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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, January 11, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, January 11, 2011Popular ReleasesArcGIS Editor for OpenStreetMap: ArcGIS Editor for OpenStreetMap 1.1 beta2: This is the beta2 release for the ArcGIS Editor for OpenStreetMap version 1.1. Changes from version 1.0: Multi-part geometries are now supported. Homogeneous relations (consisting of only lines or only polygons) are converted into the appropriate multi-part geometry. Mixed relations and super relations are maintained and tracked in a stand-alone relation table. The underlying editing logic has changed. As opposed to tracking the editing changes upon "Save edit" or "Stop edit" the changes a...VSSpeedster - Parallel Builds for VS: VSSpeedster 1.2 (beta): - Improved Parallel Builds - Cancel running Parallel Build using Ctrl+BreakASP.NET Comet Ajax Library (Reverse Ajax - Server Push): Multiple server ASP.NET Reverse Ajax: This sample project demonstrates how is easy to scale your web applications via PokeInHawkeye - The .Net Runtime Object Editor: Hawkeye 1.2.5: In the case you are running an x86 Windows and you installed Release 1.2.4, you should consider upgrading to this release (1.2.5) as it appears Hawkeye is broken on x86 OS. I apologize for the inconvenience, but it appears Hawkeye 1.2.4 (and probably previous versions) doesn't run on x86 Windows (See issue http://hawkeye.codeplex.com/workitem/7791). This maintenance release fixes this broken behavior. This release comes in two flavors: Hawkeye.125.N2 is the standard .NET 2 build, was compile...Phalanger - The PHP Language Compiler for the .NET Framework: 2.0 (January 2011): Another release build for daily use; it contains many new features, enhanced compatibility with latest PHP opensource applications and several issue fixes. To improve the performance of your application using MySQL, please use Managed MySQL Extension for Phalanger. Changes made within this release include following: New features available only in Phalanger. Full support of Multi-Script-Assemblies was implemented; you can build your application into several DLLs now. Deploy them separately t...EnhSim: EnhSim 2.3.0: 2.3.0This release supports WoW patch 4.03a at level 85 To use this release, you must have the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=A7B7A05E-6DE6-4D3A-A423-37BF0912DB84 To use the GUI you must have the .NET 4.0 Framework installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=9cfb2d51-5ff4-4491-b0e5-b386f32c0992 - Changed how flame shoc...AutoLoL: AutoLoL v1.5.3: A message will be displayed when there's an update available Shows a list of recent mastery files in the Editor Tab (requested by quite a few people) Updater: Update information is now scrollable Added a buton to launch AutoLoL after updating is finished Updated the UI to match that of AutoLoL Fix: Detects and resolves 'Read Only' state on Version.xmlExtended WPF Toolkit: Extended WPF Toolkit - 1.3.0: What's in the 1.3.0 Release?BusyIndicator ButtonSpinner ChildWindow ColorPicker - Updated (Breaking Changes) DateTimeUpDown - New Control Magnifier - New Control MaskedTextBox - New Control MessageBox NumericUpDown RichTextBox RichTextBoxFormatBar - Updated .NET 3.5 binaries and SourcePlease note: The Extended WPF Toolkit 3.5 is dependent on .NET Framework 3.5 and the WPFToolkit. You must install .NET Framework 3.5 and the WPFToolkit in order to use any features in the To...sNPCedit: sNPCedit v0.9d: added elementclient coordinate catcher to catch coordinates select a target (ingame) i.e. your char, npc or monster than click the button and coordinates+direction will be transfered to the selected row in the table corrected labels from Rot to Direction (because it is a vector)Free Silverlight & WPF Chart Control - Visifire: Visifire SL and WPF Charts v3.6.7 beta Released: Hi, Today Visifire is released along with one new feature * Inlines property has been implemented in Title. Now onwards you can customize the text content in Title. Please check out the Visifire documentation for more information. This release contains fix for the following bugs: * Styles for chart elements were not working as expected. * Bar chart was not drawn properly if AxisMinimum property was set to a value above zero base line. * In DateTime axis, AxisLables were no...Ionics Isapi Rewrite Filter: 2.1 latest stable: V2.1 is stable, and is in maintenance mode. This is v2.1.1.25. It is a bug-fix release. There are no new features. 28629 29172 28722 27626 28074 29164 27659 27900 many documentation updates and fixes proper x64 build environment. This release includes x64 binaries in zip form, but no x64 MSI file. You'll have to manually install x64 servers, following the instructions in the documentation.StyleCop for ReSharper: StyleCop for ReSharper 5.1.14980.000: A considerable amount of work has gone into this release: Huge focus on performance around the violation scanning subsystem: - caching added to reduce IO operations around reading and merging of settings files - caching added to reduce creation of expensive objects Users should notice condsiderable perf boost and a decrease in memory usage. Bug Fixes: - StyleCop's new ObjectBasedEnvironment object does not resolve the StyleCop installation path, thus it does not return the correct path ...VivoSocial: VivoSocial 7.4.1: New release with bug fixes and updates for performance.UltimateJB: Ultimate JB 2.03 PL3 KAKAROTO + HERMES + Spoof 3.5: Voici une version attendu avec impatience pour beaucoup : - La version PL3 KAKAROTO intégre ses dernières modification et intégre maintenant le firmware 2.43 !!! Conclusion : - UltimateJB203PSXXXDEFAULTKAKAROTO=> Pas de spoof mais disponible pour les PS3 suivantes : 3.41_kiosk 3.41 3.40 3.30 3.21 3.15 3.10 3.01 2.76 2.70 2.60 2.53 2.43 - UltimateJB203PS341_HERMES => Pas de spoof mais version hermes 4b - UltimateJB203PS341HERMESSPOOF35X => hermes 4b + spoof des firmwares 3.50 et 3.55 au li....NET Extensions - Extension Methods Library for C# and VB.NET: Release 2011.03: Added lot's of new extensions and new projects for MVC and Entity Framework. object.FindTypeByRecursion Int32.InRange String.RemoveAllSpecialCharacters String.IsEmptyOrWhiteSpace String.IsNotEmptyOrWhiteSpace String.IfEmptyOrWhiteSpace String.ToUpperFirstLetter String.GetBytes String.ToTitleCase String.ToPlural DateTime.GetDaysInYear DateTime.GetPeriodOfDay IEnumberable.RemoveAll IEnumberable.Distinct ICollection.RemoveAll IList.Join IList.Match IList.Cast Array.IsNullOrEmpty Array.W...EFMVC - ASP.NET MVC 3 and EF Code First: EFMVC 0.5- ASP.NET MVC 3 and EF Code First: Demo web app ASP.NET MVC 3, Razor and EF Code FirstVidCoder: 0.8.0: Added x64 version. Made the audio output preview more detailed and accurate. If the chosen encoder or mixdown is incompatible with the source, the fallback that will be used is displayed. Added "Auto" to the audio mixdown choices. Reworked non-anamorphic size calculation to work better with non-standard pixel aspect ratios and cropping. Reworked Custom anamorphic to be more intuitive and allow display width to be set automatically (Thanks, Statick). Allowing higher bitrates for 6-ch....NET Voice Recorder: Auto-Tune Release: This is the source code and binaries to accompany the article on the Coding 4 Fun website. It is the Auto Tuner release of the .NET Voice Recorder application.BloodSim: BloodSim - 1.3.2.0: - Simulation Log is now automatically disabled and hidden when running 10 or more iterations - Hit and Expertise are now entered by Rating, and include option for a Racial Expertise bonus - Added option for boss to use a periodic magic ability (Dragon Breath) - Added option for boss to periodically Enrage, gaining a Damage/Attack Speed buffASP.NET MVC CMS ( Using CommonLibrary.NET ): CommonLibrary.NET CMS 0.9.5 Alpha: CommonLibrary CMSA simple yet powerful CMS system in ASP.NET MVC 2 using C# 4.0. ActiveRecord based components for Blogs, Widgets, Pages, Parts, Events, Feedback, BlogRolls, Links Includes several widgets ( tag cloud, archives, recent, user cloud, links twitter, blog roll and more ) Built using the http://commonlibrarynet.codeplex.com framework. ( Uses TDD, DDD, Models/Entities, Code Generation ) Can run w/ In-Memory Repositories or Sql Server Database See Documentation tab for Ins...New Projects.NET Event Spy: Full information available here: http://martincarolan.blogspot.com/2011/01/secret-project.html Simple development/debugging tool that hooks into and monitors events raised on any .NET object3DTweet: 3Dtweet is an effort to make tweets appear in a aesthetic manner to the users of windows phone.Its developed using VS2010 expresss.Agile .NET with SCRUM and XP: Source code for the book Apress Professional Agile .NET Development with SCRUM and XPBeskid Niski Agroturystyka: Travel Poland, turystyka w beskidzie niskim. Agroturystyka w miejscowosci Losie nad zalewem KlimkowkaCoding better: A better coding labs for .net new feature.FBApp: A simple facebook app I was busy with over the holidays as an experiment to try out the facebook api. Is currently not complete but I wanted to get some criticism on it for my 1st web app. It is developed using WPF and C#. Freemium Helper for WebMatrix: The Freemium Helper for WebMatrix provides an easy way to apply the Freemium model into your WebMatrix site. Using different user groups (or roles), it allows you to easily enable or disable features on your pages depending on the stock-keeping unit the user has paid for.Haversine Distance Calculation: A very small project that implements the Haversine formula, which calculates the great circle distance between two points on the earth's surface. The points are latitude / longitude coordinates in DD. The formula is implemented client side with javascript and server side with C#.Hexa.Core: Hexa.Core is our implementation of the Domain Driven Design Architecture. Also providing a set of helper classes for ASP.Net and WCF development.Minecraft NBT reader: A simple Minecraft NBT reader.MobSoft: MobSoft is silverlight based news related application designed to test the new functionalitities in Silverlight 4netduino Helpers: The 'netduino Helpers' is a C# driver set for common hardware components and features convenient wrappers around complex .Net Micro Framework features such as: Analog joysticks, Real-time clock, 8*8 LED matrix, Shift register, runtime assembly & resource loader, bitmaps, etc.NewsGator Social Connectors for Sharepoint 2010: This project contains social connectors for the NewsGator SharePoint platform and supports sending messages to Twitter and LinkedIn just by putting tags in the text #li for sending to linkedin #tw for sending to twitterNon Profit Contact Relationship Management: A non profit contact relationship management software intended to help those in the non profit arena manage donors, sponsors, and prospects.OpenAGE: OpenAGE, short for Open Advance Game Engine, is aimed at developing a new Advanced Game engine strictly for the PC and Xbox360 gaming System using XNA 4.0, and Visual Studio 2010OpenAutoPoster: OpenAutoPoster automates some of the boring everyday tasks of aggregating, linking and posting that haunts content creators.Phefer WoodTurning Sketcher: Draw out your own turnings before you hit the wood. Import images and trace around them, print them out with the length and width measuresments.Simple Script Interpreter- A simple GPLEX/GPPG (Lex/Yacc) Primer: Simple Script is a simple implementation of an interpreter language built with GPlex and Gppg (Lex/Yacc). It's developed in C#.SP2010Tutorials: Code for learning SharePoint 2010The Social Developer: This is a social developer tool for programmers to create and share projects using the .Net framework and other technologies and integrate it into a socialistic approach of sharing the work load and the resources needed to develop high level applications. Traffic-sign Classification: Traffic sign shape classification and localization.unnamedyet: Experimental! para Investigadores de Sistemas. Objetivo! desarrollar una praxis tal que con un conjunto finito y discreto de términos para describir sea posible auto-demostrar y ejecutar cualquier proposición dada.VSSpeedster - Parallel Builds for VS: Improve the performance of your Visual Studio: - Parallel Builds integrated in visual studioWebservice Xslt Transformer WebPart for SharePoint 2010: The Dynamic Webservice Xslt Transformer WebPart makes it much easier for SharePoint Developers and Administrators to call the webservice and transform the results directly to HTML by providing their own custom xslt. The properties can be set on the webpart by using the UI.WilWaNet.HASH: An ASP.NET MVC web site designed for tracking nutrition for the purposes of losing weight. Tracks calories, fat calories, fat grams and saturated fat along with daily weight and exercise. Includes daily Basic Metabolic Rate calculation and graphing functions.WP7 Try it 01: The first try in wp7WPF TryIt 01: Quan ly Nhan khau WPF ApplicationWX Alerter CAP/XML: NWS Alerter using CAP 1.1 alerting protocol. The goal of this project is to consume weather alerts from the NWS site. The user will select the city or SAME code/zone to watch. As alerts trigger notices will display and info will fill the Alert Tab.

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• Metro, Authentication, and the ASP.NET Web API

  - by Stephen.Walther

  Imagine that you want to create a Metro style app written with JavaScript and you want to communicate with a remote web service. For example, you are creating a movie app which retrieves a list of movies from a movies service. In this situation, how do you authenticate your Metro app and the Metro user so not just anyone can call the movies service? How can you identify the user making the request so you can return user specific data from the service? The Windows Live SDK supports a feature named Single Sign-On. When a user logs into a Windows 8 machine using their Live ID, you can authenticate the user’s identity automatically. Even better, when the Metro app performs a call to a remote web service, you can pass an authentication token to the remote service and prevent unauthorized access to the service. The documentation for Single Sign-On is located here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/live/hh826544.aspx In this blog entry, I describe the steps that you need to follow to use Single Sign-On with a (very) simple movie app. We build a Metro app which communicates with a web service created using the ASP.NET Web API. Creating the Visual Studio Solution Let’s start by creating a Visual Studio solution which contains two projects: a Windows Metro style Blank App project and an ASP.NET MVC 4 Web Application project. Name the Metro app MovieApp and the ASP.NET MVC application MovieApp.Services. When you create the ASP.NET MVC application, select the Web API template: After you create the two projects, your Visual Studio Solution Explorer window should look like this: Configuring the Live SDK You need to get your hands on the Live SDK and register your Metro app. You can download the latest version of the SDK (version 5.2) from the following address: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29938 After you download the Live SDK, you need to visit the following website to register your Metro app: https://manage.dev.live.com/build Don’t let the title of the website — Windows Push Notifications & Live Connect – confuse you, this is the right place. Follow the instructions at the website to register your Metro app. Don’t forget to follow the instructions in Step 3 for updating the information in your Metro app’s manifest. After you register, your client secret is displayed. Record this client secret because you will need it later (we use it with the web service): You need to configure one more thing. You must enter your Redirect Domain by visiting the following website: https://manage.dev.live.com/Applications/Index Click on your application name, click Edit Settings, click the API Settings tab, and enter a value for the Redirect Domain field. You can enter any domain that you please just as long as the domain has not already been taken: For the Redirect Domain, I entered http://superexpertmovieapp.com. Create the Metro MovieApp Next, we need to create the MovieApp. The MovieApp will: 1. Use Single Sign-On to log the current user into Live 2. Call the MoviesService web service 3. Display the results in a ListView control Because we use the Live SDK in the MovieApp, we need to add a reference to it. Right-click your References folder in the Solution Explorer window and add the reference: Here’s the HTML page for the Metro App: <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta charset="utf-8" /> <title>MovieApp</title> <!-- WinJS references --> <link href="//Microsoft.WinJS.1.0.RC/css/ui-dark.css" rel="stylesheet" /> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.1.0.RC/js/base.js"></script> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.1.0.RC/js/ui.js"></script> <!-- Live SDK --> <script type="text/javascript" src="/LiveSDKHTML/js/wl.js"></script> <!-- WebServices references --> <link href="/css/default.css" rel="stylesheet" /> <script src="/js/default.js"></script> </head> <body> <div id="tmplMovie" data-win-control="WinJS.Binding.Template"> <div class="movieItem"> <span data-win-bind="innerText:title"></span> <br /><span data-win-bind="innerText:director"></span> </div> </div> <div id="lvMovies" data-win-control="WinJS.UI.ListView" data-win-options="{ itemTemplate: select('#tmplMovie') }"> </div> </body> </html> The HTML page above contains a Template and ListView control. These controls are used to display the movies when the movies are returned from the movies service. Notice that the page includes a reference to the Live script that we registered earlier: <!-- Live SDK --> <script type="text/javascript" src="/LiveSDKHTML/js/wl.js"></script> The JavaScript code looks like this: (function () { "use strict"; var REDIRECT_DOMAIN = "http://superexpertmovieapp.com"; var WEBSERVICE_URL = "http://localhost:49743/api/movies"; function init() { WinJS.UI.processAll().done(function () { // Get element and control references var lvMovies = document.getElementById("lvMovies").winControl; // Login to Windows Live var scopes = ["wl.signin"]; WL.init({ scope: scopes, redirect_uri: REDIRECT_DOMAIN }); WL.login().then( function(response) { // Get the authentication token var authenticationToken = response.session.authentication_token; // Call the web service var options = { url: WEBSERVICE_URL, headers: { authenticationToken: authenticationToken } }; WinJS.xhr(options).done( function (xhr) { var movies = JSON.parse(xhr.response); var listMovies = new WinJS.Binding.List(movies); lvMovies.itemDataSource = listMovies.dataSource; }, function (xhr) { console.log(xhr.statusText); } ); }, function(response) { throw WinJS.ErrorFromName("Failed to login!"); } ); }); } document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", init); })(); There are two constants which you need to set to get the code above to work: REDIRECT_DOMAIN and WEBSERVICE_URL. The REDIRECT_DOMAIN is the domain that you entered when registering your app with Live. The WEBSERVICE_URL is the path to your web service. You can get the correct value for WEBSERVICE_URL by opening the Project Properties for the MovieApp.Services project, clicking the Web tab, and getting the correct URL. The port number is randomly generated. In my code, I used the URL  “http://localhost:49743/api/movies”. Assuming that the user is logged into Windows 8 with a Live account, when the user runs the MovieApp, the user is logged into Live automatically. The user is logged in with the following code: // Login to Windows Live var scopes = ["wl.signin"]; WL.init({ scope: scopes, redirect_uri: REDIRECT_DOMAIN }); WL.login().then(function(response) { // Do something }); The scopes setting determines what the user has permission to do. For example, access the user’s SkyDrive or access the user’s calendar or contacts. The available scopes are listed here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/live/hh243646.aspx In our case, we only need the wl.signin scope which enables Single Sign-On. After the user signs in, you can retrieve the user’s Live authentication token. The authentication token is passed to the movies service to authenticate the user. Creating the Movies Service The Movies Service is implemented as an API controller in an ASP.NET MVC 4 Web API project. Here’s what the MoviesController looks like: using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Net; using System.Net.Http; using System.Web.Http; using JWTSample; using MovieApp.Services.Models; namespace MovieApp.Services.Controllers { public class MoviesController : ApiController { const string CLIENT_SECRET = "NtxjF2wu7JeY1unvVN-lb0hoeWOMUFoR"; // GET api/values public HttpResponseMessage Get() { // Authenticate // Get authenticationToken var authenticationToken = Request.Headers.GetValues("authenticationToken").FirstOrDefault(); if (authenticationToken == null) { return new HttpResponseMessage(HttpStatusCode.Unauthorized); } // Validate token var d = new Dictionary<int, string>(); d.Add(0, CLIENT_SECRET); try { var myJWT = new JsonWebToken(authenticationToken, d); } catch { return new HttpResponseMessage(HttpStatusCode.Unauthorized); } // Return results return Request.CreateResponse( HttpStatusCode.OK, new List<Movie> { new Movie {Title="Star Wars", Director="Lucas"}, new Movie {Title="King Kong", Director="Jackson"}, new Movie {Title="Memento", Director="Nolan"} } ); } } } Because the Metro app performs an HTTP GET request, the MovieController Get() action is invoked. This action returns a set of three movies when, and only when, the authentication token is validated. The Movie class looks like this: using Newtonsoft.Json; namespace MovieApp.Services.Models { public class Movie { [JsonProperty(PropertyName="title")] public string Title { get; set; } [JsonProperty(PropertyName="director")] public string Director { get; set; } } } Notice that the Movie class uses the JsonProperty attribute to change Title to title and Director to director to make JavaScript developers happy. The Get() method validates the authentication token before returning the movies to the Metro app. To get authentication to work, you need to provide the client secret which you created at the Live management site. If you forgot to write down the secret, you can get it again here: https://manage.dev.live.com/Applications/Index The client secret is assigned to a constant at the top of the MoviesController class. The MoviesController class uses a helper class named JsonWebToken to validate the authentication token. This class was created by the Windows Live team. You can get the source code for the JsonWebToken class from the following GitHub repository: https://github.com/liveservices/LiveSDK/blob/master/Samples/Asp.net/AuthenticationTokenSample/JsonWebToken.cs You need to add an additional reference to your MVC project to use the JsonWebToken class: System.Runtime.Serialization. You can use the JsonWebToken class to get a unique and validated user ID like this: var user = myJWT.Claims.UserId; If you need to store user specific information then you can use the UserId property to uniquely identify the user making the web service call. Running the MovieApp When you first run the Metro MovieApp, you get a screen which asks whether the app should have permission to use Single Sign-On. This screen never appears again after you give permission once. Actually, when I first ran the app, I get the following error: According to the error, the app is blocked because “We detected some suspicious activity with your Online Id account. To help protect you, we’ve temporarily blocked your account.” This appears to be a bug in the current preview release of the Live SDK and there is more information about this bug here: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/messengerconnect/thread/866c495f-2127-429d-ab07-842ef84f16ae/ If you click continue, and continue running the app, the error message does not appear again.  Summary The goal of this blog entry was to describe how you can validate Metro apps and Metro users when performing a call to a remote web service. First, I explained how you can create a Metro app which takes advantage of Single Sign-On to authenticate the current user against Live automatically. You learned how to register your Metro app with Live and how to include an authentication token in an Ajax call. Next, I explained how you can validate the authentication token – retrieved from the request header – in a web service. I discussed how you can use the JsonWebToken class to validate the authentication token and retrieve the unique user ID.

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• The broken Promise of the Mobile Web

