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• Stumbling Through: Visual Studio 2010 (Part II)

  I would now like to expand a little on what I stumbled through in part I of my Visual Studio 2010 post and touch on a few other features of VS 2010.  Specifically, I want to generate some code based off of an Entity Framework model and tie it up to an actual data source.  Im not going to take the easy way and tie to a SQL Server data source, though, I will tie it to an XML data file instead.  Why?  Well, why not?  This is purely for learning, there are probably much better ways to get strongly-typed classes around XML but it will force us to go down a path less travelled and maybe learn a few things along the way.  Once we get this XML data and the means to interact with it, I will revisit data binding to this data in a WPF form and see if I cant get reading, adding, deleting, and updating working smoothly with minimal code.  To begin, I will use what was learned in the first part of this blog topic and draw out a data model for the MFL (My Football League) - I dont want the NFL to come down and sue me for using their name in this totally football-related article.  The data model looks as follows, with Teams having Players, and Players having a position and statistics for each season they played: Note that when making the associations between these entities, I was given the option to create the foreign key but I only chose to select this option for the association between Player and Position.  The reason for this is that I am picturing the XML that will contain this data to look somewhat like this: <MFL> <Position/> <Position/> <Position/> <Team>     <Player>         <Statistic/>     </Player> </Team> </MFL> Statistic will be under its associated Player node, and Player will be under its associated Team node no need to have an Id to reference it if we know it will always fall under its parent.  Position, however, is more of a lookup value that will not have any hierarchical relationship to the player.  In fact, the Position data itself may be in a completely different xml file (something Id like to play around with), so in any case, a player will need to reference the position by its Id. So now that we have a simple data model laid out, I would like to generate two things based on it:  A class for each entity with properties corresponding to each entity property An IO class with methods to get data for each entity, either all instances, by Id or by parent. Now my experience with code generation in the past has consisted of writing up little apps that use the code dom directly to regenerate code on demand (or using tools like CodeSmith).  Surely, there has got to be a more fun way to do this given that we are using the Entity Framework which already has built-in code generation for SQL Server support.  Lets start with that built-in stuff to give us a base to work off of.  Right click anywhere in the canvas of our model and select Add Code Generation Item: So just adding that code item seemed to do quite a bit towards what I was intending: It apparently generated a class for each entity, but also a whole ton more.  I mean a TON more.  Way too much complicated code was generated now that code is likely to be a black box anyway so it shouldnt matter, but we need to understand how to make this work the way we want it to work, so lets get ready to do some stumbling through that text template (tt) file. When I open the .tt file that was generated, right off the bat I realize there is going to be trouble there is no color coding, no intellisense no nothing!  That is going to make stumbling through more like groping blindly in the dark while handcuffed and hopping on one foot, which was one of the alternate titles I was considering for this blog.  Thankfully, the community comes to my rescue and I wont have to cast my mind back to the glory days of coding in VI (look it up, kids).  Using the Extension Manager (Available under the Tools menu), I did a quick search for tt editor in the Online Gallery and quickly found the Tangible T4 Editor: Downloading and installing this was a breeze, and after doing so I got some color coding and intellisense while editing the tt files.  If you will be doing any customizing of tt files, I highly recommend installing this extension.  Next, well see if that is enough help for us to tweak that tt file to do the kind of code generation that we wantDid you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• Visual Tree Enumeration

  - by codingbloke

  I feel compelled to post this blog because I find I’m repeatedly posting this same code in silverlight and windows-phone-7 answers in Stackoverflow. One common task that we feel we need to do is burrow into the visual tree in a Silverlight or Windows Phone 7 application (actually more recently I found myself doing this in WPF as well).  This allows access to details that aren’t exposed directly by some controls.  A good example of this sort of requirement is found in the “Restoring exact scroll position of a listbox in Windows Phone 7”  question on stackoverflow.  This required that the scroll position of the scroll viewer internal to a listbox be accessed. A caveat One caveat here is that we should seriously challenge the need for this burrowing since it may indicate that there is a design problem.  Burrowing into the visual tree or indeed burrowing out to containing ancestors could represent significant coupling between module boundaries and that generally isn’t a good idea. Why isn’t this idea just not cast aside as a no-no?  Well the whole concept of a “Templated Control”, which are in extensive use in these applications, opens the coupling between the content of the visual tree and the internal code of a control.   For example, I can completely change the appearance and positioning of elements that make up a ComboBox.  The ComboBox control relies on specific template parts having set names of a specified type being present in my template.  Rightly or wrongly this does kind of give license to writing code that has similar coupling. Hasn’t this been done already? Yes it has.  There are number of blogs already out there with similar solutions.  In fact if you are using Silverlight toolkit the VisualTreeExtensions class already provides this feature.  However I prefer my specific code because of the simplicity principle I hold to.  Only write the minimum code necessary to give all the features needed.  In this case I add just two extension methods Ancestors and Descendents, note I don’t bother with “Get” or “Visual” prefixes.  Also I haven’t added Parent or Children methods nor additional “AndSelf” methods because all but Children is achievable with the addition of some other Linq methods.  I decided to give Descendents an additional overload for depth hence a depth of 1 is equivalent to Children but this overload is a little more flexible than simply Children. So here is the code:- VisualTreeEnumeration public static class VisualTreeEnumeration {     public static IEnumerable<DependencyObject> Descendents(this DependencyObject root, int depth)     {         int count = VisualTreeHelper.GetChildrenCount(root);         for (int i = 0; i < count; i++)         {             var child = VisualTreeHelper.GetChild(root, i);             yield return child;             if (depth > 0)             {                 foreach (var descendent in Descendents(child, --depth))                     yield return descendent;             }         }     }     public static IEnumerable<DependencyObject> Descendents(this DependencyObject root)     {         return Descendents(root, Int32.MaxValue);     }     public static IEnumerable<DependencyObject> Ancestors(this DependencyObject root)     {         DependencyObject current = VisualTreeHelper.GetParent(root);         while (current != null)         {             yield return current;             current = VisualTreeHelper.GetParent(current);         }     } }   Usage examples The following are some examples of how to combine the above extension methods with Linq to generate the other axis scenarios that tree traversal code might require. Missing Axis Scenarios var parent = control.Ancestors().Take(1).FirstOrDefault(); var children = control.Descendents(1); var previousSiblings = control.Ancestors().Take(1)     .SelectMany(p => p.Descendents(1).TakeWhile(c => c != control)); var followingSiblings = control.Ancestors().Take(1)     .SelectMany(p => p.Descendents(1).SkipWhile(c => c != control).Skip(1)); var ancestorsAndSelf = Enumerable.Repeat((DependencyObject)control, 1)     .Concat(control.Ancestors()); var descendentsAndSelf = Enumerable.Repeat((DependencyObject)control, 1)     .Concat(control.Descendents()); You might ask why I don’t just include these in the VisualTreeEnumerator.  I don’t on the principle of only including code that is actually needed.  If you find that one or more of the above  is needed in your code then go ahead and create additional methods.  One of the downsides to Extension methods is that they can make finding the method you actually want in intellisense harder. Here are some real world usage scenarios for these methods:- Real World Scenarios //Gets the internal scrollviewer of a ListBox ScrollViewer sv = someListBox.Descendents().OfType<ScrollViewer>().FirstOrDefault(); // Get all text boxes in current UserControl:- var textBoxes = this.Descendents().OfType<TextBox>(); // All UIElement direct children of the layout root grid:- var topLevelElements = LayoutRoot.Descendents(0).OfType<UIElement>(); // Find the containing `ListBoxItem` for a UIElement:- var container = elem.Ancestors().OfType<ListBoxItem>().FirstOrDefault(); // Seek a button with the name "PinkElephants" even if outside of the current Namescope:- var pinkElephantsButton = this.Descendents()     .OfType<Button>()     .FirstOrDefault(b => b.Name == "PinkElephants"); //Clear all checkboxes with the name "Selector" in a Treeview foreach (CheckBox checkBox in elem.Descendents()     .OfType<CheckBox>().Where(c => c.Name == "Selector")) {     checkBox.IsChecked = false; }   The last couple of examples above demonstrate a common requirement of finding controls that have a specific name.  FindName will often not find these controls because they exist in a different namescope. Hope you find this useful, if not I’m just glad to be able to link to this blog in future stackoverflow answers.

