property name="oracle.soa.two.way.ssl.enabled">true</property>    </binding.ws>  </reference> In OSB, you should have checked the HTTPS required flag in the proxy's transport configuration.  After this,  rebuilt the composite jar file and ready to deploy in the EM console later. 5.  Configure SOA engine two ways SSL Oracle SOA Suite uses both Oracle WebLogic Server and Sun Secure Socket Layer (SSL) stacks for two-way SSL configurations. For the inbound web service bindings, Oracle SOA Suite uses the Oracle WebLogic Server infrastructure and, therefore, the Oracle WebLogic Server libraries for SSL.  This is already done by step 2 and 3 in the previous section. For the outbound web service bindings, Oracle SOA Suite uses JRF HttpClient and, therefore, the Sun JDK libraries for SSL.  You do this by configuring the SOA Engine in the Enterprise Manager Console, select soa-infra->SOA Administration->Common Properties Then click at the link at the bottom of the page:  "More SOA Infra Advances Infrastructure Configuration Properties" and then enter the full path of soa identity keystore in the value field of the KeyStoreLocation attribute.  Click Apply and Return then navigate to the domain->security->credential. Here, you provide the password to the keystore.  Note: the alias of the certficate must be mykey as described in step 1, so you only need to provide the password to the identity keystore.   You accomplish this by: Click Create Map In the Map Name field, enter SOA, and click OK Click Create Key Enter the following details where the password is the password for the SOA identity keystore. 6.  Test and Trouble Shooting Once the setup is complete and server restarted, you can deploy the composite in the EM console and test it.  In case of error,  you can read the server log file to determine the cause of the error.  For example, If you have not setup step 5 and test 2 way SSL, you will see this in the log when invoking OSB from BPEL: java.lang.Exception: oracle.sysman.emSDK.webservices.wsdlapi.SoapTestException: oracle.fabric.common.FabricInvocationException: Unable to access the following endpoint(s): https://localhost.localdomain:7002/default/helloword ####<Sep 22, 2012 2:07:37 PM CDT> <Error> <oracle.soa.bpel.engine.ws> <rhel55> <AdminServer> <[ACTIVE] ExecuteThread: '1' for queue: 'weblogic.kernel.Default (self-tuning)'> <<anonymous>> <BEA1-0AFDAEF20610F8FD89C5> ............ <11d1def534ea1be0:-4034173:139ef56d9f0:-8000-00000000000002ec> <1348340857956> <BEA-000000> <got FabricInvocationException sun.security.provider.certpath.SunCertPathBuilderException: unable to find valid certification path to requested target If you have not enable WebLogic SSL to use server certificate in the console and invoke SOA composite from OSB using two ways SSL, you will see this error: ####<Sep 22, 2012 2:07:37 PM CDT> <Warning> <Security> <rhel55> <AdminServer> <[ACTIVE] ExecuteThread: '6' for queue: 'weblogic.kernel.Default (self-tuning)'> <<WLS Kernel>> <> <11d1def534ea1be0:-51f5c76a:139ef5e1e1a:-8000-00000000000000e2> <1348340857776> <BEA-090485> <CERTIFICATE_UNKNOWN alert was received from localhost.localdomain - 127.0.0.1. The peer has an unspecified issue with the certificate. SSL debug tracing should be enabled on the peer to determine what the issue is.> ####<Sep 22, 2012 2:07:37 PM CDT> <Warning> <Security> <rhel55> <AdminServer> <[ACTIVE] ExecuteThread: '6' for queue: 'weblogic.kernel.Default (self-tuning)'> <<WLS Kernel>> <> <11d1def534ea1be0:-51f5c76a:139ef5e1e1a:-8000-00000000000000e4> <1348340857786> <BEA-090485> <CERTIFICATE_UNKNOWN alert was received from localhost.localdomain - 127.0.0.1. The peer has an unspecified issue with the certificate. SSL debug tracing should be enabled on the peer to determine what the issue is.> ####<Sep 22, 2012 2:27:21 PM CDT> <Warning> <Security> <rhel55> <AdminServer> <[ACTIVE] ExecuteThread: '0' for queue: 'weblogic.kernel.Default (self-tuning)'> <<anonymous>> <> <11d1def534ea1be0:-51f5c76a:139ef5e1e1a:-8000-0000000000000124> <1348342041926> <BEA-090497> <HANDSHAKE_FAILURE alert received from localhost - 127.0.0.1. Check both sides of the SSL configuration for mismatches in supported ciphers, supported protocol versions, trusted CAs, and hostname verification settings.> References http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E23943_01/admin.1111/e10226/soacompapp_secure.htm#CHDCFABB   Section 5.6.4 http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E23943_01/web.1111/e13707/ssl.htm#i1200848

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• Option Trading: Getting the most out of the event session options

  - by extended_events

  You can control different aspects of how an event session behaves by setting the event session options as part of the CREATE EVENT SESSION DDL. The default settings for the event session options are designed to handle most of the common event collection situations so I generally recommend that you just use the defaults. Like everything in the real world though, there are going to be a handful of “special cases” that require something different. This post focuses on identifying the special cases and the correct use of the options to accommodate those cases. There is a reason it’s called Default The default session options specify a total event buffer size of 4 MB with a 30 second latency. Translating this into human terms; this means that our default behavior is that the system will start processing events from the event buffer when we reach about 1.3 MB of events or after 30 seconds, which ever comes first. Aside: What’s up with the 1.3 MB, I thought you said the buffer was 4 MB?The Extended Events engine takes the total buffer size specified by MAX_MEMORY (4MB by default) and divides it into 3 equally sized buffers. This is done so that a session can be publishing events to one buffer while other buffers are being processed. There are always at least three buffers; how to get more than three is covered later. Using this configuration, the Extended Events engine can “keep up” with most event sessions on standard workloads. Why is this? The fact is that most events are small, really small; on the order of a couple hundred bytes. Even when you start considering events that carry dynamically sized data (eg. binary, text, etc.) or adding actions that collect additional data, the total size of the event is still likely to be pretty small. This means that each buffer can likely hold thousands of events before it has to be processed. When the event buffers are finally processed there is an economy of scale achieved since most targets support bulk processing of the events so they are processed at the buffer level rather than the individual event level. When all this is working together it’s more likely that a full buffer will be processed and put back into the ready queue before the remaining buffers (remember, there are at least three) are full. I know what you’re going to say: “My server is exceptional! My workload is so massive it defies categorization!” OK, maybe you weren’t going to say that exactly, but you were probably thinking it. The point is that there are situations that won’t be covered by the Default, but that’s a good place to start and this post assumes you’ve started there so that you have something to look at in order to determine if you do have a special case that needs different settings. So let’s get to the special cases… What event just fired?! How about now?! Now?! If you believe the commercial adage from Heinz Ketchup (Heinz Slow Good Ketchup ad on You Tube), some things are worth the wait. This is not a belief held by most DBAs, particularly DBAs who are looking for an answer to a troubleshooting question fast. If you’re one of these anxious DBAs, or maybe just a Program Manager doing a demo, then 30 seconds might be longer than you’re comfortable waiting. If you find yourself in this situation then consider changing the MAX_DISPATCH_LATENCY option for your event session. This option will force the event buffers to be processed based on your time schedule. This option only makes sense for the asynchronous targets since those are the ones where we allow events to build up in the event buffer – if you’re using one of the synchronous targets this option isn’t relevant. Avoid forgotten events by increasing your memory Have you ever had one of those days where you keep forgetting things? That can happen in Extended Events too; we call it dropped events. In order to optimizes for server performance and help ensure that the Extended Events doesn’t block the server if to drop events that can’t be published to a buffer because the buffer is full. You can determine if events are being dropped from a session by querying the dm_xe_sessions DMV and looking at the dropped_event_count field. Aside: Should you care if you’re dropping events?Maybe not – think about why you’re collecting data in the first place and whether you’re really going to miss a few dropped events. For example, if you’re collecting query duration stats over thousands of executions of a query it won’t make a huge difference to miss a couple executions. Use your best judgment. If you find that your session is dropping events it means that the event buffer is not large enough to handle the volume of events that are being published. There are two ways to address this problem. First, you could collect fewer events – examine you session to see if you are over collecting. Do you need all the actions you’ve specified? Could you apply a predicate to be more specific about when you fire the event? Assuming the session is defined correctly, the