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• Sporadic disk clicking sound

  - by Abdó

  Hi, I'm having some unusual and sporadic hard disk clicking issues. Here is a cronological description of the facts. I'm using an ASUS P6T-SE with Intel Core i7, 6Gb RAM 600W Power supply and ATI4670 graphics, running Ubuntu 10.10. About one month ago my hard disk (SATA II Seagate Barracuda 1Tb 7200 rpm) started making a clicking sound: a sort of loud tic-tac, every second or so, when involved in disk activity. The system was clearly slower than before at disk access, but it was functional and I could not find any signal of trouble on the linux logs. I disconnected the disk and tried an older SATA drive I had around: no problem with it. Then I reconnected the Seagate disk, and the problem was mysteriously gone. Ubuntu booted normally, usual speed, no clicking. A couple of weeks later, the problem reappeared. I tried disconnecting reconnecting (as it somehow solved the problem before) without luck. So, despite it was a rather new drive, I assumed it was a hardware issue, made backups and bought a new drive. The new drive is a SATA II Seagate Barracuda 1.5 Tb 7200 rpm. I installed both drives at the same time, with the intention of transferring my files from on to the other. To my surprise, when I booted the computer with both drives, both started making the clicking sound !! Even worse, I removed the old drive, leaving the unformated new drive connected, and booted from a LiveCD. It kept clicking ! Puzzled by this, I tried both drives on my laptop with a SATA to USB cable. At the moment I connected any of them, they made one or two unusual clicks and immediately stopped doing that and worked normally. The old drive I thought almost dead, was working like a charm as if nothing happened. Then I thought: "ok, it must be the motherboard. Let's try again". So, I reconnected the old drive to the ASUS P6T motherboard (the same cables and SATA port as before), and it worked as if nothing happened ! The problem was gone again. The new 1.5 Tb drive was also working ok: No clicking nor slowdown. So I left the old 1Tb disk connected and kept using the computer daily during 3 weeks, until today it happened again. Now I don't really know what to do or check. I'm not even sure if it is a hardware issue any more ! This is rather annoying as it seems it happens with a period of 2 or 3 weeks and I have no means of forcing it to happen. Does anyone have a clue of what can causes this behaviour or have any suggestions of things I should check when it happens again ? What I did today is checking some SMART parameters Error log: smartctl -l error /dev/sda. No errors Short selftest: smartctl -t short /dev/sda. No errors Disk Health check: smartctl -H /dev/sda. passed And here are the vendor specific parameters (smartctl -A /dev/sda) Which I'm not quite sure how to interpret. === START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION === SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 10 Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds: ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000f 120 099 006 Pre-fail Always - 235962588 3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0003 095 095 000 Pre-fail Always - 0 4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 020 Old_age Always - 187 5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 036 Pre-fail Always - 0 7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000f 072 060 030 Pre-fail Always - 16348045 9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 096 096 000 Old_age Always - 3590 10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0013 100 100 097 Pre-fail Always - 0 12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 020 Old_age Always - 94 183 Runtime_Bad_Block 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 184 End-to-End_Error 0x0032 100 100 099 Old_age Always - 0 187 Reported_Uncorrect 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 188 Command_Timeout 0x0032 100 097 000 Old_age Always - 4295164029 189 High_Fly_Writes 0x003a 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022 070 057 045 Old_age Always - 30 (Lifetime Min/Max 19/31) 194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 030 043 000 Old_age Always - 30 (0 18 0 0) 195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered 0x001a 037 026 000 Old_age Always - 235962588 197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0010 100 100 000 Old_age Offline - 0 199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x003e 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0 240 Head_Flying_Hours 0x0000 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 73950746906346 241 Total_LBAs_Written 0x0000 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 1832967731 242 Total_LBAs_Read 0x0000 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 3294986902 Any clue to this mystery will be really welcome. Thank you very much !!

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• Android Alert Dialog Extract User Choice Radio Button?

  - by kel196

  Apologies for any coding ignorance, I am a beginner and am still learning! I am creating a quiz app which reads questions off a SQL database and plots them as points on a google map. As the user clicks each point, an alert dialog appears with radio buttons to answer some question. My radiobuttons are in CustomItemizedOverlay file and when I click submit, I want to be able to send the user choice back to the database, save it and return to the user if their answer is correct. My question is this, how do I pass the user choice out once the submit button has been clicked? I tried making a global variable to read what was selected to no avail. Any suggestions would be appreciated! If I need to post any other code, please ask and I will do so ASAP! package uk.ac.ucl.cege.cegeg077.uceskkw; import java.util.ArrayList; import android.app.AlertDialog; import android.content.Context; import android.content.DialogInterface; import android.graphics.drawable.Drawable; import android.widget.Toast; import com.google.android.maps.ItemizedOverlay; import com.google.android.maps.OverlayItem; public class CustomItemizedOverlay2 extends ItemizedOverlay<OverlayItem> { private ArrayList<OverlayItem> mapOverlays = new ArrayList<OverlayItem>(); private Context context; public CustomItemizedOverlay2(Drawable defaultMarker) { super(boundCenterBottom(defaultMarker)); } public CustomItemizedOverlay2(Drawable defaultMarker, Context context) { this(defaultMarker); this.context = context; } @Override protected OverlayItem createItem(int i) { return mapOverlays.get(i); } @Override public int size() { return mapOverlays.size(); } @Override protected boolean onTap(int index) { OverlayItem item = mapOverlays.get(index); // gets the snippet from ParseKMLAndDisplayOnMap and splits it back into // a string. final CharSequence allanswers[] = item.getSnippet().split("::"); AlertDialog.Builder dialog = new AlertDialog.Builder(context); dialog.setIcon(R.drawable.easterbunnyegg); dialog.setTitle(item.getTitle()); dialog.setSingleChoiceItems(allanswers, -1, new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() { public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int whichButton) { Toast.makeText(context, "You have selected " + allanswers[whichButton], Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show(); } }); dialog.setPositiveButton(R.string.button_submit, new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() { public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int whichButton) { dialog.dismiss(); // int selectedPosition = ((AlertDialog) // dialog).getListView().getCheckedItemPosition(); Toast.makeText(context, "hi!", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT) .show(); } }); dialog.setNegativeButton(R.string.button_close, new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() { public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int whichButton) { dialog.dismiss(); // on cancel button action } }); AlertDialog question = dialog.create(); question.show(); return true; } public void addOverlay(OverlayItem overlay) { mapOverlays.add(overlay); this.populate(); } }

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• SurfaceView drawn on top of other elements after coming back from specific activity

  - by spirytus

  I have an activity with video preview displayed via SurfaceView and other views positioned over it. The problem is when user navigates to Settings activity (code below) and comes back then the surfaceview is drawn on top of everything else. This does not happen when user goes to another activity I have, neither when user navigates outside of app eg. to task manager. Now, you see in code below that I have setContentVIew() call wrapped in conditionals so it is not called every time when onStart() is executed. If its not wrapped in if statements then all works fine, but its causing loosing lots of memory (5MB+) each time onStart() is called. I tried various combinations and nothing seems to work so any help would be much appreciated. @Override public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); //Toast.makeText(this,"Create ", 2000).show(); // set 32 bit window (draw correctly transparent images) getWindow().getAttributes().format = android.graphics.PixelFormat.RGBA_8888; // set the layout of the screen based on preferences of the user sharedPref = PreferenceManager.getDefaultSharedPreferences(this); } public void onStart() { super.onStart(); String syncConnPref = null; syncConnPref = sharedPref.getString("screensLayouts", "default"); if(syncConnPref.contentEquals("default") && currentlLayout!="default") { setContentView(R.layout.fight_recorder_default); } else if(syncConnPref.contentEquals("simple") && currentlLayout!="simple") { setContentView(R.layout.fight_recorder_simple); } // I I uncomment line below so it will be called every time without conditionals above, it works fine but every time onStart() is called I'm losing 5+ MB memory (memory leak?). The preview however shows under the other elements exactly as I need memory leak makes it unusable after few times though // setContentView(R.layout.fight_recorder_default); if(getCamera()==null) { Toast.makeText(this,"Sorry, camera is not available and fight recording will not be permanently stored",2000).show(); // TODO also in here put some code replacing the background with something nice return; } // now we have camera ready and we need surface to display picture from camera on so // we instantiate CameraPreviw object which is simply surfaceView containing holder object. // holder object is the surface where the image will be drawn onto // this is where camera live cameraPreview will be displayed cameraPreviewLayout = (FrameLayout) findViewById(id.camera_preview); cameraPreview = new CameraPreview(this); // now we add surface view to layout cameraPreviewLayout.removeAllViews(); cameraPreviewLayout.addView(cameraPreview); // get layouts prepared for different elements (views) // this is whole recording screen, as big as screen available recordingScreenLayout=(FrameLayout) findViewById(R.id.recording_screen); // this is used to display sores as they are added, it displays like a path // each score added is a new text view simply and as user undos these are removed one by one allScoresLayout=(LinearLayout) findViewById(R.id.all_scores); // layout prepared for controls like record/stop buttons etc startStopLayout=(RelativeLayout) findViewById(R.id.start_stop_layout); // set up timer so it can be turned on when needed //fightTimer=new FightTimer(this); fightTimer = (FightTimer) findViewById(id.fight_timer); // get views for displaying scores score1=(TextView) findViewById(id.score1); score2=(TextView) findViewById(id.score2); advantages1=(TextView) findViewById(id.advantages1); advantages2=(TextView) findViewById(id.advantages2); penalties1=(TextView) findViewById(id.penalties1); penalties2=(TextView) findViewById(id.penalties2); RelativeLayout welcomeScreen=(RelativeLayout) findViewById(id.welcome_screen); Animation fadeIn = AnimationUtils.loadAnimation(this, R.anim.fade_in); welcomeScreen.startAnimation(fadeIn); Toast.makeText(this,"Start ", 2000).show(); animateViews(); } Settings activity is below, after coming back from this activity surfaceview is drawn on top of other elements. public class SettingsActivity extends PreferenceActivity { @Override public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); if(MyFirstAppActivity.getCamera()==null) { Toast.makeText(this,"Sorry, camera is not available",2000).show(); return; } addPreferencesFromResource(R.xml.preferences); } }

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• Why don't I just build the whole web app in Javascript and Javascript HTML Templates?

  - by viatropos

  I'm getting to the point on an app where I need to start caching things, and it got me thinking... In some parts of the app, I render table rows (jqGrid, slickgrid, etc.) or fancy div rows (like in the New Twitter) by grabbing pure JSON and running it through something like Mustache, jquery.tmpl, etc. In other parts of the app, I just render the info in pure HTML (server-side HAML templates), and if there's searching/paginating, I just go to a new URL and load a new HTML page. Now the problem is in caching and maintainability. On one hand I'm thinking, if everything was built using Javascript HTML Templates, then my app would serve just an HTML layout/shell, and a bunch of JSON. If you look at the Facebook and Twitter HTML source, that's basically what they're doing (95% json/javascript, 5% html). This would make it so my app only needed to cache JSON (pages, actions, and/or records). Which means you'd hit the cache no matter if you were some remote api developer accessing a JSON api, or the strait web app. That is, I don't need 2 caches, one for the JSON, one for the HTML. That seems like it'd cut my cache store down in half, and streamline things a little bit. On the other hand, I'm thinking, from what I've seen/experienced, generating static HTML server-side, and caching that, seems to be much better performance wise cross-browser; you get the graphics instantly and don't have to wait that split-second for javascript to render it. StackOverflow seems to do everything in plain HTML, and you can tell... everything appears at once. Notice how though on twitter.com, the page is blank for .5-1 seconds, and the page chunks in: the javascript has to render the json. The downside with this is that, for anything dynamic (like endless scrolling, or grids), I'd have to create javascript templates anyway... so now I have server-side HAML templates, client-side javascript templates, and a lot more to cache. My question is, is there any consensus on how to approach this? What are the benefits and drawbacks from your experience of mixing the two versus going 100% with one over the other? Update: Some reasons that factor into why I haven't yet made the decision to go with 100% javascript templating are: Performance. Haven't formally tested, but from what I've seen, raw html renders faster and more fluidly than javascript-generated html cross-browser. Plus, I'm not sure how mobile devices handle dynamic html performance-wise. Testing. I have a lot of integration tests that work well with static HTML, so switching to javascript-only would require 1) more focused pure-javascript testing (jasmine), and 2) integrating javascript into capybara integration tests. This is just a matter of time and work, but it's probably significant. Maintenance. Getting rid of HAML. I love HAML, it's so easy to write, it prints pretty HTML... It makes code clean, it makes maintenance easy. Going with javascript, there's nothing as concise. SEO. I know google handles the ajax /#!/path, but haven't grasped how this will affect other search engines and how older browsers handle it. Seems like it'd require a significant setup.

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• How to add addtional disks to a Windows 2008 KVM based Guest?

  - by taazaa

  I have a Win 2008 KVM based guest VM running on a Ubuntu 10 host. It is a raw image of 22G. I want to add a "data" drive which would show up as "D:\" drive on the guest. I first created a raw image using: qemu-img create -f raw ~/vmdisk2.img 50G Then, tried attaching it using virsh attach-disk. When that did not work, I tried editing the xml file of the VM directly. Both did not seem to work. I would greatly appreciate any help on how to do this and what the best practice is. I want to keep the base image small, so that I can clone it (hopefully) and then attach necessary storage based on the application at hand. Update: The xml of the vm before adding the second drive: <domain type='kvm'> <name>win08e-vm1</name> <uuid>183a4ba0-1c0b-0b04-ad01-aa7c3a4cb390</uuid> <memory>1048576</memory> <currentMemory>1048576</currentMemory> <vcpu>2</vcpu> <os> <type arch='x86_64' machine='pc-0.12'>hvm</type> <boot dev='hd'/> </os> <features> <acpi/> <apic/> <pae/> </features> <clock offset='localtime'/> <on_poweroff>destroy</on_poweroff> <on_reboot>restart</on_reboot> <on_crash>restart</on_crash> <devices> <emulator>/usr/bin/kvm</emulator> <disk type='file' device='disk'> <driver name='qemu' type='raw'/> <source file='/var/lib/libvirt/images/win08e-vm1.img'/> <target dev='hda' bus='ide'/> <address type='drive' controller='0' bus='0' unit='0'/> </disk> <disk type='file' device='cdrom'> <driver name='qemu' type='raw'/> <source file='/home/taazaa/iso/Win08ER264.iso'/> <target dev='hdc' bus='ide'/> <readonly/> <address type='drive' controller='0' bus='1' unit='0'/> </disk> <controller type='ide' index='0'> <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x01' function='0x1'/> </controller> <interface type='bridge'> <mac address='52:54:00:7f:a7:ae'/> <source bridge='br0'/> <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x03' function='0x0'/> </interface> <serial type='pty'> <target port='0'/> </serial> <console type='pty'> <target type='serial' port='0'/> </console> <input type='tablet' bus='usb'/> <input type='mouse' bus='ps2'/> <graphics type='vnc' port='-1' autoport='yes' keymap='en-us'/> <video> <model type='vga' vram='9216' heads='1'/> <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x02' function='0x0'/> </video> <memballoon model='virtio'> <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x04' function='0x0'/> </memballoon> </devices> </domain> Thanks!

