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• C#/.NET Project - Am I setting things up correctly?

  - by JustLooking

  1st solution located: \Common\Controls\Controls.sln and its project: \Common\Controls\Common.Controls\Common.Controls.csproj Description: This is a library that contains this class: public abstract class OurUserControl : UserControl { // Variables and other getters/setters common to our UserControls } 2nd solution located: \AControl\AControl.sln and its project: \AControl\AControl\AControl.csproj Description: Of the many forms/classes, it will contain this class: using Common.Controls; namespace AControl { public partial class AControl : OurUserControl { // The implementation } } A note about adding references (not sure if this is relevant): When I add references (for projects I create), using the names above: 1. I add Common.Controls.csproj to AControl.sln 2. In AControl.sln I turn off the build of Common.Controls.csproj 3. I add the reference to Common.Controls (by project) to AControl.csproj. This is the (easiest) way I know how to get Debug versions to match Debug References, and Release versions to match Release References. Now, here is where the issue lies (the 3rd solution/project that actually utilizes the UserControl): 3rd solution located: \MainProj\MainProj.sln and its project: \MainProj\MainProj\MainProj.csproj Description: Here's a sample function in one of the classes: private void TestMethod<T>() where T : Common.Controls.OurUserControl, new() { T TheObject = new T(); TheObject.OneOfTheSetters = something; TheObject.AnotherOfTheSetters = something_else; // Do stuff with the object } We might call this function like so: private void AnotherMethod() { TestMethod<AControl.AControl>(); } This builds, runs, and works. No problem. The odd thing is after I close the project/solution and re-open it, I have red squigglies everywhere. I bring up my error list and I see tons of errors (anything that deals with AControl will be noted as an error). I'll see errors such as: The type 'AControl.AControl' cannot be used as type parameter 'T' in the generic type or method 'MainProj.MainClass.TestMethod()'. There is no implicit reference conversion from 'AControl.AControl' to 'Common.Controls.OurUserControl'. or inside the actual method (the properties located in the abstract class): 'AControl.AControl' does not contain a definition for 'OneOfTheSetters' and no extension method 'OneOfTheSetters' accepting a first argument of type 'AControl.AControl' could be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?) Meanwhile, I can still build and run the project (then the red squigglies go away until I re-open the project, or close/re-open the file). It seems to me that I might be setting up the projects incorrectly. Thoughts?

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• Setting default values for inherited property without using accessor in Objective-C?

  - by Ben Stock

  I always see people debating whether or not to use a property's setter in the -init method. I don't know enough about the Objective-C language yet to have an opinion one way or the other. With that said, lately I've been sticking to ivars exclusively. It seems cleaner in a way. I don't know. I digress. Anyway, here's my problem … Say we have a class called Dude with an interface that looks like this: @interface Dude : NSObject { @private NSUInteger _numberOfGirlfriends; } @property (nonatomic, assign) NSUInteger numberOfGirlfriends; @end And an implementation that looks like this: @implementation Dude - (instancetype)init { self = [super init]; if (self) { _numberOfGirlfriends = 0; } } @end Now let's say I want to extend Dude. My subclass will be called Playa. And since a playa should have mad girlfriends, when Playa gets initialized, I don't want him to start with 0; I want him to have 10. Here's Playa.m: @implementation Playa - (instancetype)init { self = [super init]; if (self) { // Attempting to set the ivar directly will result in the compiler saying, // "Instance variable `_numberOfGirlfriends` is private." // _numberOfGirlfriends = 10; <- Can't do this. // Thus, the only way to set it is with the mutator: self.numberOfGirlfriends = 10; // Or: [self setNumberOfGirlfriends:10]; } } @end So what's a Objective-C newcomer to do? Well, I mean, there's only one thing I can do, and that's set the property. Unless there's something I'm missing. Any ideas, suggestions, tips, or tricks? Sidenote: The other thing that bugs me about setting the ivar directly — and what a lot of ivar-proponents say is a "plus" — is that there are no KVC notifications. A lot of times, I want the KVC magic to happen. 50% of my setters end in [self setNeedsDisplay:YES], so without the notification, my UI doesn't update unless I remember to manually add -setNeedsDisplay. That's a bad example, but the point stands. I utilize KVC all over the place, so without notifications, things can act wonky. Anyway, any info is much appreciated. Thanks!

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• Is there a way to keep track of the ordering of items in a dictionary?

  - by Corpsekicker

  I have a Dictionary<Guid, ElementViewModel>. (ElementViewModel is our own complex type.) I add items to the dictionary with a stock standard items.Add(Guid.NewGuid, new ElementViewModel() { /*setters go here*/ });, At a later stage I remove some or all of these items. A simplistic view of my ElementViewModel is this: class ElementViewModel { Guid Id { get; set; } string Name { get; set; } int SequenceNo { get; set; } } It may be significant to mention that the SequenceNos are compacted within the collection after adding, in case other operations like moving and copying took place. {1, 5, 6} - {1, 2, 3} A simplistic view of my remove operation is: public void RemoveElementViewModel(IEnumerable<ElementViewModel> elementsToDelete) { foreach (var elementViewModel in elementsToDelete) items.Remove(elementViewModel.Id); CompactSequenceNumbers(); } I will illustrate the problem with an example: I add 3 items to the dictionary: var newGuid = Guid.NewGuid(); items.Add(newGuid, new MineLayoutElementViewModel { Id = newGuid, SequenceNo = 1, Name = "Element 1" }); newGuid = Guid.NewGuid(); items.Add(newGuid, new MineLayoutElementViewModel { Id = newGuid, SequenceNo = 2, Name = "Element 2" }); newGuid = Guid.NewGuid(); items.Add(newGuid, new MineLayoutElementViewModel { Id = newGuid, SequenceNo = 3, Name = "Element 3" }); I remove 2 items RemoveElementViewModel(new List<ElementViewModel> { item2, item3 }); //imagine I had them cached somewhere. Now I want to add 2 other items: newGuid = Guid.NewGuid(); items.Add(newGuid, new MineLayoutElementViewModel { Id = newGuid, SequenceNo = 2, Name = "Element 2, Part 2" }); newGuid = Guid.NewGuid(); items.Add(newGuid, new MineLayoutElementViewModel { Id = newGuid, SequenceNo = 3, Name = "Element 3, Part 2" }); On evaluation of the dictionary at this point, I expected the order of items to be "Element 1", "Element 2, Part 2", "Element 3, Part 2" but it is actually in the following order: "Element 1", "Element 3, Part 2", "Element 2, Part 2" I rely on the order of these items to be a certain way. Why is it not as expected and what can I do about it?

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• Flex DataGrid not Displaying Data

  - by asawilliams

  I have a custom dataGrid that acts more like a 2D list (if that makes sense at all). I am dynamically creating the columns and recreating the dataProvider to suit my needs. While debugging I can see that I am creating the columns and setting them to the dataGrid and creating and setting the dataProvider, but for some reason I am able to see the dataGrid and the columns but not the data. [Bindable] private var mockData:ArrayCollection = new ArrayCollection([ {value: "425341*"}, {value: "425341*"}, {value: "425341*"}, {value: "425341*"}, {value: "425341*"}, {value: "425341*"}, {value: "425341*"}, {value: "425341*"}, {value: "425341*"}]); ... <TwoDimensionalList width="100%" height="100%" numColumns="7" numRows="7" dataField="value" dataProvider="{mockData}"/> The snippet of code from the object only contains the important functions, everything else is not important (getters, setters, etc ...). While debugging I checked all the variables in the functions to make sure they were assigned and a value that I was expecting. [Snippet] public class TwoDimensionalList extends DataGrid { ... /** * Creates and sets properties of columns */ private function createColumns():void { var column:DataGridColumn; var cols:Array = this.columns; for(var i:uint=0; i < numColumns; i++) { column = new DataGridColumn("column"+i.toString()); column.dataField = "column"+i.toString(); cols[i]=column; } this.columns = cols; // go to the current gotoPage(this._currentPageNum); } /** * Sets the data for the dataprovider based on the * number of columns, rows, and page number. * * @param pageNum the page number of the data to be viewed in the DataGrids. */ private function gotoPage(pageNum:uint):void { _currentPageNum = pageNum; var startIndex:uint = (pageNum-1)*numColumns*numRows; var data:ArrayCollection = new ArrayCollection(); for(var i:uint=0; i < numRows; i++) { var obj:Object = new Object(); for(var j:uint=0; j < numColumns; j++) { if((i+(j*numRows)+startIndex) < _dataProvider.length) obj["column"+j.toString()] = String(_dataProvider.getItemAt(i+(j*numRows)+startIndex)["value"]); } data.addItem(obj); } this.dataProvider = data; } }

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• Hibernate Persistence problems with Bean Mapping (Dozer)

  - by BuffaloBuffalo

  I am using Hibernate 3, and having a particular issue when persisting a new Entity which has an association with an existing detached entity. Easiest way to explain this is via code samples. I have two entities, FooEntity and BarEntity, of which a BarEntity can be associated with many FooEntity: @Entity public class FooEntity implements Foo{ @Id private Long id; @ManyToOne(targetEntity = BarEntity.class) @JoinColumn(name = "bar_id", referencedColumnName = "id") @Cascade(value={CascadeType.ALL}) private Bar bar; } @Entity public class BarEntity implements Bar{ @Id private Long id; @OneToMany(mappedBy = "bar", targetEntity = FooEntity.class) private Set<Foo> foos; } Foo and Bar are interfaces that loosely define getters for the various fields. There are corresponding FooImpl and BarImpl classes that are essentially just the entity objects without the annotations. What I am trying to do is construct a new instance of FooImpl, and persist it after setting a number of fields. The new Foo instance will have its 'bar' member set to an existing Bar (runtime being a BarEntity) from the database (retrieved via session.get(..)). After the FooImpl has all of its properties set, Apache Dozer is used to map between the 'domain' object FooImpl and the Entity FooEntity. What Dozer is doing in the background is instantiating a new FooEntity and setting all of the matching fields. BarEntity is cloned as well via instantiation and set the FooEntity's 'bar' member. After this occurs, passing the new FooEntity object to persist. This throws the exception: org.hibernate.PersistentObjectException: detached entity passed to persist: com.company.entity.BarEntity Below is in code the steps that are occurring FooImpl foo = new FooImpl(); //returns at runtime a persistent BarEntity through session.get() Bar bar = BarService.getBar(1L); foo.setBar(bar); ... //This constructs a new instance of FooEntity, with a member 'bar' which itself is a new instance that is detached) FooEntity entityToPersist = dozerMapper.map(foo, FooEntity.class); ... session.persist(entityToPersist); I have been able to resolve this issue by either removing or changing the @Cascade annotation, but that limits future use for say adding a new Foo with a new Bar attached to it already. Is there some solution here I am missing? I would be surprised if this issue hasn't been solved somewhere before, either by altering how Dozer Maps the children of Foo or how Hibernate reacts to a detached Child Entity.