next option is to change the MAX_MEMORY option to a larger number. Picking the right event buffer size might take some trial and error, but a good place to start is with the number of dropped events compared to the number you’ve collected. Aside: There are three different behaviors for dropping events that you specify using the EVENT_RETENTION_MODE option. The default is to allow single event loss and you should stick with this setting since it is the best choice for keeping the impact on server performance low.You’ll be tempted to use the setting to not lose any events (NO_EVENT_LOSS) – resist this urge since it can result in blocking on the server. If you’re worried that you’re losing events you should be increasing your event buffer memory as described in this section. Some events are too big to fail A less common reason for dropping an event is when an event is so large that it can’t fit into the event buffer. Even though most events are going to be small, you might find a condition that occasionally generates a very large event. You can determine if your session is dropping large events by looking at the dm_xe_sessions DMV once again, this time check the largest_event_dropped_size. If this value is larger than the size of your event buffer [remember, the size of your event buffer, by default, is max_memory / 3] then you need a large event buffer. To specify a large event buffer you set the MAX_EVENT_SIZE option to a value large enough to fit the largest event dropped based on data from the DMV. When you set this option the Extended Events engine will create two buffers of this size to accommodate these large events. As an added bonus (no extra charge) the large event buffer will also be used to store normal events in the cases where the normal event buffers are all full and waiting to be processed. (Note: This is just a side-effect, not the intended use. If you’re dropping many normal events then you should increase your normal event buffer size.) Partitioning: moving your events to a sub-division Earlier I alluded to the fact that you can configure your event session to use more than the standard three event buffers – this is called partitioning and is controlled by the MEMORY_PARTITION_MODE option. The result of setting this option is fairly easy to explain, but knowing when to use it is a bit more art than science. First the science… You can configure partitioning in three ways: None, Per NUMA Node & Per CPU. This specifies the location where sets of event buffers are created with fairly obvious implication. There are rules we follow for sub-dividing the total memory (specified by MAX_MEMORY) between all the event buffers that are specific to the mode used: None: 3 buffers (fixed)Node: 3 * number_of_nodesCPU: 2.5 * number_of_cpus Here are some examples of what this means for different Node/CPU counts: Configuration None Node CPU 2 CPUs, 1 Node 3 buffers 3 buffers 5 buffers 6 CPUs, 2 Node 3 buffers 6 buffers 15 buffers 40 CPUs, 5 Nodes 3 buffers 15 buffers 100 buffers   Aside: Buffer size on multi-processor computersAs the number of Nodes or CPUs increases, the size of the event buffer gets smaller because the total memory is sub-divided into more pieces. The defaults will hold up to this for a while since each buffer set is holding events only from the Node or CPU that it is associated with, but at some point the buffers will get too small and you’ll either see events being dropped or you’ll get an error when you create your session because you’re below the minimum buffer size. Increase the MAX_MEMORY setting to an appropriate number for the configuration. The most likely reason to start partitioning is going to be related to performance. If you notice that running an event session is impacting the performance of your server beyond a reasonably expected level [Yes, there is a reasonably expected level of work required to collect events.] then partitioning might be an answer. Before you partition you might want to check a few other things: Is your event retention set to NO_EVENT_LOSS and causing blocking? (I told you not to do this.) Consider changing your event loss mode or increasing memory. Are you over collecting and causing more work than necessary? Consider adding predicates to events or removing unnecessary events and actions from your session. Are you writing the file target to the same slow disk that you use for TempDB and your other high activity databases? <kidding> <not really> It’s always worth considering the end to end picture – if you’re writing events to a file you can be impacted by I/O, network; all the usual stuff. Assuming you’ve ruled out the obvious (and not so obvious) issues, there are performance conditions that will be addressed by partitioning. For example, it’s possible to have a successful event session (eg. no dropped events) but still see a performance impact because you have many CPUs all attempting to write to the same free buffer and having to wait in line to finish their work. This is a case where partitioning would relieve the contention between the different CPUs and likely reduce the performance impact cause by the event session. There is no DMV you can check to find these conditions – sorry – that’s where the art comes in. This is  largely a matter of experimentation. On the bright side you probably won’t need to to worry about this level of detail all that often. The performance impact of Extended Events is significantly lower than what you may be used to with SQL Trace. You will likely only care about the impact if you are trying to set up a long running event session that will be part of your everyday workload – sessions used for short term troubleshooting will likely fall into the “reasonably expected impact” category. Hey buddy – I think you forgot something OK, there are two options I didn’t cover: STARTUP_STATE & TRACK_CAUSALITY. If you want your event sessions to start automatically when the server starts, set the STARTUP_STATE option to ON. (Now there is only one option I didn’t cover.) I’m going to leave causality for another post since it’s not really related to session behavior, it’s more about event analysis. - Mike Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• Entity Framework v1 &hellip; Brief Synopsis and Tips &ndash; Part 2

  - by Rohit Gupta

  Using Entity Framework with ASMX Web sErvices and WCF Web Service: If you use ASMX WebService to expose Entity objects from Entity Framework... then the ASMX Webservice does not  include object graphs, one work around is to use Facade pattern or to use WCF Service. The other important aspect of using ASMX Web Services along with Entity Framework is that the ASMX Client is not aware of the existence of EF v1 since the client solely deals with C# objects (not EntityObjects or ObjectContext). Since the client is not aware of the ObjectContext hence the client cannot participate in change tracking since the client only receives the Current Values and not the Orginal values when the service sends the the Entity objects to the client. Thus there are 2 drawbacks to using EntityFramework with ASMX Web Service: 1. Object state is not maintained... so to overcome this limitation we need insert/update single entity at a time and retrieve the original values for the entity being updated on the server/service end before calling Save Changes. 2. ASMX does not maintain object graphs... i.e. Customer.Reservations or Customer.Reservations.Trip relationships are not maintained. Thus you need to send these relationships separately from service to client. WCF Web Service overcomes the object graph limitation of ASMX Web Service, but we need to insure that we are populating all the non-null scalar properties of all the objects in the object graph before calling Update. WCF Web service still cannot overcome the second limitation of tracking changes to entities at the client end. Also note that the "Customer" class in the Client is very different from the "Customer" class in the Entity Framework Model Entities. They are incompatible with each other hence we cannot cast one to the other. However the .NET Framework translates the client "Customer" Entity to the EFv1 Model "customer" Entity once the entity is serialzed back on the ASMX server end. If you need change tracking enabled on the client then we need to use WCF Data Services which is available with VS 2010. ====================================================================================================== In WCF when adding an object that has relationships, the framework assumes that every object in the object graph needs to be added to store. for e.g. in a Customer.Reservations.Trip object graph, when a Customer Entity is added to the store, the EFv1 assumes that it needs to a add a Reservations collection and also Trips for each Reservation. Thus if we need to use existing Trips for reservations then we need to insure that we null out the Trip object reference from Reservations and set the TripReference to the EntityKey of the desired Trip instead. ====================================================================================================== Understanding Relationships and Associations in EFv1 The Golden Rule of EF is that it does not load entities/relationships unless you ask it to explicitly do so. However there is 1 exception to this rule. This exception happens when you attach/detach entities from the ObjectContext. If you detach an Entity in a ObjectGraph from the ObjectContext, then the ObjectContext removes the ObjectStateEntry for this Entity and all the relationship Objects associated with this Entity. For e.g. in a