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• Lines don't overlap when they should Java Swing

  - by Sven

  I'm drawing lines in a JFrame on a self made gridPanel. Problem is, I draw the lines between 2 points. When I have a line that is between point 1 and point 2 and a line between point 2 and point 3, the lines should connect. This however isn,t the case, there is a small gap in between, no idea why. But it isn't drawing till the end of the specified point. (start point is correct.) Here is the code of the JFrame: public void initialize(){ this.setLayout(new BorderLayout()); this.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(500, 400)); gridPane = new GridPane(); gridPane.setBackground(Color.WHITE); gridPane.setSize(this.getPreferredSize()); gridPane.setLocation(0, 0); this.add(gridPane,BorderLayout.CENTER); //createSampleLabyrinth(); drawWall(0,5,40,5); //These are the 2 lines that don't connect. drawWall(40,5,80,5); this.pack(); } drawWall calls a method that calls a method in GridPane. The relevant code in gridPane: /** * Draws a wall on this pane. With the starting point being x1, y1 and its end x2,y2. * @param x1 * @param y1 * @param x2 * @param y2 */ public void drawWall(int x1, int y1, int x2, int y2) { Wall wall = new Wall(x1,y1,x2,y2, true); wall.drawGraphic(); wall.setLocation(x1, y1); wall.setSize(10000,10000); this.add(wall, JLayeredPane.DEFAULT_LAYER); this.repaint(); } This method creates a wall and puts it in the Jframe. The relevant code of the wall: public class Wall extends JPanel { private int x1; private int x2; private int y1; private int y2; private boolean black; /** * x1,y1 is the start point of the wall (line) end is x2,y2 * * @param x1 * @param y1 * @param x2 * @param y2 */ public Wall(int x1, int y1, int x2, int y2, boolean black) { this.x1 = x1; this.x2 = x2; this.y1 = y1; this.y2 = y2; this.black = black; setOpaque(false); } private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L; public void drawGraphic() { repaint(); } public void paintComponent(Graphics g) { super.paintComponent(g); Graphics2D g2 = (Graphics2D) g; if(black){ g2.setColor(Color.BLACK); g2.setStroke(new BasicStroke(8)); } else { g2.setColor(Color.YELLOW); g2.setStroke(new BasicStroke(3)); } g2.drawLine(x1, y1, x2, y2); } } So, where am I going wrong? The true/false is to determine if the wall should be black or yellow, nothing to be concerned about.

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• Problems with createImage(int width, int height)

  - by Jonathan

  I have the following code, which is run every 10ms as part of a game: private void gameRender() { if(dbImage == null) { //createImage() returns null if GraphicsEnvironment.isHeadless() //returns true. (java.awt.GraphicsEnvironment) dbImage = createImage(PWIDTH, PHEIGHT); if(dbImage == null) { System.out.println("dbImage is null"); //Error recieved return; } else dbg = dbImage.getGraphics(); } //clear the background dbg.setColor(Color.white); dbg.fillRect(0, 0, PWIDTH, PHEIGHT); //draw game elements... if(gameOver) { gameOverMessage(dbg); } } The problem is that it enters the if statement which checks for the Image being null, even after I attempt to define the image. I looked around, and it seems that createImage() will return null if GraphicsEnvironment.isHeadless() returns true. I don't understand exactly what the isHeadless() method's purpose is, but I thought it might have something to do with the compiler or IDE, so I tried on two, both of which get the same error (Eclipse, and BlueJ). Anyone have any idea what the source of the error is, and how I might fix it? Thanks in advance Jonathan ................................................................... EDIT: I am using java.awt.Component.createImage(int width, int height). The purpose of this method is to ensure the creation of, and edit an Image that will contain the view of the player of the game, that will later be drawn to the screen by means of a JPanel. Here is some more code if this helps at all: public class Sim2D extends JPanel implements Runnable { private static final int PWIDTH = 500; private static final int PHEIGHT = 400; private volatile boolean running = true; private volatile boolean gameOver = false; private Thread animator; //gameRender() private Graphics dbg; private Image dbImage = null; public Sim2D() { setBackground(Color.white); setPreferredSize(new Dimension(PWIDTH, PHEIGHT)); setFocusable(true); requestFocus(); //Sim2D now recieves key events readyForTermination(); addMouseListener( new MouseAdapter() { public void mousePressed(MouseEvent e) { testPress(e.getX(), e.getY()); } }); } //end of constructor private void testPress(int x, int y) { if(!gameOver) { gameOver = true; //end game at mousepress } } //end of testPress() private void readyForTermination() { addKeyListener( new KeyAdapter() { public void keyPressed(KeyEvent e) { int keyCode = e.getKeyCode(); if((keyCode == KeyEvent.VK_ESCAPE) || (keyCode == KeyEvent.VK_Q) || (keyCode == KeyEvent.VK_END) || ((keyCode == KeyEvent.VK_C) && e.isControlDown()) ) { running = false; //end process on above list of keypresses } } }); } //end of readyForTermination() public void addNotify() { super.addNotify(); //creates the peer startGame(); //start the thread } //end of addNotify() public void startGame() { if(animator == null || !running) { animator = new Thread(this); animator.start(); } } //end of startGame() //run method for world public void run() { while(running) { long beforeTime, timeDiff, sleepTime; beforeTime = System.nanoTime(); gameUpdate(); //updates objects in game (step event in game) gameRender(); //renders image paintScreen(); //paints rendered image to screen timeDiff = (System.nanoTime() - beforeTime) / 1000000; sleepTime = 10 - timeDiff; if(sleepTime <= 0) //if took longer than 10ms { sleepTime = 5; //sleep a bit anyways } try{ Thread.sleep(sleepTime); //sleep by allotted time (attempts to keep this loop to about 10ms) } catch(InterruptedException ex){} beforeTime = System.nanoTime(); } System.exit(0); } //end of run() private void gameRender() { if(dbImage == null) { dbImage = createImage(PWIDTH, PHEIGHT); if(dbImage == null) { System.out.println("dbImage is null"); return; } else dbg = dbImage.getGraphics(); } //clear the background dbg.setColor(Color.white); dbg.fillRect(0, 0, PWIDTH, PHEIGHT); //draw game elements... if(gameOver) { gameOverMessage(dbg); } } //end of gameRender() } //end of class Sim2D Hope this helps clear things up a bit, Jonathan

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• Android Frame based animation memory problem

  - by madsleejensen

  Hi all Im trying to create a animation on top of a Camera Surface view. The animation if a box rotating, and to enable transparency i made a bunch of *.png files that i want to just switch out on top of the Camera view. The problem is Android wont allow me to allocate so many images (too much memory required) so the AnimationDrawable is not an option. Will i be able to allocate all the *.png bitmaps if i use OpenGL instead? then i would store all the *.png's as Textures and just make my own animation logic? is am i under the same restrictions there? Any ideas on how to solve this problem ? Ive made a Custom view that loads the image resource on every frame and discards it when next frame is to be displayed. But the performance is terrible. import android.app.Activity; import android.content.res.Resources; import android.graphics.drawable.Drawable; import android.os.SystemClock; import android.util.Log; import android.widget.ImageView; public class FrameAnimationView extends ImageView { private int mFramesPerSecond = 10; private int mTimeBetweenFrames = (1000 / mFramesPerSecond); private int mCurrentFrame = 1; private String[] mFrames; private Thread mAnimationThread; private Resources mResources; private String mIdentifierPrefix; private Activity mContext; private boolean mIsAnimating = false; private Integer[] mDrawableIndentifiers; public FrameAnimationView(Activity context, String[] frames) { super(context); mContext = context; mResources = context.getResources(); mFrames = frames; mIdentifierPrefix = context.getPackageName() + ":drawable/"; mDrawableIndentifiers = new Integer[frames.length]; } private void initAnimationThread() { mAnimationThread = new Thread(new Runnable() { @Override public void run() { while (mIsAnimating) { final int frameToShow = (mCurrentFrame - 1); //Log.e("frame", Integer.toString(frameToShow)); mContext.runOnUiThread(new Runnable() { @Override public void run() { if (mDrawableIndentifiers[frameToShow] == null) { String frameId = mFrames[frameToShow]; int drawableResourceId = mResources.getIdentifier(mIdentifierPrefix + frameId, null, null); mDrawableIndentifiers[frameToShow] = drawableResourceId; } Drawable frame = getResources().getDrawable(mDrawableIndentifiers[frameToShow]); setBackgroundDrawable(frame); if (mCurrentFrame < mFrames.length) { mCurrentFrame++; } else { mCurrentFrame = 1; } } }); try { Thread.sleep(mTimeBetweenFrames); } catch (InterruptedException e) { e.printStackTrace(); } } } }); } public void setFramesPerSecond(int fps) { mFramesPerSecond = fps; mTimeBetweenFrames = (1000 / mFramesPerSecond); } public void startAnimation() { if (mIsAnimating) return; mIsAnimating = true; initAnimationThread(); mAnimationThread.start(); } public void stopAnimation() { if (mIsAnimating) { Thread oldThread = mAnimationThread; mAnimationThread = null; oldThread.interrupt(); mIsAnimating = false; } } }

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• Stopping the animation after you let go of a key

  - by Michael Zeuner

  What I have right now is an animation that starts when I press space: if(input.isKeyDown(Input.KEY_SPACE)) player = movingRightSwingingSword; However when I stop clicking space my animation continues. until I move my player, how do I make it so it stops the animation right when you let go of space? A few lines Animation player, movingUp, movingDown, movingLeft, movingRight, movingRightSwingingSword; int[] duration = {200,200}; public void init(GameContainer gc, StateBasedGame sbg) throws SlickException { Image[] attackRight = {new Image("res/buckysRightSword1.png"), new Image("res/buckysRightSword2.png")}; movingRightSwingingSword = new Animation(attackRight, duration, true); } public void update(GameContainer gc, StateBasedGame sbg, int delta) throws SlickException { if(input.isKeyDown(Input.KEY_SPACE)) player = movingRightSwingingSword; } Full Code package javagame; import org.newdawn.slick.*; import org.newdawn.slick.state.*; public class Play extends BasicGameState { Animation player, movingUp, movingDown, movingLeft, movingRight, movingRightSwingingSword; Image worldMap; boolean quit = false; int[] duration = {200,200}; float playerPositionX = 0; float playerPositionY = 0; float shiftX = playerPositionX + 320; float shiftY = playerPositionY + 160; public Play(int state) { } public void init(GameContainer gc, StateBasedGame sbg) throws SlickException { worldMap = new Image("res/world.png"); Image[] walkUp = {new Image("res/buckysBack.png"), new Image("res/buckysBack.png")}; Image[] walkDown = {new Image("res/buckysFront.png"), new Image("res/buckysFront.png")}; Image[] walkLeft = {new Image("res/buckysLeft.png"), new Image("res/buckysLeft.png")}; Image[] walkRight = {new Image("res/buckysRight.png"), new Image("res/buckysRight.png")}; Image[] attackRight = {new Image("res/buckysRightSword1.png"), new Image("res/buckysRightSword2.png")}; movingUp = new Animation(walkUp, duration, false); movingDown = new Animation(walkDown, duration, false); movingLeft = new Animation(walkLeft, duration, false); movingRight = new Animation(walkRight, duration, false); //doesnt work! vvv movingRightSwingingSword = new Animation(attackRight, duration, true); player = movingDown; } public void render(GameContainer gc, StateBasedGame sbg, Graphics g) throws SlickException { worldMap.draw(playerPositionX, playerPositionY); player.draw(shiftX, shiftY); g.drawString("Player X: " + playerPositionX + "\nPlayer Y: " + playerPositionY, 400, 20); if (quit == true) { g.drawString("Resume (R)", 250, 100); g.drawString("MainMenu (M)", 250, 150); g.drawString("Quit Game (Q)", 250, 200); if (quit==false) { g.clear(); } } } public void update(GameContainer gc, StateBasedGame sbg, int delta) throws SlickException { Input input = gc.getInput(); if(input.isKeyDown(Input.KEY_UP)) { player = movingUp; playerPositionY += delta * .1f; if(playerPositionY>162) playerPositionY -= delta * .1f; } if(input.isKeyDown(Input.KEY_DOWN)) { player = movingDown; playerPositionY -= delta * .1f; if(playerPositionY<-600) playerPositionY += delta * .1f; } if(input.isKeyDown(Input.KEY_RIGHT)) { player = movingRight; playerPositionX -= delta * .1f; if(playerPositionX<-840) playerPositionX += delta * .1f; } if(input.isKeyDown(Input.KEY_LEFT)) { player = movingLeft; playerPositionX += delta * .1f; if(playerPositionX>318) playerPositionX -= delta * .1f; } if(input.isKeyDown(Input.KEY_SPACE)) player = movingRightSwingingSword; if(input.isKeyDown(Input.KEY_ESCAPE)) quit = true; if(input.isKeyDown(Input.KEY_R)) if (quit == true) quit = false; if(input.isKeyDown(Input.KEY_M)) if (quit == true) {sbg.enterState(0); quit = false;} if(input.isKeyDown(Input.KEY_Q)) if (quit == true) System.exit(0); } public int getID() { return 1; } }

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• xts error - order.by requires an appropriate time-based object