  - by Rick Strahl

  High end mobile devices have been with us now for almost 7 years and they have utterly transformed the way we access information. Mobile phones and smartphones that have access to the Internet and host smart applications are in the hands of a large percentage of the population of the world. In many places even very remote, cell phones and even smart phones are a common sight. I’ll never forget when I was in India in 2011 I was up in the Southern Indian mountains riding an elephant out of a tiny local village, with an elephant herder in front riding atop of the elephant in front of us. He was dressed in traditional garb with the loin wrap and head cloth/turban as did quite a few of the locals in this small out of the way and not so touristy village. So we’re slowly trundling along in the forest and he’s lazily using his stick to guide the elephant and… 10 minutes in he pulls out his cell phone from his sash and starts texting. In the middle of texting a huge pig jumps out from the side of the trail and he takes a picture running across our path in the jungle! So yeah, mobile technology is very pervasive and it’s reached into even very buried and unexpected parts of this world. Apps are still King Apps currently rule the roost when it comes to mobile devices and the applications that run on them. If there’s something that you need on your mobile device your first step usually is to look for an app, not use your browser. But native app development remains a pain in the butt, with the requirement to have to support 2 or 3 completely separate platforms. There are solutions that try to bridge that gap. Xamarin is on a tear at the moment, providing their cross-device toolkit to build applications using C#. While Xamarin tools are impressive – and also *very* expensive – they only address part of the development madness that is app development. There are still specific device integration isssues, dealing with the different developer programs, security and certificate setups and all that other noise that surrounds app development. There’s also PhoneGap/Cordova which provides a hybrid solution that involves creating local HTML/CSS/JavaScript based applications, and then packaging them to run in a specialized App container that can run on most mobile device platforms using a WebView interface. This allows for using of HTML technology, but it also still requires all the set up, configuration of APIs, security keys and certification and submission and deployment process just like native applications – you actually lose many of the benefits that  Web based apps bring. The big selling point of Cordova is that you get to use HTML have the ability to build your UI once for all platforms and run across all of them – but the rest of the app process remains in place. Apps can be a big pain to create and manage especially when we are talking about specialized or vertical business applications that aren’t geared at the mainstream market and that don’t fit the ‘store’ model. If you’re building a small intra department application you don’t want to deal with multiple device platforms and certification etc. for various public or corporate app stores. That model is simply not a good fit both from the development and deployment perspective. Even for commercial, big ticket apps, HTML as a UI platform offers many advantages over native, from write-once run-anywhere, to remote maintenance, single point of management and failure to having full control over the application as opposed to have the app store overloads censor you. In a lot of ways Web based HTML/CSS/JavaScript applications have so much potential for building better solutions based on existing Web technologies for the very same reasons a lot of content years ago moved off the desktop to the Web. To me the Web as a mobile platform makes perfect sense, but the reality of today’s Mobile Web unfortunately looks a little different… Where’s the Love for the Mobile Web? Yet here we are in the middle of 2014, nearly 7 years after the first iPhone was released and brought the promise of rich interactive information at your fingertips, and yet we still don’t really have a solid mobile Web platform. I know what you’re thinking: “But we have lots of HTML/JavaScript/CSS features that allows us to build nice mobile interfaces”. I agree to a point – it’s actually quite possible to build nice looking, rich and capable Web UI today. We have media queries to deal with varied display sizes, CSS transforms for smooth animations and transitions, tons of CSS improvements in CSS 3 that facilitate rich layout, a host of APIs geared towards mobile device features and lately even a number of JavaScript framework choices that facilitate development of multi-screen apps in a consistent manner. Personally I’ve been working a lot with AngularJs and heavily modified Bootstrap themes to build mobile first UIs and that’s been working very well to provide highly usable and attractive UI for typical mobile business applications. From the pure UI perspective things actually look very good. Not just about the UI But it’s not just about the UI - it’s also about integration with the mobile device. When it comes to putting all those pieces together into what amounts to a consolidated platform to build mobile Web applications, I think we still have a ways to go… there are a lot of missing pieces to make it all work together and integrate with the device more smoothly, and more importantly to make it work uniformly across the majority of devices. I think there are a number of reasons for this. Slow Standards Adoption HTML standards implementations and ratification has been dreadfully slow, and browser vendors all seem to pick and choose different pieces of the technology they implement. The end result is that we have a capable UI platform that’s missing some of the infrastructure pieces to make it whole on mobile devices. There’s lots of potential but what is lacking that final 10% to build truly compelling mobile applications that can compete favorably with native applications. Some of it is the fragmentation of browsers and the slow evolution of the mobile specific HTML APIs. A host of mobile standards exist but many of the standards are in the early review stage and they have been there stuck for long periods of time and seem to move at a glacial pace. Browser vendors seem even slower to implement them, and for good reason – non-ratified standards mean that implementations may change and vendor implementations tend to be experimental and  likely have to be changed later. Neither Vendors or developers are not keen on changing standards. This is the typical chicken and egg scenario, but without some forward momentum from some party we end up stuck in the mud. It seems that either the standards bodies or the vendors need to carry the torch forward and that doesn’t seem to be happening quickly enough. Mobile Device Integration just isn’t good enough Current standards are not far reaching enough to address a number of the use case scenarios necessary for many mobile applications. While not every application needs to have access to all mobile device features, almost every mobile application could benefit from some integration with other parts of the mobile device platform. Integration with GPS, phone, media, messaging, notifications, linking and contacts system are benefits that are unique to mobile applications and could be widely used, but are mostly (with the exception of GPS) inaccessible for Web based applications today. Unfortunately trying to do most of this today only with a mobile Web browser is a losing battle. Aside from PhoneGap/Cordova’s app centric model with its own custom API accessing mobile device features and the token exception of the GeoLocation API, most device integration features are not widely supported by the current crop of mobile browsers. For example there’s no usable messaging API that allows access to SMS or contacts from HTML. Even obvious components like the Media Capture API are only implemented partially by mobile devices. There are alternatives and workarounds for some of these interfaces by using browser specific code, but that’s might ugly and something that I thought we were trying to leave behind with newer browser standards. But it’s not quite working out that way. It’s utterly perplexing to me that mobile standards like Media Capture and Streams, Media Gallery Access, Responsive Images, Messaging API, Contacts Manager API have only minimal or no traction at all today. Keep in mind we’ve had mobile browsers for nearly 7 years now, and yet we still have to think about how to get access to an image from the image gallery or the camera on some devices? Heck Windows Phone IE Mobile just gained the ability to upload images recently in the Windows 8.1 Update – that’s feature that HTML has had for 20 years! These are simple concepts and common problems that should have been solved a long time ago. It’s extremely frustrating to see build 90% of a mobile Web app with relative ease and then hit a brick wall for the remaining 10%, which often can be show stoppers. The remaining 10% have to do with platform integration, browser differences and working around the limitations that browsers and ‘pinned’ applications impose on HTML applications. The maddening part is that these limitations seem arbitrary as they could easily work on all mobile platforms. For example, SMS has a URL Moniker interface that sort of works on Android, works badly with iOS (only works if the address is already in the contact list) and not at all on Windows Phone. There’s no reason this shouldn’t work universally using the same interface – after all all phones have supported SMS since before the year 2000! But, it doesn’t have to be this way Change can happen very quickly. Take the GeoLocation API for example. Geolocation has taken off at the very beginning of the mobile device era and today it works well, provides the necessary security (a big concern for many mobile APIs), and is supported by just about all major mobile and even desktop browsers today. It handles security concerns via prompts to avoid unwanted access which is a model that would work for most other device APIs in a similar fashion. One time approval and occasional re-approval if code changes or caches expire. Simple and only slightly intrusive. It all works well, even though GeoLocation actually has some physical limitations, such as representing the current location when no GPS device is present. Yet this is a solved problem, where other APIs that are conceptually much simpler to implement have failed to gain any traction at all. Technically none of these APIs should be a problem to implement, but it appears that the momentum is just not there. Inadequate Web Application Linking and Activation Another important piece of the puzzle missing is the integration of HTML based Web applications. Today HTML based applications are not first class citizens on mobile operating systems. When talking about HTML based content there’s a big difference between content and applications. Content is great for search engine discovery and plain browser usage. Content is usually accessed intermittently and permanent linking is not so critical for this type of content.  But applications have different needs. Applications need to be started up quickly and must be easily switchable to support a multi-tasking user workflow. Therefore, it’s pretty crucial that mobile Web apps are integrated into the underlying mobile OS and work with the standard task management features. Unfortunately this integration is not as smooth as it should be. It starts with actually trying to find mobile Web applications, to ‘installing’ them onto a phone in an easily accessible manner in a prominent position. The experience of discovering a Mobile Web ‘App’ and making it sticky is by no means as easy or satisfying. Today the way you’d go about this is: Open the browser Search for a Web Site in the browser with your search engine of choice Hope that you find the right site Hope that you actually find a site that works for your mobile device Click on the link and run the app in a fully chrome’d browser instance (read tiny surface area) Pin the app to the home screen (with all the limitations outline above) Hope you pointed at the right URL when you pinned Even for you and me as developers, there are a few steps in there that are painful and annoying, but think about the average user. First figuring out how to search for a specific site or URL? And then pinning the app and hopefully from the right location? You’ve probably lost more than half of your audience at that point. This experience sucks. For developers too this process is painful since app developers can’t control the shortcut creation directly. This problem often gets solved by crazy coding schemes, with annoying pop-ups that try to get people to create shortcuts via fancy animations that are both annoying and add overhead to each and every application that implements this sort of thing differently. And that’s not the end of it - getting the link onto the home screen with an application icon varies quite a bit between browsers. Apple’s non-standard meta tags are prominent and they work with iOS and Android (only more recent versions), but not on Windows Phone. Windows Phone instead requires you to create an actual screen or rather a partial screen be captured for a shortcut in the tile manager. Who had that brilliant idea I wonder? Surprisingly Chrome on recent Android versions seems to actually get it right – icons use pngs, pinning is easy and pinned applications properly behave like standalone apps and retain the browser’s active page state and content. Each of the platforms has a different way to specify icons (WP doesn’t allow you to use an icon image at all), and the most widely used interface in use today is a bunch of Apple specific meta tags that other browsers choose to support. The question is: Why is there no standard implementation for installing shortcuts across mobile platforms using an official format rather than a proprietary one? Then there’s iOS and the crazy way it treats home screen linked URLs using a crazy hybrid format that is neither as capable as a Web app running in Safari nor a WebView hosted application. Moving off the Web ‘app’ link when switching to another app actually causes the browser and preview it to ‘blank out’ the Web application in the Task View (see screenshot on the right). Then, when the ‘app’ is reactivated it ends up completely restarting the browser with the original link. This is crazy behavior that you can’t easily work around. In some situations you might be able to store the application state and restore it using LocalStorage, but for many scenarios that involve complex data sources (like say Google Maps) that’s not a possibility. The only reason for this screwed up behavior I can think of is that it is deliberate to make Web apps a pain in the butt to use and forcing users trough the App Store/PhoneGap/Cordova route. App linking and management is a very basic problem – something that we essentially have solved in every desktop browser – yet on mobile devices where it arguably matters a lot more to have easy access to web content we have to jump through hoops to have even a remotely decent linking/activation experience across browsers. Where’s the Money? It’s not surprising that device home screen integration and Mobile Web support in general is in such dismal shape – the mobile OS vendors benefit financially from App store sales and have little to gain from Web based applications that bypass the App store and the cash cow that it presents. On top of that, platform specific vendor lock-in of both end users and developers who have invested in hardware, apps and consumables is something that mobile platform vendors actually aspire to. Web based interfaces that are cross-platform are the anti-thesis of that and so again it’s no surprise that the mobile Web is on a struggling path. But – that may be changing. More and more we’re seeing operations shifting to services that are subscription based or otherwise collect money for usage, and that may drive more progress into the Web direction in the end . Nothing like the almighty dollar to drive innovation forward. Do we need a Mobile Web App Store? As much as I dislike moderated experiences in today’s massive App Stores, they do at least provide one single place to look for apps for your device. I think we could really use some sort of registry, that could provide something akin to an app store for mobile Web apps, to make it easier to actually find mobile applications. This could take the form of a specialized search engine, or maybe a more formal store/registry like structure. Something like apt-get/chocolatey for Web apps. It could be curated and provide at least some feedback and reviews that might help with the integrity of applications. Coupled to that could be a native application on each platform that would allow searching and browsing of the registry and then also handle installation in the form of providing the home screen linking, plus maybe an initial security configuration that determines what features are allowed access to for the app. I’m not holding my breath. In order for this sort of thing to take off and gain widespread appeal, a lot of coordination would be required. And in order to get enough traction it would have to come from a well known entity – a mobile Web app store from a no name source is unlikely to gain high enough usage numbers to make a difference. In a way this would eliminate some of the freedom of the Web, but of course this would also be an optional search path in addition to the standard open Web search mechanisms to find and access content today. Security Security is a big deal, and one of the perceived reasons why so many IT professionals appear to be willing to go back to the walled garden of deployed apps is that Apps are perceived as safe due to the official review and curation of the App stores. Curated stores are supposed to protect you from malware, illegal and misleading content. It doesn’t always work out that way and all the major vendors have had issues with security and the review process at some time or another. Security is critical, but I also think that Web applications in general pose less of a security threat than native applications, by nature of the sandboxed browser and JavaScript environments. Web applications run externally completely and in the HTML and JavaScript sandboxes, with only a very few controlled APIs allowing access to device specific features. And as discussed earlier – security for any device interaction can be granted the same for mobile applications through a Web browser, as they can for native applications either via explicit policies loaded from the Web, or via prompting as GeoLocation does today. Security is important, but it’s certainly solvable problem for Web applications even those that need to access device hardware. Security shouldn’t be a reason for Web apps to be an equal player in mobile applications. Apps are winning, but haven’t we been here before? So now we’re finding ourselves back in an era of installed app, rather than Web based and managed apps. Only it’s even worse today than with Desktop applications, in that the apps are going through a gatekeeper that charges a toll and censors what you can and can’t do in your apps. Frankly it’s a mystery to me why anybody would buy into this model and why it’s lasted this long when we’ve already been through this process. It’s crazy… It’s really a shame that this regression is happening. We have the technology to make mobile Web apps much more prominent, but yet we’re basically held back by what seems little more than bureaucracy, partisan bickering and self interest of the major parties involved. Back in the day of the desktop it was Internet Explorer’s 98+%  market shareholding back the Web from improvements for many years – now it’s the combined mobile OS market in control of the mobile browsers. If mobile Web apps were allowed to be treated the same as native apps with simple ways to install and run them consistently and persistently, that would go a long way to making mobile applications much more usable and seriously viable alternatives to native apps. But as it is mobile apps have a severe disadvantage in placement and operation. There are a few bright spots in all of this. Mozilla’s FireFoxOs is embracing the Web for it’s mobile OS by essentially building every app out of HTML and JavaScript based content. It supports both packaged and certified package modes (that can be put into the app store), and Open Web apps that are loaded and run completely off the Web and can also cache locally for offline operation using a manifest. Open Web apps are treated as full class citizens in FireFoxOS and run using the same mechanism as installed apps. Unfortunately FireFoxOs is getting a slow start with minimal device support and specifically targeting the low end market. We can hope that this approach will change and catch on with other vendors, but that’s also an uphill battle given the conflict of interest with platform lock in that it represents. Recent versions of Android also seem to be working reasonably well with mobile application integration onto the desktop and activation out of the box. Although it still uses the Apple meta tags to find icons and behavior settings, everything at least works as you would expect – icons to the desktop on pinning, WebView based full screen activation, and reliable application persistence as the browser/app is treated like a real application. Hopefully iOS will at some point provide this same level of rudimentary Web app support. What’s also interesting to me is that Microsoft hasn’t picked up on the obvious need for a solid Web App platform. Being a distant third in the mobile OS war, Microsoft certainly has nothing to lose and everything to gain by using fresh ideas and expanding into areas that the other major vendors are neglecting. But instead Microsoft is trying to beat the market leaders at their own game, fighting on their adversary’s terms instead of taking a new tack. Providing a kick ass mobile Web platform that takes the lead on some of the proposed mobile APIs would be something positive that Microsoft could do to improve its miserable position in the mobile device market. Where are we at with Mobile Web? It sure sounds like I’m really down on the Mobile Web, right? I’ve built a number of mobile apps in the last year and while overall result and response has been very positive to what we were able to accomplish in terms of UI, getting that final 10% that required device integration dialed was an absolute nightmare on every single one of them. Big compromises had to be made and some features were left out or had to be modified for some devices. In two cases we opted to go the Cordova route in order to get the integration we needed, along with the extra pain involved in that process. Unless you’re not integrating with device features and you don’t care deeply about a smooth integration with the mobile desktop, mobile Web development is fraught with frustration. So, yes I’m frustrated! But it’s not for lack of wanting the mobile Web to succeed. I am still a firm believer that we will eventually arrive a much more functional mobile Web platform that allows access to the most common device features in a sensible way. It wouldn't be difficult for device platform vendors to make Web based applications first class citizens on mobile devices. But unfortunately it looks like it will still be some time before this happens. So, what’s your experience building mobile Web apps? Are you finding similar issues? Just giving up on raw Web applications and building PhoneGap apps instead? Completely skipping the Web and going native? Leave a comment for discussion. Resources Rick Strahl on DotNet Rocks talking about Mobile Web© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2014Posted in HTML5  Mobile   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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• top tweets WebLogic Partner Community – June 2012

  - by JuergenKress

  Send your tweets @wlscommunity #WebLogicCommunity and follow us at http://twitter.com/wlscommunity OTNArchBeat? Free Virtual Developer Day: Oracle ADF and Oracle Fusion Middleware Development http://bit.ly/MxuNAg AMIS, Oracle & Java? Checklist veearts nu ook op iPad. @amis_services Mobile integratie met Oracle Fusion Middleware http://dld.bz/buwsM #OSB #SOA WhitehorsesWhiteblog: Troubleshoot JVM crashes of Weblogic: CompilerThread (http://bit.ly/KcGzZK) Jon petter hjulstad E-vita is now Apps Grid Specialized! ODTUG Fusion Middleware Sessions RT @OTNArchBeat: ODTUG Kscope12 - June 24-28 - San Antonio, TX http://bit.ly/LlWkNV OTNArchBeat? Free Event: Modern #Java Development, in/outside the Enterprise - May 30 - Redwood Shores, CA http://bit.ly/LfB79a ADF Community DE? Oracle Advanced ADF 11g Partner Workshop Düsseldorf /Germany (english) June 26-29, click here to see Nicolas Lorain? Best Practices for #JavaFX 2 Enterprise Applications (Part Two) http://buff.ly/Lk1DBn by Jim Weaver shay shmeltzer? #Oracle Developers in #Israel - don't miss the free #ADF workshop July 2nd - get hands-on with Oracle ADF -here OTNArchBeat? Java at JAXconf | Tori Wieldt http://bit.ly/LdoLS2 Anand Akela? #Oracle Customers and Partners – Get your free pass to @CloudExpo in New York, June 11 to 14, http://goo.gl/RpYFT <- Stop by booth #511 OracleSupport_WLS? Did you know that since 3/15/12 #WebLogic Server 12.1.1.0 is certified for production with JDK 7? http://bit.ly/IYJE0L Sharat? Highly useful #JavaFX best practices blog by @JavaFXpert More details here ADF EMG How to set up a productive ADF Dev Env - discussion started by @baigsorcl. Click here to Read and comment. OracleSupport_WLS Upcoming #webcast: Diagnosing #weblogic performance issues through #java thread dumps http://bit.ly/M4O9qF My Oracle Support? New to Oracle Support? - Webcast on Support Basics webcast May 22 10:30 Central Europe. Register @ http://bit.ly/J8o0WG Mohamad Afshar? Cloud Expo – Oracle Customers and Partners – get your free pass to Cloud Expo in New York, June 11 to 14, http://goo.gl/RpYFT OTNArchBeat Oracle VM 3.1 is here | @Ronenkofman http://bit.ly/JriWTq Oracle Exalogic? RT @D0uglasPhillips: ExalogicTV New Video Introducing Oracle Secure Global Desktop for #Exalogic!! http://bit.ly/nwkrCu OracleBlogs? Java EE6 and WebLogic YouTube video channels http://ow.ly/1jVcYJ Oracle WebLogic RT @aleftik: Excited to spend some time today playing around with the WebSockets SDK http://bit.ly/NoTtri WebLogic Community Java EE6 and WebLogic YouTube video channels http://wp.me/p1LMIb-h0 OracleSupport_WLS New tutorial! How to use the #JMS #API to create a message producer with #GlassFish and #NetBeans http://bit.ly/Juqjn JDeveloper & ADF? Tip when installing JDeveloper 11.1.2.2.0 version http://dlvr.it/1b48s1 WebLogic Community Middleware Oracle Excellence Awards 2012 – HAPPY NEW YEAR! Click here to read WebLogicCommunity #opn #oracle#Specialization #opnaward Steven Davelaar? Improve performance of your ADF app using lazy, on-demand querying of detail view objects: Click here OracleBlogs? Middleware Oracle Excellence Awards 2012 & HAPPY NEW YEAR! http://ow.ly/1kahzZ OracleSupport_WLS Upgrading from #weblogic 9.2.x to 10.3.x? http://bit.ly/Kqzl9N AMIS, Oracle & Java “@JDeveloper: Logout from an ADF application http://dlvr.it/1fQBnm” WebLogic Community UK OUG call for papers–your middleware success! Click here #UKOUG #soacommunity #OPN Whitehorses Whiteblog: Enterprise Manager: Manage your Fusion Middleware logfiles (http://bit.ly/KQlZkR) WebLogic Community? @Jphjulstad HI Jon, should we send Pizza when you go in production with your WebLogic 12c project? Whish you success! #WebLogicCommunity Sabine Leitner ADF Einsteigerworkshops je 2 Tage im Juni in HAM, BLN, HANN #Oracle #WLS http://bit.ly/LcOIzB @OracleWebLogic @OracleAppGrid@soacommunity Andreas Koop new post Java Heap Monitor in JDeveloper http://bit.ly/LgSk85 Sabine Leitner? #Oracle Kundentag mit Vorträgen von Sparkasse, Schufa, LBBW, Allianz über FMW & Exa Lösungen! 21.06. FRA http://bit.ly/JtwE3v @wlscommunity NetBeans Team RT @chadlung: Installing and configuring #NetBeans 7.1.2 and the #Java JDK 1.7 on OS X: http://www.giantflyingsaucer.com/blog/p=3760 #osx WebLogic Community Happy New Year #WeblogicCommunity thanks for the business! Time for a drink http://pic.twitter.com/K34KFbvH WebLogic Community UK OUG call for papers&ndash;your middleware success! http://wp.me/p1LMIb-gU WebLogic Community? Middleware Oracle Excellence Awards 2012 - HAPPY NEW YEAR! http://wp.me/p1LMIb-h6 Oracle WebLogic? RT @wlscommunity: WebLogic World Record Two Processor Result with SPECjEnterprise2010 Benchmark Click here to read #weblogic #sunfire #li Marc? Relocate wlst script for all the logfiles in your domain @wlscommunity, http://tinyurl.com/btbjcco WebLogic Community WebLogic World Record Two Processor Result with SPECjEnterprise2010 Benchmark Click here #WebLogicCommunity #weblogic #sunfire Oracle WebLogic MIss a WebLogic Devcast webinar? Catch any of the replays in the series on-demand! #WebLogic #JavaEE #coherence http://bit.ly/LNGa4p JDeveloper & ADF? Bean DataControl - Edit table records http://dlvr.it/1ZWqCx Justin Kestelyn? Contents of "Virtual Developer Day: Java SE 7 and JavaFX 2.0" are now avail on demand; no reg http://tinyurl.com/78nxnyo Frank Nimphius? Preparing 12c new features for DOAG 2012 Development - June 14th in Bonn (http://development.doag.org) WebLogic Community? Middleware Oracle Excellence Awards 2012&ndash;HAPPY NEW YEAR! http://wp.me/p1LMIb-he JDeveloper & ADF Placeholder Watermarks with ADF 11.1.2 http://dlvr.it/1ZWDc9 Oracle ACE Program? May edition #ACE newsletter now available online. http://bit.ly/LKA2de chriscmuir New blog post: Which JDeveloper is right for me? http://bit.ly/J8sj9e GlassFish? Transactional Interceptors in Java EE 7 - Request for feedback: Linda described how EJB's container-managed tr http://bit.ly/KKuGNJ OracleEnterpriseMgr Oracle Application Testing Suite 12.1 Debuts at StarEast 2012 http://ow.ly/aXcv8 #em12c JAX London First set of speaker session announced for #JAXLondon see: http://bit.ly/L0HSME OTNArchBeat? Oracle Cloud Conference: dates and locations worldwide http://bit.ly/JgNeID NetBeans Team? Video: Create and debug a TestNG test class in #NetBeans IDE: http://ow.ly/b7NEW NetBeans Team #NetBeans tip: Code Template for #Kohana #PHP Framework: http://ow.ly/aWIvY Robin? Started to use the #Oracle #WebLogic Server #Maven Plugin. Really awesome to install a complete #WLS with "mvn wls:install" !@wlscommunity OTNArchBeat? Free Event: Modern #Java Development, in/outside the Enterprise - May 30 - Redwood Shores, CA http://bit.ly/JIN9tf OracleBlogs WebLogic Partner Community Newsletter May 2012 http://ow.ly/1k5TeG Java Certification? Java SE 7 Fundamentals course now available On Demand. Watch a preview now: http://ow.ly/aWYgD Whitehorses Whiteblog: Native IO in WebLogic on Solaris 11 X64 (http://bit.ly/KGM4mp) NetBeans Team? Quick video of FindBugs Integration in #NetBeans IDE 7.2: http://ow.ly/aNece NetBeans Team #JavaFX Scene Builder Docs Updated for 2.2 and #NetBeans 7.2 dev builds: http://ow.ly/b7Nie Duncan Mills? New blog posting on implementing input field watermarks with ADF Faces 11.1.2 Click here #adf WebLogic Community? WebLogic Partner Community Newsletter May 2012 http://wp.me/p1LMIb-h4 OracleBlogs? UK OUG call for papersyour middleware success! http://ow.ly/1jNs49 Nicolas Lorain? Java tip: Deploying #JavaFX apps to multiple environments - JavaWorld http://buff.ly/KDADvu Adam Bien? Java EE and How to Specify The Unconventional With Convention Over Configuration [Free Article]: The free http://bit.ly/JEUkUf Owen Hughes and team?#Oracle #Exalogic #Performance: What? How? Why? Click here GlassFish? SecuritEE in the Cloud: Java EE 7 and the Cloud theme continue to move full steam ahead. In a PaaS environment http://bit.ly/K2RPte JDeveloper & ADF? How to Align Managed Bean Scope and Bean Data Control in Oracle ADF http://dlvr.it/1dngxQ Andrejus Baranovskis Missing New Feature in JDev (11.1.2.2.0) - ADF Methods Security http://fb.me/1jQM1enls OracleSupport_WLS? Tutorial on managing #HTTP Sessions in a #Weblogic #Cluster http://bit.ly/JshESe Oracle WebLogic? ZeroTurnaround developer report: #Spring keeps getting heavier, and #Java EE keeps getting lighter http://bit.ly/JDmKy2 JDeveloper & ADF? How to Search in Views - Part 4 || Oracle ADF http://dlvr.it/1dpDjZ WebLogic Community Java Message Service with Java and Spring Framework on Oracle WebLogic; Webcast May 15th 2012 http://wp.me/p1LMIb-gS Andreas Koop? new post ADF Bug or Feature? Non-Breaking Space outside required icon style http://bit.ly/KDZnUo Oracle WebLogic? Don't miss this month's WebLogic DevCast: WebLogic JMS and Spring JMS http://bit.ly/J6g2ST Tuesday May 15th 10:00am PT JDeveloper & ADF How To Disable SELECT COUNT Execution for ADF Table Rendering http://dlvr.it/1dqKH6 OracleSupport_WLS? #SSL and security has its own Information Center, http://bit.ly/LP8Vil for troubleshooting, install, config and more NetBeans Team? Featured #NetBeans plugin is @Codename_One for creating native apps for major mobile platforms: http://plugins.netbeans.org/ JDeveloper & ADF? Using JDeveloper HTTP Analyser to intercept/forward requests http://dlvr.it/1Yzl4J Nicolas Lorain? Create native looks for JavaFX applications: JavaFX-CSS-Themes · http://buff.ly/M0jel0 by Gregg Setzer Devoxx? Want to make the world a better place? Then get involved in Random Hacks of Kindness on June 2 - 3 in Belgium @ http://www.rhok.be #RHoK WebLogic Community top tweets WebLogic Partner Community – May 2012 Click here #WebLogicCommunity Michel Schildmeijer Oracle Traffic Director 11g http://lnkd.in/-mm3Vy Andrejus Baranovskis? Proactively Monitoring JDeveloper 11g IDE Heap Memory http://fb.me/16YZErPrx Arun Gupta? 80+ attendees building a #javaee6 application using NetBeans/WebLogic at Java Day, Istanbul fun times! http://pic.twitter.com/odY19daW A. Chatziantoniou? Just registered for the Oracle FMW Summer Camp in Lisbon. Looking forward to learn, meet friends and try to buy ice cream on the beach OTNArchBeat Another Myth Debunked: 200 Continuous Redeployments with WebLogic|@munz http://bit.ly/JiPyM7 Oracle WebLogic? Need to learn more on #WebLogic Server #JVM performance tuning? http://bit.ly/MN UxHx GlassFish? Dukes Choice Awards 2012 Nominations Are Open: 2012 Duke's Choice Award are open for nominations. These awards http://bit.ly/Ksk4U3 Justin Kestelyn? Major cloud-related announcements from Larry Ellison and Mark Hurd on June 6 http://bit.ly/KTJiII Nicolas Lorain Transparent Windows (Stage) with #JavaFX 2 : Adam Bien's Weblog http://j.mp/INgq8K WebLogic Community Web Services with JAX and Spring on WebLogic–Webcast May 30th 2012 #WebLogicCommunity #weblogic #opn JDeveloper & ADF Oracle ADF - How to work with Dates http://dlvr.it/1Y70zw OracleBlogs Web Services with JAX and Spring on WebLogicWebcast May 30th 2012 http://ow.ly/1k2WtO Adam Bien? Summer Java EE Workshops: 23.05, Amsterdam Airport Java EE Hacking, Without Airport. The dutch version of Airport http://bit.ly/JeP6hV JDeveloper & ADF ADF 11g: BC4J or EJB3. http://bit.ly/JVVFZF ADF EMG? Great discussion with JSF guru Andy Schwartz on the forum - 38 posts! Check it out: here Devoxx? Oracle (http://www.oracle.com ) joins Devoxx 2012 as the first Premium partner, welcome aboard! Nicolas Lorain Developing a Simple Todo Application using #JavaFX, #Java and #MongoDB- Part-1JavaBeat http://j.mp/IDGxLA Nicolas Lorain Preview of JavaFX 2.2 canvas feature > Harmonic Code: Death bitmaps could be beautiful... Part I http://buff.ly/KyAXg5 #JavaFX OTNArchBeat?? New York Coherence Special Interest Group (NYCSIG) - May 24 - NYC http://bit.ly/JzJcbT WebLogic Community iAS upgrade to WebLogic watch #C2B2 online seminar http://youtu.be/5m2CNUjBIGQ #WebLogicCommunity Ruth Collett? Join Oracle in #Joburg on May 21 for OTN Developer Day - sessions on #Java #JavaEE 6/7 and much more! http://bit.ly/IENwnD WebLogic Community? Sending out invitations to our advanced Fusion Middleware Summer Camps! Want to learn more register for the community Ruth Collett? Join @ArunGupta in Istanbul this Monday to hear the latest on #JavaEE 6/7 http://bit.ly/Je63cc GlassFish? NetBeans 7.2 Beta - Built for Speed, Deploy Apps to Oracle Cloud: NetBeans 7.2 Beta is now available. The http://bit.ly/LxMMTK Lucas Jellema My latest SlideShare upload : Java ain't scary - introducing Java to PL/SQ. here via @slideshare JDeveloper & ADF? #Developer #free#ADF training in #Scotland - June 13. More information: http://bit.ly/LbPLlf AMIS, Oracle & Java? AMIS behaalt als eerste in Nedeland de Oracle ADF specialisatie - Channelworld nieuwsChannelconnect: http://bit.ly/JzAcB4 WebLogic Community Web Services with JAX and Spring on WebLogic&ndash;Webcast May 30th 2012 http://wp.me/p1LMIb-gX Nicolas Lorain?@ JavaFX-based SimpleDateFormat Demonstrator http://j.mp/KFCVOi #JavaFX via Dustin Marx Oracle Exalogic? Are you an Oracle partner? There's news on the Oracle Partner Network about #Exalogic specializations - http://bit.ly/Mt3ANY JDeveloper & ADF Shorter URL for your ADF application http://dlvr.it/1XqNLY OTNArchBeat? Bay Area Coherence Special Interest Group (BACSIG) Meeting June 7 http://bit.ly/JAa0Lx OTNArchBeat? Java EE 6 Sample Application on WebLogic 12c: Conference Planner | @arungupta http://bit.ly/LPvof4 JDeveloper & ADF? Excellent example of Oracle ADF - Google Maps/Earth integration http://dlvr.it/1cbc80 JDeveloper & ADF Setting Up JDeveloper's Embedded WLS for MySQL http://dlvr.it/1c4b8P JDeveloper & ADF? Solution for Sharing Global User Data in ADF BC http://dlvr.it/1cc7SJ Java? Java Magazine May/June #javaee #javafx #javame #openJDK #hotspot #wicket #lotsmore http://ow.ly/aX07v Oracle WebLogic? http://bit.ly/JxQsnS if you have trouble finding the right #patchset when doing an upgrade to your #weblogic server OracleEnterpriseMgr 15 minutes to go before we start our Application Testing Suite 12.1 webcast. http://bit.ly/JHyTEe Learn from the lead PM what's new. #em12c Sten Vesterli Eating your own dog food - Oracle support site finally in ADF: http://lnkd.in/s6hg_p Adam Bien Project: "Jenever" (=poison) checked-in with GIT:here CU at http://workshops.adam-bien.com. Thanks for attending! OTNArchBeat Web Service Development with NetBeans and Testing with WebLogic Admin Console | @munz http://bit.ly/JcWk34 Please feel free to send us your news! And add your blog to our SOA blog wiki