Customer.Order.OrderDetails if the Customer Entity is detached from the ObjectContext then you cannot traverse to the Order and OrderDetails Entities (that still exist in the ObjectContext) from the Customer Entity(which does not exist in the Object Context) Conversely, if you JOIN a entity that is not in the ObjectContext with a Entity that is in the ObjContext then the First Entity will automatically be added to the ObjContext since relationships for the 2 Entities need to exist in the ObjContext. ========================================================= You cannot attach an EntityCollection to an entity through its navigation property for e.g. you cannot code myContact.Addresses = myAddressEntityCollection ========================================================== Cascade Deletes in EDM: The Designer does not support specifying cascase deletes for a Entity. To enable cascasde deletes on a Entity in EDM use the Association definition in CSDL for the Entity. for e.g. SalesOrderDetail (SOD) has a Foreign Key relationship with SalesOrderHeader (SalesOrderHeader 1 : SalesOrderDetail *) if you specify a cascade Delete on SalesOrderHeader Entity then calling deleteObject on SalesOrderHeader (SOH) Entity will send delete commands for SOH record and all the SOD records that reference the SOH record. ========================================================== As a good design practise, if you use Cascade Deletes insure that Cascade delete facet is used both in the EDM as well as in the database. Even though it is not absolutely mandatory to have Cascade deletes on both Database and EDM (since you can see that just the Cascade delete spec on the SOH Entity in EDM will insure that SOH record and all related SOD records will be deleted from the database ... even though you dont have cascade delete configured in the database in the SOD table) ============================================================== Maintaining relationships in Code When Setting a Navigation property of a Entity (for e.g. setting the Contact Navigation property of Address Entity) the following rules apply : If both objects are detached, no relationship object will be created. You are simply setting a property the CLR way. If both objects are attached, a relationship object will be created. If only one of the objects is attached, the other will become attached and a relationship object will be created. If that detached object is new, when it is attached to the context its EntityState will be Added. One important rule to remember regarding synchronizing the EntityReference.Value and EntityReference.EntityKey properties is that when attaching an Entity which has a EntityReference (e.g. Address Entity with ContactReference) the Value property will take precedence and if the Value and EntityKey are out of sync, the EntityKey will be updated to match the Value. ====================================================== If you call .Load() method on a detached Entity then the .Load() operation will throw an exception. There is one exception to this rule. If you load entities using MergeOption.NoTracking, you will be able to call .Load() on such entities since these Entities are accessible by the ObjectContext. So the bottomline is that we need Objectontext to be able to call .Load() method to do deffered loading on EntityReference or EntityCollection. Another rule to remember is that you cannot call .Load() on entities that have a EntityState.Added State since the ObjectContext uses the EntityKey of the Primary (Parent) Entity when loading the related (Child) Entity (and not the EntityKey of the child (even if the EntityKey of the child is present before calling .Load()) ====================================================== You can use ObjContext.Add() to add a entity to the ObjContext and set the EntityState of the new Entity to EntityState.Added. here no relationships are added/updated. You can also use EntityCollection.Add() method to add an entity to another entity's related EntityCollection for e.g. contact has a Addresses EntityCollection so to add a new address use contact.Addresses.Add(newAddress) to add a new address to the Addresses EntityCollection. Note that if the entity does not already exist in the ObjectContext then calling contact.Addresses.Add(myAddress) will cause a new Address Entity to be added to the ObjContext with EntityState.Added and it will also add a RelationshipEntry (a relationship object) with EntityState.Added which connects the Contact (contact) with the new address newAddress. Note that if the entity already exists in the Objectcontext (being part theOtherContact.Addresses Collection), then calling contact.Addresses.Add(existingAddress) will add 2 RelationshipEntry objects to the ObjectStateEntry Collection, one with EntityState.Deleted and the other with EntityState.Added. This implies that the existingAddress Entity is removed from the theOtherContact.Addresses Collection and Added to the contact.Addresses Collection..effectively reassigning the address entity from the theOtherContact to "contact". This is called moving an existing entity to a new object graph. ====================================================== You usually use ObjectContext.Attach() and EntityCollection.Attach() methods usually when you need to reconstruct the ObjectGraph after deserializing the objects as received from a ASMX Web Service Client. Attach is usually used to connect existing Entities in the ObjectContext. When EntityCollection.Attach() is called the EntityState of the RelationshipEntry (the relationship object) remains as EntityState.unchanged whereas when EntityCollection.Add() method is called the EntityState of the relationship object changes to EntityState.Added or EntityState.Deleted as the situation demands. ========================================================= LINQ To Entities Tips: Select Many does Inner Join by default.   for e.g. from c in Contact from a in c.Address select c ... this will do a Inner Join between the Contacts and Addresses Table and return only those Contacts that have a Address. ======================================================== Group Joins Do LEFT Join by default. e.g. from a in Address join c in Contact ON a.Contact.ContactID == c.ContactID Into g WHERE a.CountryRegion == "US" select g; This query will do a left join on the Contact table and return contacts that have a address in "US" region The following query : from c in Contact join a in Address.Where(a1 => a1.CountryRegion == "US") on c.ContactID  equals a.Contact.ContactID into addresses select new {c, addresses} will do a left join on the Address table and return All Contacts. In these Contacts only those will have its Address EntityCollection Populated which have a Address in the "US" region, the other contacts will have 0 Addresses in the Address collection (even if addresses for those contacts exist in the database but are in a different region) ======================================================== Linq to Entities does not support DefaultIfEmpty().... instead use .Include("Address") Query Builder method to do a Left JOIN or use Group Joins if you need more control like Filtering on the Address EntityCollection of Contact Entity =================================================================== Use CreateSourceQuery() on the EntityReference or EntityCollection if you need to add filters during deferred loading of Entities (Deferred loading in EFv1 happens when you call Load() method on the EntityReference or EntityCollection. for e.g. var cust=context.Contacts.OfType<Customer>().First(); var sq = cust.Reservations.CreateSourceQuery().Where(r => r.ReservationDate > new DateTime(2008,1,1)); cust.Reservations.Attach(sq); This populates only those reservations that are older than Jan 1 2008. This is the only way (in EFv1) to Attach a Range of Entities to a EntityCollection using the Attach() method ================================================================== If you need to get the Foreign Key value for a entity e.g. to get the ContactID value from a Address Entity use this :                                address.ContactReference.EntityKey.EntityKeyValues.Where(k=> k.Key == "ContactID")

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, June 04, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, June 04, 2010New Projects23 Umbraco addons: 23 Umbraco addonsAdd-ons for EPiServer Relate+: In the Add-ons for EPiServer Relate+ you will find add-ons, extensions and modules that work together with EPiServer Relate+.Advanced Mail Merge (AMM) for Microsoft Office: Advanced Mail Merge for Microsoft Word 2007/2010, offers great extensable functionality: - Merge to document (PDF) - Merge to attachment - Use Out...Cenobith RLS Sample: Simple implementation of Row Level Security for Microsoft SQL ServerCodingWheels.DataTypes: DataTypes tries to make it easier for developers to have concrete typesafe objects for working with many common forms of data. Many times these dat...DigitArchive: Digit Archive makes it easy for the DIGIT magazine readers to find the correct software or movie bundled in the media along with the magazine. You'...dNet.DB: dNetDB is a .net framework that simplifies model and data access by providing a database independent object-based persistence, where objects are pe...Dynamic Application Framework: The Dynamic Application Framework provides a highly flexible environment for creating applications. Multiple UI and Execution Environments, along w...ECoG: ECoG toolkitFB Toolkit with Contracts: This is a research project where I have inserted code contracts into the Facebook Toolkit source code., version 