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• On Reflector Pricing

  - by Nick Harrison

  I have heard a lot of outrage over Red Gate's decision to charge for Reflector. In the interest of full disclosure, I am a fan of Red Gate. I have worked with them on several usability tests. They also sponsor Simple Talk where I publish articles. They are a good company. I am also a BIG fan of Reflector. I have used it since Lutz originally released it. I have written my own add-ins. I have written code to host reflector and use its object model in my own code. Reflector is a beautiful tool. The care that Lutz took to incorporate extensibility is amazing. I have never had difficulty convincing my fellow developers that it is a wonderful tool. Almost always, once anyone sees it in action, it becomes their favorite tool. This wide spread adoption and usability has made it an icon and pivotal pillar in the DotNet community. Even folks with the attitude that if it did not come out of Redmond then it must not be any good, still love it. It is ironic to hear everyone clamoring for it to be released as open source. Reflector was never open source, it was free, but you never were able to peruse the source code and contribute your own changes. You could not even use Reflector to view the source code. From the very beginning, it was never anyone's intention for just anyone to examine the source code and make their own contributions aside from the add-in model. Lutz chose to hand over the reins to Red Gate because he believed that they would be able to build on his original vision and keep the product viable and effective. He did not choose to make it open source, hoping that the community would be up to the challenge. The simplicity and elegance may well have been lost with the "design by committee" nature of open source. Despite being a wonderful and beloved tool, Reflector cannot be an easy tool to maintain. Maybe because it is so wonderful and beloved, it is even more difficult to maintain. At any rate, we have high expectations. Reflector must continue to be able to reasonably disassemble every language construct that the framework and core languages dream up. We want it to be fast, and we also want it to continue to be simple to use. No small order. Red Gate tried to keep the core product free. Sadly there was not enough interest in the Pro version to subsidize the rest of the expenses. $35 is a reasonable cost, more than reasonable. I have read the blog posts and forum posts complaining about the time associated with getting the expense approved. I have heard people complain about the cost being unreasonable if you are a developer from certain countries. Let's do the math. How much of a productivity boost is Reflector? How many hours do you think it saves you in a typical project? The next question is a little easier if you are a contractor or a consultant, but what is your hourly rate? If you are not a contractor, you can probably figure out an hourly rate. How long does it take to get a return on your investment? The value added proposition is not a difficult one to make. I have read people clamoring that Red Gate sucks and is evil. They complain about broken promises and conflicts of interest. Relax! Red Gate is not evil. The world is not coming to an end. The sun will come up tomorrow. I am sure that Red Gate will come up with options for volume licensing or site licensing for companies that want to get a licensed copy for their entire team. Don't panic, and I am sure that many great improvements are on the horizon. Switching the UI to WPF and including a tabbed interface opens up lots of possibilities.

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• Think before you animate

  - by David Paquette

  Animations are becoming more and more common in our applications.  With technologies like WPF, Silverlight and jQuery, animations are becoming easier for developers to use (and abuse).  When used properly, animation can augment the user experience.  When used improperly, animation can degrade the user experience.  Sometimes, the differences can be very subtle. I have recently made use of animations in a few projects and I very quickly realized how easy it is to abuse animation techniques.  Here are a few things I have learned along the way. 1) Don’t animate for the sake of animating We’ve all seen the PowerPoint slides with annoying slide transitions that animate 20 different ways.  It’s distracting and tacky.  The same holds true for your application.  While animations are fun and becoming easy to implement, resist the urge to use the technology just because you think the technology is amazing.   2) Animations should (and do) have meaning I recently built a simple Windows Phone 7 (WP7) application, Steeped (download it here).  The application has 2 pages.  The first page lists a number of tea types.  When the user taps on one of the tea types, the application navigates to the second page with information about that tea type and some options for the user to choose from.       One of the last things I did before submitting Steeped to the marketplace was add a page transition between the 2 pages.  I choose the Slide / Fade Out transition.  When the user selects a tea type, the main page slides to the left and fades out.  At the same time, the details page slides in from the right and fades in.  I tested it and thought it looked great so I submitted the app.  A few days later, I asked a friend to try the app.  He selected a tea type, and I was a little surprised by how he used the app.  When he wanted to navigate back to the main page, instead of pressing the back button on the phone, he tried to use a swiping gesture.  Of course, the swiping gesture did nothing because I had not implemented that feature.  After thinking about it for a while, I realized that the page transition I had chosen implied a particular behaviour.  As a user, if an action I perform causes an item (in this case the page) to move, then my expectation is that I should be able to move it back.  I have since added logic to handle the swipe gesture and I think the app flows much better now. When using animation, it pays to ask yourself:  What story does this animation tell my users?   3) Watch the replay Some animations might seem great initially but can get annoying over time.  When you use an animation in your application, make sure you try using it over and over again to make sure it doesn’t get annoying.  When I add an animation, I try watch it at least 25 times in a row.  After watching the animation repeatedly, I can make a more informed decision whether or not I should keep the animation.  Often, I end up shortening the length of the animations.   4) Don’t get in the users way An animation should never slow the user down.  When implemented properly, an animation can give a perceived bump in performance.  A good example of this is a the page transitions in most of the built in apps on WP7.  Obviously, these page animations don’t make the phone any faster, but they do provide a more responsive user experience.  Why?  Because most of the animations begin as soon as the user has performed some action.  The destination page might not be fully loaded yet, but the system responded immediately to user action, giving the impression that the system is more responsive.  If the user did not see anything happen until after the destination page was fully loaded, the application would feel clumsy and slow.  Also, it is important to make sure the animation does not degrade the performance (or perceived performance) of the application.   Jut a few things to consider when using animations.  As is the case with many technologies, we often learn how to misuse it before we learn how to use it effectively.

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• Data Binding to Attached Properties

  - by Chris Gardner

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/freestylecoding/archive/2013/06/14/data-binding-to-attached-properties.aspx When I was working on my C#/XAML game framework, I discovered I wanted to try to data bind my sprites to background objects. That way, I could update my objects and the draw functionality would take care of the work for me. After a little experimenting and web searching, it appeared this concept was an impossible dream. Of course, when has that ever stopped me? In my typical way, I started to massively dive down the rabbit hole. I created a sprite on a canvas, and I bound it to a background object. <Canvas Name="GameField" Background="Black"> <Image Name="PlayerStrite" Source="Assets/Ship.png" Width="50" Height="50" Canvas.Left="{Binding X}" Canvas.Top="{Binding Y}"/> </Canvas> Now, we wire the UI item to the background item. public MainPage() { this.InitializeComponent(); this.Loaded += StartGame; }   void StartGame( object sender, RoutedEventArgs e ) { BindingPlayer _Player = new BindingPlayer(); _Player.X = Window.Current.Bounds.Height - PlayerSprite.Height; _Player.X = ( Window.Current.Bounds.Width - PlayerSprite.Width ) / 2.0; } Of course, now we need to actually have our background object. public class BindingPlayer : INotifyPropertyChanged { private double m_X; public double X { get { return m_X; } set { m_X = value; NotifyPropertyChanged(); } }   private double m_Y; public double Y { get { return m_Y; } set { m_Y = value; NotifyPropertyChanged(); } }   public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged; protected void NotifyPropertyChanged( [CallerMemberName] string p_PropertyName = null ) { if( PropertyChanged != null ) PropertyChanged( this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs( p_PropertyName ) ); } } I fired this baby up, and my sprite was correctly positioned on the screen. Maybe the sky wasn't falling after all. Wouldn't it be great if that was the case? I created some code to allow me to move the sprite, but nothing happened. This seems odd. So, I start debugging the application and stepping through code. Everything appears to be working. Time to dig a little deeper. After much profanity was spewed, I stumbled upon a breakthrough. The code only looked like it was working. What was really happening is that there was an exception being thrown in the background thread that I never saw. Apparently, the key call was the one to PropertyChanged. If PropertyChanged is not called on the UI thread, the UI thread ignores the call. Actually, it throws an exception and the background thread silently crashes. Of course, you'll never see this unless you're looking REALLY carefully. This seemed to be a simple problem. I just need to marshal this to the UI thread. Unfortunately, this object has no knowledge of this mythical UI Thread in which we speak. So, I had to pull the UI Thread out of thin air. Let's change our PropertyChanged call to look this. public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged; protected void NotifyPropertyChanged( [CallerMemberName] string p_PropertyName = null ) { if( PropertyChanged != null ) Windows.ApplicationModel.Core.CoreApplication.MainView.CoreWindow.Dispatcher.RunAsync( Windows.UI.Core.CoreDispatcherPriority.Normal, new Windows.UI.Core.DispatchedHandler( () => { PropertyChanged( this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs( p_PropertyName ) ); } ) ); } Now, we raised our notification on the UI thread. Everything is fine, people are happy, and the world moves on. You may have noticed that I didn't await my call to the dispatcher. This was intentional. If I am trying to update a slew of sprites, I don't want thread being hung while I wait my turn. Thus, I send the message and move on. It is worth nothing that this is NOT the most efficient way to do this for game programming. We'll get to that in another blog post. However, it is perfectly acceptable for a business app that is running a background task that would like to notify the UI thread of progress on a periodic basis. It is worth noting that this code was written for a Windows Store App. You can do the same thing with WP8 and WPF. The call to the marshaler changes, but it is the same idea.