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• Yet Another ASP.NET MVC CRUD Tutorial

  - by Ricardo Peres

  I know that I have not posted much on MVC, mostly because I don’t use it on my daily life, but since I find it so interesting, and since it is gaining such popularity, I will be talking about it much more. This time, it’s about the most basic of scenarios: CRUD. Although there are several ASP.NET MVC tutorials out there that cover ordinary CRUD operations, I couldn’t find any that would explain how we can have also AJAX, optimistic concurrency control and validation, using Entity Framework Code First, so I set out to write one! I won’t go into explaining what is MVC, Code First or optimistic concurrency control, or AJAX, I assume you are all familiar with these concepts by now. Let’s consider an hypothetical use case, products. For simplicity, we only want to be able to either view a single product or edit this product. First, we need our model: 1: public class Product 2: { 3: public Product() 4: { 5: this.Details = new HashSet<OrderDetail>(); 6: } 7:  8: [Required] 9: [StringLength(50)] 10: public String Name 11: { 12: get; 13: set; 14: } 15:  16: [Key] 17: [ScaffoldColumn(false)] 18: [DatabaseGenerated(DatabaseGeneratedOption.Identity)] 19: public Int32 ProductId 20: { 21: get; 22: set; 23: } 24:  25: [Required] 26: [Range(1, 100)] 27: public Decimal Price 28: { 29: get; 30: set; 31: } 32:  33: public virtual ISet<OrderDetail> Details 34: { 35: get; 36: protected set; 37: } 38:  39: [Timestamp] 40: [ScaffoldColumn(false)] 41: public Byte[] RowVersion 42: { 43: get; 44: set; 45: } 46: } Keep in mind that this is a simple scenario. Let’s see what we have: A class Product, that maps to a product record on the database; A product has a required (RequiredAttribute) Name property which can contain up to 50 characters (StringLengthAttribute); The product’s Price must be a decimal value between 1 and 100 (RangeAttribute); It contains a set of order details, for each time that it has been ordered, which we will not talk about (Details); The record’s primary key (mapped to property ProductId) comes from a SQL Server IDENTITY column generated by the database (KeyAttribute, DatabaseGeneratedAttribute); The table uses a SQL Server ROWVERSION (previously known as TIMESTAMP) column for optimistic concurrency control mapped to property RowVersion (TimestampAttribute). Then we will need a controller for viewing product details, which will located on folder ~/Controllers under the name ProductController: 1: public class ProductController : Controller 2: { 3: [HttpGet] 4: public ViewResult Get(Int32 id = 0) 5: { 6: if (id != 0) 7: { 8: using (ProductContext ctx = new ProductContext()) 9: { 10: return (this.View("Single", ctx.Products.Find(id) ?? new Product())); 11: } 12: } 13: else 14: { 15: return (this.View("Single", new Product())); 16: } 17: } 18: } If the requested product does not exist, or one was not requested at all, one with default values will be returned. I am using a view named Single to display the product’s details, more on that later. As you can see, it delegates the loading of products to an Entity Framework context, which is defined as: 1: public class ProductContext: DbContext 2: { 3: public DbSet<Product> Products 4: { 5: get; 6: set; 7: } 8: } Like I said before, I’ll keep it simple for now, only aggregate root Product is available. The controller will use the standard routes defined by the Visual Studio ASP.NET MVC 3 template: 1: routes.MapRoute( 2: "Default", // Route name 3: "{controller}/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters 4: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional } // Parameter defaults 5: ); Next, we need a view for displaying the product details, let’s call it Single, and have it located under ~/Views/Product: 1: <%@ Page Language="C#" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage<Product>" %> 2: <!DOCTYPE html> 3:  4: <html> 5: <head runat="server"> 6: <title>Product</title> 7: <script src="/Scripts/jquery-1.7.2.js" type="text/javascript"></script> 1:  2: <script src="/Scripts/jquery-ui-1.8.19.js" type="text/javascript"> 1: </script> 2: <script src="/Scripts/jquery.unobtrusive-ajax.js" type="text/javascript"> 1: </script> 2: <script src="/Scripts/jquery.validate.js" type="text/javascript"> 1: </script> 2: <script src="/Scripts/jquery.validate.unobtrusive.js" type="text/javascript"> 1: </script> 2: <script type="text/javascript"> 3: function onFailure(error) 4: { 5: } 6:  7: function onComplete(ctx) 8: { 9: } 10:  11: </script> 8: </head> 9: <body> 10: <div> 11: <% 1: : this.Html.ValidationSummary(false) %> 12: <% 1: using (this.Ajax.BeginForm("Edit", "Product", new AjaxOptions{ HttpMethod = FormMethod.Post.ToString(), OnSuccess = "onSuccess", OnFailure = "onFailure" })) { %> 13: <% 1: : this.Html.EditorForModel() %> 14: <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit" /> 15: <% 1: } %> 16: </div> 17: </body> 18: </html> Yes… I am using ASPX syntax… sorry about that!   I implemented an editor template for the Product class, which must be located on the ~/Views/Shared/EditorTemplates folder as file Product.ascx: 1: <%@ Control Language="C#" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewUserControl<Product>" %> 2: <div> 3: <%: this.Html.HiddenFor(model => model.ProductId) %> 4: <%: this.Html.HiddenFor(model => model.RowVersion) %> 5: <fieldset> 6: <legend>Product</legend> 7: <div class="editor-label"> 8: <%: this.Html.LabelFor(model => model.Name) %> 9: </div> 10: <div class="editor-field"> 11: <%: this.Html.TextBoxFor(model => model.Name) %> 12: <%: this.Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Name) %> 13: </div> 14: <div class="editor-label"> 15: <%= this.Html.LabelFor(model => model.Price) %> 16: </div> 17: <div class="editor-field"> 18: <%= this.Html.TextBoxFor(model => model.Price) %> 19: <%: this.Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Price) %> 20: </div> 21: </fieldset> 22: </div> One thing you’ll notice is, I am including both the ProductId and the RowVersion properties as hidden fields; they will come handy later or, so that we know what product and version we are editing. The other thing is the included JavaScript files: jQuery, jQuery UI and unobtrusive validations. Also, I am not using the Content extension method for translating relative URLs, because that way I would lose JavaScript intellisense for jQuery functions. OK, so, at this moment, I want to add support for AJAX and optimistic concurrency control. So I write a controller method like this: 1: [HttpPost] 2: [AjaxOnly] 3: [Authorize] 4: public JsonResult Edit(Product product) 5: { 6: if (this.TryValidateModel(product) == true) 7: { 8: using (BlogContext ctx = new BlogContext()) 9: { 10: Boolean success = false; 11:  12: ctx.Entry(product).State = (product.ProductId == 0) ? EntityState.Added : EntityState.Modified; 13:  14: try 15: { 16: success = (ctx.SaveChanges() == 1); 17: } 18: catch (DbUpdateConcurrencyException) 19: { 20: ctx.Entry(product).Reload(); 21: } 22:  23: return (this.Json(new { Success = success, ProductId = product.ProductId, RowVersion = Convert.ToBase64String(product.RowVersion) })); 24: } 25: } 26: else 27: { 28: return (this.Json(new { Success = false, ProductId = 0, RowVersion = String.Empty })); 29: } 30: } So, this method is only valid for HTTP POST requests (HttpPost), coming from AJAX (AjaxOnly, from MVC Futures), and from authenticated users (Authorize). It returns a JSON object, which is what you would normally use for AJAX requests, containing three properties: Success: a boolean flag; RowVersion: the current version of the ROWVERSION column as a Base-64 string; ProductId: the inserted product id, as coming from the database. If the product is new, it will be inserted into the database, and its primary key will be returned into the ProductId property. Success will be set to true; If a DbUpdateConcurrencyException occurs, it means that the value in the RowVersion property does not match the current ROWVERSION column value on the database, so the record must have been modified between the time that the page was loaded and the time we attempted to save the product. In this case, the controller just gets the new value from the database and returns it in the JSON object; Success will be false. Otherwise, it will be updated, and Success, ProductId and RowVersion will all have their values set accordingly. So let’s see how we can react to these situations on the client side. Specifically, we want to deal with these situations: The user is not logged in when the update/create request is made, perhaps the cookie expired; The optimistic concurrency check failed; All went well. So, let’s change our view: 1: <%@ Page Language="C#" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage<Product>" %> 2: <%@ Import Namespace="System.Web.Security" %> 3:  4: <!DOCTYPE html> 5:  6: <html> 7: <head runat="server"> 8: <title>Product</title> 9: <script src="/Scripts/jquery-1.7.2.js" type="text/javascript"></script> 1:  2: <script src="/Scripts/jquery-ui-1.8.19.js" type="text/javascript"> 1: </script> 2: <script src="/Scripts/jquery.unobtrusive-ajax.js" type="text/javascript"> 1: </script> 2: <script src="/Scripts/jquery.validate.js" type="text/javascript"> 1: </script> 2: <script src="/Scripts/jquery.validate.unobtrusive.js" type="text/javascript"> 1: </script> 2: <script type="text/javascript"> 3: function onFailure(error) 4: { 5: window.alert('An error occurred: ' + error); 6: } 7:  8: function onSuccess(ctx) 9: { 10: if (typeof (ctx.Success) != 'undefined') 11: { 12: $('input#ProductId').val(ctx.ProductId); 13: $('input#RowVersion').val(ctx.RowVersion); 14:  15: if (ctx.Success == false) 16: { 17: window.alert('An error occurred while updating the entity: it may have been modified by third parties. Please try again.'); 18: } 19: else 20: { 21: window.alert('Saved successfully'); 22: } 23: } 24: else 25: { 26: if (window.confirm('Not logged in. Login now?') == true) 27: { 28: document.location.href = '<%: FormsAuthentication.LoginUrl %>?ReturnURL=' + document.location.pathname; 29: } 30: } 31: } 32:  33: </script> 10: </head> 11: <body> 12: <div> 13: <% 1: : this.Html.ValidationSummary(false) %> 14: <% 1: using (this.Ajax.BeginForm("Edit", "Product", new AjaxOptions{ HttpMethod = FormMethod.Post.ToString(), OnSuccess = "onSuccess", OnFailure = "onFailure" })) { %> 15: <% 1: : this.Html.EditorForModel() %> 16: <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit" /> 17: <% 1: } %> 18: </div> 19: </body> 20: </html> The implementation of the onSuccess function first checks if the response contains a Success property, if not, the most likely cause is the request was redirected to the login page (using Forms Authentication), because it wasn’t authenticated, so we navigate there as well, keeping the reference to the current page. It then saves the current values of the ProductId and RowVersion properties to their respective hidden fields. They will be sent on each successive post and will be used in determining if the request is for adding a new product or to updating an existing one. The only thing missing is the ability to insert a new product, after inserting/editing an existing one, which can be easily achieved using this snippet: 1: <input type="button" value="New" onclick="$('input#ProductId').val('');$('input#RowVersion').val('');"/> And that’s it.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, March 05, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, March 05, 2012Popular ReleasesSimple Injector: Simple Injector v1.4.1: This release adds two small improvements to the SimpleInjector.Extensions.dll. No changes have been made to the core library. New features and improvements in this release for the SimpleInjector.Extensions.dll The RegisterManyForOpenGeneric extension methods now accept non-generic decorator, as long as they implement the given open generic service type. GetTypesToRegister methods added to the OpenGenericBatchRegistrationExtensions class which allows to customize the behavior. Note that the...SQL Scriptz Runner: Application: Scriptz Runner source code and applicationCommonLibrary: Code: CodePowerGUI Visual Studio Extension: PowerGUI VSX 1.5.2: Added support for PowerGUI 3.2.Path Copy Copy: 10.0: New version with the following biggest new features: Regular expression support in custom commands (see this work item) Import/export feature for custom commands (see this work item) This version also addresses the following work items: 11353 11348 This version is a recommended upgrade for all users. Note: new custom commands that user regular expressions won't be compatible with earlier versions (if installed by registry manipulation or via network installation), but everything else is ...VidCoder: 1.3.1: Updated HandBrake core to 0.9.6 release (svn 4472). Removed erroneous "None" container choice. Change some logic and help text to stop assuming you have to pick the VIDEO_TS folder for a DVD scan. This should make previewing DVD titles on the Queue Multiple Titles window possible when you've picked the root DVD directory.ASP.NET MVC Framework - Abstracting Data Annotations, HTML5, Knockout JS techs: Version 1.0: Please download the source code. I am not associating any dll for release.ExtAspNet: ExtAspNet v3.1.0: ExtAspNet - ?? ExtJS ??? ASP.NET 2.0 ???，????? AJAX ?????????? ExtAspNet ????? ExtJS ??? ASP.NET 2.0 ???，????? AJAX ??????????。 ExtAspNet ??????? JavaScript，?? CSS，?? UpdatePanel，?? ViewState，?? WebServices ???????。 ??????: IE 7.0, Firefox 3.6, Chrome 3.0, Opera 10.5, Safari 3.0+ ????：Apache License 2.0 (Apache) ??：http://extasp.net/ ??：http://bbs.extasp.net/ ??：http://extaspnet.codeplex.com/ ??：http://sanshi.cnblogs.com/ ????： +2012-03-04 v3.1.0 -??Hidden???????（〓?〓）。 -?PageManager??...AcDown????? - Anime&Comic Downloader: AcDown????? v3.9.1: ?? ●AcDown??????????、??、??????，????1M，????，????，?????????????????????????。???????????Acfun、????(Bilibili)、??、??、YouTube、??、???、??????、SF????、????????????。??????AcPlay?????，??????、????????????????。 ● AcDown???????????????????????????，???，???????????????????。 ● AcDown???????C#??，????.NET Framework 2.0??。?????"Acfun?????"。 ????32??64? Windows XP/Vista/7/8 ????????????? ??：????????Windows XP???,?????????.NET Framework 2.0???(x86)，?????"?????????"??? ??????????????，??????????： ??"AcDo...Windows Phone Commands for VS2010: Version 1.0: Initial Release Version 1.0 Connect from device or emulator (Monitors the connection) Show Device information (Plataform, build , version, avaliable memory, total memory, architeture Manager installed applications (Launch, uninstall and explorer isolate storage files) Manager core applications (Launch blocked applications from emulator (Office, Calculator, alarm, calendar , etc) Manager blocked settings from emulator (Airplane Mode, Celullar Network, Wifi, etc) Deploy and update ap...DNN Metro7 style Skin package: Metro7 style Skin for DotNetNuke 06.01.00: Changes on Version 06.01.00 Fixed issue on GraySmallTitle container, that breaks the layout Fixed issue on Blue Metro7 Skin where the Search, Login, Register, Date is missing Fixed issue with the Version numbers on the target file Fixed issue where the jQuery and jQuery-UI files not deleted on upgrade from Version 01.00.00 Added a internal page where the Image Slider would be replaces with a BannerPaneMedia Companion: MC 3.433b Release: General More GUI tweaks (mostly imperceptible!) Updates for mc_com.exe TV The 'Watched' button has been re-instigated Added TV Menu sub-option to search ALL for new Episodes (includes locked shows) Movies Added 'Source' field (eg DVD, Bluray, HDTV), customisable in Advanced Preferences (try it out, let us know how it works!) Added HTML <<format>> tag with optional parameters for video container, source, and resolution (updated HTML tags to be added to Documentation shortly) Known Issu...Picturethrill: Version 2.3.2.0: Release includes Self-Update feature for Picturethrill. What that means for users is that they are always guaranteed to have a fresh copy of Picturethrill on their computers with all latest fixes. When Picturethrill adds a new website to get pictures from, you will get it too!Simple MVVM Toolkit for Silverlight, WPF and Windows Phone: Simple MVVM Toolkit v3.0.0.0: Added support for Silverlight 5.0 and Windows Phone 7.1. Upgraded project templates and samples. Upgraded installer. There are some new prerequisites required for this version, namely Silverlight 5 Tools, Expression Blend Preview for Silverlight 5 (until the SDK is released), Windows Phone 7.1 SDK. Because it is in the experimental band, I have also removed the dependency on the Silverlight Testing Framework. You can use it if you wish, but the Ria Services project template no longer uses ...CODE Framework: 4.0.20301: The latest version adds a number of new features to the WPF system (such as stylable and testable messagebox support) as well as various new features throughout the system (especially in the Utilities namespace).MyRouter (Virtual WiFi Router): MyRouter 1.0.2 (Beta): A friendlier User Interface. A logger file to catch exceptions so you may send it to use to improve and fix any bugs that may occur. A feedback form because we always love hearing what you guy's think of MyRouter. Check for update menu item for you to stay up to date will the latest changes. Facebook fan page so you may spread the word and share MyRouter with friends and family And Many other exciting features were sure your going to love!WPF Sound Visualization Library: WPF SVL 0.3 (Source, Binaries, Examples, Help): Version 0.3 of WPFSVL. This includes three new controls: an equalizer, a digital clock, and a time editor.Orchard Project: Orchard 1.4: Please read our release notes for Orchard 1.4: http://docs.orchardproject.net/Documentation/Orchard-1-4-Release-NotesNetSqlAzMan - .NET SQL Authorization Manager: 3.6.0.15: 3.6.0.15 28-Feb-2012 • Fix: The communication object, System.ServiceModel.Channels.ServiceChannel, cannot be used for communication because it is in the Faulted state. Work Item 10435: http://netsqlazman.codeplex.com/workitem/10435 • Fix: Made StorageCache thread safe. Thanks to tangrl. • Fix: Members property of SqlAzManApplicationGroup is not functioning. Thanks to tangrl. Work Item 10267: http://netsqlazman.codeplex.com/workitem/10267 • Fix: Indexer are making database calls. Thanks to t...SCCM Client Actions Tool: Client Actions Tool v1.1: SCCM Client Actions Tool v1.1 is the latest version. It comes with following changes since last version: Added stop button to stop the ongoing process. Added action "Query update status". Added option "saveOnlineComputers" in config.ini to enable saving list of online computers from last session. Default value for "LatestClientVersion" set to SP2 R3 (4.00.6487.2157). Wuauserv service manual startup mode is considered healthy on Windows 7. Errors are now suppressed in checkReleases...New ProjectsAbsolute Risk Game: Risk Game is a classic "World Domination Risk" game where you try to conquer the world.Architecture Document Catalog: The Architecture Document Catalog is a catalog for various documentation used by software solution architects. The initial architecture framework supported is from Rozanski and Woods, also called Viewpoints and Perspectives. It's in C#, Silverlight, WCF RIA Services.Background Worker Job Execution & Job Scheduler: Background worker is a multi-threaded job execution and scheduling engine. Very similar to Quartz, but with a slightly different focus.BWOS: preparing a new operating system. and name BWOS. CommonLibrary: Common modules and componentesCustomizeTool: CustomizeToolData Foundry: Data Foundry is a Swiss army knife for database administrator. With capabilities to cross reference check data between tables to find orphaned data and table relations.Data Grid Extensions: Modular extensions for the DataGrid control. Attach filtering capabilities to your existing DataGrid.dk.Helper: dk.Helper makes it easier for tribal wars game players (divoke-kmene.sk) to manage common activities in game. It's developed in C#.ExEn: ExEn is a high-performance implementation of a subset of the XNA API that runs on Silverlight, iOS and Android.Extended Methods for .NET: Developed in VB.NET, this DLL includes some functions I came across over the internet. Originally they were functions. I made some changes to suit my work and recreated them as Extended methods. Currently includes two extended methods for the Image class and one extended method for the String class. I will update it with new methods as I go along.GestionarComenzi: Gestioneaza Comenzi - Firma transporturiGIS Library Management: GIS Library Management System.iFinity Cache Master for DotNetNuke: The iFinity DotNetNuke Cache Master is an Administration module for DotNetNuke. This module allows administrators to inspect the current contents of the ASP.NET Cache in their running DotNetNuke installation. A very useful tool for developers working with the DotNetNuke cache.intelliEssay Document Format Checker: This is a product that tries to check a document's format to see if it conforms to certain given standard.Just T[he]IP: "Just The IP" leverages the Bing API v2 and the ip: Bing Advanced Operator to list the other web sites hosted at this IP Address (that are indexed by Bing).KTool: Ktool is a tool for learning japanese kanji. This program is still in developed. Current version can only display and find a kanji word (Press ctrl-F on main screen for search). Developed in WPF, .NET 4.0Lab Checker: Lab Checker makes it easy for teacher to check students' programs. It allows a student to test his program on a set of test cases which eliminates the need to run the program manually.MeoBox Vera Control Plugin: This is my project for creating a plugin to control my MeoBox ( Scientific Atlanta ) using Vera ( www.micasaverde.com ) Should work with other TV2Client boxesNUnitTestHelper: NUnitTestHelper is a helper class for developing unit tests for C# applications with NUnit framework. This helper library provides set of classes and method which can be used for accomplishing faster unit test development for any kind of project. NUnitTestBase – Supports basic functionality for writing a unit test with NUnit framework. This base class provides built in support for mocking framework. This version provides support for Rhino mocking framework.OnlineExam: Common online examination system based on Asp.net MVC3 can used for knowledge test, I/Q test, college test or most other test project.Orchard Code Generation Extensions: Code Generation Extensions module for Orchard.OrchardTranstion_CN: Orchar?? OsAvatar: to next step showOwnTools: About my toolsPhone Finder App: PhoneFinder will be a Windows Phone platform app alternative for finding a lost or stolen phone. Our plan is to have additional functionality the Windows software does not include. It will be developed using ASP.NET MVC, SQL Server, C#, etc.PoshChat: PoshChat is a client/server chat program written in PowerShell. Supports multiple client connections to a single server to chat.Process Attachment And Secure Text: ProcessAttachmentAndSecureText is an Exchange Transport Agent DLL and associated ASPX page. It is used to 1) strip out attachments and send them to an upload portal, and 2) to strip out text from emails and send it to an upload portal. It is currently coded for Exchange 2010Resource Viewer - Visual Studio Extension: Simply put the “resource viewer extension” enables you to visually view your ResourceDictionary. To open it go to: View – Other Windows – Resource Viewer. When working with WPF/Silverlight you put your reusable resources in a common ResourceDictionary, those resources might be of type Style, SolidColorBrush, DrawingBrush, BitmapImage and more. The problems starts when you have that ResourceDictionary you have no way to see how your resources look like, making the work process (of both t...Scumm XNA: Scumm XNA is an engine that runs old school LucasArts graphical adventure games. It is written completely in C# and will run on PC, Xbox 360 and Windows phone. The code is inspired by ScummVM but this project is not a port, it is a complete rewrite in order to optimize the engine for the CLR. Of course, you will need to own the orinigal games in order to use it. Currently, I will focus my work on the great "Day of Tentacle" game specifically the CD version.SDX DataGrid: SDXDataGrid is a comprehensive data grid component for Microsoft .NET 3.5 web application developers. It is designed to ease the exhausting process of implementing the necessary code for sorting, navigation, grouping, searching and data editing in a data representation object.SQL Scriptz Runner: Features are : Drag And Drop script files Run a directory of script files Sql Script out put messages during execution Script passed or failed that are colored green and red (yellow for running) Stop on error option Open script on error option Run report with time taken for each uComponents Demo: A demo for the code of running uComponents in Umbraco siteUnixTable: UnixTable makes it easier to realize application to access database, with no code but only with visual instrument at runtime. You'll no longer have to write query or code to read table from database. It's developed in Visual Basic for .NET 4. VOA Player.NET: VOA Player is a lightweight windows client for listening VOA Special English. Because of GFW blocking it fetch RSS data via rss2proxy.appspot.com indirectly. User can view article page and listen MP3 stream. The project is a C# implementation of voaplayer.sinaapp.com.Windows Metafile Library: The library supports reading and writing WMF files. Source code is written in pure .NET from scratch following the Windows Metafile Format Specification.Windows Phone 7.1 + MicroFramework (a phone device as remote control): Windows Phone 7.1 + .Net MicroFramework (How use a windows phone device as remote control of a Fez Panda II/MicroFramework board). A windows phone device can be connected to a wifi network (for example a wifi router). If you have also a MicroFramework board connected to the wifi network; you can send some http rest commands from the windows phone device to the MicroFramework board. The microframework board, it must support the tcp/ip protocol through a connect shield. In this exaple it will...XBMC Cache Manager: A Windows Service to manage a shared XBMC MySQL database and shared cache folder.