3.1 beta. This delivers an efficien...GeneCMS: GeneCMS allows users to generate static HTML based websites by offering an ASP.NET editing front-end that can be run in the local machine. It is ta...HooIzDat: HooIzDat is game that asks, who the heck is that?! It's a two player game where your task is to guess your opponent's person before he or she guess...JingQiao.Interacting: JingQiao Interacting MessagingKanbanBoard: Visual task board for Kanban and Scrum.Learning CSharp: Just Learning CSharpMammoth: mammothMapWindow Mobile: MapWindow Mobile is mobile GIS Software which can run on windows mobile, developed in C# .NET Compact Framework. It provides basic GIS functionalit...Mindless Setback: Setback is a card game popular in New England. This project uses a combination of brute force and Monte Carlo methods to play Setback. This is an e...MSNCore(DirectUI) Element Viewer: MSNCore Element Viewer is an application designed to enumerate the elements with in applications built with MSNCore.dll and UXCore.dll. This appli...MSVN Team: bài tập thầy lườngNugget: Web Socket Server: A web socket server implemented in c#. The goal of the projects is to create an easy way to start using HTML5 web sockets in .NET web applications.oSoft ColorPicker Control for Visual Studio 2010: oSoft ColorPicker is an user control that can be used instead of the ColorDialog when you want to allow your users to select a color in a windows f...Prism Software Factory: The Prism Software Factory is a software factory for Visual Studio 2010 assisting developers in the process of building WPF & Silverlight applicati...Project Lion: Project lion is forum developed in Silverlight technology. Refix - .NET dependency management: Refix is an attempt to solve the problem of binary dependency management in large .NET solutions. It will achieve the goal using (amongst other thi...Rich Task List: Rich Task List is a tutorial project for DotNetNuke Module Development.SharePoint PowerRSS: Easy/Clean way to get SharePoint list data via more standard RSS feed. 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Added the ability ...Cenobith RLS Sample: Sample App: Change connection strings in App.config and Web.config files.Christoc's DotNetNuke C# Module Development Template: 00.00.02: A minor update from the original release with a few fixes including Localization and some updated documentation.Community Forums NNTP bridge: Community Forums NNTP Bridge V25: Release of the Community Forums NNTP Bridge to access the social and anwsers MS forums with a single, open source NNTP bridge. This release has ad...DEWD: DEWD for Umbraco v1.0: Beta release of the package. Functional feature set and fairly stable. Since the alpha: Validation on input fields Custom view controls Ability...DotNetNuke Developers Help File: DNNHelpSystem 05.04.02: Release of the developer core API help documentation of DotNetNuke in MSDN style format, both as .CHM stand alone file as well as a html website ba...Drive Backup: Drive Backup V.0604: This release includes the following fixes/features: * Fixed incompatibility with some USB drives (those marked as “fixed” by Windows) * Ad...Event Scavenger: Version 3.3 (Refresh): Archiving bit added to database plus archiving stored procedure updated. Rest of items just refreshed. Database set to version 3.3Expression Encoder Batch Processor: Expression Batch v0.3: Now set the newly-converted file's Created DateTime to equal the source file's. This helps keep your videos sorterd chronologically in media librar...Folder Bookmarks: Folder Bookmarks 1.6.1: The latest version of Folder Bookmarks (1.6.1), with Mini-Menu bug fixes and 'Help' feature - all the instructions needed to use the software (If y...Genesis Smart Client Framework: Genesis v2.0 - Ruby User Experience Platform (UXP): This is the start of the rewrite of the entire framework. The rewrite will include support for XAML through WPF and Silverlight, WCF, Workflow Serv...Global: http requester tool: Added a brnad new console app for making http requests.GMap.NET - Great Maps for Windows Forms & Presentation: Hot Build: this is latest change-set build, unstable previewHERB.IQ: Alpha 0.1 Source code release 4: As of 6-23-10 @ 9:48ESTInfragistics Analytics Framework: Infragistics Analytics Framework 1.0: This project includes wrappers for the Infragistics controls that integrate with the recently launched Microsoft Silverlight Analytics Framework. T...Innovative Games: Cube Mapper: Cube Mapper is a small tool that takes in six textures and outputs a cube map that is a combination of the six textures. Cube Mapper supports .tga...jQuery Library for SharePoint Web Services: SPServices 0.5.6: This release is in an alpha state. Please only download it if you know what you are getting and are willing to test it. In any case, it's a bad ide...linq to jquery: jlinq v1.00 no doc: First public version of jlinq! no doc yet, soon too come!LinqSpecs: Version 1.0.1: Fabio Maulo has sent several patchs in order to make LinqSpecs to work with any linq provider other than in memory. Big KUDOS for him.mojoPortal: 2.3.4.4: see release notes on mojoportal.com Note that we have separate deployment packages for .NET 3.5 and .NET 4.0 The deployment package downloads on ...Nugget: Web Socket Server: Initial POC release: The initial proof of concept release. To try it out, open the Sample App.sln, set the ChatServer project as the start-up project, start debugging ...oSoft ColorPicker Control for Visual Studio 2010: oSoft ColorPicker Control for VS 2010 Beta 1: Beta 1Refix - .NET dependency management: Refix v0.1.0.48 ALPHA: First preview version of Refix command-line tool.SharePoint 2010 CSV Bulk Term Set Importer: Bulk Term Set Importer: Initial ReleaseSOAPI - StackOverflow API Generator: SOAPI Wrappers: SOAPI-JS First release as SOAPI-JS, SOAPI-CS coming shortly. Tests and example includedSQL Compact Toolbox: Beta 0.8.1: Initial test release - mind the bumps. Requires Visual Studio 2010.Thumb nail creator and image resizer: ThumbnailCreator1.2: this release fixes and issue that was occuring when the control was used inside paged dataTS3QueryLib.Net: TS3QueryLib.Net Version 0.23.17.0: Changelog Added Properties "IsSpacer" and "SpacerInfo" to ChannelListEntry. 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• Using Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center to Update Solaris via Live Upgrade

  - by LeonShaner

  Introduction: This Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center blog entry provides tips for using Ops Center to update Solaris using Live Upgrade on Solaris 10 and Boot Environments on Solaris 11. Why use Live Upgrade? Live Upgrade (LU) can significantly reduce downtime associated with patching Live Upgrade avoids dropping to single-user mode for long periods of time during patching Live Upgrade relies on an Alternate Boot Environment (ABE)/(BE), which is patched while in multi-user mode; thereby allowing normal system operations to continue with the active BE, while the alternate BE is being patched Activating an newly patched (A)BE is essentially a reboot; therefore the downtime is ~= reboot Admins can easily revert to the prior Boot Environment (BE) as a safeguard / fallback. Why use Ops Center to patch via Live Upgrade, Alternate Boot Environments, and Solaris 11 equivalents? All the benefits of Ops Center's extensive patch and package knowledge base can be leveraged on top of Live Upgrade Ops Center can orchestrate patching based on Live Upgrade and Solaris 11 features, which all works together to minimize downtime Ops Centers advanced inventory and reporting features assurance that each OS is updated to a verifiable, consistent standard, rather than relying on ad-hoc (error prone) procedures and scripts Ops Center gives admins control over the boot environment specifications or they can let Ops Center decide when a BE is necessary, thereby reducing complexity and lowering the opportunity for user error Preparing to use Live Upgrade-like features in Solaris 11 Requirements and information you should know: Global Zone Root file-systems must be separate from Solaris Container / Zone filesystems Solaris 11 has features which are similar in concept to Live Upgrade on Solaris 10, but differ greatly in implementationImportant distinctions: Solaris 11 assumes ZFS root Solaris 11 adds Boot Environments (BE's) as an integrated feature (see beadm) Solaris 11 BE's avoid single-user patching (vs. Solaris 10 w/ ZFS snapshot=ABE). Solaris 11 Image Packaging System (IPS) has hooks for BE creation, as needed Solaris 11 allows pkgs to be installed + upgraded in alternate BE (e.g. instead of the live system) but it is controlled on a per-pkg basis Boot Environments are activated across a reboot; instead of spending long periods installing + upgrading packages in single user mode. Fallback to a prior BE is a function of the BE infrastructure (a la beadm). (Generally) Reboot + BE activation can be much much faster on Solaris 11 Preparing to use Live Upgrade on Solaris 10 Requirements and information you should know: Global Zone Root file-systems must be separate from Solaris Container / Zone filesystems Live Upgrade Pre-requisite patches must be applied before the first Live Upgrade Alternate Boot Environments are created (see "Pre-requisite Patches" section, below...) Solaris 10 Update 6 or newer on ZFS root is the practical starting point for Live Upgrade Live Upgrade with ZFS root is far more straight-forward than any scheme based on Alternative Boot Environments in slices or temporarily breaking mirrors Use Solaris best practices to upgrade the OS to at least Solaris 10 Update 4 (outside of Ops Center) UFS root can (technically) be used, but it is significantly more involved (e.g. discouraged) -- there are many reasons to move to ZFS while going through the process to update to Solaris 10 Update 6 or newer (out side of Ops Center) Recommendation: Start with Solaris 10 Update 6 or newer on ZFS root Recommendation: Start with Ops Center 12c or newer Ops Center 12c can automatically create your ABE's for you, without the need for custom scripts Ops Center 12c Update 2 avoids kernel panic on unpatched Solaris 10 update 9 (and older) -- unrelated to Live Upgrade, but more on the issue, below. NOTE: There is no magic!  