  - by Samo

  I can not resolve why error in simple creation of xts object xts(rep(0, NROW(TICK.NYSE)), order.by = index(TICK.NYSE)) Error in xts(rep(0, NROW(TICK.NYSE)), order.by = index(TICK.NYSE)) : order.by requires an appropriate time-based object appeared while this was working perfectly 14 days ago when I last used the same code (since then the only difference is that TICK.NYSE grow in length since data was added since then). More details below: > Sys.getenv("TZ") [1] "EST" > tail(xts(rep(0, NROW(TICK.NYSE)), order.by = index(TICK.NYSE))) Error in xts(rep(0, NROW(TICK.NYSE)), order.by = index(TICK.NYSE)) : order.by requires an appropriate time-based object > class(index(TICK.NYSE["T09:30/T09:31"])) [1] "POSIXct" > tail(xts(rep(0, NROW(tail(TICK.NYSE))), order.by = index(tail(TICK.NYSE)))) Error in xts(rep(0, NROW(tail(TICK.NYSE))), order.by = index(tail(TICK.NYSE))) : order.by requires an appropriate time-based object > tail(TICK.NYSE) TICK-NYSE.Open TICK-NYSE.High TICK-NYSE.Low TICK-NYSE.Close 2012-03-15 14:54:00 -278 -89 -299 -89 2012-03-15 14:55:00 -89 427 -89 201 2012-03-15 14:56:00 201 318 30 234 2012-03-15 14:57:00 234 242 -222 -64 2012-03-15 14:58:00 -64 346 -82 346 2012-03-15 14:59:00 346 525 36 525 TICK-NYSE.Volume TICK-NYSE.WAP TICK-NYSE.hasGaps 2012-03-15 14:54:00 0 0 0 2012-03-15 14:55:00 0 0 0 2012-03-15 14:56:00 0 0 0 2012-03-15 14:57:00 0 0 0 2012-03-15 14:58:00 0 0 0 2012-03-15 14:59:00 0 0 0 TICK-NYSE.Count 2012-03-15 14:54:00 31 2012-03-15 14:55:00 31 2012-03-15 14:56:00 31 2012-03-15 14:57:00 31 2012-03-15 14:58:00 29 2012-03-15 14:59:00 30 > str(TICK.NYSE) An ‘xts’ object from 2011-01-18 09:30:00 to 2012-03-15 14:59:00 containing: Data: num [1:114090, 1:8] -5 -144 24 -148 -184 -77 20 121 111 -60 ... - attr(*, "dimnames")=List of 2 ..$ : NULL ..$ : chr [1:8] "TICK-NYSE.Open" "TICK-NYSE.High" "TICK-NYSE.Low" "TICK-NYSE.Close" ... Indexed by objects of class: [POSIXct,POSIXt] TZ: xts Attributes: List of 4 $ from : chr "20110119 23:59:59" $ to : chr "20110124 23:59:59" $ src : chr "IB" $ updated: POSIXct[1:1], format: "2012-01-19 02:34:52" > str(index(TICK.NYSE)) Class 'POSIXct' atomic [1:114090] 1.3e+09 1.3e+09 1.3e+09 1.3e+09 1.3e+09 ... ..- attr(*, "tzone")= chr "" ..- attr(*, "tclass")= chr [1:2] "POSIXct" "POSIXt" > Sys.getenv("TZ") [1] "EST" > tail(index(TICK.NYSE)) [1] "2012-03-15 14:54:00 EST" "2012-03-15 14:55:00 EST" [3] "2012-03-15 14:56:00 EST" "2012-03-15 14:57:00 EST" [5] "2012-03-15 14:58:00 EST" "2012-03-15 14:59:00 EST" > head(index(TICK.NYSE)) [1] "2011-01-18 09:30:00 EST" "2011-01-18 09:31:00 EST" [3] "2011-01-18 09:32:00 EST" "2011-01-18 09:33:00 EST" [5] "2011-01-18 09:34:00 EST" "2011-01-18 09:35:00 EST" > Sys.info() sysname "Linux" release "3.0.0-16-generic" version "#28-Ubuntu SMP Fri Jan 27 17:44:39 UTC 2012" > sessionInfo() R version 2.14.1 (2011-12-22) Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu (64-bit) locale: [1] LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 LC_NUMERIC=C [3] LC_TIME=en_US.UTF-8 LC_COLLATE=en_US.UTF-8 [5] LC_MONETARY=en_US.UTF-8 LC_MESSAGES=en_US.UTF-8 [7] LC_PAPER=en_US.UTF-8 LC_NAME=en_US.UTF-8 [9] LC_ADDRESS=en_US.UTF-8 LC_TELEPHONE=en_US.UTF-8 [11] LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=en_US.UTF-8 attached base packages: [1] stats graphics grDevices utils datasets methods base other attached packages: [1] lattice_0.20-0 multicore_0.1-7 [3] doSNOW_1.0.5 snow_0.3-8 [5] doRedis_1.0.4 rredis_1.6.3 [7] foreach_1.3.2 codetools_0.2-8 [9] iterators_1.0.5 PerformanceAnalytics_1.0.3.3 [11] quantstrat_0.6.1 blotter_0.8.4 [13] twsInstrument_1.3-3 FinancialInstrument_0.10.6 [15] IBrokers_0.9-6 quantmod_0.3-18 [17] TTR_0.21-0 xts_0.8-4 [19] Defaults_1.1-1 strucchange_1.4-6 [21] sandwich_2.2-8 zoo_1.7-7 [23] rj_1.0.2-5 loaded via a namespace (and not attached): [1] grid_2.14.1 tools_2.14.1 > dput(tail(TICK.NYSE)) structure(c(-385, -213, -42, -334, -233, -111, -121, 20, -14, -125, -73, 265, -583, -269, -426, -520, -443, -440, -213, -42, -334, -233, -111, 119, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 31, 31, 30, 30, 31, 31), class = c("xts", "zoo" ), .indexCLASS = c("POSIXct", "POSIXt"), .indexTZ = "", from = "20110119 23:59:59", to = "20110124 23:59:59", src = "IB", updated = structure(1326958492.96405, class = c("POSIXct", "POSIXt")), index = structure(c(1331927640, 1331927700, 1331927760, 1331927820, 1331927880, 1331927940), tzone = "", tclass = c("POSIXct", "POSIXt")), .Dim = c(6L, 8L), .Dimnames = list(NULL, c("TICK-NYSE.Open", "TICK-NYSE.High", "TICK-NYSE.Low", "TICK-NYSE.Close", "TICK-NYSE.Volume", "TICK-NYSE.WAP", "TICK-NYSE.hasGaps", "TICK-NYSE.Count")))

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• output image is not displayed

  - by gerry chocolatos

  so, im doing an image detection which i have to process on each red, green, n blue element to get the edge map and combine them become one to show the output. but it doesnt show my output image would anyone pls be kind enough to help me? here is my code so far. //get the red element process_red = new int[width * height]; counter = 0; for(int i = 0; i < 256; i++) { for(int j = 0; j < 256; j++) { int clr = buff_red.getRGB(j, i); int red = (clr & 0x00ff0000) >> 16; red = (0xFF<<24)|(red<<16)|(red<<8)|red; process_red[counter] = red; counter++; } } //set threshold value for red element int threshold = 100; for (int x = 0; x < width; x++) { for (int y = 0; y < height; y++) { int bin = (buff_red.getRGB(x, y) & 0x000000ff); if (bin < threshold) bin = 0; else bin = 255; buff_red.setRGB(x,y, 0xff000000 | bin << 16 | bin << 8 | bin); } } and i do the same way for my green n blue elements. and then i wanted to get to combination of the three by doing it this way: //combine the three elements process_combine = new int[width * height]; counter = 0; for(int i = 0; i < 256; i++) { for(int j = 0; j < 256; j++) { int clr_a = buff_red.getRGB(j, i); int ar = clr_a & 0x000000ff; int clr_b = buff_green.getRGB(j, i); int bg = clr_b & 0x000000ff; int clr_c = buff_blue.getRGB(j, i); int cb = clr_b & 0x000000ff; int alpha = 0xff000000; int combine = alpha|(ar<<16)|(bg<<8)|cb; process_combine[counter] = combine; counter++; } } buff_rgb = new BufferedImage(width,height, BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_ARGB); Graphics rgb; rgb = buff_rgb.getGraphics(); rgb.drawImage(output_rgb, 0, 0, null); rgb.dispose(); repaint(); and to show the output whic is from the combining process, i use a draw method: g.drawImage(buff_rgb,800,100,this); but still it doesnt show the image. can anyone pls help me? ur help is really appreciated. thanks.

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• UIImage rounded corners

  - by catlan

  I try to get rounded corners on a UIImage, what I read so far, the easiest way is to use a mask images. For this I used code from TheElements iPhone Example and some image resize code I found. My problem is that resizedImage is always nil and I don't find the error... - (UIImage *)imageByScalingProportionallyToSize:(CGSize)targetSize { CGSize imageSize = [self size]; float width = imageSize.width; float height = imageSize.height; // scaleFactor will be the fraction that we'll // use to adjust the size. For example, if we shrink // an image by half, scaleFactor will be 0.5. the // scaledWidth and scaledHeight will be the original, // multiplied by the scaleFactor. // // IMPORTANT: the "targetHeight" is the size of the space // we're drawing into. The "scaledHeight" is the height that // the image actually is drawn at, once we take into // account the ideal of maintaining proportions float scaleFactor = 0.0; float scaledWidth = targetSize.width; float scaledHeight = targetSize.height; CGPoint thumbnailPoint = CGPointMake(0,0); // since not all images are square, we want to scale // proportionately. To do this, we find the longest // edge and use that as a guide. if ( CGSizeEqualToSize(imageSize, targetSize) == NO ) { // use the longeset edge as a guide. if the // image is wider than tall, we'll figure out // the scale factor by dividing it by the // intended width. Otherwise, we'll use the // height. float widthFactor = targetSize.width / width; float heightFactor = targetSize.height / height; if ( widthFactor < heightFactor ) scaleFactor = widthFactor; else scaleFactor = heightFactor; // ex: 500 * 0.5 = 250 (newWidth) scaledWidth = width * scaleFactor; scaledHeight = height * scaleFactor; // center the thumbnail in the frame. if // wider than tall, we need to adjust the // vertical drawing point (y axis) if ( widthFactor < heightFactor ) thumbnailPoint.y = (targetSize.height - scaledHeight) * 0.5; else if ( widthFactor > heightFactor ) thumbnailPoint.x = (targetSize.width - scaledWidth) * 0.5; } CGContextRef mainViewContentContext; CGColorSpaceRef colorSpace; colorSpace = CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceRGB(); // create a bitmap graphics context the size of the image mainViewContentContext = CGBitmapContextCreate (NULL, targetSize.width, targetSize.height, 8, 0, colorSpace, kCGImageAlphaPremultipliedLast); // free the rgb colorspace CGColorSpaceRelease(colorSpace); if (mainViewContentContext==NULL) return NULL; //CGContextSetFillColorWithColor(mainViewContentContext, [[UIColor whiteColor] CGColor]); //CGContextFillRect(mainViewContentContext, CGRectMake(0, 0, targetSize.width, targetSize.height)); CGContextDrawImage(mainViewContentContext, CGRectMake(thumbnailPoint.x, thumbnailPoint.y, scaledWidth, scaledHeight), self.CGImage); // Create CGImageRef of the main view bitmap content, and then // release that bitmap context CGImageRef mainViewContentBitmapContext = CGBitmapContextCreateImage(mainViewContentContext); CGContextRelease(mainViewContentContext); CGImageRef maskImage = [[UIImage imageNamed:@"Mask.png"] CGImage]; CGImageRef resizedImage = CGImageCreateWithMask(mainViewContentBitmapContext, maskImage); CGImageRelease(mainViewContentBitmapContext); // convert the finished resized image to a UIImage UIImage *theImage = [UIImage imageWithCGImage:resizedImage]; // image is retained by the property setting above, so we can // release the original CGImageRelease(resizedImage); // return the image return theImage; }

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• How can I draw a line with a variable of width?

  - by user1729944

  #include <iostream> #include <cmath> #include "graph1.h" using namespace std; int main() { int diameter = 0; int height = 0; double rate = 0; char repeat = 'y'; int obj_num = 0; displayGraphics(); obj_num = drawRect(0,0,50,400); setColor(obj_num,200,200,200); obj_num = drawRect(0,400,640,79); setColor(obj_num,71,35,35); obj_num = drawLine(50,50,150,50,5); setColor(obj_num,80,80,80); displayBMP("faucet.bmp",150,12); do { do { cout << "Enter the diamater of the cylinder <in inches > 0 but <= 300: "; cin >> diameter; if((diameter<0) || (diameter>300)) { cout << "Incorrect diamater entered; value must be between 1 and 300" << endl; } }while((diameter<0) || (diameter>300)); do { cout << "Enter the height of the cylinder <in inches > 0 but <= 325: "; cin >> height; if((height<0) || (height>325)) { cout << "Incorrect height entered; value must be between 1 and 325" << endl; } }while((height<0) || (height>325)); do { cout << "Enter the facet water's rate: <gallons/minute> "; cin >> rate; if((rate<0) || (rate>100)) { cout << "Incorrect rate entered; value must be between 1 and 100" << endl; } }while((rate<0) || (rate>100)); //I need to draw the lines here. The graphics window has a faucet that is supposed to fill //up a cylinder made out of 3 lines. I don't know how to make the lines vary from the users //input since lines are hard coded with points and all i am receiving is the width for the //bottom line and the height for the left and right lines. cout << "Repeat program? (y/n): "; cin >> repeat; clearGraphics(); }while ( (repeat == 'y') || (repeat == 'Y') ); return 0; } Here is a screenshot for reference:

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• Is there a FlashBlock plugin written in Javascript?

  - by user3709489

  Anyone here have one ? I mean a plugin like Click to Play of Firefox and Chrome feature ( https://www.google.com/search?q=click+to+play+firefox&hl=vi&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=gOKPU5GCJsP_8QXFtYC4Aw&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&biw=1366&bih=717 ) but written in Javascript, work like LazyLoad I found here: https://github.com/kaizau/Lazy-Load-Images-without-jQuery If anyone here have something like that please share me, I also found a click to show function for image: <html> <head> <title></title> </head> <body> <!-- Put the body of your page below this line --> <script type="text/javascript"> <!-- function MM_preloadImages() { //v3.0 var d=document; if(d.images){ if(!d.MM_p) d.MM_p=new Array(); var i,j=d.MM_p.length,a=MM_preloadImages.arguments; for(i=0; i<a.length; i++) if (a[i].indexOf("#")!=0){ d.MM_p[j]=new Image; d.MM_p[j++].src=a[i];}} } function MM_swapImgRestore() { //v3.0 var i,x,a=document.MM_sr; for(i=0;a&&i<a.length&&(x=a[i])&&x.oSrc;i++) x.src=x.oSrc; } function MM_findObj(n, d) { //v4.01 var p,i,x; if(!d) d=document; if((p=n.indexOf("?"))>0&&parent.frames.length) { d=parent.frames[n.substring(p+1)].document; n=n.substring(0,p);} if(!(x=d[n])&&d.all) x=d.all[n]; for (i=0;!x&&i<d.forms.length;i++) x=d.forms[i][n]; for(i=0;!x&&d.layers&&i<d.layers.length;i++) x=MM_findObj(n,d.layers[i].document); if(!x && d.getElementById) x=d.getElementById(n); return x; } function MM_swapImage() { //v3.0 var i,j=0,x,a=MM_swapImage.arguments; document.MM_sr=new Array; for(i=0;i<(a.length-2);i+=3) if ((x=MM_findObj(a[i]))!=null){document.MM_sr[j++]=x; if(!x.oSrc) x.oSrc=x.src; x.src=a[i+2];} } //--> </script> <p><img data-src="graphics/one.gif" width="400" height="600" id="Image1" onClick="MM_swapImage('Image1','','http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/themes/NASAPortal/images/nasa-starfield-header-hr.png',0)"></p> <!-- Put the body of your page above this line --> </body> </html> Many thank!