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• Why bother writing an Windows 8 app?

  - by Dennis Vroegop

  So you want to know more about development for Window 8. Great! There are lots of reasons you should be excited about this. Since I don’t know why YOU are interested in this, I’ll make a list of reasons people can choose from. (as a side note: whenever I talk about Win8 development I am referring to the Metro Style / WinRt side of things. Apps for the ‘classic’ desktop side of Win8 on Intel are business as usual…) So… Why would you care about making an app for Windows 8? 1. It’s cool. Let’s not beat around the bush: if you like development for a hobby then you’ll love to work on this new platform. You can create apps in a relative short time (short time as in compared to writing a new CRM system) and that makes it great for a hobby product. 2. You’ll stand out. Hey, we all need an ego boost every now and then. We all need to feel special. So if you can manage to be one of the first to have you app in the Store then you’ll likely to be noticed. Just close your eyes for a moment and image you standing in a bar. It’s crowded, and then you casually say “Oh yeah, I just had my app certified and it’s in the Win8 store now”. People will stop talking, will offer you drinks and beautiful women / gorgeous man / furry creatures from Alpha Centauri (whatever your preferences are) will propose. Or maybe not. Anyway…. 3. Make some cash! IDC predicts there will be about 350,000,000 Windows 8 licenses sold in the next year. Think about that number. 350,000,000. And they all have access to the Store. Where you’re app will be. With one little click they can select it, download and somehow magically $1.00 or $2.00 from their bank account is transferred to yours. Now, I am not saying that all of those people will download and buy your app but what if only 1% of them did? Remember: there aren’t that many apps available yet….. 4. Learn. Creating new small apps is a great way to learn new stuff. Yes, you could read about it (on this blog for instance) but the only way to learn something is to do it. So be prepared for the future and learn something new by doing it.Write an app! Now! 5. The biggie (for me at least): it’s fun. Even if you remove the points above it’s still fun to write for these devices and this platform. Now some of you will say : “But why not write a great app for IOS or Android?” I think this is a valid question. Of course the novelty of the platform wears out and points 2 and 3 from above list will not be as relevant as it is today. But still 1 4 and 5 remain. And don’t forget: if you already work on the Microsoft platform it’s not that hard to learn this new Win8 stuff. If you have done some XAML development (be it WPF or Silverlight) you are almost there in becoming a good Win8 developer. So you’ll be more productive much sooner than when you have to learn Objective C or Java. Even if you’re a HTML / Javascript developer (I say developer here, not designer) you’ll be up to speed on Win8 development pretty soon. Yes, you, that funky Web Developer who lives and breathes HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript / Node.Js / JQuery: you too can be a Win8 developer. A first class Win8 developer! So.. Download the stuff you need from http://dev.windows.com install Windows 8 and Visual Studio 12 and by the time you’re ready I’ll be working on the next article: how to do all this? Happy coding!

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• Building a Repository Pattern against an EF 5 EDMX Model - Part 1

  - by Juan

  I am part of a year long plus project that is re-writing an existing application for a client.  We have decided to develop the project using Visual Studio 2012 and .NET 4.5.  The project will be using a number of technologies and patterns to include Entity Framework 5, WCF Services, and WPF for the client UI.This is my attempt at documenting some of the successes and failures that I will be coming across in the development of the application.In building the data access layer we have to access a database that has already been designed by a dedicated dba. The dba insists on using Stored Procedures which has made the use of EF a little more difficult.  He will not allow direct table access but we did manage to get him to allow us to use Views.  Since EF 5 does not have good support to do Code First with Stored Procedures, my option was to create a model (EDMX) against the existing database views.   I then had to go select each entity and map the Insert/Update/Delete functions to their respective stored procedure. The next step after I had completed mapping the stored procedures to the entities in the EDMX model was to figure out how to build a generic repository that would work well with Entity Framework 5.  After reading the blog posts below, I adopted much of their code with some changes to allow for the use of Ninject for dependency injection.http://www.tcscblog.com/2012/06/22/entity-framework-generic-repository/ http://www.tugberkugurlu.com/archive/generic-repository-pattern-entity-framework-asp-net-mvc-and-unit-testing-triangle IRepository.cs public interface IRepository : IDisposable where T : class { void Add(T entity); void Update(T entity, int id); T GetById(object key); IQueryable Query(Expression> predicate); IQueryable GetAll(); int SaveChanges(); int SaveChanges(bool validateEntities); } GenericRepository.cs public abstract class GenericRepository : IRepository where T : class { public abstract void Add(T entity); public abstract void Update(T entity, int id); public abstract T GetById(object key); public abstract IQueryable Query(Expression> predicate); public abstract IQueryable GetAll(); public int SaveChanges() { return SaveChanges(true); } public abstract int SaveChanges(bool validateEntities); public abstract void Dispose(); } One of the issues I ran into was trying to do an update. I kept receiving errors so I posted a question on Stack Overflow http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12585664/an-object-with-the-same-key-already-exists-in-the-objectstatemanager-the-object and came up with the following hack. If someone has a better way, please let me know. DbContextRepository.cs public class DbContextRepository : GenericRepository where T : class { protected DbContext Context; protected DbSet DbSet; public DbContextRepository(DbContext context) { if (context == null) throw new ArgumentException("context"); Context = context; DbSet = Context.Set(); } public override void Add(T entity) { if (entity == null) throw new ArgumentException("Cannot add a null entity."); DbSet.Add(entity); } public override void Update(T entity, int id) { if (entity == null) throw new ArgumentException("Cannot update a null entity."); var entry = Context.Entry(entity); if (entry.State == EntityState.Detached) { var attachedEntity = DbSet.Find(id); // Need to have access to key if (attachedEntity != null) { var attachedEntry = Context.Entry(attachedEntity); attachedEntry.CurrentValues.SetValues(entity); } else { entry.State = EntityState.Modified; // This should attach entity } } } public override T GetById(object key) { return DbSet.Find(key); } public override IQueryable Query(Expression> predicate) { return DbSet.Where(predicate); } public override IQueryable GetAll() { return Context.Set(); } public override int SaveChanges(bool validateEntities) { Context.Configuration.ValidateOnSaveEnabled = validateEntities; return Context.SaveChanges(); } #region IDisposable implementation public override void Dispose() { if (Context != null) { Context.Dispose(); GC.SuppressFinalize(this); } } #endregion IDisposable implementation } At this point I am able to start creating individual repositories that are needed and add a Unit of Work.  Stay tuned for the next installment in my path to creating a Repository Pattern against EF5.