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• Property trigger in XAML for IsMouseOver fails to set Border.Background

  - by Mal Ross

  I'm currently trying to create a ControlTemplate for the Button class in WPF, replacing the usual visual tree with something that makes the button look similar to the little (X) close icon on Google Chrome's tabs. I decided to use a Path object in XAML to achieve the effect. Using a property trigger, the control responds to a change in the IsMouseOver property by setting the icon's red background. Here's the XAML from a test app: <Window x:Class="Widgets.Window1" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" Title="Window1" Height="300" Width="300"> <Window.Resources> <Style x:Key="borderStyle" TargetType="Border"> <Style.Triggers> <Trigger Property="IsMouseOver" Value="True"> <Setter Property="Background"> <Setter.Value> <SolidColorBrush Color="#CC0000"/> </Setter.Value> </Setter> </Trigger> </Style.Triggers> </Style> <ControlTemplate x:Key="closeButtonTemplate" TargetType="Button"> <Border Width="12" Height="12" CornerRadius="6" BorderBrush="#AAAAAA" Background="Transparent" Style="{StaticResource borderStyle}" ToolTip="Close"> <Viewbox Margin="2.75"> <Path Data="M 0,0 L 10,10 M 0,10 L 10,0" Stroke="{Binding BorderBrush, RelativeSource={RelativeSource FindAncestor, AncestorType=Border, AncestorLevel=1}}" StrokeThickness="1.8"/> </Viewbox> </Border> </ControlTemplate> </Window.Resources> <Grid Background="White"> <Button Template="{StaticResource closeButtonTemplate}"/> </Grid> </Window> Note that the circular background is always there - it's just transparent when the mouse isn't over it. The problem with this is that the trigger just isn't working. Nothing changes in the button's appearance. However, if I remove the Background="Transparent" value from the Border object in the ControlTemplate, the trigger does work (albeit only when over the 'X'). I really can't explain this. Setters for any other properties placed in the borderStyle resource work fine, but the Background setter fails as soon as the default background is specified in the ControlTemplate. Any ideas why it's happening and how I can fix it? I know I could easily replace this code with, for example, a .PNG-based image, but I want to understand why the current implementation isn't working. Thanks! :)

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• Validation in Silverlight

  - by Timmy Kokke

  Getting started with the basics Validation in Silverlight can get very complex pretty easy. The DataGrid control is the only control that does data validation automatically, but often you want to validate your own entry form. Values a user may enter in this form can be restricted by the customer and have to fit an exact fit to a list of requirements or you just want to prevent problems when saving the data to the database. Showing a message to the user when a value is entered is pretty straight forward as I’ll show you in the following example.     This (default) Silverlight textbox is data-bound to a simple data class. It has to be bound in “Two-way” mode to be sure the source value is updated when the target value changes. The INotifyPropertyChanged interface must be implemented by the data class to get the notification system to work. When the property changes a simple check is performed and when it doesn’t match some criteria an ValidationException is thrown. The ValidatesOnExceptions binding attribute is set to True to tell the textbox it should handle the thrown ValidationException. Let’s have a look at some code now. The xaml should contain something like below. The most important part is inside the binding. In this case the Text property is bound to the “Name” property in TwoWay mode. It is also told to validate on exceptions. This property is false by default.   <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal"> <TextBox Width="150" x:Name="Name" Text="{Binding Path=Name, Mode=TwoWay, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}"/> <TextBlock Text="Name"/> </StackPanel>   The data class in this first example is a very simplified person class with only one property: string Name. The INotifyPropertyChanged interface is implemented and the PropertyChanged event is fired when the Name property changes. When the property changes a check is performed to see if the new string is null or empty. If this is the case a ValidationException is thrown explaining that the entered value is invalid.   public class PersonData:INotifyPropertyChanged { private string _name; public string Name { get { return _name; } set { if (_name != value) { if(string.IsNullOrEmpty(value)) throw new ValidationException("Name is required"); _name = value; if (PropertyChanged != null) PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs("Name")); } } } public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged=delegate { }; } The last thing that has to be done is letting binding an instance of the PersonData class to the DataContext of the control. This is done in the code behind file. public partial class Demo1 : UserControl { public Demo1() { InitializeComponent(); this.DataContext = new PersonData() {Name = "Johnny Walker"}; } }   Error Summary In many cases you would have more than one entry control. A summary of errors would be nice in such case. With a few changes to the xaml an error summary, like below, can be added.           First, add a namespace to the xaml so the control can be used. Add the following line to the header of the .xaml file. xmlns:Controls="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Controls;assembly=System.Windows.Controls.Data.Input"   Next, add the control to the layout. To get the result as in the image showed earlier, add the control right above the StackPanel from the first example. It’s got a small margin to separate it from the textbox a little.   <Controls:ValidationSummary Margin="8"/>   The ValidationSummary control has to be notified that an ValidationException occurred. This can be done with a small change to the xaml too. Add the NotifyOnValidationError to the binding expression. By default this value is set to false, so nothing would be notified. Set the property to true to get it to work.   <TextBox Width="150" x:Name="Name" Text="{Binding Name, Mode=TwoWay, ValidatesOnExceptions=True, NotifyOnValidationError=True}"/>   Data annotation Validating data in the setter is one option, but not my personal favorite. It’s the easiest way if you have a single required value you want to check, but often you want to validate more. Besides, I don’t consider it best practice to write logic in setters. The way used by frameworks like WCF Ria Services is the use of attributes on the properties. Instead of throwing exceptions you have to call the static method ValidateProperty on the Validator class. This call stays always the same for a particular property, not even when you change the attributes on the property. To mark a property “Required” you can use the RequiredAttribute. This is what the Name property is going to look like:   [Required] public string Name { get { return _name; } set { if (_name != value) { Validator.ValidateProperty(value, new ValidationContext(this, null, null){ MemberName = "Name" }); _name = value; if (PropertyChanged != null) PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs("Name")); } } }   The ValidateProperty method takes the new value for the property and an instance of ValidationContext. The properties passed to the constructor of the ValidationContextclass are very straight forward. This part is the same every time. The only thing that changes is the MemberName property of the ValidationContext. Property has to hold the name of the property you want to validate. It’s the same value you provide the PropertyChangedEventArgs with. The System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotation contains eight different validation attributes including a base class to create your own. They are: RequiredAttribute Specifies that a value must be provided. RangeAttribute The provide value must fall in the specified range. RegularExpressionAttribute Validates is the value matches the regular expression. StringLengthAttribute Checks if the number of characters in a string falls between a minimum and maximum amount. CustomValidationAttribute Use a custom method to validate the value. DataTypeAttribute Specify a data type using an enum or a custom data type. EnumDataTypeAttribute Makes sure the value is found in a enum. ValidationAttribute A base class for custom validation attributes All of these will ensure that an validation exception is thrown, except the DataTypeAttribute. This attribute is used to provide some additional information about the property. You can use this information in your own code.   [Required] [Range(0,125,ErrorMessage = "Value is not a valid age")] public int Age {   It’s no problem to stack different validation attributes together. For example, when an Age is required and must fall in the range from 0 to 125:   [Required, StringLength(255,MinimumLength = 3)] public string Name {   Or in one row like this, for a required Name with at least 3 characters and a maximum of 255:   Delayed validation Having properties marked as required can be very useful. The only downside to the technique described earlier is that you have to change the value in order to get it validated. What if you start out with empty an empty entry form? All fields are empty and thus won’t be validated. With this small trick you can validate at the moment the user click the submit button.   <TextBox Width="150" x:Name="NameField" Text="{Binding Name, Mode=TwoWay, ValidatesOnExceptions=True, NotifyOnValidationError=True, UpdateSourceTrigger=Explicit}"/>   By default, when a TwoWay bound control looses focus the value is updated. When you added validation like I’ve shown you earlier, the value is validated. To overcome this, you have to tell the binding update explicitly by setting the UpdateSourceTrigger binding property to Explicit:   private void SubmitButtonClick(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) { NameField.GetBindingExpression(TextBox.TextProperty).UpdateSource(); }   This way, the binding is in two direction but the source is only updated, thus validated, when you tell it to. In the code behind you have to call the UpdateSource method on the binding expression, which you can get from the TextBox.   Conclusion Data validation is something you’ll probably want on almost every entry form. I always thought it was hard to do, but it wasn’t. If you can throw an exception you can do validation. If you want to know anything more in depth about something I talked about in this article let me know. I might write an entire post to that.

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• Day 2 - Game Design Documentation

  - by dapostolov

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

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• B2B and B2C Commerce are alike… but a little different – Oracle Commerce named Leader in Forrester B2B Commerce Wave