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• Function for counting characters/words not working

  - by user1742729

  <!DOCTYPE HTML> <html> <head> <title> Javascript - stuff </title> <script type="text/javascript"> <!-- function GetCountsAll( Wordcount, Sentancecount, Clausecount, Charactercount ) { var TextString = document.getElementById("Text").innerHTML; var Wordcount = 0; var Sentancecount = 0; var Clausecount = 0; var Charactercount = 0; // For loop that runs through all characters incrementing the variable(s) value each iteration for (i=0; i < TextString.length; i++); if (TextString.charAt(i) == " " = true) Wordcount++; return Wordcount; if (TextString.charAt(i) = "." = true) Sentancecount++; Clausecount++; return Sentancecount; if (TextString.charAt(i) = ";" = true) Clausecount++; return Clausecount; } --> </script> </head> <body> <div id="Text"> It is important to remember that XHTML is a markup language; it is not a programming language. The language only describes the placement and visual appearance of elements arranged on a page; it does not permit users to manipulate these elements to change their placement or appearance, or to perform any "processing" on the text or graphics to change their content in response to user needs. For many Web pages this lack of processing capability is not a great drawback; the pages are simply displays of static, unchanging, information for which no manipulation by the user is required. Still, there are cases where the ability to respond to user actions and the availability of processing methods can be a great asset. This is where JavaScript enters the picture. </div> <input type = "button" value = "Get Counts" class = "btnstyle" onclick = "GetCountsAll()"/> <br/> <span id= "Charactercount"> </span> Characters <br/> <span id= "Wordcount"> </span> Words <br/> <span id= "Sentancecount"> </span> Sentences <br/> <span id= "ClauseCount"> </span> Clauses <br/> </body> </html> I am a student and still learning JavaScript, so excuse any horrible mistakes. The script is meant to calculate the number of characters, words, sentences, and clauses in the passage. It's, plainly put, just not working. I have tried a multitude of things to get it to work for me and have gotten a plethora of different errors but no matter what I can NOT get this to work. Please help! (btw i know i misspelled sentence)

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• How To Run XP Mode in VirtualBox on Windows 7 (sort of)

  - by Matthew Guay

  A few weeks ago we showed you how to run XP Mode on a Windows 7 computer without Hardware Virtualization using VMware. Some of you have been asking if it can be done in Virtual Box as well. The answer is “Yes!” and here we’ll show you how. Editor Update: Apparently there isn’t a way to activate XP Mode through VirtualBox using this method. You will however, be able to run it for 30 days. We have a new updated article on how to Install XP Mode with VirtualBox Using the VMLite Plugin.   Earlier we showed you how to run XP mode on windows 7 machines without hardware virtualization capability. Since then, a lot of you have been asking to a write up a tutorial about doing the same thing using VirtualBox.  This makes it another great way to run XP Mode if your computer does not have hardware virtualization.  Here we’ll see how to import the XP Mode from Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate into VirtualBox so you can run XP in it for free. Note: You need to have Windows 7 Professional or above to use XP Mode in this manner. In our tests we were able to get it to run on Home Premium as well, but you’ll be breaking Windows 7 licensing agreements. Getting Started First, download and install XP Mode (link below).  There is no need to download Virtual PC if your computer cannot run it, so just download the XP Mode from the link on the left. Install XP mode; just follow the default prompts as usual. Now, download and install VirtualBox 3.1.2 or higher(link below).  Install as normal, and simply follow the default prompts. VirtualBox may notify you that your network connection will be reset during the installation.  Press Yes to continue. During the install, you may see several popups asking you if you wish to install device drivers for USB and Network interfaces.  Simply click install, as these are needed for VirtualBox to run correctly. Setup only took a couple minutes, and doesn’t require a reboot. Setup XP Mode in VirtualBox: First we need to copy the default XP Mode so VirtualBox will not affect the original copy.  Browse to C:\Program Files\Windows XP Mode, and copy the file “Windows XP Mode base.vhd”.  Paste it in another folder of your choice, such as your Documents folder. Once you’ve copied the file, right-click on it and click Properties. Uncheck the “Read-only” box in this dialog, and then click Ok. Now, in VirtualBox, click New to create a new virtual machine. Enter the name of your virtual machine, and make sure the operating system selected is Windows XP. Choose how much memory you want to allow the virtual machine to use.  VirtualBox’ default is 192 Mb ram, but for better performance you can select 256 or 512Mb. Now, select the hard drive for the virtual machine.  Select “Use existing hard disk”, then click the folder button to choose the XP Mode virtual drive. In this window, click Add, and then browse to find the copy of XP Mode you previously made. Make sure the correct virtual drive is selected, then press Select. After selecting the VHD your screen should look like the following then click Next. Verify the settings you made are correct. If not, you can go back and make any changes. When everything looks correct click Finish. Setup XP Mode Now, in VirtualBox, click start to run XP Mode. The Windows XP in this virtual drive is not fully setup yet, so you will have to go through the setup process.   If you didn’t uncheck the “Read-only” box in the VHD properties before, you may see the following error.  If you see it, go back and check the file to makes sure it is not read-only. When you click in the virtual machine, it will capture your mouse by default.  Simply press the right Ctrl key to release your mouse so you can go back to using Windows 7.  This will only be the case during the setup process; after the Guest Additions are installed, the mouse will seamlessly move between operating systems. Now, accept the license agreement in XP.   Choose your correct locale and keyboard settings. Enter a name for your virtual XP, and an administrative password. Check the date, time, and time zone settings, and adjust them if they are incorrect.  The time and date are usually correct, but the time zone often has to be corrected. XP will now automatically finish setting up your virtual machine, and then will automatically reboot. After rebooting, select your automatic update settings. You may see a prompt to check for drivers; simply press cancel, as all the drivers we need will be installed later with the Guest Additions. Your last settings will be finalized, and finally you will see your XP desktop in VirtualBox. Please note that XP Mode may not remain activated after importing it into VirtualBox. When you activate it, use the key that is located at C:\Program Files\Windows XP Mode\key.txt.  Note: During our tests we weren’t able to get the activation to go through. We are looking into the issue and will have a revised article showing the correct way to get XP Mode in VirutalBox working correctly soon.    Now we have one final thing to install – the VirtualBox Guest Additions.  In the VirtualBox window, click “Devices” and then select “Install Guest Additions”. This should automatically launch in XP; if it doesn’t, click Start, then My Computer, and finally double-click on the CD drive which should say VirtualBox Guest Additions. Simply install with the normal presets. You can select to install an experimental 3D graphics driver if you wish to try to run games in XP in VirtualBox; however, do note that this is not fully supported and is currently a test feature. You may see a prompt informing you that the drivers have not passed Logo testing; simply press “Continue Anyway” to proceed with the installation.   When installation has completed, you will be required to reboot your virtual machine. Now, you can move your mouse directly from Windows XP to Windows 7 without pressing Ctrl. Integrating with Windows 7 Once your virtual machine is rebooted, you can integrate it with your Windows 7 desktop.  In the VirtualBox window, click Machine and then select “Seamless Mode”.   In Seamless mode you’ll have the XP Start menu and taskbar sit on top of your Windows 7 Start and Taskbar. Here we see XP running on Virtual Box in Seamless Mode. We have the old XP WordPad sitting next to the new Windows 7 version of WordPad. Another view of everything running seamlessly together on the same Windows 7 desktop. Hover the pointer over the XP taskbar to pull up the Virtual Box menu items. You can exit out of Seamless Mode from the VirtualBox menu or using “Ctrl+L”. Then you go back to having it run separately on your desktop again. Conclusion Running XP Mode in a Virtual Machine is a great way to experience the feature on computers without Hardware Virtualization capabilities. If you prefer VMware Player, then you’ll want to check out our articles on how to run XP Mode on Windows 7 machines without Hardware Virtualization, and how to create an XP Mode for Windows 7 Home Premium and Vista. Download VirtualBox Download XP Mode Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Install XP Mode with VirtualBox Using the VMLite PluginUsing Windows 7 or Vista Compatibility ModeMake Safari Stop Crashing Every 20 Seconds on Windows VistaForce Windows 7 / Vista to Boot Into Safe Mode Without Using the F8 KeyHow To Run Chrome OS in VirtualBox TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Enable Check Box Selection in Windows 7 OnlineOCR – Free OCR Service Betting on the Blind Side, a Vanity Fair article 30 Minimal Logo Designs that Say More with Less LEGO Digital Designer – Free Create a Personal Website Quickly using Flavors.me

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• How To Run XP Mode in VirtualBox on Windows 7 (sort of)

  - by Matthew Guay

  A few weeks ago we showed you how to run XP Mode on a Windows 7 computer without Hardware Virtualization using VMware. Some of you have been asking if it can be done in Virtual Box as well. The answer is “Yes!” and here we’ll show you how. Editor Update: Apparently there isn’t a way to activate XP Mode through VirtualBox using this method. You will however, be able to run it for 30 days. We have a new updated article on how to Install XP Mode with VirtualBox Using the VMLite Plugin.   Earlier we showed you how to run XP mode on windows 7 machines without hardware virtualization capability. Since then, a lot of you have been asking to a write up a tutorial about doing the same thing using VirtualBox.  This makes it another great way to run XP Mode if your computer does not have hardware virtualization.  Here we’ll see how to import the XP Mode from Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate into VirtualBox so you can run XP in it for free. Note: You need to have Windows 7 Professional or above to use XP Mode in this manner. In our tests we were able to get it to run on Home Premium as well, but you’ll be breaking Windows 7 licensing agreements. Getting Started First, download and install XP Mode (link below).  There is no need to download Virtual PC if your computer cannot run it, so just download the XP Mode from the link on the left. Install XP mode; just follow the default prompts as usual. Now, download and install VirtualBox 3.1.2 or higher(link below).  Install as normal, and simply follow the default prompts. VirtualBox may notify you that your network connection will be reset during the installation.  Press Yes to continue. During the install, you may see several popups asking you if you wish to install device drivers for USB and Network interfaces.  Simply click install, as these are needed for VirtualBox to run correctly. Setup only took a couple minutes, and doesn’t require a reboot. Setup XP Mode in VirtualBox: First we need to copy the default XP Mode so VirtualBox will not affect the original copy.  Browse to C:\Program Files\Windows XP Mode, and copy the file “Windows XP Mode base.vhd”.  Paste it in another folder of your choice, such as your Documents folder. Once you’ve copied the file, right-click on it and click Properties. Uncheck the “Read-only” box in this dialog, and then click Ok. Now, in VirtualBox, click New to create a new virtual machine. Enter the name of your virtual machine, and make sure the operating system selected is Windows XP. Choose how much memory you want to allow the virtual machine to use.  VirtualBox’ default is 192 Mb ram, but for better performance you can select 256 or 512Mb. Now, select the hard drive for the virtual machine.  Select “Use existing hard disk”, then click the folder button to choose the XP Mode virtual drive. In this window, click Add, and then browse to find the copy of XP Mode you previously made. Make sure the correct virtual drive is selected, then press Select. After selecting the VHD your screen should look like the following then click Next. Verify the settings you made are correct. If not, you can go back and make any changes. When everything looks correct click Finish. Setup XP Mode Now, in VirtualBox, click start to run XP Mode. The Windows XP in this virtual drive is not fully setup yet, so you will have to go through the setup process.   If you didn’t uncheck the “Read-only” box in the VHD properties before, you may see the following error.  If you see it, go back and check the file to makes sure it is not read-only. When you click in the virtual machine, it will capture your mouse by default.  Simply press the right Ctrl key to release your mouse so you can go back to using Windows 7.  This will only be the case during the setup process; after the Guest Additions are installed, the mouse will seamlessly move between operating systems. Now, accept the license agreement in XP.   Choose your correct locale and keyboard settings. Enter a name for your virtual XP, and an administrative password. Check the date, time, and time zone settings, and adjust them if they are incorrect.  The time and date are usually correct, but the time zone often has to be corrected. XP will now automatically finish setting up your virtual machine, and then will automatically reboot. After rebooting, select your automatic update settings. You may see a prompt to check for drivers; simply press cancel, as all the drivers we need will be installed later with the Guest Additions. Your last settings will be finalized, and finally you will see your XP desktop in VirtualBox. Please note that XP Mode may not remain activated after importing it into VirtualBox. When you activate it, use the key that is located at C:\Program Files\Windows XP Mode\key.txt.  Note: During our tests we weren’t able to get the activation to go through. We are looking into the issue and will have a revised article showing the correct way to get XP Mode in VirutalBox working correctly soon.    Now we have one final thing to install – the VirtualBox Guest Additions.  In the VirtualBox window, click “Devices” and then select “Install Guest Additions”. This should automatically launch in XP; if it doesn’t, click Start, then My Computer, and finally double-click on the CD drive which should say VirtualBox Guest Additions. Simply install with the normal presets. You can select to install an experimental 3D graphics driver if you wish to try to run games in XP in VirtualBox; however, do note that this is not fully supported and is currently a test feature. You may see a prompt informing you that the drivers have not passed Logo testing; simply press “Continue Anyway” to proceed with the installation.   When installation has completed, you will be required to reboot your virtual machine. Now, you can move your mouse directly from Windows XP to Windows 7 without pressing Ctrl. Integrating with Windows 7 Once your virtual machine is rebooted, you can integrate it with your Windows 7 desktop.  In the VirtualBox window, click Machine and then select “Seamless Mode”.   In Seamless mode you’ll have the XP Start menu and taskbar sit on top of your Windows 7 Start and Taskbar. Here we see XP running on Virtual Box in Seamless Mode. We have the old XP WordPad sitting next to the new Windows 7 version of WordPad. Another view of everything running seamlessly together on the same Windows 7 desktop. Hover the pointer over the XP taskbar to pull up the Virtual Box menu items. You can exit out of Seamless Mode from the VirtualBox menu or using “Ctrl+L”. Then you go back to having it run separately on your desktop again. Conclusion Running XP Mode in a Virtual Machine is a great way to experience the feature on computers without Hardware Virtualization capabilities. If you prefer VMware Player, then you’ll want to check out our articles on how to run XP Mode on Windows 7 machines without Hardware Virtualization, and how to create an XP Mode for Windows 7 Home Premium and Vista. Download VirtualBox Download XP Mode Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Install XP Mode with VirtualBox Using the VMLite PluginUsing Windows 7 or Vista Compatibility ModeMake Safari Stop Crashing Every 20 Seconds on Windows VistaForce Windows 7 / Vista to Boot Into Safe Mode Without Using the F8 KeyHow To Run Chrome OS in VirtualBox TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Enable Check Box Selection in Windows 7 OnlineOCR – Free OCR Service Betting on the Blind Side, a Vanity Fair article 30 Minimal Logo Designs that Say More with Less LEGO Digital Designer – Free Create a Personal Website Quickly using Flavors.me

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• Run Windows in Ubuntu with VMware Player