If you have systems running Solaris 10 Update 5 or older on UFS root, and you don't know how to get them updated to Solaris 10 on ZFS root, then there are services available from Oracle Advanced Customer Support (ACS), which specialize in this area. Live Upgrade Pre-requisite Patches (Solaris 10) Certain Live Upgrade related patches must be present before the first Live Upgrade ABE's are created on Solaris 10.Use the following MOS Search String to find the “living document” that outlines the required patch minimums, which are necessary before using any Live Upgrade features: Solaris Live Upgrade Software Patch Requirements(Click above – the link is valid as of this writing, but search in MOS for the same "Solaris Live Upgrade Software Patch Requirements" string if necessary) It is a very good idea to check the document periodically and adapt to its contents, accordingly.IMPORTANT:  In case it wasn't clear in the above document, some direct patching of the active OS, including a reboot, may be required before Live Upgrade can be successfully used the first time.HINT: You can use Ops Center to determine what to expect for a given system, and to schedule the “pre-patching” during a maintenance window if necessary. Preparing to use Ops Center Discover + Manage (Install + Configure the Ops Center agent in) each Global Zone Recommendation:  Begin by using OCDoctor --agent-prereq to determine whether OS meets OC prerequisites (resolve any issues) See prior requirements and recommendations w.r.t. starting with Solaris 10 Update 6 or newer on ZFS (or at least Solaris 10 Update 4 on UFS, with caveats) WARNING: Systems running unpatched Solaris 10 update 9 (or older) should run the Ops Center 12c Update 2 agent to avoid a potential kernel panic The 12c Update 2 agent will check patch minimums and disable certain process accounting features if the kernel is not sufficiently patched to avoid the panic SPARC: 142900-05 Obsoleted by: 142900-06 SunOS 5.10: kernel patch 10 Oracle Solaris on SPARC (32-bit) X64: 142901-05 Obsoleted by: 142901-06 SunOS 5.10_x86: kernel patch 10 Oracle Solaris on x86 (32-bit) OR SPARC: 142909-17 SunOS 5.10: kernel patch 10 Oracle Solaris on SPARC (32-bit) X64: 142910-17 SunOS 5.10_x86: kernel patch 10 Oracle Solaris on x86 (32-bit) Ops Center 12c (initial release) and 12c Update 1 agent can also be safely used with a workaround (to be performed BEFORE installing the agent): # mkdir -p /etc/opt/sun/oc # echo "zstat_exacct_allowed=false" > /etc/opt/sun/oc/zstat.conf # chmod 755 /etc/opt/sun /etc/opt/sun/oc # chmod 644 /etc/opt/sun/oc/zstat.conf # chown -Rh root:sys /etc/opt/sun/oc NOTE: Remove the above after patching the OS sufficiently, or after upgrading to the 12c Update 2 agent Using Ops Center to apply Live Upgrade-related Pre-Patches (Solaris 10)Overview: Create an OS Update Profile containing the minimum LU-related pre-patches, based on the Solaris Live Upgrade Software Patch Requirements, previously mentioned. SIMULATE the deployment of the LU-related pre-patches Observe whether any of the LU-related pre-patches will require a reboot The job details for each Global Zone will advise whether a reboot step will be required ACTUALLY deploy the LU-related pre-patches, according to your change control process (e.g. if no reboot, maybe okay to do now; vs. must do later because of the reboot). You can schedule the job to occur later, during a maintenance window Check the job status for each node, resolving any issues found Once the LU-related pre-patches are applied, you can Ops Center to patch using Live Upgrade on Solaris 10 Using Ops Center to patch Solaris 10 with LU/ABE's -- the GOODS!(this is the heart of the tip): Create an OS Update Profile containing the patches that make up your standard build Use Solaris Baselines when possible Add other individual patches as needed ACTUALLY deploy the OS Update Profile Specify the appropriate Live Upgrade options, e.g. Synchronize the active BE to the alternate BE before patching Do not activate the BE after patching Check the job status for each node, resolving any issues found Activate the newly patched BE according to your change control process Activate = Reboot to the ABE, making the ABE the new active BE Ops Center does not separate LU activate from reboot, so expect a reboot! Check the job status for each node, resolving any issues found Examples (w/Screenshots) Solaris 10 and Live Upgrade: Auto-Create the Alternate Boot Environment (ZFS root only) ABE to be created on ZFS with name S10_12_07REC (Example) Uses built in feature to call “lucreate -n S10_12_07REC” behind scenes if not already present NOTE: Leave “lucreate” params blank (if you do specify options, the will be appended after -n $ABEName) Solaris 10 and Live Upgrade: Alternate Boot Environment Creation via Operational Profile (script) The Alternate Boot Environment is to be created via custom, user-supplied script, which does whatever is needed for the system where Live Upgrade will be used. Operational Profile, which provides the script to create an ABE: Very similar to the automatic case, but with a Script (Operational Profile), which is used to create the ABE Relies on user-supplied script in the form of an Operational Profile Could be used to prepare an ABE based on a UFS root in a slice, or on a separate device (e.g. by breaking a mirror first) – it is up to the script author to do the right thing! EXAMPLE: Same result as the ZFS case, but illustrating the Operational Profile (e.g. script) approach to call: # lucreate -n S10_1207REC NOTE: OC special variable is $ABEName Boot Environment Profile, which references the Operational Profile Script = Operational Profile on this screen Refers to Operational Profile shown in the previous section The user-supplied S10_Create_BE Operational Profile will be run The Operational Profile must send a non-zero exit code if there is a problem (so that the OS Update job will not proceed) Solaris 10 OS Update Profile (to provide the actual patch specifications) Solaris 10 Baseline “Recommended” chosen for “Install” Solaris 10 OS Update Plan (two-steps in this case) “Create a Boot Environment” + “Update OS” are chosen. Using Ops Center to patch Solaris 11 with Boot Environments (as needed) Create a Solaris 11 OS Update Profile containing the packages that make up your standard build ACTUALLY deploy the Solaris 11 OS Update Profile BE will be created if needed (or you can stipulate no BE) BE name will be auto-generated (if needed), or you may specify a BE name Check the job status for each node, resolving any issues found Check if a BE was created; if so, activate the new BE Activate = Reboot to the BE, making the new BE the active BE Ops Center does not separate BE activate from reboot NOTE: Not every Solaris 11 OS Update will require a new BE, so a reboot may not be necessary. Solaris 11: Auto BE Create (as Needed -- let Ops Center decide) BE to be created as needed BE to be named automatically Reboot (if necessary) deferred to separate step Solaris 11: OS Profile Solaris 11 “entire” chosen for a particular SRU Solaris 11: OS Update Plan (w/BE)  “Create a Boot Environment” + “Update OS” are chosen. Summary: Solaris 10 Live Upgrade, Alternate Boot Environments, and their equivalents on Solaris 11 can be very powerful tools to help minimize the downtime associated with updating your servers.  For very old Solaris, there are some important prerequisites to adhere to, but once the initial preparation is complete, Live Upgrade can be used going forward.  For Solaris 11, the built-in Boot Environment handling is leveraged directly by the Image Packaging System, and the result is a much more straight forward way to patch, and far fewer prerequisites to satisfy in getting there.  Ops Center simplifies using either approach, and helps you improve consistency from system to system, which ultimately helps you improve the overall up-time across all the Solaris systems in your environment. Please let us know what you think?  Until next time...\Leon-- Leon Shaner | Senior IT/Product ArchitectSystems Management | Ops Center Engineering @ Oracle The views expressed on this [blog; Web site] are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Oracle. For more information, please go to Oracle Enterprise Manager  web page or  follow us at :  Twitter | Facebook | YouTube | Linkedin | Newsletter

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• Issuing Current Time Increments in StreamInsight (A Practical Example)