  - by Katrina Gosek

  We weren’t surprised to see Oracle Commerce positioned as a Leader in Forrester’s first Commerce Wave focused on B2B, released earlier this month. The reports validates much of what we’ve heard from our largest customers – the world’s largest distribution, manufacturing and high-tech customers who sell billions of dollars of goods and services to other businesses through their Web channels. More importantly, the report confirms something very important: B2B and B2C Commerce are alike… but a little different. B2B and B2C Commerce are alike… Clearly, B2C experiences have set expectations for B2B. Every B2B buyer is a consumer at home and brings the same expectations to a website selling electronic components, aftermarket parts, or MRO products. Forrester calls these rich consumer-based capabilities that help B2B customers do their jobs “table stakes”: search & navigation, promotions, cross-channel commerce and mobile: “Whether they are just beginning to sell online or are in the late stages of launching a next-generation site, B2B eCommerce operations today must: offer a customer experience standard comparable to what leading b2c sites now offer; address the growing influence that mobile devices are having in the workplace; make a qualitative and quantitative business case that drives sustained investment.” Just five years ago, many of our B2B customers’ online business comprised only 5-10% of their total revenue. Today, when we speak to those same brands, we hear about double and triple digit growth in their online channels. Many have seen the percentage of the business they perform in their web channels cross the 30-50% threshold. You can hear first-hand from several Oracle Commerce B2B customers about the success they are seeing, and what they’re trying to accomplish (Carolina Biological, Premier Farnell, DeliXL, Elsevier). This momentum is likely the reason Forrester broke out the separate B2B Commerce Wave from the B2C Wave. In fact, B2B is becoming the larger force in commerce, expected to collect twice the online dollars of B2C this year ($559 billion). But a little different… Despite the similarities, there is a key and very important difference between B2C and B2B. Unlike a consumer shopping for shoes, a business shopper buying from a distributor or manufacturer is coming to the Web channel as a part of their job. So in addition to a rich, consumer-like experience this shopper expects, these B2B buyers need quoting tools and complex pricing capabilities, like eProcurement, bulk order entry, and other self-service tools such as account, contract and organization management.  Forrester also is emphasizing three additional “back-end” tools and capabilities their clients say they need to drive growth in their B2B online channels: i) product information management (PIM), which provides a single system of record for large part lists and product catalogs; ii) web content management (WCM), needed to manage large volumes of unstructured marketing information, and iii) order management systems (OMS), which manage and orchestrate the complex B2B order life cycle from quote through approval, submission to manufacturing, distribution and delivery.  We would like to expand on each of these 3 areas: As Forrester highlights, back-end PIM is definitely needed by B2B Commerce providers. Most B2B companies have made significant investments in enterprise-grade PIMs, given the importance of product data management for aggregation and syndication of content, product attribution, analytics, and handling of complex workflows. While in principle it may sound appealing to have a PIM as part of a commerce offering (especially for SMBs who have to do more with less), our customers have typically found that PIM in a commerce platform is largely redundant with what they already have in-place, and is not fully-featured or robust enough to handle the complexity of the product data sets that B2B distributors and manufacturers usually handle. To meet the PIM needs for commerce, Oracle offers enterprise PIM (Product Hub/Fusion PIM) and a robust enterprise data quality product (EDQP) integrated with the Oracle Commerce solution. These are key differentiators of our offering and these capabilities are becoming even more tightly integrated with Oracle Commerce over time. For Commerce, what customers really need is a robust product catalog and content management system for enabling business users to further enrich and ready catalog and content data to be presented and sold online.  This has been a significant area of investment in the Oracle Commerce platform , which continue to get stronger. We see this combination of capabilities as best meeting the needs of our customers for a commerce platform without adding a largely redundant, less functional PIM in the commerce front-end.   On the topic of web content management, we were pleased to see Forrester recognize Oracle’s unique functional capabilities in this area and the “unique opportunity in the market to lead the convergence of commerce and content management with the amalgamation of Oracle Commerce with WebCenter Sites (formally FatWire).” Strong content management capabilities are critical for distributors and manufacturers who are frequently serving an engineering audience coming to their websites to conduct product research in search of technical data sheets, drawings, videos and more. The convergence of content, commerce, and experience is critical for B2B brands selling online. Regarding order management, Forrester notes that many businesses use their existing back-end enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems to manage order life cycles.  We hear the same from most of our B2B customers, as they already have an ERP system—if not several of them—and are not interested in yet another one.  So what do we take away from the Wave results? Forrester notes that the Oracle Commerce Platform “has always had strong B2B commerce capabilities and Oracle has an exhaustive list of B2B customers using the solution.”  What makes us excited about developing leading B2B solutions are the close relationships with our customers and the clear opportunity in the market – which we’ll address in an exciting new release in the coming months. Oracle has one of the world’s largest B2B customer bases, providing leading solutions across key business-to-business functions – from marketing, sales automation, and service to master data management, and ERP.  To learn more about Oracle’s Commerce product vision and strategy, visit our website and check out these other B2B Commerce Resources: - 2013 B2B Commerce Trends Report - B2B Commerce Whitepaper: Consumerization, Complexity, Change - B2B Commerce Webcast: What Industry Trend Setters Do Right - Internet Retailer, Web Drives Sales for B2B Companies - Internet Retailer, The Web Means Business: B2B Companies Beef Up Their Websites, borrowing from b2c retailers and breaking new ground - Internet Retailer, B2B e-Commerce is poised for growth ----------THIS DOCUMENT IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY AND MAY NOT BE INCORPORATED INTO A CONTRACT OR AGREEMENT 

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• B2B and B2C alike… but a little different – Oracle Commerce named Leader in Forrester B2B Commerce Wave

  - by Katrina Gosek

  We weren’t surprised to see Oracle Commerce positioned as a Leader in Forrester Research, Inc.’s first Commerce Wave focused on B2B, “The Forrester Wave™: B2B Commerce Suites, Q4 2013,” released earlier this month. We believe that the report validates much of what we’ve heard from our largest customers – the world’s largest distribution, manufacturing and high-tech customers who sell billions of dollars of goods and services to other businesses through their Web channels. More importantly, we feel that the report confirms something very important: B2B and B2C Commerce are alike… but a little different. B2B and B2C Commerce are alike… Clearly, B2C experiences have set expectations for B2B. Every B2B buyer is a consumer at home and brings the same expectations to a website selling electronic components, aftermarket parts, or MRO products. Forrester calls these rich consumer-based capabilities that help B2B customers do their jobs “table stakes”: front-office content, community, and commerce features that meet customer expectations for 24x7x365 ordering, real-time customer service, and expedited shipping — both online and on mobile devices: “Whether they are just beginning to sell online or are in the late stages of launching a next-generation site, B2B eCommerce operations today must: offer a customer experience standard comparable to what leading b2c sites now offer; address the growing influence that mobile devices are having in the workplace; make a qualitative and quantitative business case that drives sustained investment.” Just five years ago, many of our B2B customers’ online business comprised only 5-10% of their total revenue. Today, when we speak to those same brands, we hear about double and triple digit growth in their online channels. Many have seen the percentage of the business they perform in their web channels cross the 30-50% threshold. You can hear first-hand from several Oracle Commerce B2B customers about the success they are seeing, and what they’re trying to accomplish (Carolina Biological, Premier Farnell, DeliXL, Elsevier). It seems that this market momentum is likely the reason Forrester broke out the separate B2B Commerce Wave from the B2C Wave. In fact, B2B is becoming the larger force in commerce, expected to collect twice the online dollars of B2C this year ($559 billion). But a little different… Despite the similarities, there is a key and very important difference between B2C and B2B. Unlike a consumer shopping for shoes, a business shopper buying from a distributor or manufacturer is coming to the Web channel as a part of their job. So in addition to a rich, consumer-like experience this shopper expects, these B2B buyers need quoting tools and complex pricing capabilities, like eProcurement, bulk order entry, and other self-service tools such as account, contract and organization management. Forrester also is emphasizing three additional “back-end” tools and capabilities their clients say they need to drive growth in their B2B online channels: i) product information management (PIM), which provides a single system of record for large part lists and product catalogs; ii) web content management (WCM), needed to manage large volumes of unstructured marketing information, and iii) order management systems (OMS), which manage and orchestrate the complex B2B order life cycle from quote through approval, submission to manufacturing, distribution and delivery. We would like to expand on each of these 3 areas: As Forrester suggests, back-end PIM is definitely needed by B2B Commerce providers. Most B2B companies have made significant investments in enterprise-grade PIMs, given the importance of product data management for aggregation and syndication of content, product attribution, analytics, and handling of complex workflows. While in principle it may sound appealing to have a PIM as part of a commerce offering (especially for SMBs who have to do more with less), our customers have typically found that PIM in a commerce platform is largely redundant with what they already have in-place, and is not fully-featured or robust enough to handle the complexity of the product data sets that B2B distributors and manufacturers usually handle. To meet the PIM needs for commerce, Oracle offers enterprise PIM (Product Hub/Fusion PIM) and a robust enterprise data quality product (EDQP) integrated with the Oracle Commerce solution. These are key differentiators of our offering and these capabilities are becoming even more tightly integrated with Oracle Commerce over time. For Commerce, what customers really need is a robust product catalog and content management system for enabling business users to further enrich and ready catalog and content data to be presented and sold online.  This has been a significant area of investment in the Oracle Commerce platform , which continue to get stronger. We see this combination of capabilities as best meeting the needs of our customers for a commerce platform without adding a largely redundant, less functional PIM in the commerce front-end.  On the topic of web content management, we were pleased to see Forrester cite Oracle’s differentiated digital experience capability in this area and the “unique opportunity in the market to lead the convergence of commerce and content management with the amalgamation of Oracle Commerce with WebCenter Sites (formally FatWire).” Strong content management capabilities are critical for distributors and manufacturers who are frequently serving an engineering audience coming to their websites to conduct product research in search of technical data sheets, drawings, videos and more. The convergence of content, commerce, and experience is critical for B2B brands selling online. Regarding order management, Forrester notes that many businesses use their existing back-end enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems to manage order life cycles.  We hear the same from most of our B2B customers, as they already have an ERP system—if not several of them—and are not interested in yet another one. So what do we take away from the Wave results? Forrester notes that the Oracle Commerce Platform “has always had strong B2B commerce capabilities and Oracle certainly has an exhaustive list of B2B customers using the solution.”  What makes us excited about developing leading B2B solutions are the close relationships with our customers and the clear opportunity in the market – which we'll address in an exciting new release planned for the next 12 months. Oracle has one of the world’s largest B2B customer bases, providing leading solutions across key business-to-business functions – from marketing, sales automation, and service to master data management, and ERP. To learn more about Oracle’s Commerce product vision and strategy, visit our website and check out these other B2B Commerce Resources: -       2013 B2B Commerce Trends Report -       B2B Commerce Whitepaper: Consumerization, Complexity, Change -       B2B Commerce Webcast: What Industry Trend Setters Do Right -       Internet Retailer, Web Drives Sales for B2B Companies -       Internet Retailer Article, The Web Means Business: B2B Companies Beef Up Their Websites,        borrowing from b2c retailers and breaking new ground -       Internet Retailer Article, B2B e-Commerce is poised for growth

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• Creating an ITemplate from a String