  - by Matthew Guay

  Are you an enthusiast who loves their Ubuntu Linux experience but still needs to use Windows programs?  Here’s how you can get the full Windows experience on Ubuntu with the free VMware Player. Linux has become increasingly consumer friendly, but still, the wide majority of commercial software is only available for Windows and Macs.  Dual-booting between Windows and Linux has been a popular option for years, but this is a frustrating solution since you have to reboot into the other operating system each time you want to run a specific application.  With virtualization, you’ll never have to make this tradeoff.  VMware Player makes it quick and easy to install any edition of Windows in a virtual machine.  With VMware’s great integration tools, you can copy and paste between your Linux and Windows programs and even run native Windows applications side-by-side with Linux ones. Getting Started Download the latest version of VMware Player for Linux, and select either the 32-bit or 64-bit version, depending on your system.  VMware Player is a free download, but requires registration.  Sign in with your VMware account, or create a new one if you don’t already have one. VMware Player is fairly easy to install on Linux, but you will need to start out the installation from the terminal.  First, enter the following to make sure the installer is marked as executable, substituting version/build_number for the version number on the end of the file you downloaded. chmod +x ./VMware-Player-version/build_number.bundle Then, enter the following to start the install, again substituting your version number: gksudo bash ./VMware-Player-version/build_number.bundle You may have to enter your administrator password to start the installation, and then the VMware Player graphical installer will open.  Choose whether you want to check for product updates and submit usage data to VMware, and then proceed with the install as normal. VMware Player installed in only a few minutes in our tests, and was immediately ready to run, no reboot required.  You can now launch it from your Ubuntu menu: click Applications \ System Tools \ VMware Player. You’ll need to accept the license agreement the first time you run it. Welcome to VMware Player!  Now you can create new virtual machines and run pre-built ones on your Ubuntu desktop. Install Windows in VMware Player on Ubuntu Now that you’ve got VMware setup, it’s time to put it to work.  Click the Create a New Virtual Machine as above to start making a Windows virtual machine. In the dialog that opens, select your installer disk or ISO image file that you want to install Windows from.  In this example, we’re select a Windows 7 ISO.  VMware will automatically detect the operating system on the disk or image.  Click Next to continue. Enter your Windows product key, select the edition of Windows to install, and enter your name and password. You can leave the product key field blank and enter it later.  VMware will ask if you want to continue without a product key, so just click Yes to continue. Now enter a name for your virtual machine and select where you want to save it.  Note: This will take up at least 15Gb of space on your hard drive during the install, so make sure to save it on a drive with sufficient storage space. You can choose how large you want your virtual hard drive to be; the default is 40Gb, but you can choose a different size if you wish.  The entire amount will not be used up on your hard drive initially, but the virtual drive will increase in size up to your maximum as you add files.  Additionally, you can choose if you want the virtual disk stored as a single file or as multiple files.  You will see the best performance by keeping the virtual disk as one file, but the virtual machine will be more portable if it is broken into smaller files, so choose the option that will work best for your needs. Finally, review your settings, and if everything looks good, click Finish to create the virtual machine. VMware will take over now, and install Windows without any further input using its Easy Install.  This is one of VMware’s best features, and is the main reason we find it the easiest desktop virtualization solution to use.   Installing VMware Tools VMware Player doesn’t include the VMware Tools by default; instead, it automatically downloads them for the operating system you’re installing.  Once you’ve downloaded them, it will use those tools anytime you install that OS.  If this is your first Windows virtual machine to install, you may be prompted to download and install them while Windows is installing.  Click Download and Install so your Easy Install will finish successfully. VMware will then download and install the tools.  You may need to enter your administrative password to complete the install. Other than this, you can leave your Windows install unattended; VMware will get everything installed and running on its own. Our test setup took about 30 minutes, and when it was done we were greeted with the Windows desktop ready to use, complete with drivers and the VMware tools.  The only thing missing was the Aero glass feature.  VMware Player is supposed to support the Aero glass effects in virtual machines, and although this works every time when we use VMware Player on Windows, we could not get it to work in Linux.  Other than that, Windows is fully ready to use.  You can copy and paste text, images, or files between Ubuntu and Windows, or simply drag-and-drop files between the two. Unity Mode Using Windows in a window is awkward, and makes your Windows programs feel out of place and hard to use.  This is where Unity mode comes in.  Click Virtual Machine in VMware’s menu, and select Enter Unity. Your Windows desktop will now disappear, and you’ll see a new Windows menu underneath your Ubuntu menu.  This works the same as your Windows Start Menu, and you can open your Windows applications and files directly from it. By default, programs from Windows will have a colored border and a VMware badge in the corner.  You can turn this off from the VMware settings pane.  Click Virtual Machine in VMware’s menu and select Virtual Machine Settings.  Select Unity under the Options tab, and uncheck the Show borders and Show badges boxes if you don’t want them. Unity makes your Windows programs feel at home in Ubuntu.  Here we have Word 2010 and IE8 open beside the Ubuntu Help application.  Notice that the Windows applications show up in the taskbar on the bottom just like the Linux programs.  If you’re using the Compiz graphics effects in Ubuntu, your Windows programs will use them too, including the popular wobbly windows effect. You can switch back to running Windows inside VMware Player’s window by clicking the Exit Unity button in the VMware window. Now, whenever you want to run Windows applications in Linux, you can quickly launch it from VMware Player. Conclusion VMware Player is a great way to run Windows on your Linux computer.  It makes it extremely easy to get Windows installed and running, lets you run your Windows programs seamlessly alongside your Linux ones.  VMware products work great in our experience, and VMware Player on Linux was no exception. If you’re a Windows user and you’d like to run Ubuntu on Windows, check out our article on how to Run Ubuntu in Windows with VMware Player. Link Download VMware Player 3 (Registration required) Download Windows 7 Enterprise 90-day trial Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Enable Copy and Paste from Ubuntu VMware GuestInstall VMware Tools on Ubuntu Edgy EftRestart the Ubuntu Gnome User Interface QuicklyHow to Add a Program to the Ubuntu Startup List (After Login)How To Run Ubuntu in Windows 7 with VMware Player TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 Get a free copy of WinUtilities Pro 2010 World Cup Schedule Boot Snooze – Reboot and then Standby or Hibernate Customize Everything Related to Dates, Times, Currency and Measurement in Windows 7 Google Earth replacement Icon (Icons we like) Build Great Charts in Excel with Chart Advisor

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• Azure - Part 4 - Table Storage Service in Windows Azure

  - by Shaun

  In Windows Azure platform there are 3 storage we can use to save our data on the cloud. They are the Table, Blob and Queue. Before the Chinese New Year Microsoft announced that Azure SDK 1.1 had been released and it supports a new type of storage – Drive, which allows us to operate NTFS files on the cloud. I will cover it in the coming few posts but now I would like to talk a bit about the Table Storage.   Concept of Table Storage Service The most common development scenario is to retrieve, create, update and remove data from the data storage. In the normal way we communicate with database. When we attempt to move our application over to the cloud the most common requirement should be have a storage service. Windows Azure provides a in-build service that allow us to storage the structured data, which is called Windows Azure Table Storage Service. The data stored in the table service are like the collection of entities. And the entities are similar to rows or records in the tradtional database. An entity should had a partition key, a row key, a timestamp and set of properties. You can treat the partition key as a group name, the row key as a primary key and the timestamp as the identifer for solving the concurrency problem. Different with a table in a database, the table service does not enforce the schema for tables, which means you can have 2 entities in the same table with different property sets. The partition key is being used for the load balance of the Azure OS and the group entity transaction. As you know in the cloud you will never know which machine is hosting your application and your data. It could be moving based on the transaction weight and the number of the requests. If the Azure OS found that there are many requests connect to your Book entities with the partition key equals “Novel” it will move them to another idle machine to increase the performance. So when choosing the partition key for your entities you need to make sure they indecate the category or gourp information so that the Azure OS can perform the load balance as you wish.   Consuming the Table Although the table service looks like a database, you cannot access it through the way you are using now, neither ADO.NET nor ODBC. The table service exposed itself by ADO.NET Data Service protocol, which allows you can consume it through the RESTful style by Http requests. The Azure SDK provides a sets of classes for us to connect it. There are 2 classes we might need: TableServiceContext and TableServiceEntity. The TableServiceContext inherited from the DataServiceContext, which represents the runtime context of the ADO.NET data service. It provides 4 methods mainly used by us: CreateQuery: It will create a IQueryable instance from a given type of entity. AddObject: Add the specified entity into Table Service. UpdateObject: Update an existing entity in the Table Service. DeleteObject: Delete an entity from the Table Service. Beofre you operate the table service you need to provide the valid account information. It’s something like the connect string of the database but with your account name and the account key when you created the storage service on the Windows Azure Development Portal. After getting the CloudStorageAccount you can create the CloudTableClient instance which provides a set of methods for using the table service. A very useful method would be CreateTableIfNotExist. It will create the table container for you if it’s not exsited. And then you can operate the eneities to that table through the methods I mentioned above. Let me explain a bit more through an exmaple. We always like code rather than sentence.   Straightforward Accessing to the Table Here I would like to build a WCF service on the Windows Azure platform, and for now just one requirement: it would allow the client to create an account entity on the table service. The WCF service would have a method named Register and accept an instance of the account which the client wants to create. After perform some validation it will add the entity into the table service. So the first thing I should do is to create a Cloud Application on my VIstial Studio 2010 RC. (The Azure SDK 1.1 only supports VS2008 and VS2010 RC.) The solution should be like this below. Then I added a configuration items for the storage account through the Settings section under the cloud project. (Double click the Services file under Roles folder and navigate to the Setting section.) This setting will be used when to retrieve my storage account information. Since for now I just in the development phase I will select “UseDevelopmentStorage=true”. And then I navigated to the WebRole.cs file under my WCF project. If you have read my previous posts you would know that this file defines the process when the application start, and terminate on the cloud. What I need to do is to when the application start, set the configuration publisher to load my config file with the config name I specified. So the code would be like below. I removed the original service and contract created by the VS template and add my IAccountService contract and its implementation class - AccountService. And I add the service method Register with the parameters: email, password and it will return a boolean value to indicates the result which is very simple. At this moment if I press F5 the application will be established on my local development fabric and I can see my service runs well through the browser. Let’s implement the service method Rigister, add a new entity to the table service. As I said before the entities you want to store in the table service must have 3 properties: partition key, row key and timespan. You can create a class with these 3 properties. The Azure SDK provides us a base class for that named TableServiceEntity in Microsoft.WindowsAzure.StorageClient namespace. So what we need to do is more simply, create a class named Account and let it derived from the TableServiceEntity. And I need to add my own properties: Email, Password, DateCreated and DateDeleted. The DateDeleted is a nullable date time value to indecate whether this entity had been deleted and when. Do you notice that I missed something here? Yes it’s the partition key and row key I didn’t assigned. The TableServiceEntity base class defined 2 constructors one was a parameter-less constructor which will be used to fill values into the properties from the table service when retrieving data. The other was one with 2 parameters: partition key and row key. As I said below the partition key may affect the load balance and the row key must be unique so here I would like to use the email as the parition key and the email plus a Guid as the row key. OK now we finished the entity class we need to store onto the table service. The next step is to create a data access class for us to add it. Azure SDK gives us a base class for it named TableServiceContext as I mentioned below. So let’s create a class for operate the Account entities. The TableServiceContext need the storage account information for its constructor. It’s the combination of the storage service URI that we will create on Windows Azure platform, and the relevant account name and key. The TableServiceContext will use this information to find the related address and verify the account to operate the storage entities. Hence in my AccountDataContext class I need to override this constructor and pass the storage account into it. All entities will be saved in the table storage with one or many tables which we call them “table containers”. Before we operate an entity we need to make sure that the table container had been created on the storage. There’s a method we can use for that: CloudTableClient.CreateTableIfNotExist. So in the constructor I will perform it firstly to make sure all method will be invoked after the table had been created. Notice that I passed the storage account enpoint URI and the credentials to specify where my storage is located and who am I. Another advise is that, make your entity class name as the same as the table name when create the table. It will increase the performance when you operate it over the cloud especially querying. Since the Register WCF method will add a new account into the table service, here I will create a relevant method to add the account entity. Before implement, I should add a reference - System.Data.Services.Client to the project. This reference provides some common method within the ADO.NET Data Service which can be used in the Windows Azure Table Service. I will use its AddObject method to create my account entity. Since the table service are not fully implemented the ADO.NET Data Service, there are some methods in the System.Data.Services.Client that TableServiceContext doesn’t support, such as AddLinks, etc. Then I implemented the serivce method to add the account entity through the AccountDataContext. You can see in the service implmentation I load the storage account information through my configuration file and created the account table entity from the parameters. Then I created the AccountDataContext. If it’s my first time to invoke this method the constructor of the AccountDataContext will create a table container for me. Then I use Add method to add the account entity into the table. Next, let’s create a farely simple client application to test this service. I created a windows console application and added a service reference to my WCF service. The metadata information of the WCF service cannot be retrieved if it’s deployed on the Windows Azure even though the <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true"/> had been set. If we need to get its metadata we can deploy it on the local development service and then changed the endpoint to the address which is on the cloud. In the client side app.config file I specified the endpoint to the local development fabric address. And the just implement the client to let me input an email and a password then invoke the WCF service to add my acocunt. Let’s run my application and see the result. Of course it should return TRUE to me. And in the local SQL Express I can see the data had been saved in the table.   Summary In this post I explained more about the Windows Azure Table Storage Service. I also created a small application for demostration of how to connect and consume it through the ADO.NET Data Service Managed Library provided within the Azure SDK. I only show how to create an eneity in the storage service. In the next post I would like to explain about how to query the entities with conditions thruogh LINQ. I also would like to refactor my AccountDataContext class to make it dyamic for any kinds of entities.   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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• Access violation in DirectX OMSetRenderTargets