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• Stumbling Through: Visual Studio 2010 (Part II)

  I would now like to expand a little on what I stumbled through in part I of my Visual Studio 2010 post and touch on a few other features of VS 2010.  Specifically, I want to generate some code based off of an Entity Framework model and tie it up to an actual data source.  Im not going to take the easy way and tie to a SQL Server data source, though, I will tie it to an XML data file instead.  Why?  Well, why not?  This is purely for learning, there are probably much better ways to get strongly-typed classes around XML but it will force us to go down a path less travelled and maybe learn a few things along the way.  Once we get this XML data and the means to interact with it, I will revisit data binding to this data in a WPF form and see if I cant get reading, adding, deleting, and updating working smoothly with minimal code.  To begin, I will use what was learned in the first part of this blog topic and draw out a data model for the MFL (My Football League) - I dont want the NFL to come down and sue me for using their name in this totally football-related article.  The data model looks as follows, with Teams having Players, and Players having a position and statistics for each season they played: Note that when making the associations between these entities, I was given the option to create the foreign key but I only chose to select this option for the association between Player and Position.  The reason for this is that I am picturing the XML that will contain this data to look somewhat like this: <MFL> <Position/> <Position/> <Position/> <Team>     <Player>         <Statistic/>     </Player> </Team> </MFL> Statistic will be under its associated Player node, and Player will be under its associated Team node no need to have an Id to reference it if we know it will always fall under its parent.  Position, however, is more of a lookup value that will not have any hierarchical relationship to the player.  In fact, the Position data itself may be in a completely different xml file (something Id like to play around with), so in any case, a player will need to reference the position by its Id. So now that we have a simple data model laid out, I would like to generate two things based on it:  A class for each entity with properties corresponding to each entity property An IO class with methods to get data for each entity, either all instances, by Id or by parent. Now my experience with code generation in the past has consisted of writing up little apps that use the code dom directly to regenerate code on demand (or using tools like CodeSmith).  Surely, there has got to be a more fun way to do this given that we are using the Entity Framework which already has built-in code generation for SQL Server support.  Lets start with that built-in stuff to give us a base to work off of.  Right click anywhere in the canvas of our model and select Add Code Generation Item: So just adding that code item seemed to do quite a bit towards what I was intending: It apparently generated a class for each entity, but also a whole ton more.  I mean a TON more.  Way too much complicated code was generated now that code is likely to be a black box anyway so it shouldnt matter, but we need to understand how to make this work the way we want it to work, so lets get ready to do some stumbling through that text template (tt) file. When I open the .tt file that was generated, right off the bat I realize there is going to be trouble there is no color coding, no intellisense no nothing!  That is going to make stumbling through more like groping blindly in the dark while handcuffed and hopping on one foot, which was one of the alternate titles I was considering for this blog.  Thankfully, the community comes to my rescue and I wont have to cast my mind back to the glory days of coding in VI (look it up, kids).  Using the Extension Manager (Available under the Tools menu), I did a quick search for tt editor in the Online Gallery and quickly found the Tangible T4 Editor: Downloading and installing this was a breeze, and after doing so I got some color coding and intellisense while editing the tt files.  If you will be doing any customizing of tt files, I highly recommend installing this extension.  Next, well see if that is enough help for us to tweak that tt file to do the kind of code generation that we wantDid you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• retrieve data based on date range using mysql ,php [on hold]

  - by preethi

  I am working on WPF where I have two datepickers when I try to retrieve the information on date range it displays only one record on all dates(same record displaying multiple times eg : date chosen from 01/10/2013 - 3/10/2013) where I have 3 different records on each day but my output is the first record displayed 3 times with same date and time. function cpWhitelistStats() { $startDate = $_POST['startDate']; $startDateTime = "$startDate 00:00:00"; $endDate = $_POST['endDate']; $endDateTime = "$endDate 23:59:59"; $cpId = $_POST['id']; $cpName = etCommonCpNameById($cpId); print "<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">Permitted Vehicle Summary</h2>"; print "<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">for $cpName</h2>"; $tmpDate = explode("/", $startDate); $startYear = $tmpDate[2]; $startMonth= $tmpDate[1]; $startDay = $tmpDate[0]; $tmpDate = explode("/", $endDate); $endYear = $tmpDate[2]; $endMonth= $tmpDate[1]; $endDay = $tmpDate[0]; $startDateTime = "$startYear-$startMonth-$startDay 00:00:00"; $endDateTime = "$endYear-$endMonth-$endDay 23:59:59"; $custId = $_SESSION['customerID']; $realCustomerId = $_SESSION['realCustomerId']; $maxVal = 0; if ($custId != "") { $conn = &newEtConn($custId); // Get the whitelist plates $staticWhitelistArray = etCommonMkWhitelist($conn, $cpId); array_shift($staticWhitelistArray); $startLoopDate = strtotime($startDateTime); $endLoopDate = strtotime($endDateTime); $oneDay = 60 * 60 * 24; // Get the entries $plateList = array_keys($staticWhitelistArray); $plate_lookup = implode('","', $plateList); $sql = "SELECT plate, entry_datetime, exit_datetime FROM stats WHERE plate IN (\"$plate_lookup\") AND entry_datetime > \"$startDateTime\" AND entry_datetime < \"$endDateTime\" AND carpark_id=\"$cpId\" "; $result = $conn->Execute($sql); if (!$result) { print $conn->ErrorMsg(); exit; } $rows = $result->fields; if ($rows != "") { unset($myArray); foreach($result as $values) { $plate = $values['plate']; $new_platelist[] = $plate; $inDateTime = $values['entry_datetime']; $outDateTime = $values['exit_datetime']; $tmp = explode(' ', $inDateTime); $inDate = $tmp[0]; $in_ts = strtotime($inDateTime); $out_ts = strtotime($outDateTime); $duration = $out_ts - $in_ts; $dur_array = intToDateArray($duration); $dur_string = ''; if ($dur_array['days'] > 0) { $dur_string .= $dur_array['days'] . ' days '; } if ($dur_array['hours'] > 0) { $dur_string .= $dur_array['hours'] . ' hours '; } if ($dur_array['mins'] > 0) { $dur_string .= $dur_array['mins'] . ' minutes '; } if ($dur_array['secs'] > 0) { $dur_string .= $dur_array['secs'] . ' secs '; } $myArray[$plate][] = array($inDateTime, $outDateTime, $inDate, $dur_string); } } while ($startLoopDate < $endLoopDate) { $dayString = strftime("%a, %d %B %Y", $startLoopDate); $dayCheck = strftime("%Y-%m-%d", $startLoopDate); print "<h2>$dayString</h2>"; print "<table width=\"100%\">"; print " <tr>"; print " <th>VRM</th>"; print " <th>Permit Group</th>"; print " <th>Entry Time</th>"; print " <th>Exit Time</th>"; print " <th>Duration</th>"; print " </tr>"; foreach($new_platelist as $wlPlate) { if ($myArray[$wlPlate][0][2] == $dayCheck) { print "<tr>"; print "<td>$wlPlate</td>"; if (isset($myArray[$wlPlate])) { print "<td>".$staticWhitelistArray[$wlPlate]['groupname']."</td>"; print "<td>".$myArray[$wlPlate][0][0]."</td>"; print "<td>".$myArray[$wlPlate][0][1]."</td>"; print "<td>".$myArray[$wlPlate][0][3]."</td>"; } else { print "<td>Vehicle Not Seen</td>"; print "<td>Vehicle Not Seen</td>"; print "<td>Vehicle Not Seen</td>"; } print "</tr>"; } } print "</table>"; $startLoopDate = $startLoopDate + $oneDay; } } }

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• How to create StackedBarSeries with custom tooltip without losing standard colors