  The issuing of a Current Time Increment, Cti, in StreamInsight is very definitely one of the most important concepts to learn if you want your Streams to be responsive. A full discussion of how to issue Ctis is beyond the scope of this article but a very good explanation in addition to Books Online can be found in these three articles by a member of the StreamInsight team at Microsoft, Ciprian Gerea. Time in StreamInsight Series http://blogs.msdn.com/b/streaminsight/archive/2010/07/23/time-in-streaminsight-i.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/streaminsight/archive/2010/07/30/time-in-streaminsight-ii.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/streaminsight/archive/2010/08/03/time-in-streaminsight-iii.aspx A lot of the problems I see with unresponsive or stuck streams on the MSDN Forums are to do with how Ctis are enqueued or in a lot of cases not enqueued. If you enqueue events and never enqueue a Cti then StreamInsight will be perfectly happy. You, on the other hand, will never see data on the output as you have not told StreamInsight to flush the stream. This article deals with a specific implementation problem I had recently whilst working on a StreamInsight project. I look at some possible options and discuss why they would not work before showing the way I solved the problem. The stream of data I was dealing with on this project was very bursty that is to say when events were flowing they came through very quickly and in large numbers (1000 events/sec), but when the stream calmed down it could be a few seconds between each event. When enqueuing events into the StreamInsight engne it is best practice to do so with a StartTime that is given to you by the system producing the event . StreamInsight processes events and it doesn't matter whether those events are being pushed into the engine by a source system or the events are being read from something like a flat file in a directory somewhere. You can apply the same logic and temporal algebra to both situations. Reading from a file is an excellent example of where the time of the event on the source itself is very important. We could be reading that file a long time after it was written. Being able to read the StartTime from the events allows us to define windows that will hold the correct sets of events. I was able to do this with my stream but this is where my problems started. Below is a very simple script to create a SQL Server table and populate it with sample data that will show exactly the problem I had. CREATE TABLE [dbo].[t] ( [c1] [int] PRIMARY KEY, [c2] [datetime] NULL ) INSERT t VALUES (1,'20100810'),(2,'20100810'),(3,'20100810') Column c2 defines the StartTime of the event on the source and as you can see the values in all 3 rows of data is the same. If we read Ciprian’s articles we know that we can define how Ctis get injected into the stream in 3 different places The Stream Definition The Input Factory The Input Adapter I personally have always been a fan of enqueing Ctis through the factory. Below is code typical of what I would use to do this On the class itself I do some inheriting public class SimpleInputFactory : ITypedInputAdapterFactory<SimpleInputConfig>, ITypedDeclareAdvanceTimeProperties<SimpleInputConfig> And then I implement the following function public AdapterAdvanceTimeSettings DeclareAdvanceTimeProperties<TPayload>(SimpleInputConfig configInfo, EventShape eventShape) { return new AdapterAdvanceTimeSettings( new AdvanceTimeGenerationSettings(configInfo.CtiFrequency, TimeSpan.FromTicks(-1)), AdvanceTimePolicy.Adjust); } The configInfo .CtiFrequency property is a value I pass through to define after how many events I want a Cti to be injected and this in turn will flush through the stream of data. I usually pass a value of 1 for this setting. The second parameter determines the CTI timestamp in terms of a delay relative to the events. -1 ticks in the past results in 1 tick in the future, i.e., ahead of the event. The problem with this method though is that if consecutive events have the same StartTime then only one of those events will be enqueued. In this example I use the following to define how I assign the StartTime of my events currEvent.StartTime = (DateTimeOffset)dt.c2; If I go ahead and run my StreamInsight process with this configuration i can see on the output adapter that two events have been removed To see this in a little more depth I can use the StreamInsight Debugger and see what happens internally. What is happening here is that the first event arrives and a Cti is injected with a time of 1 tick after the StartTime of that event (Also the EndTime of the event). The second event arrives and it has a StartTime of before the Cti and even though we specified AdvanceTimePolicy.Adjust on the factory we know that a point event can never be adjusted like this and the event is dropped. The same happens for the third event as well (The second and third events get trumped by the Cti). For a more detailed discussion of why this happens look here http://www.sqlis.com/sqlis/post/AdvanceTimePolicy-and-Point-Event-Streams-In-StreamInsight.aspx We end up with a single event being pushed into the output adapter and our result now makes sense. The next way I tried to solve this problem by changing the value of the second parameter to TimeSpan.Zero Here is how my factory code now looks public AdapterAdvanceTimeSettings DeclareAdvanceTimeProperties<TPayload>(SimpleInputConfig configInfo, EventShape eventShape) { return new AdapterAdvanceTimeSettings( new AdvanceTimeGenerationSettings(configInfo.CtiFrequency, TimeSpan.Zero), AdvanceTimePolicy.Adjust); } What I am doing here is declaring a policy that says inject a Cti together with every event and stamp it with a StartTime that is equal to the start time of the event itself (TimeSpan.Zero). This method has plus points as well as a downside. The upside is that no events will be lost by having the same StartTime as previous events. The Downside is that because the Cti is declared with the StartTime of the event itself then it does not actually flush that particular event because in the StreamInsight algebra, a Cti commits only those events that occurred strictly before them. To flush the events we need a Cti to be enqueued with a greater StartTime than the events themselves. Here is what happened when I ran this configuration As you can see all we got through was the Cti and none of the events. The debugger output shows the stamps on the Cti and the events themselves. Because the Cti issued has the same timestamp (StartTime) as the events then none of the events get flushed. I was nearly there but not quite. Because my stream was bursty it was possible that the next event would not come along for a few seconds and this was far too long for an event to be enqueued and not be flushed to the output adapter. I needed another solution. Two possible solutions crossed my mind although only one of them made sense when I explored it some more. Where multiple events have the same StartTime I could add 1 tick to the first event, two to the second, three to third etc thereby giving them unique StartTime values. Add a timer to manually inject Ctis The problem with the first implementation is that I would be giving the events a new StartTime. This would cause me the following problems If I want to define windows over the stream then some events may not be captured in the right windows and therefore any calculations on those windows I did would be wrong What would happen if we had 10,000 events with the same StartTime? I would enqueue them with StartTime + n ticks. Along comes a genuine event with a StartTime of the very first event + 1 tick. It is now too far in the past as far as my stream is concerned and it would be dropped. Not what I would want to do at all. I decided then to look at the Timer based solution I created a timer on my input adapter that elapsed every 200ms. private Timer tmr; public SimpleInputAdapter(SimpleInputConfig configInfo) { ctx = new SimpleTimeExtractDataContext(configInfo.ConnectionString); this.configInfo = configInfo; tmr = new Timer(200); tmr.Elapsed += new ElapsedEventHandler(t_Elapsed); tmr.Enabled = true; } void t_Elapsed(object sender, ElapsedEventArgs e) { ts = DateTime.Now - dtCtiIssued; if (ts.TotalMilliseconds >= 200 && TimerIssuedCti == false) { EnqueueCtiEvent(System.DateTime.Now.AddTicks(-100)); TimerIssuedCti = true; } }   In the t_Elapsed event handler I find out the difference in time between now and when the last event was processed (dtCtiIssued). I then check to see if that is greater than or equal to 200ms and if the last issuing of a Cti was done by the timer or by a genuine event (TimerIssuedCti). If I didn’t do this check then I would enqueue a Cti every time the timer elapsed which is not something I wanted. If the difference between the two times is greater than or equal to 500ms and the last event enqueued was by a real event then I issue a Cti through the timer to flush the event Queue, otherwise I do nothing. When I enqueue the Ctis into my stream in my ProduceEvents method I also set the values of dtCtiIssued and TimerIssuedCti   currEvent = CreateInsertEvent(); currEvent.StartTime = (DateTimeOffset)dt.c2; TimerIssuedCti = false; dtCtiIssued = currEvent.StartTime; If I go ahead and run this configuration I see the following in my output. As we can see the first Cti gets enqueued as before but then another is enqueued by the timer and because this has a later timestamp it flushes the enqueued events through the engine. Conclusion Hopefully this has shown how the enqueuing of Ctis can have a dramatic effect on the responsiveness of your output in StreamInsight. Understanding the temporal nature of the product is for me one of the most important things you can learn. I have attached my solution for the demos. It is all in one project and testing each variation is a simple matter of commenting and un-commenting the parts in the code we have been dealing with here.

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• Add collison detection to enemy sprites?