  - by IDWMaster

  I receive the following error (Unhandled exception at 0x527DAE81 (d3d11_1sdklayers.dll) in Lesson2.Triangles.exe: 0xC0000005: Access violation reading location 0x00000000) when running the Triangle sample application for DirectX 11 in D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_9_1. This error occurs at the OMSetRenderTargets function, as shown below, and does not happen if I remove that function from the program (but then, the screen is blue, and does not render the triangle) //// THIS CODE AND INFORMATION IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF //// ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO //// THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND/OR FITNESS FOR A //// PARTICULAR PURPOSE. //// //// Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved #include #include #include "DirectXSample.h" #include "BasicMath.h" #include "BasicReaderWriter.h" using namespace Microsoft::WRL; using namespace Windows::UI::Core; using namespace Windows::Foundation; using namespace Windows::ApplicationModel::Core; using namespace Windows::ApplicationModel::Infrastructure; // This class defines the application as a whole. ref class Direct3DTutorialViewProvider : public IViewProvider { private: CoreWindow^ m_window; ComPtr m_swapChain; ComPtr m_d3dDevice; ComPtr m_d3dDeviceContext; ComPtr m_renderTargetView; public: // This method is called on application launch. void Initialize( _In_ CoreWindow^ window, _In_ CoreApplicationView^ applicationView ) { m_window = window; } // This method is called after Initialize. void Load(_In_ Platform::String^ entryPoint) { } // This method is called after Load. void Run() { // First, create the Direct3D device. // This flag is required in order to enable compatibility with Direct2D. UINT creationFlags = D3D11_CREATE_DEVICE_BGRA_SUPPORT; #if defined(_DEBUG) // If the project is in a debug build, enable debugging via SDK Layers with this flag. creationFlags |= D3D11_CREATE_DEVICE_DEBUG; #endif // This array defines the ordering of feature levels that D3D should attempt to create. D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL featureLevels[] = { D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_11_1, D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_11_0, D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_10_1, D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_10_0, D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_9_3, D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_9_1 }; ComPtr d3dDevice; ComPtr d3dDeviceContext; DX::ThrowIfFailed( D3D11CreateDevice( nullptr, // specify nullptr to use the default adapter D3D_DRIVER_TYPE_HARDWARE, nullptr, // leave as nullptr if hardware is used creationFlags, // optionally set debug and Direct2D compatibility flags featureLevels, ARRAYSIZE(featureLevels), D3D11_SDK_VERSION, // always set this to D3D11_SDK_VERSION &d3dDevice, nullptr, &d3dDeviceContext ) ); // Retrieve the Direct3D 11.1 interfaces. DX::ThrowIfFailed( d3dDevice.As(&m_d3dDevice) ); DX::ThrowIfFailed( d3dDeviceContext.As(&m_d3dDeviceContext) ); // After the D3D device is created, create additional application resources. CreateWindowSizeDependentResources(); // Create a Basic Reader-Writer class to load data from disk. This class is examined // in the Resource Loading sample. BasicReaderWriter^ reader = ref new BasicReaderWriter(); // Load the raw vertex shader bytecode from disk and create a vertex shader with it. auto vertexShaderBytecode = reader-ReadData("SimpleVertexShader.cso"); ComPtr vertexShader; DX::ThrowIfFailed( m_d3dDevice-CreateVertexShader( vertexShaderBytecode-Data, vertexShaderBytecode-Length, nullptr, &vertexShader ) ); // Create an input layout that matches the layout defined in the vertex shader code. // For this lesson, this is simply a float2 vector defining the vertex position. const D3D11_INPUT_ELEMENT_DESC basicVertexLayoutDesc[] = { { "POSITION", 0, DXGI_FORMAT_R32G32_FLOAT, 0, 0, D3D11_INPUT_PER_VERTEX_DATA, 0 }, }; ComPtr inputLayout; DX::ThrowIfFailed( m_d3dDevice-CreateInputLayout( basicVertexLayoutDesc, ARRAYSIZE(basicVertexLayoutDesc), vertexShaderBytecode-Data, vertexShaderBytecode-Length, &inputLayout ) ); // Load the raw pixel shader bytecode from disk and create a pixel shader with it. auto pixelShaderBytecode = reader-ReadData("SimplePixelShader.cso"); ComPtr pixelShader; DX::ThrowIfFailed( m_d3dDevice-CreatePixelShader( pixelShaderBytecode-Data, pixelShaderBytecode-Length, nullptr, &pixelShader ) ); // Create vertex and index buffers that define a simple triangle. float3 triangleVertices[] = { float3(-0.5f, -0.5f,13.5f), float3( 0.0f, 0.5f,0), float3( 0.5f, -0.5f,0), }; D3D11_BUFFER_DESC vertexBufferDesc = {0}; vertexBufferDesc.ByteWidth = sizeof(float3) * ARRAYSIZE(triangleVertices); vertexBufferDesc.Usage = D3D11_USAGE_DEFAULT; vertexBufferDesc.BindFlags = D3D11_BIND_VERTEX_BUFFER; vertexBufferDesc.CPUAccessFlags = 0; vertexBufferDesc.MiscFlags = 0; vertexBufferDesc.StructureByteStride = 0; D3D11_SUBRESOURCE_DATA vertexBufferData; vertexBufferData.pSysMem = triangleVertices; vertexBufferData.SysMemPitch = 0; vertexBufferData.SysMemSlicePitch = 0; ComPtr vertexBuffer; DX::ThrowIfFailed( m_d3dDevice-CreateBuffer( &vertexBufferDesc, &vertexBufferData, &vertexBuffer ) ); // Once all D3D resources are created, configure the application window. // Allow the application to respond when the window size changes. m_window-SizeChanged += ref new TypedEventHandler( this, &Direct3DTutorialViewProvider::OnWindowSizeChanged ); // Specify the cursor type as the standard arrow cursor. m_window-PointerCursor = ref new CoreCursor(CoreCursorType::Arrow, 0); // Activate the application window, making it visible and enabling it to receive events. m_window-Activate(); // Enter the render loop. Note that tailored applications should never exit. while (true) { // Process events incoming to the window. m_window-Dispatcher-ProcessEvents(CoreProcessEventsOption::ProcessAllIfPresent); // Specify the render target we created as the output target. ID3D11RenderTargetView* targets[1] = {m_renderTargetView.Get()}; m_d3dDeviceContext-OMSetRenderTargets( 1, targets, NULL // use no depth stencil ); // Clear the render target to a solid color. const float clearColor[4] = { 0.071f, 0.04f, 0.561f, 1.0f }; //Code fails here m_d3dDeviceContext-ClearRenderTargetView( m_renderTargetView.Get(), clearColor ); m_d3dDeviceContext-IASetInputLayout(inputLayout.Get()); // Set the vertex and index buffers, and specify the way they define geometry. UINT stride = sizeof(float3); UINT offset = 0; m_d3dDeviceContext-IASetVertexBuffers( 0, 1, vertexBuffer.GetAddressOf(), &stride, &offset ); m_d3dDeviceContext-IASetPrimitiveTopology(D3D11_PRIMITIVE_TOPOLOGY_TRIANGLELIST); // Set the vertex and pixel shader stage state. m_d3dDeviceContext-VSSetShader( vertexShader.Get(), nullptr, 0 ); m_d3dDeviceContext-PSSetShader( pixelShader.Get(), nullptr, 0 ); // Draw the cube. m_d3dDeviceContext-Draw(3,0); // Present the rendered image to the window. Because the maximum frame latency is set to 1, // the render loop will generally be throttled to the screen refresh rate, typically around // 60Hz, by sleeping the application on Present until the screen is refreshed. DX::ThrowIfFailed( m_swapChain-Present(1, 0) ); } } // This method is called before the application exits. void Uninitialize() { } private: // This method is called whenever the application window size changes. void OnWindowSizeChanged( _In_ CoreWindow^ sender, _In_ WindowSizeChangedEventArgs^ args ) { m_renderTargetView = nullptr; CreateWindowSizeDependentResources(); } // This method creates all application resources that depend on // the application window size. It is called at app initialization, // and whenever the application window size changes. void CreateWindowSizeDependentResources() { if (m_swapChain != nullptr) { // If the swap chain already exists, resize it. DX::ThrowIfFailed( m_swapChain-ResizeBuffers( 2, 0, 0, DXGI_FORMAT_R8G8B8A8_UNORM, 0 ) ); } else { // If the swap chain does not exist, create it. DXGI_SWAP_CHAIN_DESC1 swapChainDesc = {0}; swapChainDesc.Stereo = false; swapChainDesc.BufferUsage = DXGI_USAGE_RENDER_TARGET_OUTPUT; swapChainDesc.Scaling = DXGI_SCALING_NONE; swapChainDesc.Flags = 0; // Use automatic sizing. swapChainDesc.Width = 0; swapChainDesc.Height = 0; // This is the most common swap chain format. swapChainDesc.Format = DXGI_FORMAT_R8G8B8A8_UNORM; // Don't use multi-sampling. swapChainDesc.SampleDesc.Count = 1; swapChainDesc.SampleDesc.Quality = 0; // Use two buffers to enable flip effect. swapChainDesc.BufferCount = 2; // We recommend using this swap effect for all applications. swapChainDesc.SwapEffect = DXGI_SWAP_EFFECT_FLIP_SEQUENTIAL; // Once the swap chain description is configured, it must be // created on the same adapter as the existing D3D Device. // First, retrieve the underlying DXGI Device from the D3D Device. ComPtr dxgiDevice; DX::ThrowIfFailed( m_d3dDevice.As(&dxgiDevice) ); // Ensure that DXGI does not queue more than one frame at a time. This both reduces // latency and ensures that the application will only render after each VSync, minimizing // power consumption. DX::ThrowIfFailed( dxgiDevice-SetMaximumFrameLatency(1) ); // Next, get the parent factory from the DXGI Device. ComPtr dxgiAdapter; DX::ThrowIfFailed( dxgiDevice-GetAdapter(&dxgiAdapter) ); ComPtr dxgiFactory; DX::ThrowIfFailed( dxgiAdapter-GetParent( __uuidof(IDXGIFactory2), &dxgiFactory ) ); // Finally, create the swap chain. DX::ThrowIfFailed( dxgiFactory-CreateSwapChainForImmersiveWindow( m_d3dDevice.Get(), DX::GetIUnknown(m_window), &swapChainDesc, nullptr, // allow on all displays &m_swapChain ) ); } // Once the swap chain is created, create a render target view. This will // allow Direct3D to render graphics to the window. ComPtr backBuffer; DX::ThrowIfFailed( m_swapChain-GetBuffer( 0, __uuidof(ID3D11Texture2D), &backBuffer ) ); DX::ThrowIfFailed( m_d3dDevice-CreateRenderTargetView( backBuffer.Get(), nullptr, &m_renderTargetView ) ); // After the render target view is created, specify that the viewport, // which describes what portion of the window to draw to, should cover // the entire window. D3D11_TEXTURE2D_DESC backBufferDesc = {0}; backBuffer-GetDesc(&backBufferDesc); D3D11_VIEWPORT viewport; viewport.TopLeftX = 0.0f; viewport.TopLeftY = 0.0f; viewport.Width = static_cast(backBufferDesc.Width); viewport.Height = static_cast(backBufferDesc.Height); viewport.MinDepth = D3D11_MIN_DEPTH; viewport.MaxDepth = D3D11_MAX_DEPTH; m_d3dDeviceContext-RSSetViewports(1, &viewport); } }; // This class defines how to create the custom View Provider defined above. ref class Direct3DTutorialViewProviderFactory : IViewProviderFactory { public: IViewProvider^ CreateViewProvider() { return ref new Direct3DTutorialViewProvider(); } }; [Platform::MTAThread] int main(array^) { auto viewProviderFactory = ref new Direct3DTutorialViewProviderFactory(); Windows::ApplicationModel::Core::CoreApplication::Run(viewProviderFactory); return 0; }

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• 500 Metro Style WP7 Icons

  - by Bil Simser

  I was inspired by The Noun Project, a project that offers up “Metro-style” icons in SVG format. The project is licensed under a public domain license and while it’s a great project, all of the content is in SVG format. Jon Galloway has a great post (from 2007) talking about the differences between SVG and XAML so I highly recommend that for some background. I thought it would be helpful to the WPF/Windows Phone 7/Silverlight community to provide the content in alternative formats for use in your applications. The Goods I’ve put together a package of the 500 icons (502 actually) in PNG, XAML and the original SVG format along with a couple of sample projects so you can see them in action. There’s a WPF desktop app: And a Windows Phone 7 app: Building It To get all the content first I wrote up a quick program to suck the original SVG files. Luckily they’re all in a common path just named 1.SVG, 2.SVG, and so on. Easy sleazy to grab the contents. Once I had 500 SVG files I used the latest copy of XamlTune, an open source CodePlex project that has a command line conversion tool to convert the directory of SVG files into XAML (the tool also created a PNG file of each SVG so that’s just icing on the cake). Conversions The conversion from SVG to XAML isn’t 100%. While you can just drop the content into a WPF app, it doesn’t work that way for WP7. There are just some small adjustments I made to each format so you’ll have to do the same. Follow the information below or refer to the sample applications. As a sample, here’s an icon we want to use: Here’s the original SVG file: <svg version="1.0" id="Layer_1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" x="0px" y="0px" width="100px" height="94.616px" viewBox="0 0 100 94.616" enable-background="new 0 0 100 94.616" xml:space="preserve"> <path d="M25.076,15.639c4.324,0.009,7.824-3.488,7.82-7.82C32.9,3.512,29.4,0.012,25.076,0c-4.313,0.012-7.814,3.512-7.821,7.819 C17.262,12.15,20.763,15.648,25.076,15.639L25.076,15.639z"/> <path d="M4.593,43.388h6.861l4.137-15.135h1.716L13.22,43.388h24.318l-4.389-15.135h1.817l2.32,7.415 c1.08,3.131,3.852,3.851,6.003,1.162l8.375-10.142c2.651-3.42-2.104-7.021-4.844-4.035l-4.993,5.952 c0.007,0.095-0.96-3.278-0.96-3.278c-1.135-3.978-4.918-7.903-10.595-7.922H19.576c-5.071,0.019-9.043,4.434-9.888,7.214 L4.593,43.388L4.593,43.388z"/> <polygon points="56.206,22.753 56.206,7.163 49.192,7.163 49.192,22.753 56.206,22.753 "/> <path d="M79.87,15.738c4.332-0.014,7.831-3.516,7.82-7.82c0.011-4.332-3.488-7.833-7.82-7.82c-4.306-0.013-7.806,3.488-7.821,7.82 C72.064,12.222,75.564,15.725,79.87,15.738L79.87,15.738z"/> <path d="M89.759,89.556v-43.19h5.751V22.804c0.007-3.079-2.757-5.448-6.71-5.449H70.436c-3.65,0.001-4.539,1.186-5.551,2.168 L49.597,37.889c-3.098,3.848,2.428,8.333,5.55,4.743L69.88,25.226v64.43c-0.019,6.475,9.06,6.686,9.081,0.201v-36.58h1.765v36.379 C80.748,96.109,89.772,96.13,89.759,89.556L89.759,89.556z"/> <polygon points="100,54.035 100,45.155 0,45.155 0,54.035 100,54.035 "/> </svg> Here’s the XAML that XamlTune created. It can be used in any WPF app without any changes: <Canvas Name="Layer_1" Width="100" Height="94.616" ClipToBounds="True" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"> <Path Fill="#FF000000"> <Path.Data> <PathGeometry FillRule="Nonzero" Figures="M25.076,15.639C29.4,15.648 32.9,12.151 32.896,7.819 32.9,3.512 29.4,0.012 25.076,0 20.763,0.012 17.262,3.512 17.255,7.819 17.262,12.15 20.763,15.648 25.076,15.639L25.076,15.639z" /> </Path.Data> </Path> <Path Fill="#FF000000"> <Path.Data> <PathGeometry FillRule="Nonzero" Figures="M4.593,43.388L11.454,43.388 15.591,28.253 17.307,28.253 13.22,43.388 37.538,43.388 33.149,28.253 34.966,28.253 37.286,35.668C38.366,38.799,41.138,39.519,43.289,36.83L51.664,26.688C54.315,23.268,49.56,19.667,46.82,22.653L41.827,28.605C41.834,28.7 40.867,25.327 40.867,25.327 39.732,21.349 35.949,17.424 30.272,17.405L19.576,17.405C14.505,17.424,10.533,21.839,9.688,24.619L4.593,43.388 4.593,43.388z" /> </Path.Data> </Path> <Path Fill="#FF000000"> <Path.Data> <PathGeometry FillRule="Nonzero" Figures="M56.206,22.753L56.206,7.163 49.192,7.163 49.192,22.753 56.206,22.753z" /> </Path.Data> </Path> <Path Fill="#FF000000"> <Path.Data> <PathGeometry FillRule="Nonzero" Figures="M79.87,15.738C84.202,15.724 87.701,12.222 87.69,7.918 87.701,3.586 84.202,0.0849999999999991 79.87,0.097999999999999 75.564,0.084999999999999 72.064,3.586 72.049,7.918 72.064,12.222 75.564,15.725 79.87,15.738L79.87,15.738z" /> </Path.Data> </Path> <Path Fill="#FF000000"> <Path.Data> <PathGeometry FillRule="Nonzero" Figures="M89.759,89.556L89.759,46.366 95.51,46.366 95.51,22.804C95.517,19.725,92.753,17.356,88.8,17.355L70.436,17.355C66.786,17.356,65.897,18.541,64.885,19.523L49.597,37.889C46.499,41.737,52.025,46.222,55.147,42.632L69.88,25.226 69.88,89.656C69.861,96.131,78.94,96.342,78.961,89.857L78.961,53.277 80.726,53.277 80.726,89.656C80.748,96.109,89.772,96.13,89.759,89.556L89.759,89.556z" /> </Path.Data> </Path> <Path Fill="#FF000000"> <Path.Data> <PathGeometry FillRule="Nonzero" Figures="M100,54.035L100,45.155 0,45.155 0,54.035 100,54.035z" /> </Path.Data> </Path> </Canvas> The XAML works AS-IS in a WPF application but there are some changes I did to get it to work in a WP7 app. Here’s the modified XAML in a WP7 application: <Canvas Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="0" Name="Icon_1" Width="100" Height="94.616"> <Path Fill="#FF000000" Data="M25.076,15.639C29.4,15.648 32.9,12.151 32.896,7.819 32.9,3.512 29.4,0.012 25.076,0 20.763,0.012 17.262,3.512 17.255,7.819 17.262,12.15 20.763,15.648 25.076,15.639L25.076,15.639z"> </Path> <Path Fill="#FF000000" Data="M4.593,43.388L11.454,43.388 15.591,28.253 17.307,28.253 13.22,43.388 37.538,43.388 33.149,28.253 34.966,28.253 37.286,35.668C38.366,38.799,41.138,39.519,43.289,36.83L51.664,26.688C54.315,23.268,49.56,19.667,46.82,22.653L41.827,28.605C41.834,28.7 40.867,25.327 40.867,25.327 39.732,21.349 35.949,17.424 30.272,17.405L19.576,17.405C14.505,17.424,10.533,21.839,9.688,24.619L4.593,43.388 4.593,43.388z"> </Path> <Path Fill="#FF000000" Data="M56.206,22.753L56.206,7.163 49.192,7.163 49.192,22.753 56.206,22.753z"> </Path> <Path Fill="#FF000000" Data="M79.87,15.738C84.202,15.724 87.701,12.222 87.69,7.918 87.701,3.586 84.202,0.0849999999999991 79.87,0.097999999999999 75.564,0.084999999999999 72.064,3.586 72.049,7.918 72.064,12.222 75.564,15.725 79.87,15.738L79.87,15.738z"> </Path> <Path Fill="#FF000000" Data="M89.759,89.556L89.759,46.366 95.51,46.366 95.51,22.804C95.517,19.725,92.753,17.356,88.8,17.355L70.436,17.355C66.786,17.356,65.897,18.541,64.885,19.523L49.597,37.889C46.499,41.737,52.025,46.222,55.147,42.632L69.88,25.226 69.88,89.656C69.861,96.131,78.94,96.342,78.961,89.857L78.961,53.277 80.726,53.277 80.726,89.656C80.748,96.109,89.772,96.13,89.759,89.556L89.759,89.556z"> </Path> <Path Fill="#FF000000" Data="M100,54.035L100,45.155 0,45.155 0,54.035 100,54.035z"> </Path> </Canvas> All I did was take the data portion and put it directly into a Data attribute on the Path. Note that while it does show up in the app (on the emulator or device) it wouldn’t show up in Visual Studio for me. Maybe some XAML guru out there can tell me why. You can just as easily use the PNG files in WP7 but if you want the crispness of vector graphics, go for the XAML version. Of course with XamlTune being open source you could always modify the output of that program to cater it to your app. If you do make a change that’s worthy please consider submitting a patch to the project so everyone can benefit. Hope this helps and happy programming! Resources and Links Sample Project and Icons XamlTune an open source project to convert SVG to XAML The Noun Project source of the original files Jon Galloways post on SVG and XAML StackOverflow question on converting SVG to XAML