  - by Simon_Weaver

  I have a StackedBarSeries in Silverlight 4 charting (latest release). I have created a DataPointStyle called MyDataPointStyle for a custom tooltip. By itself this breaks the standard palette used for the different bars. I've applied a custom palette - as described in David Anson's blog to the chart. However when I have the DataPointStyle set for my SeriesDefinition objects it does not use this palette. I'm not sure what I'm missing - but David specifically says : ... it enables the use of DynamicResource (currently only supported by the WPF platform) to let users customize their DataPointStyle without inadvertently losing the default/custom Palette colors. (Note: A very popular request!) Unfortunately I'm inadvertently losing these colors - and I can't see why? <chartingToolkit:Chart.Palette> <dataviz:ResourceDictionaryCollection> <ResourceDictionary> <Style x:Key="DataPointStyle" TargetType="Control"> <Setter Property="Background" Value="Blue"/> </Style> </ResourceDictionary> <ResourceDictionary> <Style x:Key="DataPointStyle" TargetType="Control"> <Setter Property="Background" Value="Green"/> </Style> </ResourceDictionary> <ResourceDictionary> <Style x:Key="DataPointStyle" TargetType="Control"> <Setter Property="Background" Value="Red"/> </Style> </ResourceDictionary> </dataviz:ResourceDictionaryCollection> </chartingToolkit:Chart.Palette> <chartingToolkit:Chart.Series> <chartingToolkit:StackedBarSeries> <chartingToolkit:SeriesDefinition IndependentValueBinding="{Binding SKU}" DependentValueBinding="{Binding Qty}" DataPointStyle="{StaticResource MyDataPointStyle}" Title="Regular"/> <chartingToolkit:SeriesDefinition IndependentValueBinding="{Binding SKU}" DependentValueBinding="{Binding Qty}" DataPointStyle="{StaticResource MyDataPointStyle}" Title="FSP Orders"/> <chartingToolkit:StackedBarSeries.IndependentAxis> <chartingToolkit:CategoryAxis Title="SKU" Orientation="Y" FontStyle="Italic" AxisLabelStyle="{StaticResource LeftAxisStyle}"/> </chartingToolkit:StackedBarSeries.IndependentAxis> <chartingToolkit:StackedBarSeries.DependentAxis> <chartingToolkit:LinearAxis Orientation="X" ExtendRangeToOrigin="True" Minimum="0" ShowGridLines="True" /> </chartingToolkit:StackedBarSeries.DependentAxis> </chartingToolkit:StackedBarSeries > </chartingToolkit:Chart.Series> </chartingToolkit:Chart>

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• Problem using ‘useLegacyV2RuntimeActivationPolicy’ & supportedRuntime in an application

  - by Notre

  Hello, I've modified a couple of different applications' .config file like this: <startup useLegacyV2RuntimeActivationPolicy="true"> <supportedRuntime version="v4.0"/> </startup> When I did this for devenv.exe.config (VS 2005 - don't ask :) ), things work great - most of the Visual Studio used .NET 2.0 but I was able to make use of an assembly targeting .NET 4.0 framework. I tried to do the same thing for a custom .exe, which happens to be based on MS CAB (slightly modified) and has a hybrid mix of WPF and WinForms content. As soon as I modified this application's app config file, I started getting this exception, sometime during application startup: The Undo operation encountered a context that is different from what was applied in the corresponding Set operation. The possible cause is that a context was Set on the thread and not reverted(undone). System.InvalidOperationException: The Undo operation encountered a context that is different from what was applied in the corresponding Set operation. The possible cause is that a context was Set on the thread and not reverted(undone). There's a big long stack trace that doesn't show anything in my application code directly (just a bunch of MS assemblies). If I modify the application's .config file to this: <startup useLegacyV2RuntimeActivationPolicy="true"> </startup> i.e.I remove the supportedRuntime element, then the application doesn't throw this exception. But when I go to the point in my code where I try to load my .NET 4 assembly, if fails with this: System.BadImageFormatException: Could not load file or assembly '' or one of its dependencies. This assembly is built by a runtime newer than the currently loaded runtime and cannot be loaded. I guess this is expected. I have two questions: 1) Any idea why I'm getting the System.InvalidOperationException exception when I modify this application's configuration file to include the supportedRuntime element, adding .NET 4 support and any suggestions on what I can do about it? 2) If the answer is "no idea why/don't know what you can do about it", then is possible for my .NET 3.5 SP1 code (C#) to provide more fine grain support for conditionally adding .NET 4 runtime support for a certain assembly(ies) without converting my entire application to target .NET 4, or without using the declarative config file approach? At some point I would convert the entire application to target .NET 4, but for the short term this is daunting task and I'm hope for some short term solution/hack. Thank you very much for any advice you can give!

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• Application Architecture using WCF and System.AddIn

  - by Silverhalide

  A little background -- we're designing an application that uses a client/server architecture consisting of: A server which loads server-side modules, potentially developed by other teams. A client which loads corresponding client-side modules (also potentially developed by those other teams; each client module corresponds with a server module). The client side communicates with the server side for general coordination, and as well as module specific tasks. (At this point, I think that means client talks to server, client modules talk to server modules.) Environment is .NET 3.5, and client side is WPF. The deployment scenario introduces the potential to upgrade the server, any server-side module, the client, and any client-side module independently. However, being able to "work" using mismatched versions is required. I'm therefore concerned about versioning issues. My thinking so far: A Windows Service for the server. Using System.AddIn for the server to load and communicate with the server modules will give us the greatest flexibility in terms of version compatability between server and server modules. The server and each server module vend WCF services for communication to the client side; communication between the server and a server module, or between two server modules use the AddIn contracts. (One advantage of this is that a module can expose a different interface within the server and outside it.) Similarly, the client uses System.AddIn to find, load, and communicate with the client modules. Client communications with client modules is via the AddIn interface; communications from the client and from client modules to the server side are via WCF. For maximum resilience, each module will run in a separate app-domain. In general, the system has modest performance requirements, so marshalling and crossing process boundaries is not expected to be a performance concern. (Performance requirement is basically summed up by: don't get in the way of the other parts of the system not described here.) My questions are around the idea of having two different communication and versioning models to work with which will be an added burden on our developers. System.AddIn seems quite powerful, but also a little unwieldly. (I'm also unsure of Microsoft's commitment to it in the future.) On the other hand, I'm not thrilled with WCF's versioning capabilities. I have a feeling that it would be possible to implement the System.AddIn view/adapter/contract system within WCF, but being fairly new to both technologies, I would have no idea of where to start. So... Am I on the right track here? Am I doing this the hard way? Are there gotchas I need to be aware of on this road? Thanks.

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• Synchronized Enumerator in C#

  - by Dan Bryant

  I'm putting together a custom SynchronizedCollection<T> class so that I can have a synchronized Observable collection for my WPF application. The synchronization is provided via a ReaderWriterLockSlim, which, for the most part, has been easy to apply. The case I'm having trouble with is how to provide thread-safe enumeration of the collection. I've created a custom IEnumerator<T> nested class that looks like this: private class SynchronizedEnumerator : IEnumerator<T> { private SynchronizedCollection<T> _collection; private int _currentIndex; internal SynchronizedEnumerator(SynchronizedCollection<T> collection) { _collection = collection; _collection._lock.EnterReadLock(); _currentIndex = -1; } #region IEnumerator<T> Members public T Current { get; private set;} #endregion #region IDisposable Members public void Dispose() { var collection = _collection; if (collection != null) collection._lock.ExitReadLock(); _collection = null; } #endregion #region IEnumerator Members object System.Collections.IEnumerator.Current { get { return Current; } } public bool MoveNext() { var collection = _collection; if (collection == null) throw new ObjectDisposedException("SynchronizedEnumerator"); _currentIndex++; if (_currentIndex >= collection.Count) { Current = default(T); return false; } Current = collection[_currentIndex]; return true; } public void Reset() { if (_collection == null) throw new ObjectDisposedException("SynchronizedEnumerator"); _currentIndex = -1; Current = default(T); } #endregion } My concern, however, is that if the Enumerator is not Disposed, the lock will never be released. In most use cases, this is not a problem, as foreach should properly call Dispose. It could be a problem, however, if a consumer retrieves an explicit Enumerator instance. Is my only option to document the class with a caveat implementer reminding the consumer to call Dispose if using the Enumerator explicitly or is there a way to safely release the lock during finalization? I'm thinking not, since the finalizer doesn't even run on the same thread, but I was curious if there other ways to improve this.