  - by Damon

  I do a lot of work with control templates, and one of the pieces of functionality that I've always wanted is the ability to build a ITemplate from a string.  Throughout the years, the topic has come up from time to time, and I never really found anything about how to do it. though I have run across a number of postings from people who are also wanting the same capability.  As I was messing around with things the other day, I stumbled on how to make it work and I feel really foolish for not figuring it out sooner. ITemplate is an interface that exposes a single method named InstantiateIn.  I've been searching for years for some magical .NET framework component that would take a string and convert it into an ITemplate, when all along I could just build my own.  Here's the code: /// <summary> ///   Allows string-based ITempalte implementations /// </summary> public class StringTemplate : ITemplate {     #region Constructor(s)     ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////     /// <summary>     ///   Constructor     /// </summary>     /// <param name="template">String based version of the control template.</param>     public StringTemplate(string template)     {         Template = template;     }     /// <summary>     ///   Constructor     /// </summary>     /// <param name="template">String based version of the control template.</param>     /// <param name="copyToContainer">True to copy intermediate container contents to the instantiation container, False to leave the intermediate container in place.</param>     public StringTemplate(string template, bool copyToContainer)     {         Template = template;         CopyToContainer = copyToContainer;     }     ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////     #endregion     #region Properties     ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////     /// <summary>     ///   String based template     /// </summary>     public string Template     {         get;         set;     }     /// <summary>     ///   When a StringTemplate is instantiated it is created inside an intermediate control     ///   due to limitations of the .NET Framework.  Specifying True for the CopyToContainer     ///   property copies all the controls from the intermediate container into instantiation     ///   container passed to the InstantiateIn method.     /// </summary>     public bool CopyToContainer     {         get;         set;     }     ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////     #endregion     #region ITemplate Members     ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////     /// <summary>     ///   Creates the template in the specified control.     /// </summary>     /// <param name="container">Control in which to make the template</param>     public void InstantiateIn(Control container)     {         Control tempContainer = container.Page.ParseControl(Template);         if (CopyToContainer)         {             for (int i = tempContainer.Controls.Count - 1; i >= 0; i--)             {                 Control tempControl = tempContainer.Controls[i];                 tempContainer.Controls.RemoveAt(i);                 container.Controls.AddAt(0, tempControl);             }                         }         else         {             container.Controls.Add(tempContainer);         }     }     ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////     #endregion } //class Converting a string into a user control is fairly easy using the ParseControl method from a Page object.  Fortunately, the container passed into the InstantiateIn method has a Page property.  One caveat, however, is that the Page property only has a reference to a Page if the container is located ON the page.  If you run into this problem, you may have to find a creative way to get the Page reference (you can add it to the constructor, store it in the request context, etc).  Another issue that I ran into is that the ParseControl creates a new control, parses the string template, places any controls defined in the template onto the new control it created, and returns that new control with the template on it.  You cannot pass in your own container. Adding this directly to the container provided as a parameter in the InstantiateIn means that you end up with an additional "level" in the control hierarchy.  To avoid this, I added code in that removes each control from the intermediate container and places it into the actual container.  I am not, however, sure about the performance penalty associated with moving a bunch of control from one place to another, nor am I completely sure if doing such a move completely screws something up if you have a code behind, etc.  It seems to work when it's just a template, but my testing was ever-so-slightly shy of thorough when it comes to other crazy scenarios.  As a catch-all, I added a Boolean property called CopyToContainer that allows you to turn the copying on or off depending on your desires and needs. Technorati Tags: .NET,ASP.NET,ITemplate,Development,C#,Custom Controls,Server Controls

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, July 02, 2013

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, July 02, 2013Popular ReleasesMastersign.Expressions: Mastersign.Expressions v0.4.2: added support for if(<cond>, <true-part>, <false-part>) fixed multithreading issue with rand() improved demo applicationNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog Module: NB_Store v2.3.6 Rel0: v2.3.6 Is now DNN6 and DNN7 compatible Important : During update this install with overwrite the menu.xml setting, if you have changed this then make a backup before you upgrade and reapply your changes after the upgrade. Please view the following documentation if you are installing and configuring this module for the first time System Requirements Skill requirements Downloads and documents Step by step guide to a working store Please ask all questions in the Discussions tab. Document.Editor: 2013.26: What's new for Document.Editor 2013.26: New Insert Chart Improved User Interface Minor Bug Fix's, improvements and speed upsWsus Package Publisher: Release V1.2.1307.01: Fix an issue in the UI, approvals are not shown correctly in the 'Report' tabDirectX Tool Kit: July 2013: July 1, 2013 VS 2013 Preview projects added and updates for DirectXMath 3.05 vectorcall Added use of sRGB WIC metadata for JPEG, PNG, and TIFF SaveToWIC functions updated with new optional setCustomProps parameter and error check with optional targetFormatCore Server 2012 Powershell Script Hyper-v Manager: new_root.zip: Verison 1.0JSON Toolkit: JSON Toolkit 4.1.736: Improved strinfigy performance New serializing feature New anonymous type support in constructorsDotNetNuke® IFrame: IFrame 04.05.00: New DNN6/7 Manifest file and Azure Compatibility.VidCoder: 1.5.2 Beta: Fixed crash on presets with an invalid bitrate.Gardens Point LEX: Gardens Point LEX version 1.2.1: The main distribution is a zip file. This contains the binary executable, documentation, source code and the examples. ChangesVersion 1.2.1 has new facilities for defining and manipulating character classes. These changes make the construction of large Unicode character classes more convenient. The runtime code for performing automaton backup has been re-implemented, and is now faster for scanners that need backup. Source CodeThe distribution contains a complete VS2010 project for the appli...ZXMAK2: Version 2.7.5.7: - fix TZX emulation (Bruce Lee, Zynaps) - fix ATM 16 colors for border - add memory module PROFI 512K; add PROFI V03 rom image; fix PROFI 3.XX configTwitter image Downloader: Twitter Image Downloader 2 with Installer: Application file with Install shield and Dot Net 4.0 redistributableUltimate Music Tagger: Ultimate Music Tagger 1.0.0.0: First release of Ultimate Music TaggerBlackJumboDog: Ver5.9.2: 2013.06.28 Ver5.9.2 (1) ??????????(????SMTP?????)?????????? (2) HTTPS???????????Outlook 2013 Add-In: Configuration Form: This new version includes the following changes: - Refactored code a bit. - Removing configuration from main form to gain more space to display items. - Moved configuration to separate form. You can click the little "gear" icon to access the configuration form (still very simple). - Added option to show past day appointments from the selected day (previous in time, that is). - Added some tooltips. You will have to uninstall the previous version (add/remove programs) if you had installed it ...Terminals: Version 3.0 - Release: Changes since version 2.0:Choose 100% portable or installed version Removed connection warning when running RDP 8 (Windows 8) client Fixed Active directory search Extended Active directory search by LDAP filters Fixed single instance mode when running on Windows Terminal server Merged usage of Tags and Groups Added columns sorting option in tables No UAC prompts on Windows 7 Completely new file persistence data layer New MS SQL persistence layer (Store data in SQL database)...NuGet: NuGet 2.6: Released June 26, 2013. Release notes: http://docs.nuget.org/docs/release-notes/nuget-2.6Python Tools for Visual Studio: 2.0 Beta: We’re pleased to announce the release of Python Tools for Visual Studio 2.0 Beta. Python Tools for Visual Studio (PTVS) is an open-source plug-in for Visual Studio which supports programming with the Python language. PTVS supports a broad range of features including CPython/IronPython, Edit/Intellisense/Debug/Profile, Cloud, HPC, IPython, and cross platform debugging support. For a quick overview of the general IDE experience, please watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuewiStN...Player Framework by Microsoft: Player Framework for Windows 8 and WP8 (v1.3 beta): Preview: New MPEG DASH adaptive streaming plugin for Windows Azure Media Services Preview: New Ultraviolet CFF plugin. Preview: New WP7 version with WP8 compatibility. (source code only) Source code is now available via CodePlex Git Misc bug fixes and improvements: WP8 only: Added optional fullscreen and mute buttons to default xaml JS only: protecting currentTime from returning infinity. Some videos would cause currentTime to be infinity which could cause errors in plugins expectin...AssaultCube Reloaded: 2.5.8: SERVER OWNERS: note that the default maprot has changed once again. Linux has Ubuntu 11.10 32-bit precompiled binaries and Ubuntu 10.10 64-bit precompiled binaries, but you can compile your own as it also contains the source. If you are using Mac or other operating systems, please wait while we continue to try to package for those OSes. Or better yet, try to compile it. If it fails, download a virtual machine. The server pack is ready for both Windows and Linux, but you might need to compi...New ProjectsALM Rangers DevOps Tooling and Guidance: Practical tooling and guidance that will enable teams to realize a faster deployment based on continuous feedback.Core Server 2012 Powershell Script Hyper-v Manager: Free core Server 2012 powershell scripts and batch files that replace the non-existent hyper-v manager, vmconnect and mstsc.Enhanced Deployment Service (EDS): EDS is a web service based utility designed to extend the deployment capabilities of administrators with the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit.ExtendedDialogBox: Libreria DialogBoxJazdy: This project is here only because we wanted to take advantage of a public git server.Mon Examen: This web interface is meant to make examinationsneet: summaryOrchard Multi-Choice Voting: A multiple choice voting Orchard module.Particle Swarm Optimization Solving Quadratic Assignment Problem: This project is submitted for the solving of QAP using PSO algorithms with addition of some modification Porjects: 23123123PPL Power Pack: PPL Power PackProperty Builder: Visual Studio tool for speeding up process of coding class properties getters and setters.RedRuler for Redline: I tried some on-screen rulers, none of them help me measure the UI element quickly based on the Redline. So I decided to created this handy RedRuler tool. Royale Living: Mahindra Royale Community PortalSearch and booking Hotel or Tours: Ð? án nghiên c?u c?a sinh viên tdt theo mô hình mvc 4SystemBuilder.Show: This tool is a helper after you create your project in visual studio to create the respective objects and interface. TalentDesk: new ptojectTcmplex: The Training Center teaches many different kind of course such as English, French, Computer hardware and computer softwareTFS Reporting Guide: Provides guidance and samples to enable TFS users to generate reports based on WIT data.Umbraco AdaptiveImages: Adaptive Images Package for UmbracoVirtualNet - A ILcode interpreter/emulator written in C++/Assembly: VirtualNet is a interpreter/emulator for running .net code in native without having to install the .Net FrameWorkVisual Blocks: Visual Blocks ????IDE ????? ??????? ????? ????/?? Visual Studio and Cloud Based Mobile Device Testing: Practical guidance enabling field to remove blockers to adoption and to use and extend the Perfecto Mobile Cloud Device testing within the context of VS.Windows 8 Time Picker for Windows Phone: A Windows Phone implementation of the Time Picker control found in the Windows 8.1 Alarms app.???? - SmallBasic?: ?????????