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• Host AngularJS (Html5Mode) in ASP.NET vNext

  - by Shaun

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/shaunxu/archive/2014/06/10/host-angularjs-html5mode-in-asp.net-vnext.aspxMicrosoft had announced ASP.NET vNext in BUILD and TechED recently and as a developer, I found that we can add features into one ASP.NET vNext application such as MVC, WebAPI, SignalR, etc.. Also it's cross platform which means I can host ASP.NET on Windows, Linux and OS X.   If you are following my blog you should knew that I'm currently working on a project which uses ASP.NET WebAPI, SignalR and AngularJS. Currently the AngularJS part is hosted by Express in Node.js while WebAPI and SignalR are hosted in ASP.NET. I was looking for a solution to host all of them in one platform so that my SignalR can utilize WebSocket. Currently AngularJS and SignalR are hosted in the same domain but different port so it has to use ServerSendEvent. It can be upgraded to WebSocket if I host both of them in the same port.   Host AngularJS in ASP.NET vNext Static File Middleware ASP.NET vNext utilizes middleware pattern to register feature it uses, which is very similar as Express in Node.js. Since AngularJS is a pure client side framework in theory what I need to do is to use ASP.NET vNext as a static file server. This is very easy as there's a build-in middleware shipped alone with ASP.NET vNext. Assuming I have "index.html" as below. 1: <html data-ng-app="demo"> 2: <head> 3: <script type="text/javascript" src="angular.js" /> 4: <script type="text/javascript" src="angular-ui-router.js" /> 5: <script type="text/javascript" src="app.js" /> 6: </head> 7: <body> 8: <h1>ASP.NET vNext with AngularJS</h1> 9: <div> 10: <a href="javascript:void(0)" data-ui-sref="view1">View 1</a> | 11: <a href="javascript:void(0)" data-ui-sref="view2">View 2</a> 12: </div> 13: <div data-ui-view></div> 14: </body> 15: </html> And the AngularJS JavaScript file as below. Notices that I have two views which only contains one line literal indicates the view name. 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: $stateProvider.state('view2', { 12: url: '/view2', 13: templateUrl: 'view2.html', 14: controller: 'View2Ctrl' }); 15: }]); 16:  17: app.controller('View1Ctrl', function ($scope) { 18: }); 19:  20: app.controller('View2Ctrl', function ($scope) { 21: }); All AngularJS files are located in "app" folder and my ASP.NET vNext files are besides it. The "project.json" contains all dependencies I need to host static file server. 1: { 2: "dependencies": { 3: "Helios" : "0.1-alpha-*", 4: "Microsoft.AspNet.FileSystems": "0.1-alpha-*", 5: "Microsoft.AspNet.Http": "0.1-alpha-*", 6: "Microsoft.AspNet.StaticFiles": "0.1-alpha-*", 7: "Microsoft.AspNet.Hosting": "0.1-alpha-*", 8: "Microsoft.AspNet.Server.WebListener": "0.1-alpha-*" 9: }, 10: "commands": { 11: "web": "Microsoft.AspNet.Hosting server=Microsoft.AspNet.Server.WebListener server.urls=http://localhost:22222" 12: }, 13: "configurations" : { 14: "net45" : { 15: }, 16: "k10" : { 17: "System.Diagnostics.Contracts": "4.0.0.0", 18: "System.Security.Claims" : "0.1-alpha-*" 19: } 20: } 21: } Below is "Startup.cs" which is the entry file of my ASP.NET vNext. What I need to do is to let my application use FileServerMiddleware. 1: using System; 2: using Microsoft.AspNet.Builder; 3: using Microsoft.AspNet.FileSystems; 4: using Microsoft.AspNet.StaticFiles; 5:  6: namespace Shaun.AspNet.Plugins.AngularServer.Demo 7: { 8: public class Startup 9: { 10: public void Configure(IBuilder app) 11: { 12: app.UseFileServer(new FileServerOptions() { 13: EnableDirectoryBrowsing = true, 14: FileSystem = new PhysicalFileSystem(System.IO.Path.Combine(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory, "app")) 15: }); 16: } 17: } 18: } Next, I need to create "NuGet.Config" file in the PARENT folder so that when I run "kpm restore" command later it can find ASP.NET vNext NuGet package successfully. 1: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> 2: <configuration> 3: <packageSources> 4: <add key="AspNetVNext" value="https://www.myget.org/F/aspnetvnext/api/v2" /> 5: <add key="NuGet.org" value="https://nuget.org/api/v2/" /> 6: </packageSources> 7: <packageSourceCredentials> 8: <AspNetVNext> 9: <add key="Username" value="aspnetreadonly" /> 10: <add key="ClearTextPassword" value="4d8a2d9c-7b80-4162-9978-47e918c9658c" /> 11: </AspNetVNext> 12: </packageSourceCredentials> 13: </configuration> Now I need to run "kpm restore" to resolve all dependencies of my application. Finally, use "k web" to start the application which will be a static file server on "app" sub folder in the local 22222 port.   Support AngularJS Html5Mode AngularJS works well in previous demo. But you will note that there is a "#" in the browser address. This is because by default AngularJS adds "#" next to its entry page so ensure all request will be handled by this entry page. For example, in this case my entry page is "index.html", so when I clicked "View 1" in the page the address will be changed to "/#/view1" which means it still tell the web server I'm still looking for "index.html". This works, but makes the address looks ugly. Hence AngularJS introduces a feature called Html5Mode, which will get rid off the annoying "#" from the address bar. Below is the "app.js" with Html5Mode enabled, just one line of code. 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: // enable html5mode 17: $locationProvider.html5Mode(true); 18: }]); 19:  20: app.controller('View1Ctrl', function ($scope) { 21: }); 22:  23: app.controller('View2Ctrl', function ($scope) { 24: }); Then let's went to the root path of our website and click "View 1" you will see there's no "#" in the address. But the problem is, if we hit F5 the browser will be turn to blank. This is because in this mode the browser told the web server I want static file named "view1" but there's no file on the server. So underlying our web server, which is built by ASP.NET vNext, responded 404. To fix this problem we need to create our own ASP.NET vNext middleware. What it needs to do is firstly try to respond the static file request with the default StaticFileMiddleware. If the response status code was 404 then change the request path value to the entry page and try again. 1: public class AngularServerMiddleware 2: { 3: private readonly AngularServerOptions _options; 4: private readonly RequestDelegate _next; 5: private readonly StaticFileMiddleware _innerMiddleware; 6:  7: public AngularServerMiddleware(RequestDelegate next, AngularServerOptions options) 8: { 9: _next = next; 10: _options = options; 11:  12: _innerMiddleware = new StaticFileMiddleware(next, options.FileServerOptions.StaticFileOptions); 13: } 14:  15: public async Task Invoke(HttpContext context) 16: { 17: // try to resolve the request with default static file middleware 18: await _innerMiddleware.Invoke(context); 19: Console.WriteLine(context.Request.Path + ": " + context.Response.StatusCode); 20: // route to root path if the status code is 404 21: // and need support angular html5mode 22: if (context.Response.StatusCode == 404 && _options.Html5Mode) 23: { 24: context.Request.Path = _options.EntryPath; 25: await _innerMiddleware.Invoke(context); 26: Console.WriteLine(">> " + context.Request.Path + ": " + context.Response.StatusCode); 27: } 28: } 29: } We need an option class where user can specify the host root path and the entry page path. 1: public class AngularServerOptions 2: { 3: public FileServerOptions FileServerOptions { get; set; } 4:  5: public PathString EntryPath { get; set; } 6:  7: public bool Html5Mode 8: { 9: get 10: { 11: return EntryPath.HasValue; 12: } 13: } 14:  15: public AngularServerOptions() 16: { 17: FileServerOptions = new FileServerOptions(); 18: EntryPath = PathString.Empty; 19: } 20: } We also need an extension method so that user can append this feature in "Startup.cs" easily. 1: public static class AngularServerExtension 2: { 3: public static IBuilder UseAngularServer(this IBuilder builder, string rootPath, string entryPath) 4: { 5: var options = new AngularServerOptions() 6: { 7: FileServerOptions = new FileServerOptions() 8: { 9: EnableDirectoryBrowsing = false, 10: FileSystem = new PhysicalFileSystem(System.IO.Path.Combine(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory, rootPath)) 11: }, 12: EntryPath = new PathString(entryPath) 13: }; 14:  15: builder.UseDefaultFiles(options.FileServerOptions.DefaultFilesOptions); 16:  17: return builder.Use(next => new AngularServerMiddleware(next, options).Invoke); 18: } 19: } Now with these classes ready we will change our "Startup.cs", use this middleware replace the default one, tell the server try to load "index.html" file if it cannot find resource. The code below is just for demo purpose. I just tried to load "index.html" in all cases once the StaticFileMiddleware returned 404. In fact we need to validation to make sure this is an AngularJS route request instead of a normal static file request. 1: using System; 2: using Microsoft.AspNet.Builder; 3: using Microsoft.AspNet.FileSystems; 4: using Microsoft.AspNet.StaticFiles; 5: using Shaun.AspNet.Plugins.AngularServer; 6:  7: namespace Shaun.AspNet.Plugins.AngularServer.Demo 8: { 9: public class Startup 10: { 11: public void Configure(IBuilder app) 12: { 13: app.UseAngularServer("app", "/index.html"); 14: } 15: } 16: } Now let's run "k web" again and try to refresh our browser and we can see the page loaded successfully. In the console window we can find the original request got 404 and we try to find "index.html" and return the correct result.   Summary In this post I introduced how to use ASP.NET vNext to host AngularJS application as a static file server. I also demonstrated how to extend ASP.NET vNext, so that it supports AngularJS Html5Mode. You can download the source code here.   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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• 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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• First round playing with Memcached