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• Developing web apps using ASP.NET MVC 3, Razor and EF Code First - Part 1

  - by shiju

  In this post, I will demonstrate web application development using ASP. NET MVC 3, Razor and EF code First. This post will also cover Dependency Injection using Unity 2.0 and generic Repository and Unit of Work for EF Code First. The following frameworks will be used for this step by step tutorial. ASP.NET MVC 3 EF Code First CTP 5 Unity 2.0 Define Domain Model Let’s create domain model for our simple web application Category class public class Category {     public int CategoryId { get; set; }     [Required(ErrorMessage = "Name Required")]     [StringLength(25, ErrorMessage = "Must be less than 25 characters")]     public string Name { get; set;}     public string Description { get; set; }     public virtual ICollection<Expense> Expenses { get; set; } }   Expense class public class Expense {             public int ExpenseId { get; set; }            public string  Transaction { get; set; }     public DateTime Date { get; set; }     public double Amount { get; set; }     public int CategoryId { get; set; }     public virtual Category Category { get; set; } } We have two domain entities - Category and Expense. A single category contains a list of expense transactions and every expense transaction should have a Category. In this post, we will be focusing on CRUD operations for the entity Category and will be working on the Expense entity with a View Model object in the later post. And the source code for this application will be refactored over time. The above entities are very simple POCO (Plain Old CLR Object) classes and the entity Category is decorated with validation attributes in the System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations namespace. Now we want to use these entities for defining model objects for the Entity Framework 4. Using the Code First approach of Entity Framework, we can first define the entities by simply writing POCO classes without any coupling with any API or database library. This approach lets you focus on domain model which will enable Domain-Driven Development for applications. EF code first support is currently enabled with a separate API that is runs on top of the Entity Framework 4. EF Code First is reached CTP 5 when I am writing this article. Creating Context Class for Entity Framework We have created our domain model and let’s create a class in order to working with Entity Framework Code First. For this, you have to download EF Code First CTP 5 and add reference to the assembly EntitFramework.dll. You can also use NuGet to download add reference to EEF Code First.    public class MyFinanceContext : DbContext {     public MyFinanceContext() : base("MyFinance") { }     public DbSet<Category> Categories { get; set; }     public DbSet<Expense> Expenses { get; set; }         }   The above class MyFinanceContext is derived from DbContext that can connect your model classes to a database. The MyFinanceContext class is mapping our Category and Expense class into database tables Categories and Expenses using DbSet<TEntity> where TEntity is any POCO class. When we are running the application at first time, it will automatically create the database. EF code-first look for a connection string in web.config or app.config that has the same name as the dbcontext class. If it is not find any connection string with the convention, it will automatically create database in local SQL Express database by default and the name of the database will be same name as the dbcontext class. You can also define the name of database in constructor of the the dbcontext class. Unlike NHibernate, we don’t have to use any XML based mapping files or Fluent interface for mapping between our model and database. The model classes of Code First are working on the basis of conventions and we can also use a fluent API to refine our model. The convention for primary key is ‘Id’ or ‘<class name>Id’.  If primary key properties are detected with type ‘int’, ‘long’ or ‘short’, they will automatically registered as identity columns in the database by default. Primary key detection is not case sensitive. We can define our model classes with validation attributes in the System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations namespace and it automatically enforces validation rules when a model object is updated or saved. Generic Repository for EF Code First We have created model classes and dbcontext class. Now we have to create generic repository pattern for data persistence with EF code first. If you don’t know about the repository pattern, checkout Martin Fowler’s article on Repository Let’s create a generic repository to working with DbContext and DbSet generics. public interface IRepository<T> where T : class     {         void Add(T entity);         void Delete(T entity);         T GetById(long Id);         IEnumerable<T> All();     }   RepositoryBasse – Generic Repository class public abstract class RepositoryBase<T> where T : class { private MyFinanceContext database; private readonly IDbSet<T> dbset; protected RepositoryBase(IDatabaseFactory databaseFactory) {     DatabaseFactory = databaseFactory;     dbset = Database.Set<T>(); }   protected IDatabaseFactory DatabaseFactory {     get; private set; }   protected MyFinanceContext Database {     get { return database ?? (database = DatabaseFactory.Get()); } } public virtual void Add(T entity) {     dbset.Add(entity);            }        public virtual void Delete(T entity) {     dbset.Remove(entity); }   public virtual T GetById(long id) {     return dbset.Find(id); }   public virtual IEnumerable<T> All() {     return dbset.ToList(); } }   DatabaseFactory class public class DatabaseFactory : Disposable, IDatabaseFactory {     private MyFinanceContext database;     public MyFinanceContext Get()     {         return database ?? (database = new MyFinanceContext());     }     protected override void DisposeCore()     {         if (database != null)             database.Dispose();     } } Unit of Work If you are new to Unit of Work pattern, checkout Fowler’s article on Unit of Work . According to Martin Fowler, the Unit of Work pattern "maintains a list of objects affected by a business transaction and coordinates the writing out of changes and the resolution of concurrency problems." Let’s create a class for handling Unit of Work   public interface IUnitOfWork {     void Commit(); }   UniOfWork class public class UnitOfWork : IUnitOfWork {     private readonly IDatabaseFactory databaseFactory;     private MyFinanceContext dataContext;       public UnitOfWork(IDatabaseFactory databaseFactory)     {         this.databaseFactory = databaseFactory;     }       protected MyFinanceContext DataContext     {         get { return dataContext ?? (dataContext = databaseFactory.Get()); }     }       public void Commit()     {         DataContext.Commit();     } }   The Commit method of the UnitOfWork will call the commit method of MyFinanceContext class and it will execute the SaveChanges method of DbContext class.   Repository class for Category In this post, we will be focusing on the persistence against Category entity and will working on other entities in later post. Let’s create a repository for handling CRUD operations for Category using derive from a generic Repository RepositoryBase<T>.   public class CategoryRepository: RepositoryBase<Category>, ICategoryRepository     {     public CategoryRepository(IDatabaseFactory databaseFactory)         : base(databaseFactory)         {         }                } public interface ICategoryRepository : IRepository<Category> { } If we need additional methods than generic repository for the Category, we can define in the CategoryRepository. Dependency Injection using Unity 2.0 If you are new to Inversion of Control/ Dependency Injection or Unity, please have a look on my articles at http://weblogs.asp.net/shijuvarghese/archive/tags/IoC/default.aspx. I want to create a custom lifetime manager for Unity to store container in the current HttpContext.   public class HttpContextLifetimeManager<T> : LifetimeManager, IDisposable {     public override object GetValue()     {         return HttpContext.Current.Items[typeof(T).AssemblyQualifiedName];     }     public override void RemoveValue()     {         HttpContext.Current.Items.Remove(typeof(T).AssemblyQualifiedName);     }     public override void SetValue(object newValue)     {         HttpContext.Current.Items[typeof(T).AssemblyQualifiedName] = newValue;     }     public void Dispose()     {         RemoveValue();     } }   Let’s create controller factory for Unity in the ASP.NET MVC 3 application. public class UnityControllerFactory : DefaultControllerFactory { IUnityContainer container; public UnityControllerFactory(IUnityContainer container) {     this.container = container; } protected override IController GetControllerInstance(RequestContext reqContext, Type controllerType) {     IController controller;     if (controllerType == null)         throw new HttpException(                 404, String.Format(                     "The controller for path '{0}' could not be found" +     "or it does not implement IController.",                 reqContext.HttpContext.Request.Path));       if (!typeof(IController).IsAssignableFrom(controllerType))         throw new ArgumentException(                 string.Format(                     "Type requested is not a controller: {0}",                     controllerType.Name),                     "controllerType");     try     {         controller= container.Resolve(controllerType) as IController;     }     catch (Exception ex)     {         throw new InvalidOperationException(String.Format(                                 "Error resolving controller {0}",                                 controllerType.Name), ex);     }     return controller; }   }   Configure contract and concrete types in Unity Let’s configure our contract and concrete types in Unity for resolving our dependencies.   private void ConfigureUnity() {     //Create UnityContainer               IUnityContainer container = new UnityContainer()                 .RegisterType<IDatabaseFactory, DatabaseFactory>(new HttpContextLifetimeManager<IDatabaseFactory>())     .RegisterType<IUnitOfWork, UnitOfWork>(new HttpContextLifetimeManager<IUnitOfWork>())     .RegisterType<ICategoryRepository, CategoryRepository>(new HttpContextLifetimeManager<ICategoryRepository>());                 //Set container for Controller Factory                ControllerBuilder.Current.SetControllerFactory(             new UnityControllerFactory(container)); }   In the above ConfigureUnity method, we are registering our types onto Unity container with custom lifetime manager HttpContextLifetimeManager. Let’s call ConfigureUnity method in the Global.asax.cs for set controller factory for Unity and configuring the types with Unity.   protected void Application_Start() {     AreaRegistration.RegisterAllAreas();     RegisterGlobalFilters(GlobalFilters.Filters);     RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);     ConfigureUnity(); }   Developing web application using ASP.NET MVC 3 We have created our domain model for our web application and also have created repositories and configured dependencies with Unity container. Now we have to create controller classes and views for doing CRUD operations against the Category entity. Let’s create controller class for Category Category Controller   public class CategoryController : Controller {     private readonly ICategoryRepository categoryRepository;     private readonly IUnitOfWork unitOfWork;           public CategoryController(ICategoryRepository categoryRepository, IUnitOfWork unitOfWork)     {         this.categoryRepository = categoryRepository;         this.unitOfWork = unitOfWork;     }       public ActionResult Index()     {         var categories = categoryRepository.All();         return View(categories);     }     [HttpGet]     public ActionResult Edit(int id)     {         var category = categoryRepository.GetById(id);         return View(category);     }       [HttpPost]     public ActionResult Edit(int id, FormCollection collection)     {         var category = categoryRepository.GetById(id);         if (TryUpdateModel(category))         {             unitOfWork.Commit();             return RedirectToAction("Index");         }         else return View(category);                 }       [HttpGet]     public ActionResult Create()     {         var category = new Category();         return View(category);     }           [HttpPost]     public ActionResult Create(Category category)     {         if (!ModelState.IsValid)         {             return View("Create", category);         }                     categoryRepository.Add(category);         unitOfWork.Commit();         return RedirectToAction("Index");     }       [HttpPost]     public ActionResult Delete(int  id)     {         var category = categoryRepository.GetById(id);         categoryRepository.Delete(category);         unitOfWork.Commit();         var categories = categoryRepository.All();         return PartialView("CategoryList", categories);       }        }   Creating Views in Razor Now we are going to create views in Razor for our ASP.NET MVC 3 application.  Let’s create a partial view CategoryList.cshtml for listing category information and providing link for Edit and Delete operations. CategoryList.cshtml @using MyFinance.Helpers; @using MyFinance.Domain; @model IEnumerable<Category>      <table>         <tr>         <th>Actions</th>         <th>Name</th>          <th>Description</th>         </tr>     @foreach (var item in Model) {             <tr>             <td>                 @Html.ActionLink("Edit", "Edit",new { id = item.CategoryId })                 @Ajax.ActionLink("Delete", "Delete", new { id = item.CategoryId }, new AjaxOptions { Confirm = "Delete Expense?", HttpMethod = "Post", UpdateTargetId = "divCategoryList" })                           </td>             <td>                 @item.Name             </td>             <td>                 @item.Description             </td>         </tr>          }       </table>     <p>         @Html.ActionLink("Create New", "Create")     </p> The delete link is providing Ajax functionality using the Ajax.ActionLink. This will call an Ajax request for Delete action method in the CategoryCotroller class. In the Delete action method, it will return Partial View CategoryList after deleting the record. We are using CategoryList view for the Ajax functionality and also for Index view using for displaying list of category information. Let’s create Index view using partial view CategoryList  Index.chtml @model IEnumerable<MyFinance.Domain.Category> @{     ViewBag.Title = "Index"; }    <h2>Category List</h2>    <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.unobtrusive-ajax.min.js")" type="text/javascript"></script>    <div id="divCategoryList">               @Html.Partial("CategoryList", Model) </div>   We can call the partial views using Html.Partial helper method. Now we are going to create View pages for insert and update functionality for the Category. Both view pages are sharing common user interface for entering the category information. So I want to create an EditorTemplate for the Category information. We have to create the EditorTemplate with the same name of entity object so that we can refer it on view pages using @Html.EditorFor(model => model) . So let’s create template with name Category. Let’s create view page for insert Category information   @model MyFinance.Domain.Category   @{     ViewBag.Title = "Save"; }   <h2>Create</h2>   <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.validate.min.js")" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.validate.unobtrusive.min.js")" type="text/javascript"></script>   @using (Html.BeginForm()) {     @Html.ValidationSummary(true)     <fieldset>         <legend>Category</legend>                @Html.EditorFor(model => model)               <p>             <input type="submit" value="Create" />         </p>     </fieldset> }   <div>     @Html.ActionLink("Back to List", "Index") </div> ViewStart file In Razor views, we can add a file named _viewstart.cshtml in the views directory  and this will be shared among the all views with in the Views directory. The below code in the _viewstart.cshtml, sets the Layout page for every Views in the Views folder.      @{     Layout = "~/Views/Shared/_Layout.cshtml"; }   Source Code You can download the source code from http://efmvc.codeplex.com/ . The source will be refactored on over time.   Summary In this post, we have created a simple web application using ASP.NET MVC 3 and EF Code First. We have discussed on technologies and practices such as ASP.NET MVC 3, Razor, EF Code First, Unity 2, generic Repository and Unit of Work. In my later posts, I will modify the application and will be discussed on more things. Stay tuned to my blog  for more posts on step by step application building.

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• NoSQL with RavenDB and ASP.NET MVC - Part 2

  - by shiju

  In my previous post, we have discussed on how to work with RavenDB document database in an ASP.NET MVC application. We have setup RavenDB for our ASP.NET MVC application and did basic CRUD operations against a simple domain entity. In this post, let’s discuss on domain entity with deep object graph and how to query against RavenDB documents using Indexes.Let's create two domain entities for our demo ASP.NET MVC appplication  public class Category {       public string Id { get; set; }     [Required(ErrorMessage = "Name Required")]     [StringLength(25, ErrorMessage = "Must be less than 25 characters")]     public string Name { get; set;}     public string Description { get; set; }     public List<Expense> Expenses { get; set; }       public Category()     {         Expenses = new List<Expense>();     } }    public class Expense {       public string Id { get; set; }     public Category Category { get; set; }     public string  Transaction { get; set; }     public DateTime Date { get; set; }     public double Amount { get; set; }   }  We have two domain entities - Category and Expense. A single category contains a list of expense transactions and every expense transaction should have a Category.Let's create  ASP.NET MVC view model  for Expense transaction public class ExpenseViewModel {     public string Id { get; set; }       public string CategoryId { get; set; }       [Required(ErrorMessage = "Transaction Required")]            public string Transaction { get; set; }       [Required(ErrorMessage = "Date Required")]            public DateTime Date { get; set; }       [Required(ErrorMessage = "Amount Required")]     public double Amount { get; set; }       public IEnumerable<SelectListItem> Category { get; set; } } Let's create a contract type for Expense Repository  public interface IExpenseRepository {     Expense Load(string id);     IEnumerable<Expense> GetExpenseTransactions(DateTime startDate,DateTime endDate);     void Save(Expense expense,string categoryId);     void Delete(string id);  } Let's create a concrete type for Expense Repository for handling CRUD operations. public class ExpenseRepository : IExpenseRepository {   private IDocumentSession session; public ExpenseRepository() {         session = MvcApplication.CurrentSession; } public Expense Load(string id) {     return session.Load<Expense>(id); } public IEnumerable<Expense> GetExpenseTransactions(DateTime startDate, DateTime endDate) {             //Querying using the Index name "ExpenseTransactions"     //filtering with dates     var expenses = session.LuceneQuery<Expense>("ExpenseTransactions")         .WaitForNonStaleResults()         .Where(exp => exp.Date >= startDate && exp.Date <= endDate)         .ToArray();     return expenses; } public void Save(Expense expense,string categoryId) {     var category = session.Load<Category>(categoryId);     if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(expense.Id))     {         //new expense transaction         expense.Category = category;         session.Store(expense);     }     else     {         //modifying an existing expense transaction         var expenseToEdit = Load(expense.Id);         //Copy values to  expenseToEdit         ModelCopier.CopyModel(expense, expenseToEdit);         //set category object         expenseToEdit.Category = category;       }     //save changes     session.SaveChanges(); } public void Delete(string id) {     var expense = Load(id);     session.Delete<Expense>(expense);     session.SaveChanges(); }   }  Insert/Update Expense Transaction The Save method is used for both insert a new expense record and modifying an existing expense transaction. For a new expense transaction, we store the expense object with associated category into document session object and load the existing expense object and assign values to it for editing a existing record.  public void Save(Expense expense,string categoryId) {     var category = session.Load<Category>(categoryId);     if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(expense.Id))     {         //new expense transaction         expense.Category = category;         session.Store(expense);     }     else     {         //modifying an existing expense transaction         var expenseToEdit = Load(expense.Id);         //Copy values to  expenseToEdit         ModelCopier.CopyModel(expense, expenseToEdit);         //set category object         expenseToEdit.Category = category;       }     //save changes     session.SaveChanges(); } Querying Expense transactions   public IEnumerable<Expense> GetExpenseTransactions(DateTime startDate, DateTime endDate) {             //Querying using the Index name "ExpenseTransactions"     //filtering with dates     var expenses = session.LuceneQuery<Expense>("ExpenseTransactions")         .WaitForNonStaleResults()         .Where(exp => exp.Date >= startDate && exp.Date <= endDate)         .ToArray();     return expenses; }  The GetExpenseTransactions method returns expense transactions using a LINQ query expression with a Date comparison filter. The Lucene Query is using a index named "ExpenseTransactions" for getting the result set. In RavenDB, Indexes are LINQ queries stored in the RavenDB server and would be  executed on the background and will perform query against the JSON documents. Indexes will be working with a lucene query expression or a set operation. Indexes are composed using a Map and Reduce function. Check out Ayende's blog post on Map/Reduce We can create index using RavenDB web admin tool as well as programmitically using its Client API. The below shows the screen shot of creating index using web admin tool. We can also create Indexes using Raven Cleint API as shown in the following code documentStore.DatabaseCommands.PutIndex("ExpenseTransactions",     new IndexDefinition<Expense,Expense>() {     Map = Expenses => from exp in Expenses                     select new { exp.Date } });  In the Map function, we used a Linq expression as shown in the following from exp in docs.Expensesselect new { exp.Date };We have not used a Reduce function for the above index. A Reduce function is useful while performing aggregate functions based on the results from the Map function. Indexes can be use with set operations of RavenDB.SET OperationsUnlike other document databases, RavenDB supports set based operations that lets you to perform updates, deletes and inserts to the bulk_docs endpoint of RavenDB. For doing this, you just pass a query to a Index as shown in the following commandDELETE http://localhost:8080/bulk_docs/ExpenseTransactions?query=Date:20100531The above command using the Index named "ExpenseTransactions" for querying the documents with Date filter and  will delete all the documents that match the query criteria. The above command is equivalent of the following queryDELETE FROM ExpensesWHERE Date='2010-05-31' Controller & ActionsWe have created Expense Repository class for performing CRUD operations for the Expense transactions. Let's create a controller class for handling expense transactions.   public class ExpenseController : Controller { private ICategoryRepository categoyRepository; private IExpenseRepository expenseRepository; public ExpenseController(ICategoryRepository categoyRepository, IExpenseRepository expenseRepository) {     this.categoyRepository = categoyRepository;     this.expenseRepository = expenseRepository; } //Get Expense transactions based on dates public ActionResult Index(DateTime? StartDate, DateTime? EndDate) {     //If date is not passed, take current month's first and last dte     DateTime dtNow;     dtNow = DateTime.Today;     if (!StartDate.HasValue)     {         StartDate = new DateTime(dtNow.Year, dtNow.Month, 1);         EndDate = StartDate.Value.AddMonths(1).AddDays(-1);     }     //take last date of startdate's month, if endate is not passed     if (StartDate.HasValue && !EndDate.HasValue)     {         EndDate = (new DateTime(StartDate.Value.Year, StartDate.Value.Month, 1)).AddMonths(1).AddDays(-1);     }       var expenses = expenseRepository.GetExpenseTransactions(StartDate.Value, EndDate.Value);     if (Request.IsAjaxRequest())     {           return PartialView("ExpenseList", expenses);     }     ViewData.Add("StartDate", StartDate.Value.ToShortDateString());     ViewData.Add("EndDate", EndDate.Value.ToShortDateString());             return View(expenses);            }   // GET: /Expense/Edit public ActionResult Edit(string id) {       var expenseModel = new ExpenseViewModel();     var expense = expenseRepository.Load(id);     ModelCopier.CopyModel(expense, expenseModel);     var categories = categoyRepository.GetCategories();     expenseModel.Category = categories.ToSelectListItems(expense.Category.Id.ToString());                    return View("Save", expenseModel);          }   // // GET: /Expense/Create   public ActionResult Create() {     var expenseModel = new ExpenseViewModel();               var categories = categoyRepository.GetCategories();     expenseModel.Category = categories.ToSelectListItems("-1");     expenseModel.Date = DateTime.Today;     return View("Save", expenseModel); }   // // POST: /Expense/Save // Insert/Update Expense Tansaction [HttpPost] public ActionResult Save(ExpenseViewModel expenseViewModel) {     try     {         if (!ModelState.IsValid)         {               var categories = categoyRepository.GetCategories();                 expenseViewModel.Category = categories.ToSelectListItems(expenseViewModel.CategoryId);                               return View("Save", expenseViewModel);         }           var expense=new Expense();         ModelCopier.CopyModel(expenseViewModel, expense);          expenseRepository.Save(expense, expenseViewModel.CategoryId);                       return RedirectToAction("Index");     }     catch     {         return View();     } } //Delete a Expense Transaction public ActionResult Delete(string id) {     expenseRepository.Delete(id);     return RedirectToAction("Index");     }     }     Download the Source - You can download the source code from http://ravenmvc.codeplex.com

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• ASP.NET MVC 3 Hosting :: How to Deploy Web Apps Using ASP.NET MVC 3, Razor and EF Code First - Part I