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• PASS: Election Changes for 2011

  - by Bill Graziano

  Last year after the election, the PASS Board created an Election Review Committee.  This group was charged with reviewing our election procedures and making suggestions to improve the process.  You can read about the formation of the group and review some of the intermediate work on the site – especially in the forums. I was one of the members of the group along with Joe Webb (Chair), Lori Edwards, Brian Kelley, Wendy Pastrick, Andy Warren and Allen White.  This group worked from October to April on our election process.  Along the way we: Interviewed interested parties including former NomCom members, Board candidates and anyone else that came forward. Held a session at the Summit to allow interested parties to discuss the issues Had numerous conference calls and worked through the various topics I can’t thank these people enough for the work they did.  They invested a tremendous number of hours thinking, talking and writing about our elections.  I’m proud to say I was a member of this group and thoroughly enjoyed working with everyone (even if I did finally get tired of all the calls.) The ERC delivered their recommendations to the PASS Board prior to our May Board meeting.  We reviewed those and made a few modifications.  I took their recommendations and rewrote them as procedures while incorporating those changes.  Their original recommendations as well as our final document are posted at the ERC documents page.  Please take a second and read them BEFORE we start the elections.  If you have any questions please post them in the forums on the ERC site. (My final document includes a change log at the end that I decided to leave in.  If you want to know which areas to pay special attention to that’s a good start.) Many of those recommendations were already posted in the forums or in the blogs of individual ERC members.  Hopefully nothing in the ERC document is too surprising. In this post I’m going to walk through some of the key changes and talk about what I remember from both ERC and Board discussions.  I’ll pay a little extra attention to things the Board changed from the ERC.  I’d also encourage any of the Board or ERC members to blog their thoughts on this. The Nominating Committee will continue to exist.  Personally, I was curious to see what the non-Board ERC members would think about the NomCom.  There was broad agreement that a group to vet candidates had value to the organization. The NomCom will be composed of five members.  Two will be Board members and three will be from the membership at large.  The only requirement for the three community members is that you’ve volunteered in some way (and volunteering is defined very broadly).  We expect potential at-large NomCom members to participate in a forum on the PASS site to answer questions from the other PASS members. We’re going to hold an election to determine the three community members.  It will be closer to voting for Summit sessions than voting for Board members.  That means there won’t be multiple dedicated emails.  If you’re at all paying attention it will be easy to participate.  Personally I wanted it easy for those that cared to participate but not overwhelm those that didn’t care.  I think this strikes a good balance. There’s also a clause that in order to be considered a winner in this NomCom election, you must receive 10 votes.  This is something I suggested.  I have no idea how popular the NomCom election is going to be.  I just wanted a fallback that if no one participated and some random person got in with one or two votes.  Any open slots will be filled by the NomCom chair (usually the PASS Immediate Past President).  My assumption is that they would probably take the next highest vote getters unless they were throwing flames in the forums or clearly unqualified.  As a final check, the Board still approves the final NomCom. The NomCom is going to rank candidates instead of rating them.  This has interesting implications.  This was championed by another ERC member and I’m hoping they write something about it.  This will really force the NomCom to make decisions between candidates.  You can’t just rate everyone a 3 and be done with it.  It may also make candidates appear further apart than they actually are.  I’m looking forward talking with the NomCom after this election and getting their feedback on this. The PASS Board added an option to remove a candidate with a unanimous vote of the NomCom.  This was primarily put in place to handle people that lied on their application or had a criminal background or some other unusual situation and we figured it out. We list an explicit goal of three candidate per open slot. We also wanted an easy way to find the NomCom candidate rankings from the ballot.  Hopefully this will satisfy those that want a broad candidate pool and those that want the NomCom to identify the most qualified candidates. The primary spokesperson for the NomCom is the committee chair.  After the issues around the election last year we didn’t have a good communication plan in place.  We should have and that was a failure on the part of the Board.  If there is criticism of the election this year I hope that falls squarely on the Board.  The community members of the NomCom shouldn’t be fielding complaints over the election process.  That said, the NomCom is ranking candidates and we are forcing them to rank some lower than others.  I’m sure you’ll each find someone that you think should have been ranked differently.  I also want to highlight one other change to the process that we started last year and isn’t included in these documents.  I think the candidate forums on the PASS site were tremendously helpful last year in helping people to find out more about candidates.  That gives our members a way to ask hard questions of the candidates and publicly see their answers. This year we have two important groups to fill.  The first is the NomCom.  We need three people from our membership to step up and fill this role.  It won’t be easy.  You will have to make subjective rankings of your fellow community members.  Your actions will be important in deciding who the future leaders of PASS will be.  There’s a 50/50 chance that one of the people you interview will be the President of PASS someday.  This is not a responsibility to be taken lightly. The second is the slate of candidates.  If you’ve ever thought about running for the Board this is the year.  We’ve never had nine candidates on the ballot before.  Your chance of making it through the NomCom are higher than in any previous year.  Unfortunately the more of you that run, the more of you that will lose in the election.  And hopefully that competition will mean more community involvement and better Board members for PASS. Is this the end of changes to the election process?  It isn’t.  Every year that I’ve been on the Board the election process has changed.  Some years there have been small changes and some years there have been large changes.  After this election we’ll look at how the process worked and decide what steps to take – just like we do every year.

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• Why do we (really) program to interfaces?

  - by Kyle Burns

  One of the earliest lessons I was taught in Enterprise development was "always program against an interface".  This was back in the VB6 days and I quickly learned that no code would be allowed to move to the QA server unless my business objects and data access objects each are defined as an interface and have a matching implementation class.  Why?  "It's more reusable" was one answer.  "It doesn't tie you to a specific implementation" a slightly more knowing answer.  And let's not forget the discussion ending "it's a standard".  The problem with these responses was that senior people didn't really understand the reason we were doing the things we were doing and because of that, we were entirely unable to realize the intent behind the practice - we simply used interfaces and had a bunch of extra code to maintain to show for it. It wasn't until a few years later that I finally heard the term "Inversion of Control".  Simply put, "Inversion of Control" takes the creation of objects that used to be within the control (and therefore a responsibility of) of your component and moves it to some outside force.  For example, consider the following code which follows the old "always program against an interface" rule in the manner of many corporate development shops: 1: ICatalog catalog = new Catalog(); 2: Category[] categories = catalog.GetCategories(); In this example, I met the requirement of the rule by declaring the variable as ICatalog, but I didn't hit "it doesn't tie you to a specific implementation" because I explicitly created an instance of the concrete Catalog object.  If I want to test the functionality of the code I just wrote I have to have an environment in which Catalog can be created along with any of the resources upon which it depends (e.g. configuration files, database connections, etc) in order to test my functionality.  That's a lot of setup work and one of the things that I think ultimately discourages real buy-in of unit testing in many development shops. So how do I test my code without needing Catalog to work?  A very primitive approach I've seen is to change the line the instantiates catalog to read: 1: ICatalog catalog = new FakeCatalog();   once the test is run and passes, the code is switched back to the real thing.  This obviously poses a huge risk for introducing test code into production and in my opinion is worse than just keeping the dependency and its associated setup work.  Another popular approach is to make use of Factory methods which use an object whose "job" is to know how to obtain a valid instance of the object.  Using this approach, the code may look something like this: 1: ICatalog catalog = CatalogFactory.GetCatalog();   The code inside the factory is responsible for deciding "what kind" of catalog is needed.  This is a far better approach than the previous one, but it does make projects grow considerably because now in addition to the interface, the real implementation, and the fake implementation(s) for testing you have added a minimum of one factory (or at least a factory method) for each of your interfaces.  Once again, developers say "that's too complicated and has me writing a bunch of useless code" and quietly slip back into just creating a new Catalog and chalking any test failures up to "it will probably work on the server". This is where software intended specifically to facilitate Inversion of Control comes into play.  There are many libraries that take on the Inversion of Control responsibilities in .Net and most of them have many pros and cons.  From this point forward I'll discuss concepts from the standpoint of the Unity framework produced by Microsoft's Patterns and Practices team.  I'm primarily focusing on this library because it questions about it inspired this posting. At Unity's core and that of most any IoC framework is a catalog or registry of components.  This registry can be configured either through code or using the application's configuration file and in the most simple terms says "interface X maps to concrete implementation Y".  It can get much more complicated, but I want to keep things at the "what does it do" level instead of "how does it do it".  The object that exposes most of the Unity functionality is the UnityContainer.  This object exposes methods to configure the catalog as well as the Resolve<T> method which is used to obtain an instance of the type represented by T.  When using the Resolve<T> method, Unity does not necessarily have to just "new up" the requested object, but also can track dependencies of that object and ensure that the entire dependency chain is satisfied. There are three basic ways that I have seen Unity used within projects.  Those are through classes directly using the Unity container, classes requiring injection of dependencies, and classes making use of the Service Locator pattern. The first usage of Unity is when classes are aware of the Unity container and directly call its Resolve method whenever they need the services advertised by an interface.  The up side of this approach is that IoC is utilized, but the down side is that every class has to be aware that Unity is being used and tied directly to that implementation. Many developers don't like the idea of as close a tie to specific IoC implementation as is represented by using Unity within all of your classes and for the most part I agree that this isn't a good idea.  As an alternative, classes can be designed for Dependency Injection.  Dependency Injection is where a force outside the class itself manipulates the object to provide implementations of the interfaces that the class needs to interact with the outside world.  This is typically done either through constructor injection where the object has a constructor that accepts an instance of each interface it requires or through property setters accepting the service providers.  When using dependency, I lean toward the use of constructor injection because I view the constructor as being a much better way to "discover" what is required for the instance to be ready for use.  During resolution, Unity looks for an injection constructor and will attempt to resolve instances of each interface required by the constructor, throwing an exception of unable to meet the advertised needs of the class.  The up side of this approach is that the needs of the class are very clearly advertised and the class is unaware of which IoC container (if any) is being used.  The down side of this approach is that you're required to maintain the objects passed to the constructor as instance variables throughout the life of your object and that objects which coordinate with many external services require a lot of additional constructor arguments (this gets ugly and may indicate a need for refactoring). The final way that I've seen and used Unity is to make use of the ServiceLocator pattern, of which the Patterns and Practices team has also provided a Unity-compatible implementation.  When using the ServiceLocator, your class calls ServiceLocator.Retrieve in places where it would have called Resolve on the Unity container.  Like using Unity directly, it does tie you directly to the ServiceLocator implementation and makes your code aware that dependency injection is taking place, but it does have the up side of giving you the freedom to swap out the underlying IoC container if necessary.  I'm not hugely concerned with hiding IoC entirely from the class (I view this as a "nice to have"), so the single biggest problem that I see with the ServiceLocator approach is that it provides no way to proactively advertise needs in the way that constructor injection does, allowing more opportunity for difficult to track runtime errors. This blog entry has not been intended in any way to be a definitive work on IoC, but rather as something to spur thought about why we program to interfaces and some ways to reach the intended value of the practice instead of having it just complicate your code.  I hope that it helps somebody begin or continue a journey away from being a "Cargo Cult Programmer".

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• Perl Scripts Seem to be Caching?