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• realtime logging

  - by Ion Todirel

  I have an application which has a loop, part of a "Scheduler", which runs at all time and is the heart of the application. Pretty much like a game loop, just that my application is a WPF application and it's not a game. Naturally the application does logging at many points, but the Scheduler does some sensitive monitoring, and sometimes it's impossible just from the logs to tell what may have gotten wrong (and by wrong I don't mean exceptions) or the current status. Because Scheduler's inner loop runs at short intervals, you can't do file I/O-based logging (or using the Event Viewer) in there. First, you need to watch it in real-time, and secondly the log file would grow in size very fast. So I was thinking of ways to show this data to the user in the realtime, some things I considered: Display the data in realtime in the UI Use AllocConsole/WriteConsole to display this information in a console Use a different console application which would display this information, communicate between the Scheduler and the console app using pipes or other IPC techniques Use Windows' Performance Monitor and somehow feed it with this information ETW Displaying in the UI would have its issues. First it doesn't integrate with the UI I had in mind for my application, and I don't want to complicate the UI just for this. This diagnostics would only happen rarely. Secondly, there is going to be some non-trivial data protection, as the Scheduler has it's own thread. A separate console window would work probably, but I'm still worried if it's not too much threshold. Allocating my own console, as this is a windows app, would probably be better than a different console application (3), as I don't need to worry about IPC communication, and non-blocking communication. However a user could close the console I allocated, and it would be problematic in that case. With a separate process you don't have to worry about it. Assuming there is an API for Performance Monitor, it wouldn't be integrated too well with my app or apparent to the users. Using ETW also doesn't solve anything, just a random idea, I still need to display this information somehow. What others think, would there be other ways I missed?

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• SilverLight 3 Beginner question: Scroll with mousewheel and zoom image with panning

  - by JP Hellemons

  Hello, I would like to make a small silverlight app which displays one fairly large image which can be zoomed in by scrolling the mouse and then panned with the mouse. it's similar to the function in google maps and i do not want to use deepzoom. here is what i have at the moment. please keep in mind that this is my first silverlight app: this app is just for me to see it's a good way to build in a website. so it's a demo app and therefor has bad variable names. the initial image is 1800px width. private void sc_MouseWheel(object sender, MouseWheelEventArgs e) { var st = (ScaleTransform)plaatje.RenderTransform; double zoom = e.Delta > 0 ? .1 : -.1; st.ScaleX += zoom; st.ScaleY += zoom; } this works, but could use some smoothing and it's positioned top left and not centered. the panning is like this: found it @ http://stackoverflow.com/questions/741956/wpf-pan-zoom-image and converted it to this below to work in silverlight Point start; Point origin; bool captured = false; private void plaatje_MouseLeftButtonDown(object sender, MouseButtonEventArgs e) { plaatje.CaptureMouse(); captured = true; var tt = (TranslateTransform)((TransformGroup)plaatje.RenderTransform) .Children.First(tr => tr is TranslateTransform); start = e.GetPosition(canvasje); origin = new Point(tt.X, tt.Y); } private void plaatje_MouseLeftButtonUp(object sender, MouseButtonEventArgs e) { plaatje.ReleaseMouseCapture(); captured = false; } private void plaatje_MouseMove(object sender, MouseEventArgs e) { if (!captured) return; var tt = (TranslateTransform)((TransformGroup)plaatje.RenderTransform).Children.First(tr => tr is TranslateTransform); double xVerschuiving = start.X - e.GetPosition(canvasje).X; double yVerschuiving = start.Y - e.GetPosition(canvasje).Y; tt.X = origin.X - xVerschuiving; tt.Y = origin.Y - yVerschuiving; } so the scaling isn't smooth and the panning isn't working, because when i click it, the image disappears. thanks in advanced!

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• Using FluentNHibernate + SQLite with .Net4?

  - by stiank81

  I have a WPF application running with .Net3.5 using FluentNHibernate, and all works fine. When I upgraded to VS2010 I ran into some odd problems, but after changing to use x64 variant of SQLite it worked fine again. Now I want to change to use .Net4, but this has turned into a more painful experience then I expected.. When calling FluentConfiguration.BuildConfiguration I get an exception thrown: FluentConfigurationException unhandled An invalid or incomplete configuration was used while creating a SessionFactory. Check PotentialReasons collection, and InnerException for more detail The inner exception gives us more information: Message = "Could not create the driver from NHibernate.Driver.SQLite20Driver, NHibernate, Version=2.1.2.4000, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=aa95f207798dfdb4." It has an InnerException again: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation. Which again has an InnerException: The IDbCommand and IDbConnection implementation in the assembly System.Data.SQLite could not be found. Ensure that the assembly System.Data.SQLite is located in the application directory or in the Global Assembly Cache. If the assembly is in the GAC, use element in the application configuration file to specify the full name of the assembly. Now - to me it sounds like it doesn't find System.Data.SQLite.dll, but I can't understand this. Everywhere this is referenced I have "Copy Local", and I have verified that it is in every build folder for projects using SQLite. I have also copied it manually to every Debug folder of the solution - without luck. Notes: This exact same code worked just fine before I upgraded to .Net4. I did see some x64 x86 mismatch problems earlier, but I have switched to use x86 as the target platform and for all referenced dlls. I have verified that all files in the Debug-folder are x86. I have tried the precompiled Fluent dlls, I have tried compiling myself, and I have compiled my own version of Fluent using .Net4. I see that there are also others that have seen this problem, but I haven't really seen any solution yet. After @devio's answer I tried adding a reference to the SQLite dll. This didn't change anything, but I hope I made it right though.. This is what I added to the root node of the app.config file: <runtime> <assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1"> <qualifyAssembly partialName="System.Data.SQLite" fullName="System.Data.SQLite, Version=1.0.60.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=db937bc2d44ff139" /> </assemblyBinding> </runtime> Anyone out there using Fluent with .Net4 and SQLite successfully? Help! I'm lost...

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• Synchronized IEnumerator<T>

  - by Dan Bryant

  I'm putting together a custom SynchronizedCollection<T> class so that I can have a synchronized Observable collection for my WPF application. The synchronization is provided via a ReaderWriterLockSlim, which, for the most part, has been easy to apply. The case I'm having trouble with is how to provide thread-safe enumeration of the collection. I've created a custom IEnumerator<T> nested class that looks like this: private class SynchronizedEnumerator : IEnumerator<T> { private SynchronizedCollection<T> _collection; private int _currentIndex; internal SynchronizedEnumerator(SynchronizedCollection<T> collection) { _collection = collection; _collection._lock.EnterReadLock(); _currentIndex = -1; } #region IEnumerator<T> Members public T Current { get; private set;} #endregion #region IDisposable Members public void Dispose() { var collection = _collection; if (collection != null) collection._lock.ExitReadLock(); _collection = null; } #endregion #region IEnumerator Members object System.Collections.IEnumerator.Current { get { return Current; } } public bool MoveNext() { var collection = _collection; if (collection == null) throw new ObjectDisposedException("SynchronizedEnumerator"); _currentIndex++; if (_currentIndex >= collection.Count) { Current = default(T); return false; } Current = collection[_currentIndex]; return true; } public void Reset() { if (_collection == null) throw new ObjectDisposedException("SynchronizedEnumerator"); _currentIndex = -1; Current = default(T); } #endregion } My concern, however, is that if the Enumerator is not Disposed, the lock will never be released. In most use cases, this is not a problem, as foreach should properly call Dispose. It could be a problem, however, if a consumer retrieves an explicit Enumerator instance. Is my only option to document the class with a caveat implementer reminding the consumer to call Dispose if using the Enumerator explicitly or is there a way to safely release the lock during finalization? I'm thinking not, since the finalizer doesn't even run on the same thread, but I was curious if there other ways to improve this. EDIT After thinking about this a bit and reading the responses (particular thanks to Hans), I've decided this is definitely a bad idea. The biggest issue actually isn't forgetting to Dispose, but rather a leisurely consumer creating deadlock while enumerating. I now only read-lock long enough to get a copy and return the enumerator for the copy.