  - by mbridge

  First, you can download the source code from http://efmvc.codeplex.com. The following frameworks will be used for this step by step tutorial. public class Category {     public int CategoryId { get; set; }     [Required(ErrorMessage = "Name Required")]     [StringLength(25, ErrorMessage = "Must be less than 25 characters")]     public string Name { get; set;}     public string Description { get; set; }     public virtual ICollection<Expense> Expenses { get; set; } } Expense Class public class Expense {             public int ExpenseId { get; set; }            public string  Transaction { get; set; }     public DateTime Date { get; set; }     public double Amount { get; set; }     public int CategoryId { get; set; }     public virtual Category Category { get; set; } }    Define Domain Model Let’s create domain model for our simple web application Category Class We have two domain entities - Category and Expense. A single category contains a list of expense transactions and every expense transaction should have a Category. In this post, we will be focusing on CRUD operations for the entity Category and will be working on the Expense entity with a View Model object in the later post. And the source code for this application will be refactored over time. The above entities are very simple POCO (Plain Old CLR Object) classes and the entity Category is decorated with validation attributes in the System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations namespace. Now we want to use these entities for defining model objects for the Entity Framework 4. Using the Code First approach of Entity Framework, we can first define the entities by simply writing POCO classes without any coupling with any API or database library. This approach lets you focus on domain model which will enable Domain-Driven Development for applications. EF code first support is currently enabled with a separate API that is runs on top of the Entity Framework 4. EF Code First is reached CTP 5 when I am writing this article. Creating Context Class for Entity Framework We have created our domain model and let’s create a class in order to working with Entity Framework Code First. For this, you have to download EF Code First CTP 5 and add reference to the assembly EntitFramework.dll. You can also use NuGet to download add reference to EEF Code First. public class MyFinanceContext : DbContext {     public MyFinanceContext() : base("MyFinance") { }     public DbSet<Category> Categories { get; set; }     public DbSet<Expense> Expenses { get; set; }         }   The above class MyFinanceContext is derived from DbContext that can connect your model classes to a database. The MyFinanceContext class is mapping our Category and Expense class into database tables Categories and Expenses using DbSet<TEntity> where TEntity is any POCO class. When we are running the application at first time, it will automatically create the database. EF code-first look for a connection string in web.config or app.config that has the same name as the dbcontext class. If it is not find any connection string with the convention, it will automatically create database in local SQL Express database by default and the name of the database will be same name as the dbcontext class. You can also define the name of database in constructor of the the dbcontext class. Unlike NHibernate, we don’t have to use any XML based mapping files or Fluent interface for mapping between our model and database. The model classes of Code First are working on the basis of conventions and we can also use a fluent API to refine our model. The convention for primary key is ‘Id’ or ‘<class name>Id’.  If primary key properties are detected with type ‘int’, ‘long’ or ‘short’, they will automatically registered as identity columns in the database by default. Primary key detection is not case sensitive. We can define our model classes with validation attributes in the System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations namespace and it automatically enforces validation rules when a model object is updated or saved. Generic Repository for EF Code First We have created model classes and dbcontext class. Now we have to create generic repository pattern for data persistence with EF code first. If you don’t know about the repository pattern, checkout Martin Fowler’s article on Repository Let’s create a generic repository to working with DbContext and DbSet generics. public interface IRepository<T> where T : class     {         void Add(T entity);         void Delete(T entity);         T GetById(long Id);         IEnumerable<T> All();     } RepositoryBasse – Generic Repository class protected MyFinanceContext Database {     get { return database ?? (database = DatabaseFactory.Get()); } } public virtual void Add(T entity) {     dbset.Add(entity);            }        public virtual void Delete(T entity) {     dbset.Remove(entity); }   public virtual T GetById(long id) {     return dbset.Find(id); }   public virtual IEnumerable<T> All() {     return dbset.ToList(); } } DatabaseFactory class public class DatabaseFactory : Disposable, IDatabaseFactory {     private MyFinanceContext database;     public MyFinanceContext Get()     {         return database ?? (database = new MyFinanceContext());     }     protected override void DisposeCore()     {         if (database != null)             database.Dispose();     } } Unit of Work If you are new to Unit of Work pattern, checkout Fowler’s article on Unit of Work . According to Martin Fowler, the Unit of Work pattern "maintains a list of objects affected by a business transaction and coordinates the writing out of changes and the resolution of concurrency problems." Let’s create a class for handling Unit of Work public interface IUnitOfWork {     void Commit(); } UniOfWork class public class UnitOfWork : IUnitOfWork {     private readonly IDatabaseFactory databaseFactory;     private MyFinanceContext dataContext;       public UnitOfWork(IDatabaseFactory databaseFactory)     {         this.databaseFactory = databaseFactory;     }       protected MyFinanceContext DataContext     {         get { return dataContext ?? (dataContext = databaseFactory.Get()); }     }       public void Commit()     {         DataContext.Commit();     } } The Commit method of the UnitOfWork will call the commit method of MyFinanceContext class and it will execute the SaveChanges method of DbContext class.   Repository class for Category In this post, we will be focusing on the persistence against Category entity and will working on other entities in later post. Let’s create a repository for handling CRUD operations for Category using derive from a generic Repository RepositoryBase<T>. public class CategoryRepository: RepositoryBase<Category>, ICategoryRepository     {     public CategoryRepository(IDatabaseFactory databaseFactory)         : base(databaseFactory)         {         }                } public interface ICategoryRepository : IRepository<Category> { } If we need additional methods than generic repository for the Category, we can define in the CategoryRepository. Dependency Injection using Unity 2.0 If you are new to Inversion of Control/ Dependency Injection or Unity, please have a look on my articles at http://weblogs.asp.net/shijuvarghese/archive/tags/IoC/default.aspx. I want to create a custom lifetime manager for Unity to store container in the current HttpContext. public class HttpContextLifetimeManager<T> : LifetimeManager, IDisposable {     public override object GetValue()     {         return HttpContext.Current.Items[typeof(T).AssemblyQualifiedName];     }     public override void RemoveValue()     {         HttpContext.Current.Items.Remove(typeof(T).AssemblyQualifiedName);     }     public override void SetValue(object newValue)     {         HttpContext.Current.Items[typeof(T).AssemblyQualifiedName] = newValue;     }     public void Dispose()     {         RemoveValue();     } } Let’s create controller factory for Unity in the ASP.NET MVC 3 application.                 404, String.Format(                     "The controller for path '{0}' could not be found" +     "or it does not implement IController.",                 reqContext.HttpContext.Request.Path));       if (!typeof(IController).IsAssignableFrom(controllerType))         throw new ArgumentException(                 string.Format(                     "Type requested is not a controller: {0}",                     controllerType.Name),                     "controllerType");     try     {         controller= container.Resolve(controllerType) as IController;     }     catch (Exception ex)     {         throw new InvalidOperationException(String.Format(                                 "Error resolving controller {0}",                                 controllerType.Name), ex);     }     return controller; }   } Configure contract and concrete types in Unity Let’s configure our contract and concrete types in Unity for resolving our dependencies. private void ConfigureUnity() {     //Create UnityContainer               IUnityContainer container = new UnityContainer()                 .RegisterType<IDatabaseFactory, DatabaseFactory>(new HttpContextLifetimeManager<IDatabaseFactory>())     .RegisterType<IUnitOfWork, UnitOfWork>(new HttpContextLifetimeManager<IUnitOfWork>())     .RegisterType<ICategoryRepository, CategoryRepository>(new HttpContextLifetimeManager<ICategoryRepository>());                 //Set container for Controller Factory                ControllerBuilder.Current.SetControllerFactory(             new UnityControllerFactory(container)); } In the above ConfigureUnity method, we are registering our types onto Unity container with custom lifetime manager HttpContextLifetimeManager. Let’s call ConfigureUnity method in the Global.asax.cs for set controller factory for Unity and configuring the types with Unity. protected void Application_Start() {     AreaRegistration.RegisterAllAreas();     RegisterGlobalFilters(GlobalFilters.Filters);     RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);     ConfigureUnity(); } Developing web application using ASP.NET MVC 3 We have created our domain model for our web application and also have created repositories and configured dependencies with Unity container. Now we have to create controller classes and views for doing CRUD operations against the Category entity. Let’s create controller class for Category Category Controller public class CategoryController : Controller {     private readonly ICategoryRepository categoryRepository;     private readonly IUnitOfWork unitOfWork;           public CategoryController(ICategoryRepository categoryRepository, IUnitOfWork unitOfWork)     {         this.categoryRepository = categoryRepository;         this.unitOfWork = unitOfWork;     }       public ActionResult Index()     {         var categories = categoryRepository.All();         return View(categories);     }     [HttpGet]     public ActionResult Edit(int id)     {         var category = categoryRepository.GetById(id);         return View(category);     }       [HttpPost]     public ActionResult Edit(int id, FormCollection collection)     {         var category = categoryRepository.GetById(id);         if (TryUpdateModel(category))         {             unitOfWork.Commit();             return RedirectToAction("Index");         }         else return View(category);                 }       [HttpGet]     public ActionResult Create()     {         var category = new Category();         return View(category);     }           [HttpPost]     public ActionResult Create(Category category)     {         if (!ModelState.IsValid)         {             return View("Create", category);         }                     categoryRepository.Add(category);         unitOfWork.Commit();         return RedirectToAction("Index");     }       [HttpPost]     public ActionResult Delete(int  id)     {         var category = categoryRepository.GetById(id);         categoryRepository.Delete(category);         unitOfWork.Commit();         var categories = categoryRepository.All();         return PartialView("CategoryList", categories);       }        } Creating Views in Razor Now we are going to create views in Razor for our ASP.NET MVC 3 application.  Let’s create a partial view CategoryList.cshtml for listing category information and providing link for Edit and Delete operations. CategoryList.cshtml @using MyFinance.Helpers; @using MyFinance.Domain; @model IEnumerable<Category>      <table>         <tr>         <th>Actions</th>         <th>Name</th>          <th>Description</th>         </tr>     @foreach (var item in Model) {             <tr>             <td>                 @Html.ActionLink("Edit", "Edit",new { id = item.CategoryId })                 @Ajax.ActionLink("Delete", "Delete", new { id = item.CategoryId }, new AjaxOptions { Confirm = "Delete Expense?", HttpMethod = "Post", UpdateTargetId = "divCategoryList" })                           </td>             <td>                 @item.Name             </td>             <td>                 @item.Description             </td>         </tr>         }       </table>     <p>         @Html.ActionLink("Create New", "Create")     </p> The delete link is providing Ajax functionality using the Ajax.ActionLink. This will call an Ajax request for Delete action method in the CategoryCotroller class. In the Delete action method, it will return Partial View CategoryList after deleting the record. We are using CategoryList view for the Ajax functionality and also for Index view using for displaying list of category information. Let’s create Index view using partial view CategoryList  Index.chtml @model IEnumerable<MyFinance.Domain.Category> @{     ViewBag.Title = "Index"; }    <h2>Category List</h2>    <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.unobtrusive-ajax.min.js")" type="text/javascript"></script>    <div id="divCategoryList">               @Html.Partial("CategoryList", Model) </div> We can call the partial views using Html.Partial helper method. Now we are going to create View pages for insert and update functionality for the Category. Both view pages are sharing common user interface for entering the category information. So I want to create an EditorTemplate for the Category information. We have to create the EditorTemplate with the same name of entity object so that we can refer it on view pages using @Html.EditorFor(model => model) . So let’s create template with name Category. Category.cshtml @model MyFinance.Domain.Category <div class="editor-label"> @Html.LabelFor(model => model.Name) </div> <div class="editor-field"> @Html.EditorFor(model => model.Name) @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Name) </div> <div class="editor-label"> @Html.LabelFor(model => model.Description) </div> <div class="editor-field"> @Html.EditorFor(model => model.Description) @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Description) </div> Let’s create view page for insert Category information @model MyFinance.Domain.Category   @{     ViewBag.Title = "Save"; }   <h2>Create</h2>   <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.validate.min.js")" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.validate.unobtrusive.min.js")" type="text/javascript"></script>   @using (Html.BeginForm()) {     @Html.ValidationSummary(true)     <fieldset>         <legend>Category</legend>                @Html.EditorFor(model => model)               <p>             <input type="submit" value="Create" />         </p>     </fieldset> }   <div>     @Html.ActionLink("Back to List", "Index") </div> ViewStart file In Razor views, we can add a file named _viewstart.cshtml in the views directory  and this will be shared among the all views with in the Views directory. The below code in the _viewstart.cshtml, sets the Layout page for every Views in the Views folder.     @{     Layout = "~/Views/Shared/_Layout.cshtml"; } Tomorrow, we will cotinue the second part of this article. :)

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• Red Gate Coder interviews: Robin Hellen

  - by Michael Williamson

  Robin Hellen is a test engineer here at Red Gate, and is also the latest coder I’ve interviewed. We chatted about debugging code, the roles of software engineers and testers, and why Vala is currently his favourite programming language. How did you get started with programming?It started when I was about six. My dad’s a professional programmer, and he gave me and my sister one of his old computers and taught us a bit about programming. It was an old Amiga 500 with a variant of BASIC. I don’t think I ever successfully completed anything! It was just faffing around. I didn’t really get anywhere with it.But then presumably you did get somewhere with it at some point.At some point. The PC emerged as the dominant platform, and I learnt a bit of Visual Basic. I didn’t really do much, just a couple of quick hacky things. A bit of demo animation. Took me a long time to get anywhere with programming, really.When did you feel like you did start to get somewhere?I think it was when I started doing things for someone else, which was my sister’s final year of university project. She called up my dad two days before she was due to submit, saying “We need something to display a graph!”. Dad says, “I’m too busy, go talk to your brother”. So I hacked up this ugly piece of code, sent it off and they won a prize for that project. Apparently, the graph, the bit that I wrote, was the reason they won a prize! That was when I first felt that I’d actually done something that was worthwhile. That was my first real bit of code, and the ugliest code I’ve ever written. It’s basically an array of pre-drawn line elements that I shifted round the screen to draw a very spikey graph.When did you decide that programming might actually be something that you wanted to do as a career?It’s not really a decision I took, I always wanted to do something with computers. And I had to take a gap year for uni, so I was looking for twelve month internships. I applied to Red Gate, and they gave me a job as a tester. And that’s where I really started having to write code well. To a better standard that I had been up to that point.How did you find coming to Red Gate and working with other coders?I thought it was really nice. I learnt so much just from other people around. I think one of the things that’s really great is that people are just willing to help you learn. Instead of “Don’t you know that, you’re so stupid”, it’s “You can just do it this way”.If you could go back to the very start of that internship, is there something that you would tell yourself?Write shorter code. I have a tendency to write massive, many-thousand line files that I break out of right at the end. And then half-way through a project I’m doing something, I think “Where did I write that bit that does that thing?”, and it’s almost impossible to find. I wrote some horrendous code when I started. Just that principle, just keep things short. Even if looks a bit crazy to be jumping around all over the place all of the time, it’s actually a lot more understandable.And how do you hold yourself to that?Generally, if a function’s going off my screen, it’s probably too long. That’s what I tell myself, and within the team here we have code reviews, so the guys I’m with at the moment are pretty good at pulling me up on, “Doesn’t that look like it’s getting a bit long?”. It’s more just the subjective standard of readability than anything.So you’re an advocate of code review?Yes, definitely. Both to spot errors that you might have made, and to improve your knowledge. The person you’re reviewing will say “Oh, you could have done it that way”. That’s how we learn, by talking to others, and also just sharing knowledge of how your project works around the team, or even outside the team. Definitely a very firm advocate of code reviews.Do you think there’s more we could do with them?I don’t know. We’re struggling with how to add them as part of the process without it becoming too cumbersome. We’ve experimented with a few different ways, and we’ve not found anything that just works.To get more into the nitty gritty: how do you like to debug code?The first thing is to do it in my head. I’ll actually think what piece of code is likely to have caused that error, and take a quick look at it, just to see if there’s anything glaringly obvious there. The next thing I’ll probably do is throw in print statements, or throw some exceptions from various points, just to check: is it going through the code path I expect it to? A last resort is to actually debug code using a debugger.Why is the debugger the last resort?Probably because of the environments I learnt programming in. VB and early BASIC didn’t have much of a debugger, the only way to find out what your program was doing was to add print statements. Also, because a lot of the stuff I tend to work with is non-interactive, if it’s something that takes a long time to run, I can throw in the print statements, set a run off, go and do something else, and look at it again later, rather than trying to remember what happened at that point when I was debugging through it. So it also gives me the record of what happens. I hate just sitting there pressing F5, F5, continually. If you’re having to find out what your code is doing at each line, you’ve probably got a very wrong mental model of what your code’s doing, and you can find that out just as easily by inspecting a couple of values through the print statements.If I were on some codebase that you were also working on, what should I do to make it as easy as possible to understand?I’d say short and well-named methods. The one thing I like to do when I’m looking at code is to find out where a value comes from, and the more layers of indirection there are, particularly DI [dependency injection] frameworks, the harder it is to find out where something’s come from. I really hate that. I want to know if the value come from the user here or is a constant here, and if I can’t find that out, that makes code very hard to understand for me.As a tester, where do you think the split should lie between software engineers and testers?I think the split is less on areas of the code you write and more what you’re designing and creating. The developers put a structure on the code, while my major role is to say which tests we should have, whether we should test that, or it’s not worth testing that because it’s a tiny function in code that nobody’s ever actually going to see. So it’s not a split in the code, it’s a split in what you’re thinking about. Saying what code we should write, but alternatively what code we should take out.In your experience, do the software engineers tend to do much testing themselves?They tend to control the lowest layer of tests. And, depending on how the balance of people is in the team, they might write some of the higher levels of test. Or that might go to the testers. I’m the only tester on my team with three other developers, so they’ll be writing quite a lot of the actual test code, with input from me as to whether we should test that functionality, whereas on other teams, where it’s been more equal numbers, the testers have written pretty much all of the high level tests, just because that’s the best use of resource.If you could shuffle resources around however you liked, do you think that the developers should be writing those high-level tests?I think they should be writing them occasionally. It helps when they have an understanding of how testing code works and possibly what assumptions we’ve made in tests, and they can say “actually, it doesn’t work like that under the hood so you’ve missed this whole area”. It’s one of those agile things that everyone on the team should be at least comfortable doing the various jobs. So if the developers can write test code then I think that’s a very good thing.So you think testers should be able to write production code?Yes, although given most testers skills at coding, I wouldn’t advise it too much! I have written a few things, and I did make a few changes that have actually gone into our production code base. They’re not necessarily running every time but they are there. I think having that mix of skill sets is really useful. In some ways we’re using our own product to test itself, so being able to make those changes where it’s not working saves me a round-trip through the developers. It can be really annoying if the developers have no time to make a change, and I can’t touch the code.If the software engineers are consistently writing tests at all levels, what role do you think the role of a tester is?I think on a team like that, those distinctions aren’t quite so useful. There’ll be two cases. There’s either the case where the developers think they’ve written good tests, but you still need someone with a test engineer mind-set to go through the tests and validate that it’s a useful set, or the correct set for that code. Or they won’t actually be pure developers, they’ll have that mix of test ability in there.I think having slightly more distinct roles is useful. When it starts to blur, then you lose that view of the tests as a whole. The tester job is not to create tests, it’s to validate the quality of the product, and you don’t do that just by writing tests. There’s more things you’ve got to keep in your mind. And I think when you blur the roles, you start to lose that end of the tester.So because you’re working on those features, you lose that holistic view of the whole system?Yeah, and anyone who’s worked on the feature shouldn’t be testing it. You always need to have it tested it by someone who didn’t write it. Otherwise you’re a bit too close and you assume “yes, people will only use it that way”, but the tester will come along and go “how do people use this? How would our most idiotic user use this?”. I might not test that because it might be completely irrelevant. But it’s coming in and trying to have a different set of assumptions.Are you a believer that it should all be automated if possible?Not entirely. So an automated test is always better than a manual test for the long-term, but there’s still nothing that beats a human sitting in front of the application and thinking “What could I do at this point?”. The automated test is very good but they follow that strict path, and they never check anything off the path. The human tester will look at things that they weren’t expecting, whereas the automated test can only ever go “Is that value correct?” in many respects, and it won’t notice that on the other side of the screen you’re showing something completely wrong. And that value might have been checked independently, but you always find a few odd interactions when you’re going through something manually, and you always need to go through something manually to start with anyway, otherwise you won’t know where the important bits to write your automation are.When you’re doing that manual testing, do you think it’s important to do that across the entire product, or just the bits that you’ve touched recently?I think it’s important to do it mostly on the bits you’ve touched, but you can’t ignore the rest of the product. Unless you’re dealing with a very, very self-contained bit, you’re almost always encounter other bits of the product along the way. Most testers I know, even if they are looking at just one path, they’ll keep open and move around a bit anyway, just because they want to find something that’s broken. If we find that your path is right, we’ll go out and hunt something else.How do you think this fits into the idea of continuously deploying, so long as the tests pass?With deploying a website it’s a bit different because you can always pull it back. If you’re deploying an application to customers, when you’ve released it, it’s out there, you can’t pull it back. Someone’s going to keep it, no matter how hard you try there will be a few installations that stay around. So I’d always have at least a human element on that path. With websites, you could probably automate straight out, or at least straight out to an internal environment or a single server in a cloud of fifty that will serve some people. But I don’t think you should release to everyone just on automated tests passing.You’ve already mentioned using BASIC and C# — are there any other languages that you’ve used?I’ve used a few. That’s something that has changed more recently, I’ve become familiar with more languages. Before I started at Red Gate I learnt a bit of C. Then last year, I taught myself Python which I actually really enjoyed using. I’ve also come across another language called Vala, which is sort of a C#-like language. It’s basically a pre-processor for C, but it has very nice syntax. I think that’s currently my favourite language.Any particular reason for trying Vala?I have a completely Linux environment at home, and I’ve been looking for a nice language, and C# just doesn’t cut it because I won’t touch Mono. So, I was looking for something like C# but that was useable in an open source environment, and Vala’s what I found. C#’s got a few features that Vala doesn’t, and Vala’s got a few features where I think “It would be awesome if C# had that”.What are some of the features that it’s missing?Extension methods. And I think that’s the only one that really bugs me. I like to use them when I’m writing C# because it makes some things really easy, especially with libraries that you can’t touch the internals of. It doesn’t have method overloading, which is sometimes annoying.Where it does win over C#?Everything is non-nullable by default, you never have to check that something’s unexpectedly null.Also, Vala has code contracts. This is starting to come in C# 4, but the way it works in Vala is that you specify requirements in short phrases as part of your function signature and they stick to the signature, so that when you inherit it, it has exactly the same code contract as the base one, or when you inherit from an interface, you have to match the signature exactly. Just using those makes you think a bit more about how you’re writing your method, it’s not an afterthought when you’ve got contracts from base classes given to you, you can’t change it. Which I think is a lot nicer than the way C# handles it. When are those actually checked?They’re checked both at compile and run-time. The compile-time checking isn’t very strong yet, it’s quite a new feature in the compiler, and because it compiles down to C, you can write C code and interface with your methods, so you can bypass that compile-time check anyway. So there’s an extra runtime check, and if you violate one of the contracts at runtime, it’s game over for your program, there’s no exception to catch, it’s just goodbye!One thing I dislike about C# is the exceptions. You write a bit of code and fifty exceptions could come from any point in your ten lines, and you can’t mentally model how those exceptions are going to come out, and you can’t even predict them based on the functions you’re calling, because if you’ve accidentally got a derived class there instead of a base class, that can throw a completely different set of exceptions. So I’ve got no way of mentally modelling those, whereas in Vala they’re checked like Java, so you know only these exceptions can come out. You know in advance the error conditions.I think Raymond Chen on Old New Thing says “the only thing you know when you throw an exception is that you’re in an invalid state somewhere in your program, so just kill it and be done with it!”You said you’ve also learnt bits of Python. How did you find that compared to Vala and C#?Very different because of the dynamic typing. I’ve been writing a website for my own use. I’m quite into photography, so I take photos off my camera, post-process them, dump them in a file, and I get a webpage with all my thumbnails. So sort of like Picassa, but written by myself because I wanted something to learn Python with. There are some things that are really nice, I just found it really difficult to cope with the fact that I’m not quite sure what this object type that I’m passed is, I might not ever be sure, so it can randomly blow up on me. But once I train myself to ignore that and just say “well, I’m fairly sure it’s going to be something that looks like this, so I’ll use it like this”, then it’s quite nice.Any particular features that you’ve appreciated?I don’t like any particular feature, it’s just very straightforward to work with. It’s very quick to write something in, particularly as you don’t have to worry that you’ve changed something that affects a different part of the program. If you have, then that part blows up, but I can get this part working right now.If you were doing a big project, would you be willing to do it in Python rather than C# or Vala?I think I might be willing to try something bigger or long term with Python. We’re currently doing an ASP.NET MVC project on C#, and I don’t like the amount of reflection. There’s a lot of magic that pulls values out, and it’s all done under the scenes. It’s almost managed to put a dynamic type system on top of C#, which in many ways destroys the language to me, whereas if you’re already in a dynamic language, having things done dynamically is much more natural. In many ways, you get the worst of both worlds. I think for web projects, I would go with Python again, whereas for anything desktop, command-line or GUI-based, I’d probably go for C# or Vala, depending on what environment I’m in.It’s the fact that you can gain from the strong typing in ways that you can’t so much on the web app. Or, in a web app, you have to use dynamic typing at some point, or you have to write a hell of a lot of boilerplate, and I’d rather use the dynamic typing than write the boilerplate.What do you think separates great programmers from everyone else?Probably design choices. Choosing to write it a piece of code one way or another. For any given program you ask me to write, I could probably do it five thousand ways. A programmer who is capable will see four or five of them, and choose one of the better ones. The excellent programmer will see the largest proportion and manage to pick the best one very quickly without having to think too much about it. I think that’s probably what separates, is the speed at which they can see what’s the best path to write the program in. More Red Gater Coder interviews