  - by Ben Liyanage

  I'm running a perl script via mod_perl with Apache. I am trying to parse parameters in a restful fashion (aka GET www.domain.com/rest.pl/Object/ID). If I specify the ID like this: GET www.domain.com/rest.pl/Object/1234 I will get object 1234 back as a result as expected. However, if I specify an incorrect hacked url like this GET www.domain.com/rest.pl/Object/123 I will also get back object 1234. I am pretty sure that the issue in this question is happening so I packaged up my method and invoked it from my core script out of the package. Even after that I am still seeing the threads returning seemingly cached data. One of the recommendations in the aforementioned article is to replace my with our. My impression from reading up on our vs my was that our is global and my is local. My assumption is the the local variable gets reinitialized each time. That said, like in my code example below I am resetting the variables each time with new values. Apache Perl Configuration is set up like this: PerlModule ModPerl::Registry <Directory /var/www/html/perl/> SetHandler perl-script PerlHandler ModPerl::Registry Options +ExecCGI </Directory> Here is the perl script getting invoked directly: #!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict; use warnings; use Rest; Rest::init(); Here is my package Rest. This file contains various functions for handling the rest requests. #!/usr/bin/perl -w package Rest; use strict; # Other useful packages declared here. our @EXPORT = qw( init ); our $q = CGI->new; sub GET($$) { my ($path, $code) = @_; return unless $q->request_method eq 'GET' or $q->request_method eq 'HEAD'; return unless $q->path_info =~ $path; $code->(); exit; } sub init() { eval { GET qr{^/ZonesByCustomer/(.+)$} => sub { Rest::Zone->ZonesByCustomer($1); } } } # packages must return 1 1; As a side note, I don't completely understand how this eval statement works, or what string is getting parsed by the qr command. This script was largely taken from this example for setting up a rest based web service with perl. I suspect it is getting pulled from that magical $_ variable, but I'm not sure if it is, or what it is getting populated with (clearly the query string or url, but it only seems to be part of it?). Here is my package Rest::Zone, which will contain the meat of the functional actions. I'm leaving out the specifics of how I'm manipulating the data because it is working and leaving this as an abstract stub. #!/usr/bin/perl -w package Rest::Zone; sub ZonesByCustomer($) { my ($className, $ObjectID) = @_; my $q = CGI->new; print $q->header(-status=>200, -type=>'text/xml',expires => 'now', -Cache_control => 'no-cache', -Pragma => 'no-cache'); my $objectXML = "<xml><object>" . $ObjectID . "</object></xml>"; print $objectXML; } # packages must return 1 1; What is going on here? Why do I keep getting stale or cached values?

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• Freezes (not crashes) with GCD, blocks and Core Data

  - by Lukasz

  I have recently rewritten my Core Data driven database controller to use Grand Central Dispatch to manage fetching and importing in the background. Controller can operate on 2 NSManagedContext's: NSManagedObjectContext *mainMoc instance variable for main thread. this contexts is used only by quick access for UI by main thread or by dipatch_get_main_queue() global queue. NSManagedObjectContext *bgMoc for background tasks (importing and fetching data for NSFetchedresultsController for tables). This background tasks are fired ONLY by user defined queue: dispatch_queue_t bgQueue (instance variable in database controller object). Fetching data for tables is done in background to not block user UI when bigger or more complicated predicates are performed. Example fetching code for NSFetchedResultsController in my table view controllers: -(void)fetchData{ dispatch_async([CDdb db].bgQueue, ^{ NSError *error = nil; [[self.fetchedResultsController fetchRequest] setPredicate:self.predicate]; if (self.fetchedResultsController && ![self.fetchedResultsController performFetch:&error]) { NSSLog(@"Unresolved error in fetchData %@", error); } if (!initial_fetch_attampted)initial_fetch_attampted = YES; fetching = NO; dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{ [self.table reloadData]; [self.table scrollRectToVisible:CGRectMake(0, 0, 100, 20) animated:YES]; }); }); } // end of fetchData function bgMoc merges with mainMoc on save using NSManagedObjectContextDidSaveNotification: - (void)bgMocDidSave:(NSNotification *)saveNotification { // CDdb - bgMoc didsave - merging changes with main mainMoc dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{ [self.mainMoc mergeChangesFromContextDidSaveNotification:saveNotification]; // Extra notification for some other, potentially interested clients [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] postNotificationName:DATABASE_SAVED_WITH_CHANGES object:saveNotification]; }); } - (void)mainMocDidSave:(NSNotification *)saveNotification { // CDdb - main mainMoc didSave - merging changes with bgMoc dispatch_async(self.bgQueue, ^{ [self.bgMoc mergeChangesFromContextDidSaveNotification:saveNotification]; }); } NSfetchedResultsController delegate has only one method implemented (for simplicity): - (void)controllerDidChangeContent:(NSFetchedResultsController *)controller { dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{ [self fetchData]; }); } This way I am trying to follow Apple recommendation for Core Data: 1 NSManagedObjectContext per thread. I know this pattern is not completely clean for at last 2 reasons: bgQueue not necessarily fires the same thread after suspension but since it is serial, it should not matter much (there is never 2 threads trying access bgMoc NSManagedObjectContext dedicated to it). Sometimes table view data source methods will ask NSFetchedResultsController for info from bgMoc (since fetch is done on bgQueue) like sections count, fetched objects in section count, etc.... Event with this flaws this approach works pretty well of the 95% of application running time until ... AND HERE GOES MY QUESTION: Sometimes, very randomly application freezes but not crashes. It does not response on any touch and the only way to get it back to live is to restart it completely (switching back to and from background does not help). No exception is thrown and nothing is printed to the console (I have Breakpoints set for all exception in Xcode). I have tried to debug it using Instruments (time profiles especially) to see if there is something hard going on on main thread but nothing is showing up. I am aware that GCD and Core Data are the main suspects here, but I have no idea how to track / debug this. Let me point out, that this also happens when I dispatch all the tasks to the queues asynchronously only (using dispatch_async everywhere). This makes me think it is not just standard deadlock. Is there any possibility or hints of how could I get more info what is going on? Some extra debug flags, Instruments magical tricks or build setting etc... Any suggestions on what could be the cause are very much appreciated as well as (or) pointers to how to implement background fetching for NSFetchedResultsController and background importing in better way.

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• Java Refuses to Start - Could not reserve enough space for object heap

  - by Randyaa

  Background We have a pool of aproximately 20 linux blades. Some are running Suse, some are running Redhat. ALL share NAS space which contains the following 3 folders: /NAS/app/java - a symlink that points to an installation of a Java JDK. Currently version 1.5.0_10 /NAS/app/lib - a symlink that points to a version of our application. /NAS/data - directory where our output is written All our machines have 2 processors (hyperthreaded) with 4gb of physical memory and 4gb of swap space. We limit the number of 'jobs' each machine can process at a given time to 6 (this number likely needs to change, but that does not enter into the current problem so please ignore it for the time being). Some of our jobs set a Max Heap size of 512mb, some others reserve a Max Heap size of 2048mb. Again, we realize we could go over our available memory if 6 jobs started on the same machine with the heap size set to 2048, but to our knowledge this has not yet occurred. The Problem Once and a while a Job will fail immediately with the following message: Error occurred during initialization of VM Could not reserve enough space for object heap Could not create the Java virtual machine. We used to chalk this up to too many jobs running at the same time on the same machine. The problem happened infrequently enough (MAYBE once a month) that we'd just restart it and everything would be fine. The problem has recently gotten much worse. All of our jobs which request a max heap size of 2048m fail immediately almost every time and need to get restarted several times before completing. We've gone out to individual machines and tried executing them manually with the same result. Debugging It turns out that the problem only exists for our SuSE boxes. The reason it has been happening more frequently is becuase we've been adding more machines, and the new ones are SuSE. 'cat /proc/version' on the SuSE boxes give us: Linux version 2.6.5-7.244-bigsmp (geeko@buildhost) (gcc version 3.3.3 (SuSE Linux)) #1 SMP Mon Dec 12 18:32:25 UTC 2005 'cat /proc/version' on the RedHat boxes give us: Linux version 2.4.21-32.0.1.ELsmp ([email protected]) (gcc version 3.2.3 20030502 (Red Hat Linux 3.2.3-52)) #1 SMP Tue May 17 17:52:23 EDT 2005 'uname -a' gives us the following on BOTH types of machines: UTC 2005 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux No jobs are running on the machine, and no other processes are utilizing much memory. All of the processes currently running might be using 100mb total. 'top' currently shows the following: Mem: 4146528k total, 3536360k used, 610168k free, 132136k buffers Swap: 4194288k total, 0k used, 4194288k free, 3283908k cached 'vmstat' currently shows the following: procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- --system-- ----cpu---- r b swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy id wa 0 0 0 610292 132136 3283908 0 0 0 2 26 15 0 0 100 0 If we kick off a job with the following command line (Max Heap of 1850mb) it starts fine: java/bin/java -Xmx1850M -cp helloworld.jar HelloWorld Hello World If we bump up the max heap size to 1875mb it fails: java/bin/java -Xmx1875M -cp helloworld.jar HelloWorld Error occurred during initialization of VM Could not reserve enough space for object heap Could not create the Java virtual machine. It's quite clear that the memory currently being used is for Buffering/Caching and that's why so little is being displayed as 'free'. What isn't clear is why there is a magical 1850mb line where anything higher means Java can't start. Any explanations would be greatly appreciated.

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• QGraphicsView and custom Cursors

  - by Etienne de Martel

  I am trying to make use of a mix of custom cursors and preset cursors for my QGraphicsView. In my implementation we have created a notion of "modes" for the view. Meaning that depending on what "mode" the user is in, different things will happen on the left-click, or left-click drag. Anyway, none of that is the problem, just the context. The problem arises when I try to change the cursor for each mode. For instance, for mode 1 we want to show the regular Arrow cursor, but for mode 2, we want to use a custom pixmap. Seemingly simple we call graphicsview->viewport()->setCursor(Qt::QArrowCursor)  when we are switching to mode 1, and graphicsview->viewport()->setCursor(our custom cursor) for mode 2. Except it doesn't work at all. Firstly, the cursor does not change to the custom cursor. That is the first problem. However, if through another operation the drag mode of the graphics view gets set to ScrollHandDrag, the cursor will switch to the custom cursor once the drag operation is complete. Weird. But the plot thickens... Once we switch to the custom cursor, it can never be changed back to the ArrorCursor no matter how many times we call setCursor(Qt::QArrowCursor). it also doesn't seem to matter whether I call setCursor on the viewport or the graphics view itself. So, just for fun, I added a call to graphicsview->unsetCursor() just before we want to change the cursor, and that at least rectifies the second problem. The cursor changes just fine so long as we do a little HandDragging in between. Better, but certainly not optimal. However it should be noted, that doing the unsetCursor on the viewport doesn't work. it must absolutely be done on the graphicsview - regardless of the fact that we are setting the cursor on the viewport. To completely patch over the problem I have added these two lines after I set the cursor: graphicsview->setDragMode(QGraphicsView::ScrollHandDrag); graphicsview->setDragMode(QGraphicsView::NoDrag); Which works, but ye gads!! So something magical is happening inside these two methods that fixes the problem, but glancing at the code I don't see what. Something to do with the fact that the drag mode is changing the cursor I imagine. Just for completeness, I should also mention that the thing that triggers the mode change, is a QPushButton that has been added to the scene using QGraphicsScene->addWidget(). I don't know if that has anything to do with it, but you never know. I am hoping that either someone could clarify why I need to make these seemingly random calls. I don't think I am doing anything wrong anywhere. Thanks in advance for any help. EDIT: Here is an actual code example with the cursor patches as described above. You can look at and/or download them from the link below. It was a little long to paste here. I included the framework around which the cursors are changed, because I have a funny feeling that that is important somehow. https://gist.github.com/712654 The code where the problem lies is in MyGraphicsView.cpp starting at line 104. This is where the cursor is set in the graphics view. It is exactly as described above. Keep in mind, with the very ugly patches in place the cursors do work - more or less. Without those lines you will see very clearly the problems listed in the post above. Also included in the link, is all the code for a mainWindow that uses the view, etc... the only thing missing are the images I am using. But the images themselves don't matter, any 16x16 pngs will do.