  - by xBroak

  i'd like to add the same collision detection used by the player sprite to the enemy sprites or 'creeps' ive added all the relevant code I can see yet collisons are still not being detected and handled, please find below the class, I have no idea what is wrong currently, the list of walls to collide with is 'wall_list' import pygame import pauseScreen as dm import re from pygame.sprite import Sprite from pygame import Rect, Color from random import randint, choice from vec2d import vec2d from simpleanimation import SimpleAnimation import displattxt black = (0,0,0) white = (255,255,255) blue = (0,0,255) green = (101,194,151) global currentEditTool currentEditTool = "Tree" global editMap editMap = False open('MapMaker.txt', 'w').close() def draw_background(screen, tile_img): screen.fill(black) img_rect = tile_img.get_rect() global rect rect = img_rect nrows = int(screen.get_height() / img_rect.height) + 1 ncols = int(screen.get_width() / img_rect.width) + 1 for y in range(nrows): for x in range(ncols): img_rect.topleft = (x * img_rect.width, y * img_rect.height) screen.blit(tile_img, img_rect) def changeTool(): if currentEditTool == "Tree": None elif currentEditTool == "Rock": None def pauseGame(): red = 255, 0, 0 green = 0,255, 0 blue = 0, 0,255 screen.fill(black) pygame.display.update() if editMap == False: choose = dm.dumbmenu(screen, [ 'Resume', 'Enable Map Editor', 'Quit Game'], 64,64,None,32,1.4,green,red) if choose == 0: print("hi") elif choose ==1: global editMap editMap = True elif choose ==2: print("bob") elif choose ==3: print("bob") elif choose ==4: print("bob") else: None else: choose = dm.dumbmenu(screen, [ 'Resume', 'Disable Map Editor', 'Quit Game'], 64,64,None,32,1.4,green,red) if choose == 0: print("Resume") elif choose ==1: print("Dis ME") global editMap editMap = False elif choose ==2: print("bob") elif choose ==3: print("bob") elif choose ==4: print("bob") else: None class Wall(pygame.sprite.Sprite): # Constructor function def __init__(self,x,y,width,height): pygame.sprite.Sprite.__init__(self) self.image = pygame.Surface([width, height]) self.image.fill(green) self.rect = self.image.get_rect() self.rect.y = y self.rect.x = x class insertTree(pygame.sprite.Sprite): def __init__(self,x,y,width,height, typ): pygame.sprite.Sprite.__init__(self) self.image = pygame.image.load("images/map/tree.png").convert() self.image.set_colorkey(white) self.rect = self.image.get_rect() self.rect.y = y self.rect.x = x class insertRock(pygame.sprite.Sprite): def __init__(self,x,y,width,height, typ): pygame.sprite.Sprite.__init__(self) self.image = pygame.image.load("images/map/rock.png").convert() self.image.set_colorkey(white) self.rect = self.image.get_rect() self.rect.y = y self.rect.x = x class Creep(pygame.sprite.Sprite): """ A creep sprite that bounces off walls and changes its direction from time to time. """ change_x=0 change_y=0 def __init__( self, screen, creep_image, explosion_images, field, init_position, init_direction, speed): """ Create a new Creep. screen: The screen on which the creep lives (must be a pygame Surface object, such as pygame.display) creep_image: Image (surface) object for the creep explosion_images: A list of image objects for the explosion animation. field: A Rect specifying the 'playing field' boundaries. The Creep will bounce off the 'walls' of this field. init_position: A vec2d or a pair specifying the initial position of the creep on the screen. init_direction: A vec2d or a pair specifying the initial direction of the creep. Must have an angle that is a multiple of 45 degres. speed: Creep speed, in pixels/millisecond (px/ms) """ Sprite.__init__(self) self.screen = screen self.speed = speed self.field = field self.rect = creep_image.get_rect() # base_image holds the original image, positioned to # angle 0. # image will be rotated. # self.base_image = creep_image self.image = self.base_image self.explosion_images = explosion_images # A vector specifying the creep's position on the screen # self.pos = vec2d(init_position) # The direction is a normalized vector # self.direction = vec2d(init_direction).normalized() self.state = Creep.ALIVE self.health = 15 def is_alive(self): return self.state in (Creep.ALIVE, Creep.EXPLODING) def changespeed(self,x,y): self.change_x+=x self.change_y+=y def update(self, time_passed, walls): """ Update the creep. time_passed: The time passed (in ms) since the previous update. """ if self.state == Creep.ALIVE: # Maybe it's time to change the direction ? # self._change_direction(time_passed) # Make the creep point in the correct direction. # Since our direction vector is in screen coordinates # (i.e. right bottom is 1, 1), and rotate() rotates # counter-clockwise, the angle must be inverted to # work correctly. # self.image = pygame.transform.rotate( self.base_image, -self.direction.angle) # Compute and apply the displacement to the position # vector. The displacement is a vector, having the angle # of self.direction (which is normalized to not affect # the magnitude of the displacement) # displacement = vec2d( self.direction.x * self.speed * time_passed, self.direction.y * self.speed * time_passed) self.pos += displacement # When the image is rotated, its size is changed. # We must take the size into account for detecting # collisions with the walls. # self.image_w, self.image_h = self.image.get_size() bounds_rect = self.field.inflate( -self.image_w, -self.image_h) if self.pos.x < bounds_rect.left: self.pos.x = bounds_rect.left self.direction.x *= -1 elif self.pos.x > bounds_rect.right: self.pos.x = bounds_rect.right self.direction.x *= -1 elif self.pos.y < bounds_rect.top: self.pos.y = bounds_rect.top self.direction.y *= -1 elif self.pos.y > bounds_rect.bottom: self.pos.y = bounds_rect.bottom self.direction.y *= -1 # collision detection old_x=bounds_rect.left new_x=old_x+self.direction.x bounds_rect.left = new_x # hit a wall? collide = pygame.sprite.spritecollide(self, walls, False) if collide: # yes bounds_rect.left=old_x old_y=self.pos.y new_y=old_y+self.direction.y self.pos.y = new_y collide = pygame.sprite.spritecollide(self, walls, False) if collide: # yes self.pos.y=old_y elif self.state == Creep.EXPLODING: if self.explode_animation.active: self.explode_animation.update(time_passed) else: self.state = Creep.DEAD self.kill() elif self.state == Creep.DEAD: pass #------------------ PRIVATE PARTS ------------------# # States the creep can be in. # # ALIVE: The creep is roaming around the screen # EXPLODING: # The creep is now exploding, just a moment before dying. # DEAD: The creep is dead and inactive # (ALIVE, EXPLODING, DEAD) = range(3) _counter = 0 def _change_direction(self, time_passed): """ Turn by 45 degrees in a random direction once per 0.4 to 0.5 seconds. """ self._counter += time_passed if self._counter > randint(400, 500): self.direction.rotate(45 * randint(-1, 1)) self._counter = 0 def _point_is_inside(self, point): """ Is the point (given as a vec2d) inside our creep's body? """ img_point = point - vec2d( int(self.pos.x - self.image_w / 2), int(self.pos.y - self.image_h / 2)) try: pix = self.image.get_at(img_point) return pix[3] > 0 except IndexError: return False def _decrease_health(self, n): """ Decrease my health by n (or to 0, if it's currently less than n) """ self.health = max(0, self.health - n) if self.health == 0: self._explode() def _explode(self): """ Starts the explosion animation that ends the Creep's life. """ self.state = Creep.EXPLODING pos = ( self.pos.x - self.explosion_images[0].get_width() / 2, self.pos.y - self.explosion_images[0].get_height() / 2) self.explode_animation = SimpleAnimation( self.screen, pos, self.explosion_images, 100, 300) global remainingCreeps remainingCreeps-=1 if remainingCreeps == 0: print("all dead") def draw(self): """ Blit the creep onto the screen that was provided in the constructor. """ if self.state == Creep.ALIVE: # The creep image is placed at self.pos. To allow for # smooth movement even when the creep rotates and the # image size changes, its placement is always # centered. # self.draw_rect = self.image.get_rect().move( self.pos.x - self.image_w / 2, self.pos.y - self.image_h / 2) self.screen.blit(self.image, self.draw_rect) # The health bar is 15x4 px. # health_bar_x = self.pos.x - 7 health_bar_y = self.pos.y - self.image_h / 2 - 6 self.screen.fill( Color('red'), (health_bar_x, health_bar_y, 15, 4)) self.screen.fill( Color('green'), ( health_bar_x, health_bar_y, self.health, 4)) elif self.state == Creep.EXPLODING: self.explode_animation.draw() elif self.state == Creep.DEAD: pass def mouse_click_event(self, pos): """ The mouse was clicked in pos. """ if self._point_is_inside(vec2d(pos)): self._decrease_health(3) #begin new player class Player(pygame.sprite.Sprite): change_x=0 change_y=0 frame = 0 def __init__(self,x,y): pygame.sprite.Sprite.