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, October 24, 2013

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, October 24, 2013Popular ReleasesX-tee.NET: X-tee.NET 1.0.4: Few code generation bug fixes.VsTortoise - a TortoiseSVN add-in for Microsoft Visual Studio: VsTortoise Build 32 Beta: Note: This release does not work with custom VsTortoise toolbars. These get removed every time when you shutdown Visual Studio. (#7940) This release has been tested with Visual Studio 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2013, using TortoiseSVN 1.6, 1.7 and 1.8. It should also still work with Visual Studio 2005, but I couldn't find anyone to test it in VS2005. Build 32 (beta) changelogNew: Added Visual Studio 2013 support New: Added Visual Studio 2012 support New: Added SVN 1.8 support New: Added 'Ch...ABCat: ABCat v.2.0.1a: ?????????? ???????? ? ?????????? ?????? ???? ??? Win7. ????????? ?????? ????????? ?? ???????. ????? ?????, ???? ????? ???????? ????????? ?????????? ????????? "?? ??????? ????? ???????????? ?????????? ??????...", ?? ?????????? ??????? ? ?????????? ?????? Microsoft SQL Ce ?? ????????? ??????: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=17876. ???????? ?????? x64 ??? x86 ? ??????????? ?? ?????? ???????????? ???????. ??? ??????? ????????? ?? ?????????? ?????? Entity Framework, ? ???? ...NB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog Module: NB_Store v2.3.8 Rel3: vv2.3.8 Rel3 updates the version number in the ManagerMenuDefault.xml. Simply update the version setting in the Back Office to 02.03.08 if you have already installed Rel2. v2.3.8 Is now DNN6 and DNN7 compatible NOTE: NB_Store v2.3.8 is NOT compatible with DNN5. SOURCE CODE : https://github.com/leedavi/NB_Store (Source code has been moved to GitHub, due to issues with codeplex SVN and the inability to move easily to GIT on codeplex)patterns & practices: Data Access Guidance: Data Access Guidance 2013: This is the 2013 release of Data Access Guidance. The documentation for this RI is also available on MSDN: Data Access for Highly-Scalable Solutions: Using SQL, NoSQL, and Polyglot Persistence: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn271399.aspxMedia Companion: Media Companion MC3.584b: IMDB changes fixed. Fixed* mc_com.exe - Fixed to using new profile entries. * Movie - fixed rename movie and folder if use foldername selected. * Movie - Alt Edit Movie, trailer url check if changed and confirm valid. * Movie - Fixed IMDB poster scraping * Movie - Fixed outline and Plot scraping, including removal of Hyperlink's. * Movie Poster refactoring, attempts to catch gdi+ errors Revision HistoryTerrariViewer: TerrariViewer v7.2 [Terraria Inventory Editor]: Added "Check for Update" button Hopefully fixed Windows XP issue You can now backspace in Item stack fieldsDirectXTex texture processing library: October 2013: October 21, 2013 Updated for Visual Studio 2013 and Windows 8.1 SDK RTM PremultiplyAlpha updated with new 'flags' parameter and to use sRGB correct blending Fixed colorspace conversion issue with DirectCompute compressor when compressing for BC7 SRGBSimple Injector: Simple Injector v2.3.6: This patch releases fixes one bug concerning resolving open generic types that contain nested generic type arguments. Nested generic types were handled incorrectly in certain cases. This affects RegisterOpenGeneric and RegisterDecorator. (work item 20332)Virtual Wifi Hotspot for Windows 7 & 8: Virtual Router Plus 2.6.0: Virtual Router Plus 2.6.0Fast YouTube Downloader: Fast YouTube Downloader 2.3.0: Fast YouTube DownloaderMagick.NET: Magick.NET 6.8.7.101: Magick.NET linked with ImageMagick 6.8.7.1. Breaking changes: - Renamed Matrix classes: MatrixColor = ColorMatrix and MatrixConvolve = ConvolveMatrix. - Renamed Depth method with Channels parameter to BitDepth and changed the other method into a property.VidCoder: 1.5.9 Beta: Added Rip DVD and Rip Blu-ray AutoPlay actions for Windows: now you can have VidCoder start up and scan a disc when you insert it. Go to Start -> AutoPlay to set it up. Added error message for Windows XP users rather than letting it crash. Removed "quality" preset from list for QSV as it currently doesn't offer much improvement. Changed installer to ignore version number when copying files over. Should reduce the chances of a bug from me forgetting to increment a version number. Fixed ...MSBuild Extension Pack: October 2013: Release Blog Post The MSBuild Extension Pack October 2013 release provides a collection of over 480 MSBuild tasks. A high level summary of what the tasks currently cover includes the following: System Items: Active Directory, Certificates, COM+, Console, Date and Time, Drives, Environment Variables, Event Logs, Files and Folders, FTP, GAC, Network, Performance Counters, Registry, Services, Sound Code: Assemblies, AsyncExec, CAB Files, Code Signing, DynamicExecute, File Detokenisation, GUI...VG-Ripper & PG-Ripper: VG-Ripper 2.9.49: changes NEW: Added Support for "ImageTeam.org links NEW: Added Support for "ImgNext.com" links NEW: Added Support for "HostUrImage.com" links NEW: Added Support for "3XVintage.com" linksmyCollections: Version 2.8.7.0: New in this version : Added Public Rating Added Collection Number Added Order by Collection Number Improved XBMC integrations Play on music item will now launch default player. Settings are now saved in database. Tooltip now display sort information. Fix Issue with Stars on card view. Fix Bug with PDF Export. Fix Bug with technical information's. Fix HotMovies Provider. Improved Performance on Save. Bug FixingMoreTerra (Terraria World Viewer): MoreTerra 1.11.3.1: Release 1.11.3.1 ================ = New Features = ================ Added markers for Copper Cache, Silver Cache and the Enchanted Sword. ============= = Bug Fixes = ============= Use Official Colors now no longer tries to change the Draw Wires option instead. World reading was breaking for people with a stock 1.2 Terraria version. Changed world name reading so it does not crash the program if you load MoreTerra while Terraria is saving the world. =================== = Feature Removal = =...patterns & practices - Windows Azure Guidance: Cloud Design Patterns: 1st drop of Cloud Design Patterns project. It contains 14 patterns with 6 related guidance.Player Framework by Microsoft: Player Framework for Windows and WP (v1.3): Includes all changes in v1.3 beta 1 and v1.3 beta 2 Support for Windows 8.1 RTM and VS2013 RTM Xaml: New property: AutoLoadPluginTypes to help control which stock plugins are loaded by default (requires AutoLoadPlugins = true). Support for SystemMediaTransportControls on Windows 8.1 JS: Support for visual markers in the timeline. JS: Support for markers collection and markerreached event. JS: New ChaptersPlugin to automatically populate timeline with chapter tracks. JS: Audio an...Json.NET: Json.NET 5.0 Release 8: Fix - Fixed not writing string quotes when QuoteName is falseNew ProjectsActive shape models for .net: Library to find Facial critical points (contour, nose, eyes, mouth) based on active shape models(wrapper for code.google.com/p/asmlibrary). Not support 64bit.Benson's Project: The Task1 project in ASP.NET calculates the sum of two numbers entered in two textboxes and give the output by label when the button "calculate sum" is clicked.cassan: asp.net mvc 4.5 build boostrap3 websiteCoreRG: This project is a Free GNU, its to fast development.Fractals Explorer: A Windows Phone 7 application for exploring a simple collection of fractals.GingerFight: Some test gameGirapong: Girapong is a game for Windows Phone that consist of an original approach to handle the classical sort of games like Pong, using the accelerometer of the phone.Headlight: -KeyWielder: Simple token generatorMDIContainer: MDIContainer extends WPF to support MDI. It displays your user control as window in a container.MocuGame Library: The MocuGame Library is a set of JavaScript classes made for handling every part of making an HTML5-based game, from audio, to graphics, to input.multi: Make creating multi machine environments simple. MvvmCrystalTool: Library for easy work with MVVM pattern in WP8PeerBlock For Android: PeerBlock For Android lets you control who your phone 'talks to' on the Internet. By selecting appropriate lists of 'known bad' computers, you can block...Pescar2013-Shop-Kristo-Giselle-Grecia: Tp para presentarlo el 10/10 PHP to Dynamics CRM 2011 Online: Connect you PHP webSite to Dynamics CRM 2011 Online throw WebServices. You can: - Create Entities - Update Entities - Delete Entities - Use Fetch QueriesProductive Production: Core functionality for a system to manage the entry of production in a manufacturing environment. The intent will be to provide some base functionality and intProject Of DreamTeam: Space Invaders windows phone / windowsTVShows-EF5: Proyecto básico de integración con diferentes tecnologías.Validation Engine: Validation Engine for WinForms. Engine provides powerful, flexible and easy to use rule based validation for your application. DevExpress and Net.Spring ready.WCF Events: Vis Stud 2010 C# WCF events Demo Solution??? ?, ??? ?.: ??? ?, ??? ?.

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• NoSQL with MongoDB, NoRM and ASP.NET MVC - Part 2

  - by shiju

   In my last post, I have given an introduction to MongoDB and NoRM using an ASP.NET MVC demo app. I have updated the demo ASP.NET MVC app and a created a new drop at codeplex. You can download the demo at http://mongomvc.codeplex.com/In my last post, we have discussed to doing basic CRUD operations against a simple domain entity. In this post, let’s discuss on domain entity with deep object graph.The below is our domain entities  public class Category {       [MongoIdentifier]     public ObjectId Id { get; set; }       [Required(ErrorMessage = "Name Required")]     [StringLength(25, ErrorMessage = "Must be less than 25 characters")]     public string Name { get; set;}     public string Description { get; set; }     public List<Expense> Expenses { get; set; }       public Category()     {         Expenses = new List<Expense>();     } }    public class Expense {     [MongoIdentifier]     public ObjectId Id { get; set; }     public Category Category { get; set; }     public string  Transaction { get; set; }     public DateTime Date { get; set; }     public double Amount { get; set; }   }   We have two domain entities - Category and Expense. A single category contains a list of expense transactions and every expense transaction should have a Category.The MongoSession class  internal class MongoSession : IDisposable {     private readonly MongoQueryProvider provider;       public MongoSession()     {         this.provider = new MongoQueryProvider("Expense");     }       public IQueryable<Category> Categories     {         get { return new MongoQuery<Category>(this.provider); }     }     public IQueryable<Expense> Expenses     {         get { return new MongoQuery<Expense>(this.provider); }     }     public MongoQueryProvider Provider     {         get { return this.provider; }     }       public void Add<T>(T item) where T : class, new()     {         this.provider.DB.GetCollection<T>().Insert(item);     }       public void Dispose()     {         this.provider.Server.Dispose();     }     public void Delete<T>(T item) where T : class, new()     {         this.provider.DB.GetCollection<T>().Delete(item);     }       public void Drop<T>()     {         this.provider.DB.DropCollection(typeof(T).Name);     }       public void Save<T>(T item) where T : class,new()     {         this.provider.DB.GetCollection<T>().Save(item);                }     }     ASP.NET MVC view model  for Expense transaction  public class ExpenseViewModel {     public ObjectId Id { get; set; }       public ObjectId CategoryId { get; set; }       [Required(ErrorMessage = "Transaction Required")]            public string Transaction { get; set; }       [Required(ErrorMessage = "Date Required")]            public DateTime Date { get; set; }       [Required(ErrorMessage = "Amount Required")]        public double Amount { get; set; }       public IEnumerable<SelectListItem> Category { get; set; } }  Let's create action method for Insert and Update a expense transaction   [HttpPost] public ActionResult Save(ExpenseViewModel expenseViewModel) {     try     {         if (!ModelState.IsValid)         {             using (var session = new MongoSession())             {                 var categories = session.Categories.AsEnumerable<Category>();                 expenseViewModel.Category = categories.ToSelectListItems(expenseViewModel.CategoryId);                }             return View("Save", expenseViewModel);         }           var expense=new Expense();         ModelCopier.CopyModel(expenseViewModel, expense);           using (var session = new MongoSession())         {             ObjectId Id = expenseViewModel.CategoryId;             var category = session.Categories                 .Where(c => c.Id ==Id  )                 .FirstOrDefault();             expense.Category = category;             session.Save(expense);         }         return RedirectToAction("Index");     }     catch     {         return View();     } } Query with Expenses  using (var session = new MongoSession()) {     var expenses = session.Expenses.         Where(exp => exp.Date >= StartDate && exp.Date <= EndDate)         .AsEnumerable<Expense>(); }  We are doing a LINQ query expression with a Date filter. We can easily work with MongoDB using NoRM driver and can managing object graph of domain entities are pretty cool. Download the Source - You can download the source code form http://mongomvc.codeplex.com

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• VS 2012 Code Review &ndash; Before Check In OR After Check In?

  - by Tarun Arora

  “Is Code Review Important and Effective?” There is a consensus across the industry that code review is an effective and practical way to collar code inconsistency and possible defects early in the software development life cycle. Among others some of the advantages of code reviews are, Bugs are found faster Forces developers to write readable code (code that can be read without explanation or introduction!) Optimization methods/tricks/productive programs spread faster Programmers as specialists "evolve" faster It's fun “Code review is systematic examination (often known as peer review) of computer source code. It is intended to find and fix mistakes overlooked in the initial development phase, improving both the overall quality of software and the developers' skills. Reviews are done in various forms such as pair programming, informal walkthroughs, and formal inspections.” Wikipedia No where does the definition mention whether its better to review code before the code has been committed to version control or after the commit has been performed. No matter which side you favour, Visual Studio 2012 allows you to request for a code review both before check in and also request for a review after check in. Let’s weigh the pros and cons of the approaches independently. Code Review Before Check In or Code Review After Check In? Approach 1 – Code Review before Check in Developer completes the code and feels the code quality is appropriate for check in to TFS. The developer raises a code review request to have a second pair of eyes validate if the code abides to the recommended best practices, will not result in any defects due to common coding mistakes and whether any optimizations can be made to improve the code quality.                                             Image 1 – code review before check in Pros Everything that gets committed to source control is reviewed. Minimizes the chances of smelly code making its way into the code base. Decreases the cost of fixing bugs, remember, the earlier you find them, the lesser the pain in fixing them. Cons Development Code Freeze – Since the changes aren’t in the source control yet. Further development can only be done off-line. The changes have not been through a CI build, hard to say whether the code abides to all build quality standards. Inconsistent! Cumbersome to track the actual code review process.  Not every change to the code base is worth reviewing, a lot of effort is invested for very little gain. Approach 2 – Code Review after Check in Developer checks in, random code reviews are performed on the checked in code.                                                      Image 2 – Code review after check in Pros The code has already passed the CI build and run through any code analysis plug ins you may have running on the build server. Instruct the developer to ensure ZERO fx cop, style cop and static code analysis before check in. Code is cleaner and smell free even before the code review. No Offline development, developers can continue to develop against the source control. Cons Bad code can easily make its way into the code base. Since the review take place much later in the cycle, the cost of fixing issues can prove to be much higher. Approach 3 – Hybrid Approach The community advocates a more hybrid approach, a blend of tooling and human accountability quotient.                                                               Image 3 – Hybrid Approach 1. Code review high impact check ins. It is not possible to review everything, by setting up code review check in policies you can end up slowing your team. More over, the code that you are reviewing before check in hasn't even been through a green CI build either. 2. Tooling. Let the tooling work for you. By running static analysis, fx cop, style cop and other plug ins on the build agent, you can identify the real issues that in my opinion can't possibly be identified using human reviews. Configure the tooling to report back top 10 issues every day. Mandate the manual code review of individuals who keep making it to this list of shame more often. 3. During Merge. I would prefer eliminating some of the other code issues during merge from Main branch to the release branch. In a scrum project this is still easier because cheery picking the merges is a possibility and the size of code being reviewed is still limited. Let the tooling work for you, if some one breaks the CI build often, put them on a gated check in build course until you see improvement. If some one appears on the top 10 list of shame generated via the build then ensure that all their code is reviewed till you see improvement. At the end of the day, the goal is to ensure that the code being delivered is top quality. By enforcing a code review before any check in, you force the developer to work offline or stay put till the review is complete. What do the experts say? So I asked a few expects what they thought of “Code Review quality gate before Checking in code?" Terje Sandstrom | Microsoft ALM MVP You mean a review quality gate BEFORE checking in code????? That would mean a lot of code staying either local or in shelvesets, and not even been through a CI build, and a green CI build being the main criteria for going further, f.e. to the review state. I would not like code laying around with no checkin’s. Having a requirement that code is checked in small pieces, 4-8 hours work max, and AT LEAST daily checkins, a manual code review comes second down the lane. I would expect review quality gates to happen before merging back to main, or before merging to release.  But that would all be on checked-in code.  Branching is absolutely one way to ease the pain.   Another way we are using is automatic quality builds, running metrics, coverage, static code analysis.  Unfortunately it takes some time, would be great to be on CI’s – but…., so it’s done scheduled every night. Based on this we get, among other stuff,  top 10 lists of suspicious code, which is then subjected to reviews.  If a person seems to be very popular on these top 10 lists, we subject every check in from that person to a review for a period. That normally helps.   None of the clients I have can afford to have every checkin reviewed, so we need to find ways around it. I don’t disagree with the nicety of having all the code reviewed, but I find it hard to find those resources in today’s enterprises. David V. Corbin | Visual Studio ALM Ranger I tend to agree with both sides. I hate having code that is not checked in, but at the same time hate having “bad” code in the repository. I have found that branching is one approach to solving this dilemma. Code is checked into the private/feature branch before the review, but is not merged over to the “official” branch until after the review. I advocate both, depending on circumstance (especially team dynamics)   - The “pre-checkin” is usually for elements that may impact the project as a whole. Think of it as another “gate” along with passing unit tests. - The “post-checkin” may very well not be at the changeset level, but correlates to a review at the “user story” level.   Again, this depends on team dynamics in play…. Robert MacLean | Microsoft ALM MVP I do not think there is no right answer for the industry as a whole. In short the question is why do you do reviews? Your question implies risk mitigation, so in low risk areas you can get away with it after check in while in high risk you need to do it before check in. An example is those new to a team or juniors need it much earlier (maybe that is before checkin, maybe that is soon after) than seniors who have shipped twenty sprints on the team. Abhimanyu Singhal | Visual Studio ALM Ranger Depends on per scenario basis. We recommend post check-in reviews when: 1. We don't want to block other checks and processes on manual code reviews. Manual reviews take time, and some pieces may not require manual reviews at all. 2. We need to trace all changes and track history. 3. We have a code promotion strategy/process in place. For risk mitigation, post checkin code can be promoted to Accepted branches. Or can be rejected. Pre Checkin Reviews are used when 1. There is a high risk factor associated 2. Reviewers are generally (most of times) have immediate availability. 3. Team does not have strict tracking needs. Simply speaking, no single process fits all scenarios. You need to select what works best for your team/project. Thomas Schissler | Visual Studio ALM Ranger This is an interesting discussion, I’m right now discussing details about executing code reviews with my teams. I see and understand the aspects you brought in, but there is another side as well, I’d like to point out. 1.) If you do reviews per check in this is not very practical as a hard rule because this will disturb the flow of the team very often or it will lead to reduce the checkin frequency of the devs which I would not accept. 2.) If you do later reviews, for example if you review PBIs, it is not easy to find out which code you should review. Either you review all changesets associate with the PBI, but then you might review code which has been changed with a later checkin and the dev maybe has already fixed the issue. Or you review the diff of the latest changeset of the PBI with the first but then you might also review changes of other PBIs. Jakob Leander | Sr. Director, Avanade In my experience, manual code review: 1. Does not get done and at the very least does not get redone after changes (regardless of intentions at start of project) 2. When a project actually do it, they often do not do it right away = errors pile up 3. Requires a lot of time discussing/defining the standard and for the team to learn it However code review is very important since e.g. even small memory leaks in a high volume web solution have big consequences In the last years I have advocated following approach for code review - Architects up front do “at least one best practice example” of each type of component and tell the team. Copy from this one. This should include error handling, logging, security etc. - Dev lead on project continuously browse code to validate that the best practices are used. Especially that patterns etc. are not broken. You can do this formally after each sprint/iteration if you want. Once this is validated it is unlikely to “go bad” even during later code changes Agree with customer to rely on static code analysis from Visual Studio as the one and only coding standard. This has HUUGE benefits - You can easily tweak to reach the level you desire together with customer - It is easy to measure for both developers/management - It is 100% consistent across code base - It gets validated all the time so you never end up getting hammered by a customer review in the end - It is easy to tell the developer that you do not want code back unless it has zero errors = minimize communication You need to track this at least during nightly builds and make sure team sees total # issues. Do not allow #issues it to grow uncontrolled. On the project I run I require code analysis to have run on code before checkin (checkin rule). This means -  You have to have clean compile (or CA wont run) so this is extra benefit = very few broken builds - You can change a few of the rules to compile as errors instead of warnings. I often do this for “missing dispose” issues which you REALLY do not want in your app Tip: Place your custom CA rules files as part of solution. That  way it works when you do branching etc. (path to CA file is relative in VS) Some may argue that CA is not as good as manual inspection. But since manual inspection in reality suffers from the 3 issues in start it is IMO a MUCH better (and much cheaper) approach from helicopter perspective Tirthankar Dutta | Director, Avanade I think code review should be run both before and after check ins. There are some code metrics that are meant to be run on the entire codebase … Also, especially on multi-site projects, one should strive to architect in a way that lets men manage the framework while boys write the repetitive code… scales very well with the need to review less by containment and imposing architectural restrictions to emphasise the design. Bruno Capuano | Microsoft ALM MVP For code reviews (means peer reviews) in distributed team I use http://www.vsanywhere.com/default.aspx  David Jobling | Global Sr. Director, Avanade Peer review is the only way to scale and its a great practice for all in the team to learn to perform and accept. In my experience you soon learn who's code to watch more than others and tune the attention. Mikkel Toudal Kristiansen | Manager, Avanade If you have several branches in your code base, you will need to merge often. This requires manual merging, when a file has been changed in both branches. It offers a good opportunity to actually review to changed code. So my advice is: Merging between branches should be done as often as possible, it should be done by a senior developer, and he/she should perform a full code review of the code being merged. As for detecting architectural smells and code smells creeping into the code base, one really good third party tools exist: Ndepend (http://www.ndepend.com/, for static code analysis of the current state of the code base). You could also consider adding StyleCop to the solution. Jesse Houwing | Visual Studio ALM Ranger I gave a presentation on this subject on the TechDays conference in NL last year. See my presentation and slides here (talk in Dutch, but English presentation): http://blog.jessehouwing.nl/2012/03/did-you-miss-my-techdaysnl-talk-on-code.html  I’d like to add a few more points: - Before/After checking is mostly a trust issue. If you have a team that does diligent peer reviews and regularly talk/sit together or peer review, there’s no need to enforce a before-checkin policy. The peer peer-programming and regular feedback during development can take care of most of the review requirements as long as the team isn’t under stress. - Under stress, enforce pre-checkin reviews, it might sound strange, if you’re already under time or budgetary constraints, but it is under such conditions most real issues start to be created or pile up. - Use tools to catch most common errors, Code Analysis/FxCop was already mentioned. HP Fortify, Resharper, Coderush etc can help you there. There are also a lot of 3rd party rules you can add to Code Analysis. I’ve written a few myself (http://fccopcontrib.codeplex.com) and various teams from Microsoft have added their own rules (MSOCAF for SharePoint, WSSF for WCF). For common errors that keep cropping up, see if you can define a rule. It’s much easier. But more importantly make sure you have a good help page explaining *WHY* it's wrong. If you have small feature or developer branches/shelvesets, you might want to review pre-merge. It’s still better to do peer reviews and peer programming, but the most important thing is that bad quality code doesn’t make it into the important branch. So my philosophy: - Use tooling as much as possible. - Make sure the team understands the tooling and the importance of the things it flags. It’s too easy to just click suppress all to ignore the warnings. - Under stress, tighten process, it’s under stress that the problems of late reviews will really surface - Most importantly if you do reviews do them as early as possible, but never later than needed. In other words, pre-checkin/post checking doesn’t really matter, as long as the review is done before the code is released. It’ll just be much more expensive to fix any review outcomes the later you find them. --- I would love to hear what you think!