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• Keeping video viewing statistics breakdown by video time in a database

  - by Septagram

  I need to keep a number of statistics about the videos being watched, and one of them is what parts of the video are being watched most. The design I came up with is to split the video into 256 intervals and keep the floating-point number of views for each of them. I receive the data as a number of intervals the user watched continuously. The problem is how to store them. There are two solutions I see. Row per every video segment Let's have a database table like this: CREATE TABLE `video_heatmap` ( `id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, `video_id` int(11) NOT NULL, `position` tinyint(3) unsigned NOT NULL, `views` float NOT NULL, PRIMARY KEY (`id`), UNIQUE KEY `idx_lookup` (`video_id`,`position`) ) ENGINE=MyISAM Then, whenever we have to process a number of views, make sure there are the respective database rows and add appropriate values to the views column. I found out it's a lot faster if the existence of rows is taken care of first (SELECT COUNT(*) of rows for a given video and INSERT IGNORE if they are lacking), and then a number of update queries is used like this: UPDATE video_heatmap SET views = views + ? WHERE video_id = ? AND position >= ? AND position < ? This seems, however, a little bloated. The other solution I came up with is Row per video, update in transactions A table will look (sort of) like this: CREATE TABLE video ( id INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, heatmap BINARY (4 * 256) NOT NULL, ... ) ENGINE=InnoDB Then, upon every time a view needs to be stored, it will be done in a transaction with consistent snapshot, in a sequence like this: If the video doesn't exist in the database, it is created. A row is retrieved, heatmap, an array of floats stored in the binary form, is converted into a form more friendly for processing (in PHP). Values in the array are increased appropriately and the array is converted back. Row is changed via UPDATE query. So far the advantages can be summed up like this: First approach Stores data as floats, not as some magical binary array. Doesn't require transaction support, so doesn't require InnoDB, and we're using MyISAM for everything at the moment, so there won't be any need to mix storage engines. (only applies in my specific situation) Doesn't require a transaction WITH CONSISTENT SNAPSHOT. I don't know what are the performance penalties of those. I already implemented it and it works. (only applies in my specific situation) Second approach Is using a lot less storage space (the first approach is storing video ID 256 times and stores position for every segment of the video, not to mention primary key). Should scale better, because of InnoDB's per-row locking as opposed to MyISAM's table locking. Might generally work faster because there are a lot less requests being made. Easier to implement in code (although the other one is already implemented). So, what should I do? If it wasn't for the rest of our system using MyISAM consistently, I'd go with the second approach, but currently I'm leaning to the first one. But maybe there are some reasons to favour one approach or another?

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• Alphabetically Ordering an array of words

  - by Genesis

  I'm studying C on my own in preparation for my upcoming semester of school and was wondering what I was doing wrong with my code so far. If Things look weird it is because this is part of a much bigger grab bag of sorting functions I'm creating to get a sense of how to sort numbers,letters,arrays,and the like! I'm basically having some troubles with the manipulation of strings in C currently. Also, I'm quite limited in my knowledge of C at the moment! My main Consists of this: #include <stdio.h> #include <stdio.h> #include <stdlib.h> int numbers[10]; int size; int main(void){ setvbuf(stdout,NULL,_IONBF,0); //This is magical code that allows me to input. int wordNumber; int lengthOfWord = 50; printf("How many words do you want to enter: "); scanf("%i", &wordNumber); printf("%i\n",wordNumber); char words[wordNumber][lengthOfWord]; printf("Enter %i words:",wordNumber); int i; for(i=0;i<wordNumber+1;i++){ //+1 is because my words[0] is blank. fgets(&words[i], 50, stdin); } for(i=1;i<wordNumber+1;i++){ // Same as the above comment! printf("%s", words[i]); //prints my words out! } alphabetize(words,wordNumber); //I want to sort these arrays with this function. } My sorting "method" I am trying to construct is below! This function is seriously flawed, but I'd thought I'd keep it all to show you where my mind was headed when writing this. void alphabetize(char a[][],int size){ // This wont fly. size = size+1; int wordNumber; int lengthOfWord; char sortedWords[wordNumber][lengthOfWord]; //In effort for the for loop int i; int j; for(i=1;i<size;i++){ //My effort to copy over this array for manipulation for(j=1;j<size;j++){ sortedWords[i][j] = a[i][j]; } } //This should be kinda what I want when ordering words alphabetically, right? for(i=1;i<size;i++){ for(j=2;j<size;j++){ if(strcmp(sortedWords[i],sortedWords[j]) > 0){ char* temp = sortedWords[i]; sortedWords[i] = sortedWords[j]; sortedWords[j] = temp; } } } for(i=1;i<size;i++){ printf("%s, ",sortedWords[i]); } } I guess I also have another question as well... When I use fgets() it's doing this thing where I get a null word for the first spot of the array. I have had other issues recently trying to scanf() char[] in certain ways specifically spacing my input word variables which "magically" gets rid of the first null space before the character. An example of this is using scanf() to write "Hello" and getting " Hello" or " ""Hello"... Appreciate any thoughts on this, I've got all summer to study up so this doesn't need to be answered with haste! Also, thank you stack overflow as a whole for being so helpful in the past. This may be my first post, but I have been a frequent visitor for the past couple of years and it's been one of the best places for helpful advice/tips.

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• Parsing a JSON Response from a .Net webservice

  - by Maskau

  Just to get this out in the open I am new to JAVA, KSOAP, and JSON. So I'll try to explain this the best I can. A while ago I created a webservice to be consumed by Blackberry Apps that we're built using the plug in for Visual Studio. Now the project I am working on, I want to consume the same webservice for Android devices. For the most part I have the base code for the Android app done and working. Here's my problem: I can successfully call the webservice and get a response. I know from creating the webservice that it sends a JSON response. My problem is trying to parse through the JSON response. I have found a few examples that I have been suiting to my needs however I am hung up on one thing. In the JSON each element is preceeded by "anyType" which is forcing my code to return no results (Ultimately I am binding the data to an ArrayList) Here's what I get if I "getProperty(0).toString()... anyType{Artist=anyType{TrackName=Champagne Supernova;}; Here is the code I am using to parse the JSON Object.... SoapObject gr = (SoapObject)envelope.getResponse(); String ro = gr.getProperty(0).toString(); //Added just to see structure of response Artist_Result.add(gr.toString()); if (ro.startsWith("{")) { JSONObject JSONObj = new JSONObject(ro); Iterator<String> itr = JSONObj.keys(); while (itr.hasNext()) { String key = (String)itr.next(); String value = JSONObj.getString(key); //bundleResult.putString(key, value); Artist_Result.add(value); } } else if (ro.startsWith("[")) { JSONArr = new JSONArray(ro); for (int i = 0; i < JSONArr.length(); i++) { JSONObj = (JSONObject)JSONArr.get(i); //bundleResult.putString(String.valueOf(i), JSONObj.toString()); Artist_Result.add(JSONObj.toString()); } } WebService Code: [WebMethod] [return: System.Xml.Serialization.XmlArrayItemAttribute(typeof(Artist))] public Artist[] GetArtist(string ArtistQuery) { // All the SQL Stuff Here SqlDataReader sReader; sReader = cmd.ExecuteReader(); List<Artist> Artists = new List<Artist>(); while (sReader.Read()) { Artist result = new Artist(); result.TrackName = sReader.GetString(0); Artists.Add(result); } sReader.Close(); sqlConn.Close(); return Artists.ToArray(); } public class Artist { public string TrackName; } Sample of XML Output from a browser: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> - <ArrayOfArtist xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns="http://bb.mcrcog.com/"> - <Artist> <TrackName>Champagne Supernova</TrackName> </Artist> - <Artist> <TrackName>Don't Look Back In Anger</TrackName> </Artist> - <Artist> <TrackName>D'you Know What I Mean</TrackName> </Artist> - <Artist> <TrackName>Go Let It Out</TrackName> </Artist> I have a feeling I will need to implement a Class, and Getters/Setters on the Android side. I'm just not sure how to go about doing that. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

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• How to save data from multiple views of an iPhone app?

  - by DownUnder

  Hi Everyone. I'm making an app where I need to save the text in multiple views in the app when the app quits. I also need to be able to remove all of the data from just one of those views and when the app quits, it's possible not all of those views will have been created yet. After reading this post I thought perhaps it would be good to use a singleton that manages my app data which loads in the data when it is first requested and saved it when the app quits. Then in each view where I need to save data I can just set it on the singleton. I gave it a go but have run into some issues. At first I didn't synthesize the properties (as in the post I was using as a guide) but the compiler told me I needed to make getters and setters, so I did. Now when my applicationWIllTerminate: gets call the app crashes and the console says "Program received signal: “EXC_BAD_ACCESS”. kill quit". Is anyone able to tell me what I'm doing wrong, or suggest a better approach to saving the data? //SavedData.h #import <Foundation/Foundation.h> #define kFileName @"appData.plist" @interface SavedData : NSObject { NSString *information; NSString *name; NSString *email; NSString *phone; NSString *mobile; } @property(assign) NSString *information; @property(assign) NSString *name; @property(assign) NSString *email; @property(assign) NSString *phone; @property(assign) NSString *mobile; + (SavedData *)singleton; + (NSString *)dataFilePath; + (void)applicationWillTerminate:(NSNotification *)notification; @end //SavedData.m #import "SavedData.h" @implementation SavedData @synthesize information; @synthesize name; @synthesize email; @synthesize phone; @synthesize mobile; static SavedData * SavedData_Singleton = nil; + (SavedData *)singleton{ if (nil == SavedData_Singleton){ SavedData_Singleton = [[SavedData_Singleton alloc] init]; NSString *filePath = [self dataFilePath]; if([[NSFileManager defaultManager] fileExistsAtPath:filePath]){ NSMutableArray * array = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithContentsOfFile:filePath]; information = [array objectAtIndex:0]; name = [array objectAtIndex:1]; email = [array objectAtIndex:2]; phone = [array objectAtIndex:3]; mobile = [array objectAtIndex:4]; [array release]; } UIApplication *app = [UIApplication sharedApplication]; [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self selector:@selector(applicationWillTerminate:) name:UIApplicationWillTerminateNotification object:app]; } return SavedData_Singleton; } + (NSString *)dataFilePath{ NSArray *paths = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSDocumentDirectory, NSUserDomainMask, YES); NSString *DocumentsDirectory = [paths objectAtIndex:0]; return [DocumentsDirectory stringByAppendingPathComponent:kFileName]; } + (void)applicationWillTerminate:(NSNotification *)notification{ NSLog(@"Application will terminate received"); NSMutableArray *array = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init]; [array addObject:information]; [array addObject:name]; [array addObject:email]; [array addObject:phone]; [array addObject:mobile]; [array writeToFile:[self dataFilePath] atomically:YES]; [array release]; } @end Then when I want to use it I do myLabel.text = [SavedData singleton].information; And when I change the field [SavedData singleton].information = @"my string"; Any help will be very much appreciated!