__init__(self) # LOAD PLATER IMAGES # Set height, width self.images = [] for i in range(1,17): img = pygame.image.load("images/player/" + str(i)+".png").convert() #player images img.set_colorkey(white) self.images.append(img) self.image = self.images[0] self.rect = self.image.get_rect() self.rect.y = y self.rect.x = x self.health = 15 self.image_w, self.image_h = self.image.get_size() health_bar_x = self.rect.x - 7 health_bar_y = self.rect.y - self.image_h / 2 - 6 screen.fill( Color('red'), (health_bar_x, health_bar_y, 15, 4)) screen.fill( Color('green'), ( health_bar_x, health_bar_y, self.health, 4)) def changespeed(self,x,y): self.change_x+=x self.change_y+=y def _decrease_health(self, n): """ Decrease my health by n (or to 0, if it's currently less than n) """ self.health = max(0, self.health - n) if self.health == 0: self._explode() def update(self,walls): # collision detection old_x=self.rect.x new_x=old_x+self.change_x self.rect.x = new_x # hit a wall? collide = pygame.sprite.spritecollide(self, walls, False) if collide: # yes self.rect.x=old_x old_y=self.rect.y new_y=old_y+self.change_y self.rect.y = new_y collide = pygame.sprite.spritecollide(self, walls, False) if collide: # yes self.rect.y=old_y # right to left if self.change_x < 0: self.frame += 1 if self.frame > 3*4: self.frame = 0 # Grab the image, divide by 4 # every 4 frames. self.image = self.images[self.frame//4] # Move left to right. # images 4...7 instead of 0...3. if self.change_x > 0: self.frame += 1 if self.frame > 3*4: self.frame = 0 self.image = self.images[self.frame//4+4] if self.change_y > 0: self.frame += 1 if self.frame > 3*4: self.frame = 0 self.image = self.images[self.frame//4+4+4] if self.change_y < 0: self.frame += 1 if self.frame > 3*4: self.frame = 0 self.image = self.images[self.frame//4+4+4+4] score = 0 # initialize pyGame pygame.init() # 800x600 sized screen global screen screen = pygame.display.set_mode([800, 600]) screen.fill(black) #bg_tile_img = pygame.image.load('images/map/grass.png').convert_alpha() #draw_background(screen, bg_tile_img) #pygame.display.flip() # Set title pygame.display.set_caption('Test') #background = pygame.Surface(screen.get_size()) #background = background.convert() #background.fill(black) # Create the player player = Player( 50,50 ) player.rect.x=50 player.rect.y=50 movingsprites = pygame.sprite.RenderPlain() movingsprites.add(player) # Make the walls. (x_pos, y_pos, width, height) global wall_list wall_list=pygame.sprite.RenderPlain() wall=Wall(0,0,10,600) # left wall wall_list.add(wall) wall=Wall(10,0,790,10) # top wall wall_list.add(wall) #wall=Wall(10,200,100,10) # poke wall wall_list.add(wall) wall=Wall(790,0,10,600) #(x,y,thickness, height) wall_list.add(wall) wall=Wall(10,590,790,10) #(x,y,thickness, height) wall_list.add(wall) f = open('MapMaker.txt') num_lines = sum(1 for line in f) print(num_lines) lineCount = 0 with open("MapMaker.txt") as infile: for line in infile: f = open('MapMaker.txt') print(line) coords = line.split(',') #print(coords[0]) #print(coords[1]) #print(coords[2]) #print(coords[3]) #print(coords[4]) if "tree" in line: print("tree in") wall=insertTree(int(coords[0]),int(coords[1]), int(coords[2]),int(coords[3]),coords[4]) wall_list.add(wall) elif "rock" in line: print("rock in") wall=insertRock(int(coords[0]),int(coords[1]), int(coords[2]),int(coords[3]),coords[4] ) wall_list.add(wall) width = 20 height = 540 height = height - 48 for i in range(0,23): width = width + 32 name = insertTree(width,540,790,10,"tree") #wall_list.add(name) name = insertTree(width,height,690,10,"tree") #wall_list.add(name) CREEP_SPAWN_TIME = 200 # frames creep_spawn = CREEP_SPAWN_TIME clock = pygame.time.Clock() bg_tile_img = pygame.image.load('images/map/grass.png').convert() img_rect = bg_tile_img FIELD_RECT = Rect(50, 50, 700, 500) CREEP_FILENAMES = [ 'images/player/1.png', 'images/player/1.png', 'images/player/1.png'] N_CREEPS = 3 creep_images = [ pygame.image.load(filename).convert_alpha() for filename in CREEP_FILENAMES] explosion_img = pygame.image.load('images/map/tree.png').convert_alpha() explosion_images = [ explosion_img, pygame.transform.rotate(explosion_img, 90)] creeps = pygame.sprite.RenderPlain() done = False #bg_tile_img = pygame.image.load('images/map/grass.png').convert() #draw_background(screen, bg_tile_img) totalCreeps = 0 remainingCreeps = 3 while done == False: creep_images = pygame.image.load("images/player/1.png").convert() creep_images.set_colorkey(white) draw_background(screen, bg_tile_img) if len(creeps) != N_CREEPS: if totalCreeps < N_CREEPS: totalCreeps = totalCreeps + 1 print(totalCreeps) creeps.add( Creep( screen=screen, creep_image=creep_images, explosion_images=explosion_images, field=FIELD_RECT, init_position=( randint(FIELD_RECT.left, FIELD_RECT.right), randint(FIELD_RECT.top, FIELD_RECT.bottom)), init_direction=(choice([-1, 1]), choice([-1, 1])), speed=0.01)) for creep in creeps: creep.update(60,wall_list) creep.draw() for event in pygame.event.get(): if event.type == pygame.QUIT: done=True if event.type == pygame.KEYDOWN: if event.key == pygame.K_LEFT: player.changespeed(-2,0) creep.changespeed(-2,0) if event.key == pygame.K_RIGHT: player.changespeed(2,0) creep.changespeed(2,0) if event.key == pygame.K_UP: player.changespeed(0,-2) creep.changespeed(0,-2) if event.key == pygame.K_DOWN: player.changespeed(0,2) creep.changespeed(0,2) if event.key == pygame.K_ESCAPE: pauseGame() if event.key == pygame.K_1: global currentEditTool currentEditTool = "Tree" changeTool() if event.key == pygame.K_2: global currentEditTool currentEditTool = "Rock" changeTool() if event.type == pygame.KEYUP: if event.key == pygame.K_LEFT: player.changespeed(2,0) creep.changespeed(2,0) if event.key == pygame.K_RIGHT: player.changespeed(-2,0) creep.changespeed(-2,0) if event.key == pygame.K_UP: player.changespeed(0,2) creep.changespeed(0,2) if event.key == pygame.K_DOWN: player.changespeed(0,-2) creep.changespeed(0,-2) if event.type == pygame.MOUSEBUTTONDOWN and pygame.mouse.get_pressed()[0]: for creep in creeps: creep.mouse_click_event(pygame.mouse.get_pos()) if editMap == True: x,y = pygame.mouse.get_pos() if currentEditTool == "Tree": name = insertTree(x-10,y-25, 10 , 10, "tree") wall_list.add(name) wall_list.draw(screen) f = open('MapMaker.txt', "a+") image = pygame.image.load("images/map/tree.png").convert() screen.blit(image, (30,10)) pygame.display.flip() f.write(str(x) + "," + str(y) + ",790,10, tree\n") #f.write("wall=insertTree(" + str(x) + "," + str(y) + ",790,10)\nwall_list.add(wall)\n") elif currentEditTool == "Rock": name = insertRock(x-10,y-25, 10 , 10,"rock") wall_list.add(name) wall_list.draw(screen) f = open('MapMaker.txt', "a+") f.write(str(x) + "," + str(y) + ",790,10,rock\n") #f.write("wall=insertRock(" + str(x) + "," + str(y) + ",790,10)\nwall_list.add(wall)\n") else: None #pygame.display.flip() player.update(wall_list) movingsprites.draw(screen) wall_list.draw(screen) pygame.display.flip() clock.tick(60) pygame.quit()

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