  - by Shaun

  To be honest I have not been very interested in the caching before I’m going to a project which would be using the multi-site deployment and high connection and concurrency and very sensitive to the user experience. That means we must cache the output data for better performance. After looked for the Internet I finally focused on the Memcached. What’s the Memcached? I think the description on its main site gives us a very good and simple explanation. Free & open source, high-performance, distributed memory object caching system, generic in nature, but intended for use in speeding up dynamic web applications by alleviating database load. Memcached is an in-memory key-value store for small chunks of arbitrary data (strings, objects) from results of database calls, API calls, or page rendering. Memcached is simple yet powerful. Its simple design promotes quick deployment, ease of development, and solves many problems facing large data caches. Its API is available for most popular languages. The original Memcached was built on *nix system are is being widely used in the PHP world. Although it’s not a problem to use the Memcached installed on *nix system there are some windows version available fortunately. Since we are WISC (Windows – IIS – SQL Server – C#, which on the opposite of LAMP) it would be much easier for us to use the Memcached on Windows rather than *nix. I’m using the Memcached Win X64 version provided by NorthScale. There are also the x86 version and other operation system version.   Install Memcached Unpack the Memcached file to a folder on the machine you want it to be installed, we can see that there are only 3 files and the main file should be the “memcached.exe”. Memcached would be run on the server as a service. To install the service just open a command windows and navigate to the folder which contains the “memcached.exe”, let’s say “C:\Memcached\”, and then type “memcached.exe -d install”. If you are using Windows Vista and Windows 7 system please be execute the command through the administrator role. Right-click the command item in the start menu and use “Run as Administrator”, otherwise the Memcached would not be able to be installed successfully. Once installed successful we can type “memcached.exe -d start” to launch the service. Now it’s ready to be used. The default port of Memcached is 11211 but you can change it through the command argument. You can find the help by typing “memcached -h”.   Using Memcached Memcahed has many good and ready-to-use providers for vary program language. After compared and reviewed I chose the Memcached Providers. It’s built based on another 3rd party Memcached client named enyim.com Memcached Client. The Memcached Providers is very simple to set/get the cached objects through the Memcached servers and easy to be configured through the application configuration file (aka web.config and app.config). Let’s create a console application for the demonstration and add the 3 DLL files from the package of the Memcached Providers to the project reference. Then we need to add the configuration for the Memcached server. Create an App.config file and firstly add the section on top of it. Here we need three sections: the section for Memcached Providers, for enyim.com Memcached client and the log4net. 1: <configSections> 2: <section name="cacheProvider" 3: type="MemcachedProviders.Cache.CacheProviderSection, MemcachedProviders" 4: allowDefinition="MachineToApplication" 5: restartOnExternalChanges="true"/> 6: <sectionGroup name="enyim.com"> 7: <section name="memcached" 8: type="Enyim.Caching.Configuration.MemcachedClientSection, Enyim.Caching"/> 9: </sectionGroup> 10: <section name="log4net" 11: type="log4net.Config.Log4NetConfigurationSectionHandler,log4net"/> 12: </configSections> Then we will add the configuration for 3 of them in the App.config file. The Memcached server information would be defined under the enyim.com section since it will be responsible for connect to the Memcached server. Assuming I installed the Memcached on two servers with the default port, the configuration would be like this. 1: <enyim.com> 2: <memcached> 3: <servers> 4: <!-- put your own server(s) here--> 5: <add address="192.168.0.149" port="11211"/> 6: <add address="10.10.20.67" port="11211"/> 7: </servers> 8: <socketPool minPoolSize="10" maxPoolSize="100" connectionTimeout="00:00:10" deadTimeout="00:02:00"/> 9: </memcached> 10: </enyim.com> Memcached supports the multi-deployment which means you can install the Memcached on the servers as many as you need. The protocol of the Memcached responsible for routing the cached objects into the proper server. So it’s very easy to scale-out your system by Memcached. And then define the Memcached Providers configuration. The defaultExpireTime indicates how long the objected cached in the Memcached would be expired, the default value is 2000 ms. 1: <cacheProvider defaultProvider="MemcachedCacheProvider"> 2: <providers> 3: <add name="MemcachedCacheProvider" 4: type="MemcachedProviders.Cache.MemcachedCacheProvider, MemcachedProviders" 5: keySuffix="_MySuffix_" 6: defaultExpireTime="2000"/> 7: </providers> 8: </cacheProvider> The last configuration would be the log4net. 1: <log4net> 2: <!-- Define some output appenders --> 3: <appender name="ConsoleAppender" type="log4net.Appender.ConsoleAppender"> 4: <layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout"> 5: <conversionPattern value="%date [%thread] %-5level %logger [%property{NDC}] - %message%newline"/> 6: </layout> 7: </appender> 8: <!--<threshold value="OFF" />--> 9: <!-- Setup the root category, add the appenders and set the default priority --> 10: <root> 11: <priority value="WARN"/> 12: <appender-ref ref="ConsoleAppender"> 13: <filter type="log4net.Filter.LevelRangeFilter"> 14: <levelMin value="WARN"/> 15: <levelMax value="FATAL"/> 16: </filter> 17: </appender-ref> 18: </root> 19: </log4net>   Get, Set and Remove the Cached Objects Once we finished the configuration it would be very simple to consume the Memcached servers. The Memcached Providers gives us a static class named DistCache that can be used to operate the Memcached servers. Get<T>: Retrieve the cached object from the Memcached servers. If failed it will return null or the default value. Add: Add an object with a unique key into the Memcached servers. Assuming that we have an operation that retrieve the email from the name which is time consuming. This is the operation that should be cached. The method would be like this. I utilized Thread.Sleep to simulate the long-time operation. 1: static string GetEmailByNameSlowly(string name) 2: { 3: Thread.Sleep(2000); 4: return name + "@ethos.com.cn"; 5: } Then in the real retrieving method we will firstly check whether the name, email information had been searched previously and cached. If yes we will just return them from the Memcached, otherwise we will invoke the slowly method to retrieve it and then cached. 1: static string GetEmailByName(string name) 2: { 3: var email = DistCache.Get<string>(name); 4: if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(email)) 5: { 6: Console.WriteLine("==> The name/email not be in memcached so need slow loading. (name = {0})==>", name); 7: email = GetEmailByNameSlowly(name); 8: DistCache.Add(name, email); 9: } 10: else 11: { 12: Console.WriteLine("==> The name/email had been in memcached. (name = {0})==>", name); 13: } 14: return email; 15: } Finally let’s finished the calling method and execute. 1: static void Main(string[] args) 2: { 3: var name = string.Empty; 4: while (name != "q") 5: { 6: Console.Write("==> Please enter the name to find the email: "); 7: name = Console.ReadLine(); 8:  9: var email = GetEmailByName(name); 10: Console.WriteLine("==> The email of {0} is {1}.", name, email); 11: } 12: } The first time I entered “ziyanxu” it takes about 2 seconds to get the email since there’s nothing cached. But the next time I entered “ziyanxu” it returned very quickly from the Memcached.   Summary In this post I explained a bit on why we need cache, what’s Memcached and how to use it through the C# application. The example is fairly simple but hopefully demonstrated on how to use it. Memcached is very easy and simple to be used since it gives you the full opportunity to consider what, when and how to cache the objects. And when using Memcached you don’t need to consider the cache servers. The Memcached would be like a huge object pool in front of you. The next step I’m thinking now are: What kind of data should be cached? And how to determined the key? How to implement the cache as a layer on top of the business layer so that the application will not notice that the cache is there. How to implement the cache by AOP so that the business logic no need to consider the cache. I will investigate on them in the future and will share my thoughts and results.   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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• Silverlight for Windows Embedded tutorial (step 6)

  - by Valter Minute

  In this tutorial step we will develop a very simple clock application that may be used as a screensaver on our devices and will allow us to discover a new feature of Silverlight for Windows Embedded (transforms) and how to use an “old” feature of Windows CE (timers) inside a Silverlight for Windows Embedded application. Let’s start with some XAML, as usual: <UserControl xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" Width="640" Height="480" FontSize="18" x:Name="Clock">   <Canvas x:Name="LayoutRoot" Background="#FF000000"> <Grid Height="24" Width="150" Canvas.Left="320" Canvas.Top="234" x:Name="SecondsHand" Background="#FFFF0000"> <TextBlock Text="Seconds" TextWrapping="Wrap" Width="50" HorizontalAlignment="Right" VerticalAlignment="Center" x:Name="SecondsText" Foreground="#FFFFFFFF" TextAlignment="Right" Margin="2,2,2,2"/> </Grid> <Grid Height="24" x:Name="MinutesHand" Width="100" Background="#FF00FF00" Canvas.Left="320" Canvas.Top="234"> <TextBlock HorizontalAlignment="Right" x:Name="MinutesText" VerticalAlignment="Center" Width="50" Text="Minutes" TextWrapping="Wrap" Foreground="#FFFFFFFF" TextAlignment="Right" Margin="2,2,2,2"/> </Grid> <Grid Height="24" x:Name="HoursHand" Width="50" Background="#FF0000FF" Canvas.Left="320" Canvas.Top="234"> <TextBlock HorizontalAlignment="Right" x:Name="HoursText" VerticalAlignment="Center" Width="50" Text="Hours" TextWrapping="Wrap" Foreground="#FFFFFFFF" TextAlignment="Right" Margin="2,2,2,2"/> </Grid> </Canvas> </UserControl> This XAML file defines three grid panels, one for each hand of our clock (we are implementing an analog clock using one of the most advanced technologies of the digital world… how cool is that?). Inside each hand we put a TextBlock that will be used to display the current hour, minute, second inside the dial (you can’t do that on plain old analog clocks, but it looks nice). As usual we use XAML2CPP to generate the boring part of our code. We declare a class named “Clock” and derives from the TClock template that XAML2CPP has declared for us. class Clock : public TClock<Clock> { ... }; Our WinMain function is more or less the same we used in all the previous samples. It initializes the XAML runtime, create an instance of our class, initialize it and shows it as a dialog: int WINAPI WinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE hPrevInstance, LPTSTR lpCmdLine, int nCmdShow) { if (!XamlRuntimeInitialize()) return -1;   HRESULT retcode;   IXRApplicationPtr app; if (FAILED(retcode=GetXRApplicationInstance(&app))) return -1; Clock clock;   if (FAILED(clock.Init(hInstance,app))) return -1;     UINT exitcode;   if (FAILED(clock.GetVisualHost()->StartDialog(&exitcode))) return -1;   return exitcode; } Silverlight for Windows Embedded provides a lot of features to implement our UI, but it does not provide timers. How we can update our clock if we don’t have a timer feature? We just use plain old Windows timers, as we do in “regular” Windows CE applications! To use a timer in WinCE we should declare an id for it: #define IDT_CLOCKUPDATE 0x12341234 We also need an HWND that will be used to receive WM_TIMER messages. Our Silverlight for Windows Embedded page is “hosted” inside a GWES Window and we can retrieve its handle using the GetContainerHWND function of our VisualHost object. Let’s see how this is implemented inside our Clock class’ Init method: HRESULT Init(HINSTANCE hInstance,IXRApplication* app) { HRESULT retcode;   if (FAILED(retcode=TClock<Clock>::Init(hInstance,app))) return retcode;   // create the timer user to update the clock HWND clockhwnd;   if (FAILED(GetVisualHost()->GetContainerHWND(&clockhwnd))) return -1;   timer=SetTimer(clockhwnd,IDT_CLOCKUPDATE,1000,NULL); return 0; } We use SetTimer to create a new timer and GWES will send a WM_TIMER to our window every second, giving us a chance to update our clock. That sounds great… but how could we handle the WM_TIMER message if we didn’t implement a window procedure for our window? We have to move a step back and look how a visual host is created. This code is generated by XAML2CPP and is inside xaml2cppbase.h: virtual HRESULT CreateHost(HINSTANCE hInstance,IXRApplication* app) { HRESULT retcode; XRWindowCreateParams wp;   ZeroMemory(&wp, sizeof(XRWindowCreateParams)); InitWindowParms(&wp);   XRXamlSource xamlsrc;   SetXAMLSource(hInstance,&xamlsrc); if (FAILED(retcode=app->CreateHostFromXaml(&xamlsrc, &wp, &vhost))) return retcode;   if (FAILED(retcode=vhost->GetRootElement(&root))) return retcode; return S_OK; } As you can see the CreateHostFromXaml function of IXRApplication accepts a structure named XRWindowCreateParams that control how the “plain old” GWES Window is created by the runtime. This structure is initialized inside the InitWindowParm method: // Initializes Windows parameters, can be overridden in the user class to change its appearance virtual void InitWindowParms(XRWindowCreateParams* wp) { wp->Style = WS_OVERLAPPED; wp->pTitle = windowtitle; wp->Left = 0; wp->Top = 0; } This method set up the window style, title and position. But the XRWindowCreateParams contains also other fields and, since the function is declared as virtual, we could initialize them inside our version of InitWindowParms: // add hook procedure to the standard windows creation parms virtual void InitWindowParms(XRWindowCreateParams* wp) { TClock<Clock>::InitWindowParms(wp);   wp->pHookProc=StaticHostHookProc; wp->pvUserParam=this; } This method calls the base class implementation (useful to not having to re-write some code, did I told you that I’m quite lazy?) and then initializes the pHookProc and pvUserParam members of the XRWindowsCreateParams structure. Those members will allow us to install a “hook” procedure that will be called each time the GWES window “hosting” our Silverlight for Windows Embedded UI receives a message. We can declare a hook procedure inside our Clock class: // static hook procedure static BOOL CALLBACK StaticHostHookProc(VOID* pv,HWND hwnd,UINT Msg,WPARAM wParam,LPARAM lParam,LRESULT* pRetVal) { ... } You should notice two things here. First that the function is declared as static. This is required because a non-static function has a “hidden” parameters, that is the “this” pointer of our object. Having an extra parameter is not allowed for the type defined for the pHookProc member of the XRWindowsCreateParams struct and so we should implement our hook procedure as static. But in a static procedure we will not have a this pointer. How could we access the data member of our class? Here’s the second thing to notice. We initialized also the pvUserParam of the XRWindowsCreateParams struct. We set it to our this pointer. This value will be passed as the first parameter of the hook procedure. In this way we can retrieve our this pointer and use it to call a non-static version of our hook procedure: // static hook procedure static BOOL CALLBACK StaticHostHookProc(VOID* pv,HWND hwnd,UINT Msg,WPARAM wParam,LPARAM lParam,LRESULT* pRetVal) { return ((Clock*)pv)->HostHookProc(hwnd,Msg,wParam,lParam,pRetVal); } Inside our non-static hook procedure we will have access to our this pointer and we will be able to update our clock: // hook procedure (handles timers) BOOL HostHookProc(HWND hwnd,UINT Msg,WPARAM wParam,LPARAM lParam,LRESULT* pRetVal) { switch (Msg) { case WM_TIMER: if (wParam==IDT_CLOCKUPDATE) UpdateClock(); *pRetVal=0; return TRUE; } return FALSE; } The UpdateClock member function will update the text inside our TextBlocks and rotate the hands to reflect current time: // udates Hands positions and labels HRESULT UpdateClock() { SYSTEMTIME time; HRESULT retcode;   GetLocalTime(&time);   //updates the text fields TCHAR timebuffer[32];   _itow(time.wSecond,timebuffer,10);   SecondsText->SetText(timebuffer);   _itow(time.wMinute,timebuffer,10);   MinutesText->SetText(timebuffer);   _itow(time.wHour,timebuffer,10);   HoursText->SetText(timebuffer);   if (FAILED(retcode=RotateHand(((float)time.wSecond)*6-90,SecondsHand))) return retcode;   if (FAILED(retcode=RotateHand(((float)time.wMinute)*6-90,MinutesHand))) return retcode;   if (FAILED(retcode=RotateHand(((float)(time.wHour%12))*30-90,HoursHand))) return retcode;   return S_OK; } The function retrieves current time, convert hours, minutes and seconds to strings and display those strings inside the three TextBlocks that we put inside our clock hands. Then it rotates the hands to position them at the right angle (angles are in degrees and we have to subtract 90 degrees because 0 degrees means horizontal on Silverlight for Windows Embedded and usually a clock 0 is in the top position of the dial. The code of the RotateHand function uses transforms to rotate our clock hands on the screen: // rotates a Hand HRESULT RotateHand(float angle,IXRFrameworkElement* Hand) { HRESULT retcode; IXRRotateTransformPtr rotatetransform; IXRApplicationPtr app;   if (FAILED(retcode=GetXRApplicationInstance(&app))) return retcode;   if (FAILED(retcode=app->CreateObject(IID_IXRRotateTransform,&rotatetransform))) return retcode;     if (FAILED(retcode=rotatetransform->SetAngle(angle))) return retcode;   if (FAILED(retcode=rotatetransform->SetCenterX(0.0))) return retcode;   float height;   if (FAILED(retcode==Hand->GetActualHeight(&height))) return retcode;   if (FAILED(retcode=rotatetransform->SetCenterY(height/2))) return retcode; if (FAILED(retcode=Hand->SetRenderTransform(rotatetransform))) return retcode;   return S_OK; } It creates a IXRotateTransform object, set its rotation angle and origin (the default origin is at the top-left corner of our Grid panel, we move it in the vertical center to keep the hand rotating around a single point in a more “clock like” way. Then we can apply the transform to our UI object using SetRenderTransform. Every UI element (derived from IXRFrameworkElement) can be rotated! And using different subclasses of IXRTransform also moved, scaled, skewed and distorted in many ways. You can also concatenate multiple transforms and apply them at once suing a IXRTransformGroup object. The XAML engine uses vector graphics and object will not look “pixelated” when they are rotated or scaled. As usual you can download the code here: http://cid-9b7b0aefe3514dc5.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/Clock.zip If you read up to (down to?) this point you seem to be interested in Silverlight for Windows Embedded. If you want me to discuss some specific topic, please feel free to point it out in the comments! Technorati Tags: Silverlight for Windows Embedded,Windows CE

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