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• Azure WNS to Win8 - Push Notifications for Metro Apps

  - by JoshReuben

  Background The Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows 8 allows you to build a Windows Azure Cloud Service that can send Push Notifications to registered Metro apps via Windows Notification Service (WNS). Some configuration is required - you need to: Register the Metro app for Windows Live Application Management Provide Package SID & Client Secret to WNS Modify the Azure Cloud App cscfg file and the Metro app package.appxmanifest file to contain matching Metro package name, SID and client secret. The Mechanism: These notifications take the form of XAML Tile, Toast, Raw or Badge UI notifications. The core engine is provided via the WNS nuget recipe, which exposes an API for constructing payloads and posting notifications to WNS. An application receives push notifications by requesting a notification channel from WNS, which returns a channel URI that the application then registers with a cloud service. In the cloud service, A WnsAccessTokenProvider authenticates with WNS by providing its credentials, the package SID and secret key, and receives in return an access token that the provider caches and can reuse for multiple notification requests. The cloud service constructs a notification request by filling out a template class that contains the information that will be sent with the notification, including text and image references. Using the channel URI of a registered client, the cloud service can then send a notification whenever it has an update for the user. The package contains the NotificationSendUtils class for submitting notifications. The Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows 8 (WAT) provides the PNWorker sample pair of solutions - The Azure server side contains a WebRole & a WorkerRole. The WebRole allows submission of new push notifications into an Azure Queue which the WorkerRole extracts and processes. Further background resources: http://watwindows8.codeplex.com/ - Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows 8 http://watwindows8.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=Push%20Notification%20Worker%20Sample - WAT WNS sample setup http://watwindows8.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=Using%20the%20Windows%208%20Cloud%20Application%20Services%20Application – using Windows 8 with Cloud Application Services A bit of Configuration Register the Metro apps for Windows Live Application Management From the current app manifest of your metro app Publish tab, copy the Package Display Name and the Publisher From: https://manage.dev.live.com/Build/ Package name: <-- we need to change this Client secret: keep this Package Security Identifier (SID): keep this Verify the app here: https://manage.dev.live.com/Applications/Index - so this step is done "If you wish to send push notifications in your application, provide your Package Security Identifier (SID) and client secret to WNS." Provide Package SID & Client Secret to WNS http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh465407.aspx - How to authenticate with WNS https://appdev.microsoft.com/StorePortals/en-us/Account/Signup/PurchaseSubscription - register app with dashboard - need registration code or register a new account & pay $170 shekels http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh868184.aspx - Registering for a Windows Store developer account http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh868187.aspx - Picking a Microsoft account for the Windows Store The WNS Nuget Recipe The WNS Recipe is a nuget package that provides an API for authenticating against WNS, constructing payloads and posting notifications to WNS. After installing this package, a WnsRecipe assembly is added to project references. To send notifications using WNS, first register the application at the Windows Push Notifications & Live Connect portal to obtain Package Security Identifier (SID) and a secret key that your cloud service uses to authenticate with WNS. An application receives push notifications by requesting a notification channel from WNS, which returns a channel URI that the application then registers with a cloud service. In the cloud service, the WnsAccessTokenProvider authenticates with WNS by providing its credentials, the package SID and secret key, and receives in return an access token that the provider caches and can reuse for multiple notification requests. The cloud service constructs a notification request by filling out a template class that contains the information that will be sent with the notification, including text and image references.Using the channel URI of a registered client, the cloud service can then send a notification whenever it has an update for the user. var provider = new WnsAccessTokenProvider(clientId, clientSecret); var notification = new ToastNotification(provider) {     ToastType = ToastType.ToastText02,     Text = new List<string> { "blah"} }; notification.Send(channelUri); the WNS Recipe is instrumented to write trace information via a trace listener – configuratively or programmatically from Application_Start(): WnsDiagnostics.Enable(); WnsDiagnostics.TraceSource.Listeners.Add(new DiagnosticMonitorTraceListener()); WnsDiagnostics.TraceSource.Switch.Level = SourceLevels.Verbose; The WAT PNWorker Sample The Azure server side contains a WebRole & a WorkerRole. The WebRole allows submission of new push notifications into an Azure Queue which the WorkerRole extracts and processes. Overview of Push Notification Worker Sample The toolkit includes a sample application based on the same solution structure as the one created by theWindows 8 Cloud Application Services project template. The sample demonstrates how to off-load the job of sending Windows Push Notifications using a Windows Azure worker role. You can find the source code in theSamples\PNWorker folder. This folder contains a full version of the sample application showing how to use Windows Push Notifications using ASP.NET Membership as the authentication mechanism. The sample contains two different solution files: WATWindows.Azure.sln: This solution must be opened with Visual Studio 2010 and contains the projects related to the Windows Azure web and worker roles. WATWindows.Client.sln: This solution must be opened with Visual Studio 11 and contains the Windows Metro style application project. Only Visual Studio 2010 supports Windows Azure cloud projects so you currently need to use this edition to launch the server application. This will change in a future release of the Windows Azure tools when support for Visual Studio 11 is enabled. Important: Setting up the PNWorker Sample Before running the PNWorker sample, you need to register the application and configure it: 1. Register the app: To register your application, go to the Windows Live Application Management site for Metro style apps at https://manage.dev.live.com/build and sign in with your Windows Live ID. In the Windows Push Notifications & Live Connect page, enter the following information. Package Display Name PNWorker.Sample Publisher CN=127.0.0.1, O=TESTING ONLY, OU=Windows Azure DevFabric 2. 3. Once you register the application, make a note of the values shown in the portal for Client Secret,Package Name and Package SID. 4. Configure the app - double-click the SetupSample.cmd file located inside the Samples\PNWorker folder to launch a tool that will guide you through the process of configuring the sample. setup runs a PowerShell script that requires running with administration privileges to allow the scripts to execute in your machine. When prompted, enter the Client Secret, Package Name, and Package Security Identifier you obtained previously and wait until the tool finishes configuring your sample. Running the PNWorker Sample To run this sample, you must run both the client and the server application projects. 1. Open Visual Studio 2010 as an administrator. Open the WATWindows.Azure.sln solution. Set the start-up project of the solution as the cloud project. Run the app in the dev fabric to test. 2. Open Visual Studio 11 and open the WATWindows.Client.sln solution. Run the Metro client application. In the client application, click Reopen channel and send to server. à the application opens the channel and registers it with the cloud application, & the Output area shows the channel URI. 3. Refresh the WebRole's Push Notifications page to see the UI list the newly registered client. 4. Send notifications to the client application by clicking the Send Notification button. Setup 3 command files + 1 powershell script: SetupSample.cmd –> SetupWPNS.vbs –> SetupWPNS.cmd –> SetupWPNS.UpdateWPNSCredentialsInServiceConfiguration.ps1 appears to set PackageName – from manifest Client Id package security id (SID) – from registration Client Secret – from registration The following configs are modified: WATWindows\ServiceConfiguration.Cloud.cscfg WATWindows\ServiceConfiguration.Local.cscfg WATWindows.Client\package.appxmanifest WatWindows.Notifications A class library – it references the following WNS DLL: C:\WorkDev\CountdownValue\AzureToolkits\WATWindows8\Samples\PNWorker\packages\WnsRecipe.0.0.3.0\lib\net40\WnsRecipe.dll NotificationJobRequest A DataContract for triggering notifications:     using System.Runtime.Serialization; using Microsoft.Windows.Samples.Notifications;     [DataContract]     [KnownType(typeof(WnsAccessTokenProvider))] public class NotificationJobRequest     {               [DataMember] public bool ProcessAsync { get; set; }          [DataMember] public string Payload { get; set; }         [DataMember] public string ChannelUrl { get; set; }         [DataMember] public NotificationType NotificationType { get; set; }         [DataMember] public IAccessTokenProvider AccessTokenProvider { get; set; }         [DataMember] public NotificationSendOptions NotificationSendOptions{ get; set; }     } Investigated these types: WnsAccessTokenProvider – a DataContract that contains the client Id and client secret NotificationType – an enum that can be: Tile, Toast, badge, Raw IAccessTokenProvider – get or reset the access token NotificationSendOptions – SecondsTTL, NotificationPriority (enum), isCache, isRequestForStatus, Tag   There is also a NotificationJobSerializer class which basically wraps a DataContractSerializer serialization / deserialization of NotificationJobRequest The WNSNotificationJobProcessor class This class wraps the NotificationSendUtils API – it periodically extracts any NotificationJobRequest objects from a CloudQueue and submits them to WNS. The ProcessJobMessageRequest method – this is the punchline: it will deserialize a CloudQueueMessage into a NotificationJobRequest & send pass its contents to NotificationUtils to SendAsynchronously / SendSynchronously, (and then dequeue the message).     public override void ProcessJobMessageRequest(CloudQueueMessage notificationJobMessageRequest)         { Trace.WriteLine("Processing a new Notification Job Request", "Information"); NotificationJobRequest pushNotificationJob =                 NotificationJobSerializer.Deserialize(notificationJobMessageRequest.AsString); if (pushNotificationJob != null)             { if (pushNotificationJob.ProcessAsync)                 { Trace.WriteLine("Sending the notification asynchronously", "Information"); NotificationSendUtils.SendAsynchronously( new Uri(pushNotificationJob.ChannelUrl),                         pushNotificationJob.AccessTokenProvider,                         pushNotificationJob.Payload,                         result => this.ProcessSendResult(pushNotificationJob, result),                         result => this.ProcessSendResultError(pushNotificationJob, result),                         pushNotificationJob.NotificationType,                         pushNotificationJob.NotificationSendOptions);                 } else                 { Trace.WriteLine("Sending the notification synchronously", "Information"); NotificationSendResult result = NotificationSendUtils.Send( new Uri(pushNotificationJob.ChannelUrl),                         pushNotificationJob.AccessTokenProvider,                         pushNotificationJob.Payload,                         pushNotificationJob.NotificationType,                         pushNotificationJob.NotificationSendOptions); this.ProcessSendResult(pushNotificationJob, result);                 }             } else             { Trace.WriteLine("Could not deserialize the notification job", "Error");             } this.queue.DeleteMessage(notificationJobMessageRequest);         } Investigation of NotificationSendUtils class - This is the engine – it exposes Send and a SendAsyncronously overloads that take the following params from the NotificationJobRequest: Channel Uri AccessTokenProvider Payload NotificationType NotificationSendOptions WebRole WebRole is a large MVC project – it references WatWindows.Notifications as well as the following WNS DLL: \AzureToolkits\WATWindows8\Samples\PNWorker\packages\WnsRecipe.0.0.3.0\lib\net40\NotificationsExtensions.dll Controllers\PushNotificationController.cs Notification related namespaces:     using Notifications;     using NotificationsExtensions;     using NotificationsExtensions.BadgeContent;     using NotificationsExtensions.RawContent;     using NotificationsExtensions.TileContent;     using NotificationsExtensions.ToastContent;     using Windows.Samples.Notifications; TokenProvider – initialized from the Azure RoleEnvironment:   IAccessTokenProvider tokenProvider = new WnsAccessTokenProvider(         RoleEnvironment.GetConfigurationSettingValue("WNSPackageSID"),         RoleEnvironment.GetConfigurationSettingValue("WNSClientSecret")); SendNotification method – calls QueuePushMessage method to create and serialize a NotificationJobRequest and enqueue it in a CloudQueue [HttpPost]         public ActionResult SendNotification(             [ModelBinder(typeof(NotificationTemplateModelBinder))] INotificationContent notification,             string channelUrl,             NotificationPriority priority = NotificationPriority.Normal)         {             var payload = notification.GetContent();             var options = new NotificationSendOptions()             {                 Priority = priority             };             var notificationType =                 notification is IBadgeNotificationContent ? NotificationType.Badge :                 notification is IRawNotificationContent ? NotificationType.Raw :                 notification is ITileNotificationContent ? NotificationType.Tile :                 NotificationType.Toast;             this.QueuePushMessage(payload, channelUrl, notificationType, options);             object response = new             {                 Status = "Queued for delivery to WNS"             };             return this.Json(response);         } GetSendTemplate method: Create the cshtml partial rendering based on the notification type     [HttpPost]         public ActionResult GetSendTemplate(NotificationTemplateViewModel templateOptions)         {             PartialViewResult result = null;             switch (templateOptions.NotificationType)             {                 case "Badge":                     templateOptions.BadgeGlyphValueContent = Enum.GetNames(typeof( GlyphValue));                     ViewBag.ViewData = templateOptions;                     result = PartialView("_" + templateOptions.NotificationTemplateType);                     break;                 case "Raw":                     ViewBag.ViewData = templateOptions;                     result = PartialView("_Raw");                     break;                 case "Toast":                     templateOptions.TileImages = this.blobClient.GetAllBlobsInContainer(ConfigReader.GetConfigValue("TileImagesContainer")).OrderBy(i => i.FileName).ToList();                     templateOptions.ToastAudioContent = Enum.GetNames(typeof( ToastAudioContent));                     templateOptions.Priorities = Enum.GetNames(typeof( NotificationPriority));                     ViewBag.ViewData = templateOptions;                     result = PartialView("_" + templateOptions.NotificationTemplateType);                     break;                 case "Tile":                     templateOptions.TileImages = this.blobClient.GetAllBlobsInContainer(ConfigReader.GetConfigValue("TileImagesContainer")).OrderBy(i => i.FileName).ToList();                     ViewBag.ViewData = templateOptions;                     result = PartialView("_" + templateOptions.NotificationTemplateType);                     break;             }             return result;         } Investigated these types: ToastAudioContent – an enum of different Win8 sound effects for toast notifications GlyphValue – an enum of different Win8 icons for badge notifications · Infrastructure\NotificationTemplateModelBinder.cs WNS Namespace references     using NotificationsExtensions.BadgeContent;     using NotificationsExtensions.RawContent;     using NotificationsExtensions.TileContent;     using NotificationsExtensions.ToastContent; Various NotificationFactory derived types can server as bindable models in MVC for creating INotificationContent types. Default values are also set for IWideTileNotificationContent & IToastNotificationContent. Type factoryType = null;             switch (notificationType)             {                 case "Badge":                     factoryType = typeof(BadgeContentFactory);                     break;                 case "Tile":                     factoryType = typeof(TileContentFactory);                     break;                 case "Toast":                     factoryType = typeof(ToastContentFactory);                     break;                 case "Raw":                     factoryType = typeof(RawContentFactory);                     break;             } Investigated these types: BadgeContentFactory – CreateBadgeGlyph, CreateBadgeNumeric (???) TileContentFactory – many notification content creation methods , apparently one for every tile layout type ToastContentFactory – many notification content creation methods , apparently one for every toast layout type RawContentFactory – passing strings WorkerRole WNS Namespace references using Notifications; using Notifications.WNS; using Windows.Samples.Notifications; OnStart() Method – on Worker Role startup, initialize the NotificationJobSerializer, the CloudQueue, and the WNSNotificationJobProcessor _notificationJobSerializer = new NotificationJobSerializer(); _cloudQueueClient = this.account.CreateCloudQueueClient(); _pushNotificationRequestsQueue = _cloudQueueClient.GetQueueReference(ConfigReader.GetConfigValue("RequestQueueName")); _processor = new WNSNotificationJobProcessor(_notificationJobSerializer, _pushNotificationRequestsQueue); Run() Method – poll the Azure Queue for NotificationJobRequest messages & process them:   while (true)             { Trace.WriteLine("Checking for Messages", "Information"); try                 { Parallel.ForEach( this.pushNotificationRequestsQueue.GetMessages(this.batchSize), this.processor.ProcessJobMessageRequest);                 } catch (Exception e)                 { Trace.WriteLine(e.ToString(), "Error");                 } Trace.WriteLine(string.Format("Sleeping for {0} seconds", this.pollIntervalMiliseconds / 1000)); Thread.Sleep(this.pollIntervalMiliseconds);                                            } How I learned to appreciate Win8 There is really only one application architecture for Windows 8 apps: Metro client side and Azure backend – and that is a good thing. With WNS, tier integration is so automated that you don’t even have to leverage a HTTP push API such as SignalR. This is a pretty powerful development paradigm, and has changed the way I look at Windows 8 for RAD business apps. When I originally looked at Win8 and the WinRT API, my first opinion on Win8 dev was as follows – GOOD:WinRT, WRL, C++/CX, WinJS, XAML (& ease of Direct3D integration); BAD: low projected market penetration,.NET lobotomized (Only 8% of .NET 4.5 classes can be used in Win8 non-desktop apps - http://bit.ly/HRuJr7); UGLY:Metro pascal tiles! Perhaps my 80s teenage years gave me a punk reactionary sense of revulsion towards the Partridge Family 70s style that Metro UX seems to have appropriated: On second thought though, it simplifies UI dev to a single paradigm (although UX guys will need to change career) – you will not find an easier app dev environment. Speculation: If LightSwitch is going to support HTML5 client app generation, then its a safe guess to say that vnext will support Win8 Metro XAML - a much easier port from Silverlight XAML. Given the VS2012 LightSwitch integration as a thumbs up from the powers that be at MS, and given that Win8 C#/XAML Metro apps tend towards a streamlined 'golden straight-jacket' cookie cutter app dev style with an Azure back-end supporting Win8 push notifications... --> its easy to extrapolate than LightSwitch vnext could well be the Win8 Metro XAML to Azure RAD tool of choice! The hook is already there - :) Why else have the space next to the HTML Client box? This high level of application development abstraction will facilitate rapid app cookie-cutter architecture-infrastructure frameworks for wrapping any app. This will allow me to avoid too much XAML code-monkeying around & focus on my area of interest: Technical Computing.

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• Why load increase ,ssd iops increase but cpu iowait decrease?

  - by mq44944

  There is a strange thing on my server which has a mysql running on it. The QPS is more than 4000 but TPS is less than 20. The server load is more than 80 and cpu usr is more than 86% but iowait is less than 8%. The disk iops is more than 16000 and util of disk is more than 99%. When the QPS decreases, the load decreases, the cpu iowait increases. I can't catch this! root@mypc # dmidecode | grep "Product Name" Product Name: PowerEdge R510 Product Name: 084YMW root@mypc # megacli -PDList -aALL |grep "Inquiry Data" Inquiry Data: SEAGATE ST3600057SS ES656SL316PT Inquiry Data: SEAGATE ST3600057SS ES656SL30THV Inquiry Data: ATA INTEL SSDSA2CW300362CVPR201602A6300EGN Inquiry Data: ATA INTEL SSDSA2CW300362CVPR2044037K300EGN Inquiry Data: ATA INTEL SSDSA2CW300362CVPR204402PX300EGN Inquiry Data: ATA INTEL SSDSA2CW300362CVPR204403WN300EGN Inquiry Data: ATA INTEL SSDSA2CW300362CVPR202000HU300EGN Inquiry Data: ATA INTEL SSDSA2CW300362CVPR202001E7300EGN Inquiry Data: ATA INTEL SSDSA2CW300362CVPR204402WE300EGN Inquiry Data: ATA INTEL SSDSA2CW300362CVPR204404E5300EGN Inquiry Data: ATA INTEL SSDSA2CW300362CVPR204401QF300EGN Inquiry Data: ATA INTEL SSDSA2CW300362CVPR20450001300EGN the mysql data files lie on the ssd disks which are organizaed using RAID 10. root@mypc # megacli -LDInfo -L1 -a0 Adapter 0 -- Virtual Drive Information: Virtual Disk: 1 (Target Id: 1) Name: RAID Level: Primary-1, Secondary-0, RAID Level Qualifier-0 Size:1427840MB State: Optimal Stripe Size: 64kB Number Of Drives:2 Span Depth:5 Default Cache Policy: WriteThrough, ReadAheadNone, Direct, No Write Cache if Bad BBU Current Cache Policy: WriteThrough, ReadAheadNone, Direct, No Write Cache if Bad BBU Access Policy: Read/Write Disk Cache Policy: Disk's Default Exit Code: 0x00 -------- -----load-avg---- ---cpu-usage--- ---swap--- -------------------------io-usage----------------------- -QPS- -TPS- -Hit%- time | 1m 5m 15m |usr sys idl iow| si so| r/s w/s rkB/s wkB/s queue await svctm %util| ins upd del sel iud| lor hit| 09:05:29|79.80 64.49 42.00| 82 7 6 5| 0 0|16421.1 10.6262705.9 85.2 8.3 0.5 0.1 99.5| 0 0 0 3968 0| 495482 96.58| 09:05:30|79.80 64.49 42.00| 79 7 8 6| 0 0|15907.4 230.6254409.7 6357.5 8.4 0.5 0.1 98.5| 0 0 0 4195 0| 496434 96.68| 09:05:31|81.34 65.07 42.31| 81 7 7 5| 0 0|16198.7 8.6259029.2 99.8 8.1 0.5 0.1 99.3| 0 0 0 4220 0| 508983 96.70| 09:05:32|81.34 65.07 42.31| 82 7 5 5| 0 0|16746.6 8.7267853.3 92.4 8.5 0.5 0.1 99.4| 0 0 0 4084 0| 503834 96.54| 09:05:33|81.34 65.07 42.31| 81 7 6 5| 0 0|16498.7 9.6263856.8 92.3 8.0 0.5 0.1 99.3| 0 0 0 4030 0| 507051 96.60| 09:05:34|81.34 65.07 42.31| 80 8 7 6| 0 0|16328.4 11.5261101.6 95.8 8.1 0.5 0.1 98.3| 0 0 0 4119 0| 504409 96.63| 09:05:35|81.31 65.33 42.52| 82 7 6 5| 0 0|16374.0 8.7261921.9 92.5 8.1 0.5 0.1 99.7| 0 0 0 4127 0| 507279 96.66| 09:05:36|81.31 65.33 42.52| 81 8 6 5| 0 0|16496.2 8.6263832.0 84.5 8.5 0.5 0.1 99.2| 0 0 0 4100 0| 505054 96.59| 09:05:37|81.31 65.33 42.52| 82 8 6 4| 0 0|16239.4 9.6259768.8 84.3 8.0 0.5 0.1 99.1| 0 0 0 4273 0| 510621 96.72| 09:05:38|81.31 65.33 42.52| 81 7 6 5| 0 0|16349.6 8.7261439.2 81.4 8.2 0.5 0.1 98.9| 0 0 0 4171 0| 510145 96.67| 09:05:39|81.31 65.33 42.52| 82 7 6 5| 0 0|16116.8 8.7257667.6 96.5 8.0 0.5 0.1 99.1| 0 0 0 4348 0| 513093 96.74| 09:05:40|79.60 65.24 42.61| 79 7 7 7| 0 0|16154.2 242.9258390.4 6388.4 8.5 0.5 0.1 99.0| 0 0 0 4033 0| 507244 96.70| 09:05:41|79.60 65.24 42.61| 79 7 8 6| 0 0|16583.1 21.2265129.6 173.5 8.2 0.5 0.1 99.1| 0 0 0 3995 0| 501474 96.57| 09:05:42|79.60 65.24 42.61| 81 8 6 5| 0 0|16281.0 9.7260372.2 69.5 8.3 0.5 0.1 98.7| 0 0 0 4221 0| 509322 96.70| 09:05:43|79.60 65.24 42.61| 80 7 7 6| 0 0|16355.3 8.7261515.5 104.3 8.2 0.5 0.1 99.6| 0 0 0 4087 0| 502052 96.62| -------- -----load-avg---- ---cpu-usage--- ---swap--- -------------------------io-usage----------------------- -QPS- -TPS- -Hit%- time | 1m 5m 15m |usr sys idl iow| si so| r/s w/s rkB/s wkB/s queue await svctm %util| ins upd del sel iud| lor hit| 09:05:44|79.60 65.24 42.61| 83 7 5 4| 0 0|16469.4 11.6263387.0 138.8 8.2 0.5 0.1 98.7| 0 0 0 4292 0| 509979 96.65| 09:05:45|79.07 65.37 42.77| 80 7 6 6| 0 0|16659.5 9.7266478.7 85.0 8.4 0.5 0.1 98.5| 0 0 0 3899 0| 496234 96.54| 09:05:46|79.07 65.37 42.77| 78 7 7 8| 0 0|16752.9 8.7267921.8 97.1 8.4 0.5 0.1 98.9| 0 0 0 4126 0| 508300 96.57| 09:05:47|79.07 65.37 42.77| 82 7 6 5| 0 0|16657.2 9.6266439.3 84.3 8.3 0.5 0.1 98.9| 0 0 0 4086 0| 502171 96.57| 09:05:48|79.07 65.37 42.77| 79 8 6 6| 0 0|16814.5 8.7268924.1 77.6 8.5 0.5 0.1 99.0| 0 0 0 4059 0| 499645 96.52| 09:05:49|79.07 65.37 42.77| 81 7 6 5| 0 0|16553.0 6.8264708.6 42.5 8.3 0.5 0.1 99.4| 0 0 0 4249 0| 501623 96.60| 09:05:50|79.63 65.71 43.01| 79 7 7 7| 0 0|16295.1 246.9260475.0 6442.4 8.7 0.5 0.1 99.1| 0 0 0 4231 0| 511032 96.70| 09:05:51|79.63 65.71 43.01| 80 7 6 6| 0 0|16568.9 8.7264919.7 104.7 8.3 0.5 0.1 99.7| 0 0 0 4272 0| 517177 96.68| 09:05:53|79.63 65.71 43.01| 79 7 7 6| 0 0|16539.0 8.6264502.9 87.6 8.4 0.5 0.1 98.9| 0 0 0 3992 0| 496728 96.52| 09:05:54|79.63 65.71 43.01| 79 7 7 7| 0 0|16527.5 11.6264363.6 92.6 8.5 0.5 0.1 98.8| 0 0 0 4045 0| 502944 96.59| 09:05:55|79.63 65.71 43.01| 80 7 7 6| 0 0|16374.7 12.5261687.2 134.9 8.6 0.5 0.1 99.2| 0 0 0 4143 0| 507006 96.66| 09:05:56|76.05 65.20 42.96| 77 8 8 8| 0 0|16464.9 9.6263314.3 111.9 8.5 0.5 0.1 98.9| 0 0 0 4250 0| 505417 96.64| 09:05:57|76.05 65.20 42.96| 79 7 6 7| 0 0|16460.1 8.8263283.2 93.4 8.3 0.5 0.1 98.8| 0 0 0 4294 0| 508168 96.66| 09:05:58|76.05 65.20 42.96| 80 7 7 7| 0 0|16176.5 9.6258762.1 127.3 8.3 0.5 0.1 98.9| 0 0 0 4160 0| 509349 96.72| 09:05:59|76.05 65.20 42.96| 75 7 9 10| 0 0|16522.0 10.7264274.6 93.1 8.6 0.5 0.1 97.5| 0 0 0 4034 0| 492623 96.51| -------- -----load-avg---- ---cpu-usage--- ---swap--- -------------------------io-usage----------------------- -QPS- -TPS- -Hit%- time | 1m 5m 15m |usr sys idl iow| si so| r/s w/s rkB/s wkB/s queue await svctm %util| ins upd del sel iud| lor hit| 09:06:00|76.05 65.20 42.96| 79 7 7 7| 0 0|16369.6 21.2261867.3 262.5 8.4 0.5 0.1 98.9| 0 0 0 4305 0| 494509 96.59| 09:06:01|75.33 65.23 43.09| 73 6 9 12| 0 0|15864.0 209.3253685.4 6238.0 10.0 0.6 0.1 98.7| 0 0 0 3913 0| 483480 96.62| 09:06:02|75.33 65.23 43.09| 73 7 8 12| 0 0|15854.7 12.7253613.2 93.6 11.0 0.7 0.1 99.0| 0 0 0 4271 0| 483771 96.64| 09:06:03|75.33 65.23 43.09| 75 7 9 9| 0 0|16074.8 8.7257104.3 81.7 8.1 0.5 0.1 98.5| 0 0 0 4060 0| 480701 96.55| 09:06:04|75.33 65.23 43.09| 76 7 8 9| 0 0|16221.7 9.7259500.1 139.4 8.1 0.5 0.1 97.6| 0 0 0 3953 0| 486774 96.56| 09:06:05|74.98 65.33 43.24| 78 7 8 8| 0 0|16330.7 8.7261166.5 85.3 8.2 0.5 0.1 98.5| 0 0 0 3957 0| 481775 96.53| 09:06:06|74.98 65.33 43.24| 75 7 9 9| 0 0|16093.7 11.7257436.1 93.7 8.2 0.5 0.1 99.2| 0 0 0 3938 0| 489251 96.60| 09:06:07|74.98 65.33 43.24| 75 7 5 13| 0 0|15758.9 19.2251989.4 188.2 14.7 0.9 0.1 99.7| 0 0 0 4140 0| 494738 96.70| 09:06:08|74.98 65.33 43.24| 69 7 10 15| 0 0|16166.3 8.7258474.9 81.2 8.9 0.5 0.1 98.7| 0 0 0 3993 0| 487162 96.58| 09:06:09|74.98 65.33 43.24| 74 7 9 10| 0 0|16071.0 8.7257010.9 93.3 8.2 0.5 0.1 99.2| 0 0 0 4098 0| 491557 96.61| 09:06:10|70.98 64.66 43.14| 71 7 9 12| 0 0|15549.6 216.1248701.1 6188.7 8.3 0.5 0.1 97.8| 0 0 0 3879 0| 480832 96.66| 09:06:11|70.98 64.66 43.14| 71 7 10 13| 0 0|16233.7 22.4259568.1 257.1 8.2 0.5 0.1 99.2| 0 0 0 4088 0| 493200 96.62| 09:06:12|70.98 64.66 43.14| 78 7 8 7| 0 0|15932.4 10.6254779.5 108.1 8.1 0.5 0.1 98.6| 0 0 0 4168 0| 489838 96.63| 09:06:13|70.98 64.66 43.14| 71 8 9 12| 0 0|16255.9 11.5259902.3 103.9 8.3 0.5 0.1 98.0| 0 0 0 3874 0| 481246 96.52| 09:06:14|70.98 64.66 43.14| 60 6 16 18| 0 0|15621.0 9.7249826.1 81.9 8.0 0.5 0.1 99.3| 0 0 0 3956 0| 480278 96.65|

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• Using the Data Form Web Part (SharePoint 2010) Site Agnostically!