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• realtime diagnostics

  - by Ion Todirel

  I have an application which has a loop, part of a "Scheduler", which runs at all time and is the heart of the application. Pretty much like a game loop, just that my application is a WPF application and it's not a game. Naturally the application does logging at many points, but the Scheduler does some sensitive monitoring, and sometimes it's impossible just from the logs to tell what may have gotten wrong (and by wrong I don't mean exceptions) or the current status. Because Scheduler's inner loop runs at short intervals, you can't do file I/O-based logging (or using the Event Viewer) in there. First, you need to watch it in real-time, and secondly the log file would grow in size very fast. So I was thinking of ways to show this data to the user in the realtime, some things I considered: Display the data in realtime in the UI Use AllocConsole/WriteConsole to display this information in a console Use a different console application which would display this information, communicate between the Scheduler and the console app using pipes or other IPC techniques Use Windows' Performance Monitor and somehow feed it with this information ETW Displaying in the UI would have its issues. First it doesn't integrate with the UI I had in mind for my application, and I don't want to complicate the UI just for this. This diagnostics would only happen rarely. Secondly, there is going to be some non-trivial data protection, as the Scheduler has it's own thread. A separate console window would work probably, but I'm still worried if it's not too much threshold. Allocating my own console, as this is a windows app, would probably be better than a different console application (3), as I don't need to worry about IPC communication, and non-blocking communication. However a user could close the console I allocated, and it would be problematic in that case. With a separate process you don't have to worry about it. Assuming there is an API for Performance Monitor, it wouldn't be integrated too well with my app or apparent to the users. Using ETW also doesn't solve anything, just a random idea, I still need to display this information somehow. What others think, would there be other ways I missed?

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• Learning to create beautiful /next-generation GUI

  - by ShaChris23

  I really want to create a stunning-looking GUI desktop application that looks like, for example: Mac OS X interface Picasa desktop client on windows IPhone apps Office 2007 I've mostly been programming GUI using Qt/Swing/WinForm and I'm tired of creating so plain looking GUI, lol. So I was thinking about diving into stuff like: jQuery WPF/C# iPhone SDK Silverlight Adobe Air/Flex Just to get some ideas on how to create really cool looking UI. Does that sound like a good list? Any developers here that could share what platform they use to create very cool looking desktop app? On a sidenote, I really wonder what developers at Apple / Microsoft use to develop their own cool-looking software. EDIT A lot of responses talk about the importance of usability over "cool-looking".. I totally agree that usability and simplicity are the most important aspects of user interface design. I've been doing GUI development for a while now ( 3 years), so that I understand. But using cool-looking UI also improves user experience + it could make big difference on whether or not your software sells. I mean, otherwise why would Microsoft/Apple try to make their OS UI look "cooler" everytime there's a new version? Why would websites like pragprog.com, or versionsapp.com. make their websites look like that? Basically you kill 2 birds with one stone: stunnning-looking UI + super usability (because it looks simple and intuitive). That is what I'm striving for. And as far as I know, I cannot achieve that using Qt/Winform. Most of the books I have read just show you how to make average-looking (read: 1990's) UI. I want to learn how to create cool-looking UI. And the only place I see cool-looking UIs these days are the technology I list above. I'm not enamored with any technology; but I just want to know how things are done in other technology to see if I could apply them to the technology I'm using, or see if I could use those technology in my line of work. An example: if I were to pick between this UI and this UI, I probably would pick the latter, if just based on looks alone. Functionally, they are just the same UI; they both allow you to keep track of your time. They both contain buttons and textboxes, etc. But the fact that they look different, also differentiate them in terms of attractiveness. So in all, I think the "ice on the cake" is very important. I would say it's the thing you strive for after you are certain you have a totally intuitive, usable UI.

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• SharePoint 2010 Custom WCF Service - Windows and FBA Authentication

  - by e-rock

  I have SharePoint 2010 configured for Claims Based Authentication with both Windows and Forms Based Authentication (FBA) for external users. I also need to develop custom WCF Services. The issue is that I want Windows credentials passed into the WCF Service(s); however, I cannot seem to get the Windows credentials passed into the services. My custom WCF service appears to be using Anonymous authentication (which has to be enabled in IIS in order to display the FBA login screen). The example I have tried to follow is found at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff521581.aspx. The WCF service gets deployed to _vti_bin (ISAPI folder). Here is the code for the .svc file <%@ ServiceHost Language="C#" Debug="true" Service="MyCompany.CustomerPortal.SharePoint.UI.ISAPI.MyCompany.Services.LibraryManagers.LibraryUploader, $SharePoint.Project.AssemblyFullName$" Factory="Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Services.MultipleBaseAddressBasicHttpBindingServiceHostFactory, Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ServerRuntime, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" CodeBehind="LibraryUploader.svc.cs" %> Here is the code behind for the .svc file [ServiceContract] public interface ILibraryUploader { [OperationContract] string SiteName(); } [BasicHttpBindingServiceMetadataExchangeEndpoint] [AspNetCompatibilityRequirements(RequirementsMode = AspNetCompatibilityRequirementsMode.Required)] public class LibraryUploader : ILibraryUploader { //just try to return site title right now… public string SiteName() { WindowsIdentity identity = ServiceSecurityContext.Current.WindowsIdentity; ClaimsIdentity claimsIdentity = new ClaimsIdentity(identity); return SPContext.Current.Web.Title; } } The WCF test client I have just to test it out (WPF app) uses the following code to call the WCF service... private void Button1Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) { BasicHttpBinding binding = new BasicHttpBinding(); binding.Security.Mode = BasicHttpSecurityMode.TransportCredentialOnly; binding.Security.Transport.ClientCredentialType = HttpClientCredentialType.Ntlm; EndpointAddress endpoint = new EndpointAddress( "http://dev.portal.data-image.local/_vti_bin/MyCompany.Services/LibraryManagers/LibraryUploader.svc"); LibraryUploaderClient libraryUploader = new LibraryUploaderClient(binding, endpoint); libraryUploader.ClientCredentials.Windows.AllowedImpersonationLevel = System.Security.Principal.TokenImpersonationLevel.Impersonation; MessageBox.Show(libraryUploader.SiteName()); } I am somewhat inexperienced with IIS security settings/configurations when it comes to Claims and trying to use both Windows and FBA. I am also inexperienced when it comes to WCF configurations for security. I usually develop internal biz apps and let Visual Studio decide what to use because security is rarely a concern.

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• Problems using FluentNHibernate + SQLite with .NET4?

  - by stiank81

  I have a WPF application running with VS2010 .Net3.5 using Nhibernate with FluentNHibernate + SQLite, and all works fine. Now I want to change to use .Net4, but this has turned into a more painful experience then I expected.. When setting up the connection a FluentConfigurationException is thrown from FluentConfiguration.BuildConfiguration saying: An invalid or incomplete configuration was used while creating a SessionFactory. Check PotentialReasons collection, and InnerException for more details. The inner exception gives us more information: Could not create the driver from NHibernate.Driver.SQLite20Driver, NHibernate, Version=2.1.2.4000, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=aa95f207798dfdb4. It has an InnerException again: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation. Which again has an InnerException: The IDbCommand and IDbConnection implementation in the assembly System.Data.SQLite could not be found. Ensure that the assembly System.Data.SQLite is located in the application directory or in the Global Assembly Cache. If the assembly is in the GAC, use element in the application configuration file to specify the full name of the assembly. Now - to me it sounds like it doesn't find System.Data.SQLite.dll, but I can't understand this. Everywhere this is referenced I have "Copy Local", and I have verified that it is in every build folder for projects using SQLite. I have also copied it manually to every Debug folder of the solution - without luck. Notes: This is exactly the same code that worked just fine before I upgraded to .Net4. I did see some x64 x86 mismatch problems earlier, but I have switched to use x86 as the target platform and for all referenced dlls. I have verified that all files in the Debug-folder are x86. I have tried the precompiled Fluent dlls, I have tried compiling myself, and I have compiled my own version of Fluent using .Net4. I see that there are also others that have seen this problem, but I haven't really seen any solution yet. After @devio's answer I tried adding a reference to the SQLite dll. This didn't change anything, but I hope I made it right though.. This is what I added to the root node of the app.config file: <runtime> <assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1"> <qualifyAssembly partialName="System.Data.SQLite" fullName="System.Data.SQLite, Version=1.0.60.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=db937bc2d44ff139" /> </assemblyBinding> </runtime> Anyone out there using Fluent with .Net4 and SQLite successfully? Help! I'm lost...