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• Exception thrown while accessing HTML DataTable in backing bean

  - by Denzil

  Hi folks, I am building a simple application in JSF with the CrUD functionality. I am trying to implement edit functionality using the tomahawk component .I am unable to retrieve the selected row in my backing bean. Here's my JSP file snip: <t:dataTable id="data" binding="#{selectOneRowList.dataTable}" styleClass="scrollerTable" headerClass="standardTable_Header" footerClass="standardTable_Header" rowClasses="standardTable_Row1,standardTable_Row2" columnClasses="standardTable_Column,standardTable_ColumnCentered,standardTable_Column" var="car" value="#{selectOneRowList.list}" sortColumn="#{selectOneRowList.sortColumn}" sortAscending="#{selectOneRowList.sortAscending}" preserveDataModel="false" preserveSort="true" preserveRowStates="true" rows="10" > <h:column> <f:facet name="header"> <h:outputText value="Select"/> </f:facet> <t:selectOneRow groupName="selection" id="hugo" value="#{selectOneRowList.selectedRowIndex}" onchange="submit();" immediate="true" valueChangeListener="#{selectOneRowList.processRowSelection}"/> </h:column> <h:column> <f:facet name="header"> </f:facet> <h:outputText value="#{car.id}" /> </h:column> <h:column> <f:facet name="header"> <h:outputText value="Cars" /> </f:facet> <h:outputText value="#{car.type}" /> </h:column> <t:column sortable="true"> <f:facet name="header"> <h:outputText value="Color" /> </f:facet> <h:outputText value="#{car.color}" /> </t:column> </t:dataTable> Here's my backing bean SelectOneRowList.java : public void editCar(ActionEvent event) { System.out.println("Row number ## " + _selectedRowIndex.toString() + " selected!"); System.out.println("Datatable ::"+ dataTable); System.out.println("Row Count ::" + dataTable.getRowCount()); dataItem = (SimpleCar) getDataTable().getRowData(); //selectedCar = (SimpleCar) _list.get(Integer.parseInt(_selectedRowIndex.toString())); selectedCar = (SimpleCar) dataTable.getRowData(); System.out.println(dataTable.getRowData()); } My DTO{Data Transfer Object} which is SimpleCar.java contains the variables ID, type, color and their respective setters/getters. The dataItem variable is of type "SimpleCar". The dataTable is of type HTMLDataTable. I am able to get the the first 3 SOP's but the 4th SOP isn't printed. I receive the following exception on the server : javax.faces.el.EvaluationException: Exception while invoking expression #{selectOneRowList.editCar} org.apache.myfaces.el.MethodBindingImpl.invoke(MethodBindingImpl.java:156) javax.faces.component.UICommand.broadcast(UICommand.java:89) javax.faces.component.UIViewRoot._broadcastForPhase(UIViewRoot.java:97) javax.faces.component.UIViewRoot.processApplication(UIViewRoot.java:171) org.apache.myfaces.lifecycle.InvokeApplicationExecutor.execute(InvokeApplicationExecutor.java:32) org.apache.myfaces.lifecycle.LifecycleImpl.executePhase(LifecycleImpl.java:95) org.apache.myfaces.lifecycle.LifecycleImpl.execute(LifecycleImpl.java:70) javax.faces.webapp.FacesServlet.service(FacesServlet.java:139) org.apache.myfaces.webapp.filter.ExtensionsFilter.doFilter(ExtensionsFilter.java:341) On click of the edit button the editCar method in my backing bean is invoked. I need to get the data of the selected row in my backing bean. Why is the exception occurring ? The above example is taken from the tomawhawk examples WAR distributed on the website. I have gone through many links including the ones on BalusC but none of them have helped. Regards,

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• Losing sessions on GlassFish

  - by synti

  I have a web application that logs users in a @SessionScoped managed bean. It's all the basic stuff, pretty much like this: users logs in using regular http form and gets redirect to user area (wich is protected using a filter). But if any resource on that area is accessed, the request somehow uses a new session, wich has no managed bean, no user, and the filter does his job, redirecting him to login page. Here's the login form: <h:form> <h:outputLabel for="email" value="Email "/> <p:inputText id="email" size="30" value="#{loginManager.email}"/> <h:outputLabel for="password" value="Password "/> <p:password id="password" size="12" value="#{loginManager.password}"/> <p:commandButton value="Login" action="#{loginManager.login()}"/> </h:form> The loginManager managed bean: @ManagedBean @SessionScoped public class LoginManager implements Serializable { @EJB private UserService userService; private User user; private String email; private String password; public String login() { user = userService.findBy(email, password); if (user == null) { // FacesMessage stuff } else { return "/user/welcome.xhtml?faces-redirect=true"; } } public String logout() { FacesContext.getCurrentInstance().getExternalContext().invalidateSession(); return "/index.xhtml?faces-redirect=true"; } // Getters, setters (no setter for user) and serialVersionUID And then comes the filter that protects the user area: @WebFilter(urlPatterns="/user/*", displayName="UserFilter") public class UserFilter implements Filter { @Override public void doFilter(ServletRequest request, ServletResponse response, FilterChain chain) throws IOException, ServletException { HttpSession session = ((HttpServletRequest)request).getSession(false); LoginManager loginManager = (LoginManager) session.getAttribute("loginManager"); if (loginManager == null || !loginManager.hasUser()) { HttpServletResponse resp = (HttpServletResponse) response; resp.sendRedirect("index.xhtml"); } final User user = loginManager.getUser(); if (user.isValid()) { chain.doFilter(request, response); } else { HttpServletResponse resp = (HttpServletResponse) response; resp.sendRedirect("index.xhtml"); } } The UserService is just a stateless EJB that handles persistence. Part of the JSF for user area: <h:form> <p:panelMenu> <p:submenu label="Items"> <p:menuitem value="Add item" action="#{userItens.addItems}" ajax="false"/> <p:menuitem value="My items" /> </p:submenu> </p:panelMenu> </h:form> And finally the userItens managed bean. @ManagedBean @RequestScoped public class UserItens { private User user; @PostConstruct private void init() { HttpSession session = (HttpSession) FacesContext.getCurrentInstance() .getExternalContext().getSession(false); LoginManager loginManager = (LoginManager) session.getAttribute("loginManager"); if (loginManager != null) user = loginManager.getUser(); } public String addItems() { // Doesn't get here. Seems like UserFilter comes first, doesn't find // an user and redirects. } I'm using glassfish and session timeout is now on 0.

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• Languages and VMs: Features that are hard to optimize and why

  - by mrjoltcola

  I'm doing a survey of features in preparation for a research project. Name a mainstream language or language feature that is hard to optimize, and why the feature is or isn't worth the price paid, or instead, just debunk my theories below with anecdotal evidence. Before anyone flags this as subjective, I am asking for specific examples of languages or features, and ideas for optimization of these features, or important features that I haven't considered. Also, any references to implementations that prove my theories right or wrong. Top on my list of hard to optimize features and my theories (some of my theories are untested and are based on thought experiments): 1) Runtime method overloading (aka multi-method dispatch or signature based dispatch). Is it hard to optimize when combined with features that allow runtime recompilation or method addition. Or is it just hard, anyway? Call site caching is a common optimization for many runtime systems, but multi-methods add additional complexity as well as making it less practical to inline methods. 2) Type morphing / variants (aka value based typing as opposed to variable based) Traditional optimizations simply cannot be applied when you don't know if the type of someting can change in a basic block. Combined with multi-methods, inlining must be done carefully if at all, and probably only for a given threshold of size of the callee. ie. it is easy to consider inlining simple property fetches (getters / setters) but inlining complex methods may result in code bloat. The other issue is I cannot just assign a variant to a register and JIT it to the native instructions because I have to carry around the type info, or every variable needs 2 registers instead of 1. On IA-32 this is inconvenient, even if improved with x64's extra registers. This is probably my favorite feature of dynamic languages, as it simplifies so many things from the programmer's perspective. 3) First class continuations - There are multiple ways to implement them, and I have done so in both of the most common approaches, one being stack copying and the other as implementing the runtime to use continuation passing style, cactus stacks, copy-on-write stack frames, and garbage collection. First class continuations have resource management issues, ie. we must save everything, in case the continuation is resumed, and I'm not aware if any languages support leaving a continuation with "intent" (ie. "I am not coming back here, so you may discard this copy of the world"). Having programmed in the threading model and the contination model, I know both can accomplish the same thing, but continuations' elegance imposes considerable complexity on the runtime and also may affect cache efficienty (locality of stack changes more with use of continuations and co-routines). The other issue is they just don't map to hardware. Optimizing continuations is optimizing for the less-common case, and as we know, the common case should be fast, and the less-common cases should be correct. 4) Pointer arithmetic and ability to mask pointers (storing in integers, etc.) Had to throw this in, but I could actually live without this quite easily. My feelings are that many of the high-level features, particularly in dynamic languages just don't map to hardware. Microprocessor implementations have billions of dollars of research behind the optimizations on the chip, yet the choice of language feature(s) may marginalize many of these features (features like caching, aliasing top of stack to register, instruction parallelism, return address buffers, loop buffers and branch prediction). Macro-applications of micro-features don't necessarily pan out like some developers like to think, and implementing many languages in a VM ends up mapping native ops into function calls (ie. the more dynamic a language is the more we must lookup/cache at runtime, nothing can be assumed, so our instruction mix is made up of a higher percentage of non-local branching than traditional, statically compiled code) and the only thing we can really JIT well is expression evaluation of non-dynamic types and operations on constant or immediate types. It is my gut feeling that bytecode virtual machines and JIT cores are perhaps not always justified for certain languages because of this. I welcome your answers.

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