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• Asynchronous Silverlight 4 call to the World of Warcraft armoury streaming XML in C#

  - by user348446

  Hello - I have been stuck on this all weekend and failed miserably! Please help me to claw back my sanity!! Your challenge For my first Silverlight application I thought it would be fun to use the World of Warcraft armoury to list the characters in my guild. This involves making an asyncronous from Silverlight (duh!) to the WoW armoury which is XML based. SIMPLE EH? Take a look at this link and open the source. You'll see what I mean: http://eu.wowarmory.com/guild-info.xml?r=Eonar&n=Gifted and Talented Below is code for getting the XML (the call to ShowGuildies will cope with the returned XML - I have tested this locally and I know it works). I have not managed to get the expected returned XML at all. Notes: If the browser is capable of transforming the XML it will do so, otherwise HTML will be provided. I think it examines the UserAgent I am a seasoned asp.net web developer C# so go easy if you start talking about native to Windows Forms / WPF I can't seem to set the UserAgent setting in .net 4.0 - doesn't seem to be a property off the HttpWebRequest object for some reason - i think it used to be available. Silverlight 4.0 (created as 3.0 originally before I updated my installation of Silverlight to 4.0) Created using C# 4.0 Please explain as if you talking to a web developer and not a proper programming lol! Below is the code - it should return the XML from the wow armoury. private void button7_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) { // URL for armoury lookup string url = @"http://eu.wowarmory.com/guild-info.xml?r=Eonar&n=Gifted and Talented"; // Create the web request HttpWebRequest httpWebRequest = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(url); // Set the user agent so we are returned XML and not HTML //httpWebRequest.Headers["User-Agent"] = "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0)"; // Not sure about this dispatcher thing - it's late so i have started to guess. Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(delegate() { // Call asyncronously IAsyncResult asyncResult = httpWebRequest.BeginGetResponse(ReqCallback, httpWebRequest); // End the response and use the result using (HttpWebResponse httpWebResponse = (HttpWebResponse)httpWebRequest.EndGetResponse(asyncResult)) { // Load an XML document from a stream XDocument x = XDocument.Load(httpWebResponse.GetResponseStream()); // Basic function that will use LINQ to XML to get the list of characters. ShowGuildies(x); } }); } private void ReqCallback(IAsyncResult asynchronousResult) { // Not sure what to do here - maybe update the interface? } Really hope someone out there can help me! Thanks mucho! Dan. PS Yes, I have noticed the irony in the name of the guild :)

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• Web-Frameworks for Education Management Systems?

  - by Indebi

  So, I'm working on an idea and I'll go into a brief overview of that but my question is, What are some good web frameworks for this situation? I have some experience in the following languages: C# Python I have considerably more experience in C# than Python, however I am expecting to learn new things. My idea is this, a completely web-based community-oriented Education Management System that focuses on making students and teachers day-to-day lives easier. For students it will provide a centralized place for them to do homework, study for tests, and reinforce concepts learned previously in class. For teachers it will give them a centralized place to handle assignments, attendance, homework, tests, and all other major parts of classroom management. All of that, but in a community-oriented fashion. Everything a teacher does is shared and open to constructive criticism, allowing other teachers to use their assignments/tests and for students or other teachers to comment, rate and criticize their assignments. This encourages an environment of openness that will allow teacher's to focus on teaching and student's to focus on learning. And that community wouldn't be limited to one school or school-district, this system would be completely school-independent. Please note that I have no problem with hearing constructive criticism on this idea, however I would prefer if this post was more focused on my question. I have somewhat explored about the following options: Django ASP.NET Ruby on Rails Silverlight (1) I have Django installed and I played with it for a little bit, I really like how easy setting up databases are and how it handles the database completely for you. I don't really know how to use it very well and I don't quite understand the Model-View-Controller paradigm(?) for it yet but I haven't thought about it much. I also like the fact that it uses Python. (2) I don't really like Visual Studio for developing in ASP.NET, I hate the way the web-designer works and it just feels clunky and old. I like the server-side development part though. I don't like how expensive ASP.NET and overall Visual Studio is, even if I do get it for free for now using DreamSpark (3) I haven't been able to explore much with this, I could not get Rails (or maybe Ruby) properly installed. I first installed it within RadRails and that didn't work so I uninstalled RadRails and then installed the latest version of Ruby off the official Windows Installer and then installed Ruby on Rails through gem and even after all that it still didn't work, so I installed Netbeans and attempted to use it there but it still did not work (4) I like Silverlight in some extents, I've played with this one the most, it's very similar to WPF (which I've used the most) in a lot of ways but I don't like how database connectivity works, at least in comparison to Django. I also dislike how expensive everything with Microsoft is, even if I get it for free for now with DreamSpark. I would like to hear some suggestions from experienced web-developers as to what I should use and why, or at least what some good options are for my scenario Your help would be very appreciated

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• How to communicate between Client and Server in a Client-Server Application?

  - by Sanoj

  I would like to implement an Client-Server Application, where the business-logic, security validations and a database are at the server and the user interface are at the client. I would like to implement clients in different languages i.e. one in WPF/.NET, one Swing/Java , one in Android/Java and maybe one HTML/JavaScript client. The server will be on Internet, so I would like to be able to have encrypted communication. The client will send some lists of items to be added to the database, or update items, and do some transactions. The server will check if the items are already updated by another client, or update the item, add new items or delete items. How do I solve the communication between clients and the server in such a system? I have been thinking about: http/https webserver, and sending messages in JSON or XML and use Web Sockets for bi-directional communication. Use http in a RESTful way, except when WebSockets are needed. But I guess there are better solutions for native desktop applications than http? CORBA - I have just heard about it, and it's old and complex. Not much talk about it these days. XMPP/Jabber - I have just heard about it and I don't know if it fits me at all. EJabberd seams to be a popular implementation. AMQP - I have just heard about it and I don't know if it fits me at all. RabbitMQ seams to be a popular implementation. Windows Communication Foundation, Java RMI, Java Message Service - but are they language independent? I guess some of these alternatives are on different levels, maybe I can have i.e xmpp or amqp in web sockets over https? What technologys are used for this problem in companies today? and what is recommended to use? I have no experience of them other than webservers and http. Please give me some guidance in this jungle. What are the pros and cons of these technologies in my situation?

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• How to combine designable components with dependency injection

  - by Wim Coenen

  When creating a designable .NET component, you are required to provide a default constructor. From the IComponent documentation: To be a component, a class must implement the IComponent interface and provide a basic constructor that requires no parameters or a single parameter of type IContainer. This makes it impossible to do dependency injection via constructor arguments. (Extra constructors could be provided, but the designer would ignore them.) Some alternatives we're considering: Service Locator Don't use dependency injection, instead use the service locator pattern to acquire dependencies. This seems to be what IComponent.Site.GetService is for. I guess we could create a reusable ISite implementation (ConfigurableServiceLocator?) which can be configured with the necessary dependencies. But how does this work in a designer context? Dependency Injection via properties Inject dependencies via properties. Provide default instances if they are necessary to show the component in a designer. Document which properties need to be injected. Inject dependencies with an Initialize method This is much like injection via properties but it keeps the list of dependencies that need to be injected in one place. This way the list of required dependencies is documented implicitly, and the compiler will assists you with errors when the list changes. Any idea what the best practice is here? How do you do it? edit: I have removed "(e.g. a WinForms UserControl)" since I intended the question to be about components in general. Components are all about inversion of control (see section 8.3.1 of the UMLv2 specification) so I don't think that "you shouldn't inject any services" is a good answer. edit 2: It took some playing with WPF and the MVVM pattern to finally "get" Mark's answer. I see now that visual controls are indeed a special case. As for using non-visual components on designer surfaces, I think the .NET component model is fundamentally incompatible with dependency injection. It appears to be designed around the service locator pattern instead. Maybe this will start to change with the infrastructure that was added in .NET 4.0 in the System.ComponentModel.Composition namespace.

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