  - by David Jacobus

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/djacobus/archive/2013/10/24/154465.aspxAs a Developer whom has worked closely with web designers (Power users) in a SharePoint environment, I have come across the issue of making the Data Form Web Part reusable across the site collection! In SharePoint 2007 it was very easy and this blog pointed the way to make it happen: Josh Gaffey's Blog. In SharePoint 2010 something changed! This method failed except for using a Data Form Web Part that pointed to a list in the Site Collection Root! I am making this discussion relative to a developer whom creates a solution (WSP) with all the artifacts embedded and the user shouldn’t have any involvement in the process except to activate features. The Scenario: 1. A Power User creates a Data Form Web Part using SharePoint Designer 2010! It is a great web part the uses all the power of SharePoint Designer and XSLT (Conditional formatting, etc.). 2. Other Users in the site collection want to use that specific web part in sub sites in the site collection. Pointing to a list with the same name, not at the site collection root! The Issues: 1. The Data Form Web Part Data Source uses a List ID (GUID) to point to the specific list. Which means a list in a sub site will have a list with a new GUID different than the one which was created with SharePoint Designer! Obviously, the List needs to be the same List (Fields, Content Types, etc.) with different data. 2. How can we make this web part site agnostic, and dependent only on the lists Name? I had this problem come up over and over and decided to put my solution forward! The Solution: 1. Use the XSL of the Data Form Web Part Created By the Power User in SharePoint Designer! 2. Extend the OOTB Data Form Web Part to use this XSL and Point to a List by name. The solution points to a hybrid solution that requires some coding (Developer) and the XSL (Power User) artifacts put together in a Visual Studio SharePoint Solution. Here are the solution steps in summary: 1. Create an empty SharePoint project in Visual Studio 2. Create a Module and Feature and put the XSL file created by the Power User into it a. Scope the feature to web 3. Create a Feature Receiver to Create the List. The same list from which the Data Form Web Part was created with by the Power User. a. Scope the feature to web 4. Create a Web Part extending the Data Form Web a. Point the Data Form Web Part to point to the List by Name b. Point the Data Form Web Part XSL link to the XSL added using the Module feature c. Scope The feature to Site i. This is because all web parts are in the site collection web part gallery. So in a Narrative Summary: We are creating a list in code which has the same name and (site Columns) as the list from which the Power User created the Data Form Web Part Using SharePoint Designer. We are creating a Web Part in code which extends the OOTB Data Form Web Part to point to a list by name and use the XSL created by the Power User. Okay! Here are the steps with images and code! At the end of this post I will provide a link to the code for a solution which works in any site! I want to TOOT the HORN for the power of this solution! It is the mantra a use with all my clients! What is a basic skill a SharePoint Developer: Create an application that uses the data from a SharePoint list and make that data visible to the user in a manner which meets requirements! Create an Empty SharePoint 2010 Project Here I am naming my Project DJ.DataFormWebPart Create a Code Folder Copy and paste the Extension and Utilities classes (Found in the solution provided at the end of this post) Change the Namespace to match this project The List to which the Data Form Web Part which was used to make the XSL by the Power User in SharePoint Designer is now going to be created in code! If already in code, then all the better! Here I am going to create a list in the site collection root and add some data to it! For the purpose of this discussion I will actually create this list in code before using SharePoint Designer for simplicity! So here I create the List and deploy it within this solution before I do anything else. I will use a List I created before for demo purposes. Footer List is used within the footer of my master page. Add a new Feature: Here I name the Feature FooterList and add a Feature Event Receiver: Here is the code for the Event Receiver: I have a previous blog post about adding lists in code so I will not take time to narrate this code: using System; using System.Runtime.InteropServices; using System.Security.Permissions; using Microsoft.SharePoint; using DJ.DataFormWebPart.Code; namespace DJ.DataFormWebPart.Features.FooterList { /// <summary> /// This class handles events raised during feature activation, deactivation, installation, uninstallation, and upgrade. /// </summary> /// <remarks> /// The GUID attached to this class may be used during packaging and should not be modified. /// </remarks> [Guid("a58644fd-9209-41f4-aa16-67a53af7a9bf")] public class FooterListEventReceiver : SPFeatureReceiver { SPWeb currentWeb = null; SPSite currentSite = null; const string columnGroup = "DJ"; const string ctName = "FooterContentType"; // Uncomment the method below to handle the event raised after a feature has been activated. public override void FeatureActivated(SPFeatureReceiverProperties properties) { using (SPWeb spWeb = properties.GetWeb() as SPWeb) { using (SPSite site = new SPSite(spWeb.Site.ID)) { using (SPWeb rootWeb = site.OpenWeb(site.RootWeb.ID)) { //add the fields addFields(rootWeb); //add content type SPContentType testCT = rootWeb.ContentTypes[ctName]; // we will not create the content type if it exists if (testCT == null) { //the content type does not exist add it addContentType(rootWeb, ctName); } if ((spWeb.Lists.TryGetList("FooterList") == null)) { //create the list if it dosen't to exist CreateFooterList(spWeb, site); } } } } } #region ContentType public void addFields(SPWeb spWeb) { Utilities.addField(spWeb, "Link", SPFieldType.URL, false, columnGroup); Utilities.addField(spWeb, "Information", SPFieldType.Text, false, columnGroup); } private static void addContentType(SPWeb spWeb, string name) { SPContentType myContentType = new SPContentType(spWeb.ContentTypes["Item"], spWeb.ContentTypes, name) { Group = columnGroup }; spWeb.ContentTypes.Add(myContentType); addContentTypeLinkages(spWeb, myContentType); myContentType.Update(); } public static void addContentTypeLinkages(SPWeb spWeb, SPContentType ct) { Utilities.addContentTypeLink(spWeb, "Link", ct); Utilities.addContentTypeLink(spWeb, "Information", ct); } private void CreateFooterList(SPWeb web, SPSite site) { Guid newListGuid = web.Lists.Add("FooterList", "Footer List", SPListTemplateType.GenericList); SPList newList = web.Lists[newListGuid]; newList.ContentTypesEnabled = true; var footer = site.RootWeb.ContentTypes[ctName]; newList.ContentTypes.Add(footer); newList.ContentTypes.Delete(newList.ContentTypes["Item"].Id); newList.Update(); var view = newList.DefaultView; //add all view fields here //view.ViewFields.Add("NewsTitle"); view.ViewFields.Add("Link"); view.ViewFields.Add("Information"); view.Update(); } } } Basically created a content type with two site columns Link and Information. I had to change some code as we are working at the SPWeb level and need Content Types at the SPSite level! I’ll use a new Site Collection for this demo (Best Practice) keep old artifacts from impinging on development: Next we will add this list to the root of the site collection by deploying this solution, add some data and then use SharePoint Designer to create a Data Form Web Part. The list has been added, now let’s add some data: Okay let’s add a Data Form Web Part in SharePoint Designer. Create a new web part page in the site pages library: I will name it TestWP.aspx and edit it in advanced mode: Let’s add an empty Data Form Web Part to the web part zone: Click on the web part to add a data source: Choose FooterList in the Data Source menu: Choose appropriate fields and select insert as multiple item view: Here is what it look like after insertion: Let’s add some conditional formatting if the information filed is not blank: Choose Create (right side) apply formatting: Choose the Information Field and set the condition not null: Click Set Style: Here is the result: Okay! Not flashy but simple enough for this demo. Remember this is the job of the Power user! All we want from this web part is the XLS-Style Sheet out of SharePoint Designer. We are going to use it as the XSL for our web part which we will be creating next. Let’s add a web part to our project extending the OOTB Data Form Web Part. Add new item from the Visual Studio add menu: Choose Web Part: Change WebPart to DataFormWebPart (Oh well my namespace needs some improvement, but it will sure make it readily identifiable as an extended web part!) Below is the code for this web part: using System; using System.ComponentModel; using System.Web; using System.Web.UI; using System.Web.UI.WebControls; using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts; using Microsoft.SharePoint; using Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls; using System.Text; namespace DJ.DataFormWebPart.DataFormWebPart { [ToolboxItemAttribute(false)] public class DataFormWebPart : Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.DataFormWebPart { protected override void OnInit(EventArgs e) { base.OnInit(e); this.ChromeType = PartChromeType.None; this.Title = "FooterListDF"; try { //SPSite site = SPContext.Current.Site; SPWeb web = SPContext.Current.Web; SPList list = web.Lists.TryGetList("FooterList"); if (list != null) { string queryList1 = "<Query><Where><IsNotNull><FieldRef Name='Title' /></IsNotNull></Where><OrderBy><FieldRef Name='Title' Ascending='True' /></OrderBy></Query>"; uint maximumRowList1 = 10; SPDataSource dataSourceList1 = GetDataSource(list.Title, web.Url, list, queryList1, maximumRowList1); this.DataSources.Add(dataSourceList1); this.XslLink = web.Url + "/Assests/Footer.xsl"; this.ParameterBindings = BuildDataFormParameters(); this.DataBind(); } } catch (Exception ex) { this.Controls.Add(new LiteralControl("ERROR: " + ex.Message)); } } private SPDataSource GetDataSource(string dataSourceId, string webUrl, SPList list, string query, uint maximumRow) { SPDataSource dataSource = new SPDataSource(); dataSource.UseInternalName = true; dataSource.ID = dataSourceId; dataSource.DataSourceMode = SPDataSourceMode.List; dataSource.List = list; dataSource.SelectCommand = "" + query + ""; Parameter listIdParam = new Parameter("ListID"); listIdParam.DefaultValue = list.ID.ToString( "B").ToUpper(); Parameter maximumRowsParam = new Parameter("MaximumRows"); maximumRowsParam.DefaultValue = maximumRow.ToString(); QueryStringParameter rootFolderParam = new QueryStringParameter("RootFolder", "RootFolder"); dataSource.SelectParameters.Add(listIdParam); dataSource.SelectParameters.Add(maximumRowsParam); dataSource.SelectParameters.Add(rootFolderParam); dataSource.UpdateParameters.Add(listIdParam); dataSource.DeleteParameters.Add(listIdParam); dataSource.InsertParameters.Add(listIdParam); return dataSource; } private string BuildDataFormParameters() { StringBuilder parameters = new StringBuilder("<ParameterBindings><ParameterBinding Name=\"dvt_apos\" Location=\"Postback;Connection\"/><ParameterBinding Name=\"UserID\" Location=\"CAMLVariable\" DefaultValue=\"CurrentUserName\"/><ParameterBinding Name=\"Today\" Location=\"CAMLVariable\" DefaultValue=\"CurrentDate\"/>"); parameters.Append("<ParameterBinding Name=\"dvt_firstrow\" Location=\"Postback;Connection\"/>"); parameters.Append("<ParameterBinding Name=\"dvt_nextpagedata\" Location=\"Postback;Connection\"/>"); parameters.Append("<ParameterBinding Name=\"dvt_adhocmode\" Location=\"Postback;Connection\"/>"); parameters.Append("<ParameterBinding Name=\"dvt_adhocfiltermode\" Location=\"Postback;Connection\"/>"); parameters.Append("</ParameterBindings>"); return parameters.ToString(); } } } The OnInit method we use to set the list name and the XSL Link property of the Data Form Web Part. We do not have the link to XSL in our Solution so we will add the XSL now: Add a Module in the Visual Studio add menu: Rename Sample.txt in the module to footer.xsl and then copy the XSL from SharePoint Designer Look at elements.xml to where the footer.xsl is being provisioned to which is Assets/footer.xsl, make sure the Web parts xsl link is pointing to this url: Okay we are good to go! Let’s check our features and package: DataFormWebPart should be scoped to site and have the web part: The Footer List feature should be scoped to web and have the Assets module (Okay, I see, a spelling issue but it won’t affect this demo) If everything is correct we should be able to click a couple of sub site feature activations and have our list and web part in a sub site. (In fact this solution can be activated anywhere) Here is the list created at SubSite1 with new data It. Next let’s add the web part on a test page and see if it works as expected: It does! So we now have a repeatable way to use a WSP to move a Data Form Web Part around our sites! Here is a link to the code: DataFormWebPart Solution

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• Read XML Files using LINQ to XML and Extension Methods

  - by psheriff

  In previous blog posts I have discussed how to use XML files to store data in your applications. I showed you how to read those XML files from your project and get XML from a WCF service. One of the problems with reading XML files is when elements or attributes are missing. If you try to read that missing data, then a null value is returned. This can cause a problem if you are trying to load that data into an object and a null is read. This blog post will show you how to create extension methods to detect null values and return valid values to load into your object. The XML Data An XML data file called Product.xml is located in the \Xml folder of the Silverlight sample project for this blog post. This XML file contains several rows of product data that will be used in each of the samples for this post. Each row has 4 attributes; namely ProductId, ProductName, IntroductionDate and Price. <Products>  <Product ProductId="1"           ProductName="Haystack Code Generator for .NET"           IntroductionDate="07/01/2010"  Price="799" />  <Product ProductId="2"           ProductName="ASP.Net Jumpstart Samples"           IntroductionDate="05/24/2005"  Price="0" />  ...  ...</Products> The Product Class Just as you create an Entity class to map each column in a table to a property in a class, you should do the same for an XML file too. In this case you will create a Product class with properties for each of the attributes in each element of product data. The following code listing shows the Product class. public class Product : CommonBase{  public const string XmlFile = @"Xml/Product.xml";   private string _ProductName;  private int _ProductId;  private DateTime _IntroductionDate;  private decimal _Price;   public string ProductName  {    get { return _ProductName; }    set {      if (_ProductName != value) {        _ProductName = value;        RaisePropertyChanged("ProductName");      }    }  }   public int ProductId  {    get { return _ProductId; }    set {      if (_ProductId != value) {        _ProductId = value;        RaisePropertyChanged("ProductId");      }    }  }   public DateTime IntroductionDate  {    get { return _IntroductionDate; }    set {      if (_IntroductionDate != value) {        _IntroductionDate = value;        RaisePropertyChanged("IntroductionDate");      }    }  }   public decimal Price  {    get { return _Price; }    set {      if (_Price != value) {        _Price = value;        RaisePropertyChanged("Price");      }    }  }} NOTE: The CommonBase class that the Product class inherits from simply implements the INotifyPropertyChanged event in order to inform your XAML UI of any property changes. You can see this class in the sample you download for this blog post. Reading Data When using LINQ to XML you call the Load method of the XElement class to load the XML file. Once the XML file has been loaded, you write a LINQ query to iterate over the “Product” Descendants in the XML file. The “select” portion of the LINQ query creates a new Product object for each row in the XML file. You retrieve each attribute by passing each attribute name to the Attribute() method and retrieving the data from the “Value” property. The Value property will return a null if there is no data, or will return the string value of the attribute. The Convert class is used to convert the value retrieved into the appropriate data type required by the Product class. private void LoadProducts(){  XElement xElem = null;   try  {    xElem = XElement.Load(Product.XmlFile);     // The following will NOT work if you have missing attributes    var products =         from elem in xElem.Descendants("Product")        orderby elem.Attribute("ProductName").Value        select new Product        {          ProductId = Convert.ToInt32(            elem.Attribute("ProductId").Value),          ProductName = Convert.ToString(            elem.Attribute("ProductName").Value),          IntroductionDate = Convert.ToDateTime(            elem.Attribute("IntroductionDate").Value),          Price = Convert.ToDecimal(elem.Attribute("Price").Value)        };     lstData.DataContext = products;  }  catch (Exception ex)  {    MessageBox.Show(ex.Message);  }} This is where the problem comes in. If you have any missing attributes in any of the rows in the XML file, or if the data in the ProductId or IntroductionDate is not of the appropriate type, then this code will fail! The reason? There is no built-in check to ensure that the correct type of data is contained in the XML file. This is where extension methods can come in real handy. Using Extension Methods Instead of using the Convert class to perform type conversions as you just saw, create a set of extension methods attached to the XAttribute class. These extension methods will perform null-checking and ensure that a valid value is passed back instead of an exception being thrown if there is invalid data in your XML file. private void LoadProducts(){  var xElem = XElement.Load(Product.XmlFile);   var products =       from elem in xElem.Descendants("Product")      orderby elem.Attribute("ProductName").Value      select new Product      {        ProductId = elem.Attribute("ProductId").GetAsInteger(),        ProductName = elem.Attribute("ProductName").GetAsString(),        IntroductionDate =            elem.Attribute("IntroductionDate").GetAsDateTime(),        Price = elem.Attribute("Price").GetAsDecimal()      };   lstData.DataContext = products;} Writing Extension Methods To create an extension method you will create a class with any name you like. In the code listing below is a class named XmlExtensionMethods. This listing just shows a couple of the available methods such as GetAsString and GetAsInteger. These methods are just like any other method you would write except when you pass in the parameter you prefix the type with the keyword “this”. This lets the compiler know that it should add this method to the class specified in the parameter. public static class XmlExtensionMethods{  public static string GetAsString(this XAttribute attr)  {    string ret = string.Empty;     if (attr != null && !string.IsNullOrEmpty(attr.Value))    {      ret = attr.Value;    }     return ret;  }   public static int GetAsInteger(this XAttribute attr)  {    int ret = 0;    int value = 0;     if (attr != null && !string.IsNullOrEmpty(attr.Value))    {      if(int.TryParse(attr.Value, out value))        ret = value;    }     return ret;  }   ...  ...} Each of the methods in the XmlExtensionMethods class should inspect the XAttribute to ensure it is not null and that the value in the attribute is not null. If the value is null, then a default value will be returned such as an empty string or a 0 for a numeric value. Summary Extension methods are a great way to simplify your code and provide protection to ensure problems do not occur when reading data. You will probably want to create more extension methods to handle XElement objects as well for when you use element-based XML. Feel free to extend these extension methods to accept a parameter which would be the default value if a null value is detected, or any other parameters you wish. NOTE: You can download the complete sample code at my website. http://www.pdsa.com/downloads. Choose “Tips & Tricks”, then "Read XML Files using LINQ to XML and Extension Methods" from the drop-down. Good Luck with your Coding,Paul D. Sheriff  

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• How to create a new WCF/MVC/jQuery application from scratch

  - by pjohnson

  As a corporate developer by trade, I don't get much opportunity to create from-the-ground-up web sites; usually it's tweaks, fixes, and new functionality to existing sites. And with hobby sites, I often don't find the challenges I run into with enterprise systems; usually it's starting from Visual Studio's boilerplate project and adding whatever functionality I want to play around with, rarely deploying outside my own machine. So my experience creating a new enterprise-level site was a bit dated, and the technologies to do so have come a long way, and are much more ready to go out of the box. My intention with this post isn't so much to provide any groundbreaking insights, but to just tie together a lot of information in one place to make it easy to create a new site from scratch. Architecture One site I created earlier this year had an MVC 3 front end and a WCF 4-driven service layer. Using Visual Studio 2010, these project types are easy enough to add to a new solution. I created a third Class Library project to store common functionality the front end and services layers both needed to access, for example, the DataContract classes that the front end uses to call services in the service layer. By keeping DataContract classes in a separate project, I avoided the need for the front end to have an assembly/project reference directly to the services code, a bit cleaner and more flexible of an SOA implementation. Consuming the service Even by this point, VS has given you a lot. You have a working web site and a working service, neither of which do much but are great starting points. To wire up the front end and the services, I needed to create proxy classes and WCF client configuration information. I decided to use the SvcUtil.exe utility provided as part of the Windows SDK, which you should have installed if you installed VS. VS also provides an Add Service Reference command since the .NET 1.x ASMX days, which I've never really liked; it creates several .cs/.disco/etc. files, some of which contained hardcoded URL's, adding duplicate files (*1.cs, *2.cs, etc.) without doing a good job of cleaning up after itself. I've found SvcUtil much cleaner, as it outputs one C# file (containing several proxy classes) and a config file with settings, and it's easier to use to regenerate the proxy classes when the service changes, and to then maintain all your configuration in one place (your Web.config, instead of the Service Reference files). I provided it a reference to a copy of my common assembly so it doesn't try to recreate the data contract classes, had it use the type List<T> for collections, and modified the output files' names and .NET namespace, ending up with a command like: svcutil.exe /l:cs /o:MyService.cs /config:MyService.config /r:MySite.Common.dll /ct:System.Collections.Generic.List`1 /n:*,MySite.Web.ServiceProxies http://localhost:59999/MyService.svc I took the generated MyService.cs file and drop it in the web project, under a ServiceProxies folder, matching the namespace and keeping it separate from classes I coded manually. Integrating the config file took a little more work, but only needed to be done once as these settings didn't often change. A great thing Microsoft improved with WCF 4 is configuration; namely, you can use all the default settings and not have to specify them explicitly in your config file. Unfortunately, SvcUtil doesn't generate its config file this way. If you just copy & paste MyService.config's contents into your front end's Web.config, you'll copy a lot of settings you don't need, plus this will get unwieldy if you add more services in the future, each with its own custom binding. Really, as the only mandatory settings are the endpoint's ABC's (address, binding, and contract) you can get away with just this: <system.serviceModel>  <client>    <endpoint address="http://localhost:59999/MyService.svc" binding="wsHttpBinding" contract="MySite.Web.ServiceProxies.IMyService" />  </client></system.serviceModel> By default, the services project uses basicHttpBinding. As you can see, I switched it to wsHttpBinding, a more modern standard. Using something like netTcpBinding would probably be faster and more efficient since the client & service are both written in .NET, but it requires additional server setup and open ports, whereas switching to wsHttpBinding is much simpler. From an MVC controller action method, I instantiated the client, and invoked the method for my operation. As with any object that implements IDisposable, I wrapped it in C#'s using() statement, a tidy construct that ensures Dispose gets called no matter what, even if an exception occurs. Unfortunately there are problems with that, as WCF's ClientBase<TChannel> class doesn't implement Dispose according to Microsoft's own usage guidelines. I took an approach similar to Technology Toolbox's fix, except using partial classes instead of a wrapper class to extend the SvcUtil-generated proxy, making the fix more seamless from the controller's perspective, and theoretically, less code I have to change if and when Microsoft fixes this behavior. User interface The MVC 3 project template includes jQuery and some other common JavaScript libraries by default. I updated the ones I used to the latest versions using NuGet, available in VS via the Tools > Library Package Manager > Manage NuGet Packages for Solution... > Updates. I also used this dialog to remove packages I wasn't using. Given that it's smart enough to know the difference between the .js and .min.js files, I was hoping it would be smart enough to know which to include during build and publish operations, but this doesn't seem to be the case. I ended up using Cassette to perform the minification and bundling of my JavaScript and CSS files; ASP.NET 4.5 includes this functionality out of the box. The web client to web server link via jQuery was easy enough. In my JavaScript function, unobtrusively wired up to a button's click event, I called $.ajax, corresponding to an action method that returns a JsonResult, accomplished by passing my model class to the Controller.Json() method, which jQuery helpfully translates from JSON to a JavaScript object.$.ajax calls weren't perfectly straightforward. I tried using the simpler $.post method instead, but ran into trouble without specifying the contentType parameter, which $.post doesn't have. The url parameter is simple enough, though for flexibility in how the site is deployed, I used MVC's Url.Action method to get the URL, then sent this to JavaScript in a JavaScript string variable. If the request needed input data, I used the JSON.stringify function to convert a JavaScript object with the parameters into a JSON string, which MVC then parses into strongly-typed C# parameters. I also specified "json" for dataType, and "application/json; charset=utf-8" for contentType. For success and error, I provided my success and error handling functions, though success is a bit hairier. "Success" in this context indicates whether the HTTP request succeeds, not whether what you wanted the AJAX call to do on the web server was successful. For example, if you make an AJAX call to retrieve a piece of data, the success handler will be invoked for any 200 OK response, and the error handler will be invoked for failed requests, e.g. a 404 Not Found (if the server rejected the URL you provided in the url parameter) or 500 Internal Server Error (e.g. if your C# code threw an exception that wasn't caught). If an exception was caught and handled, or if the data requested wasn't found, this would likely go through the success handler, which would need to do further examination to verify it did in fact get back the data for which it asked. I discuss this more in the next section. Logging and exception handling At this point, I had a working application. If I ran into any errors or unexpected behavior, debugging was easy enough, but of course that's not an option on public web servers. Microsoft Enterprise Library 5.0 filled this gap nicely, with its Logging and Exception Handling functionality. First I installed Enterprise Library; NuGet as outlined above is probably the best way to do so. I needed a total of three assembly references--Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.ExceptionHandling, Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.ExceptionHandling.Logging, and Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Logging. VS links with the handy Enterprise Library 5.0 Configuration Console, accessible by right-clicking your Web.config and choosing Edit Enterprise Library V5 Configuration. In this console, under Logging Settings, I set up a Rolling Flat File Trace Listener to write to log files but not let them get too large, using a Text Formatter with a simpler template than that provided by default. Logging to a different (or additional) destination is easy enough, but a flat file suited my needs. At this point, I verified it wrote as expected by calling the Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Logging.Logger.Write method from my C# code. With those settings verified, I went on to wire up Exception Handling with Logging. Back in the EntLib Configuration Console, under Exception Handling, I used a LoggingExceptionHandler, setting its Logging Category to the category I already had configured in the Logging Settings. Then, from code (e.g. a controller's OnException method, or any action method's catch block), I called the Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.ExceptionHandling.ExceptionPolicy.HandleException method, providing the exception and the exception policy name I had configured in the Exception Handling Settings. Before I got this configured correctly, when I tried it out, nothing was logged. In working with .NET, I'm used to seeing an exception if something doesn't work or isn't set up correctly, but instead working with these EntLib modules reminds me more of JavaScript (before the "use strict" v5 days)--it just does nothing and leaves you to figure out why, I presume due in part to the listener pattern Microsoft followed with the Enterprise Library. First, I verified logging worked on its own. Then, verifying/correcting where each piece wires up to the next resolved my problem. Your C# code calls into the Exception Handling module, referencing the policy you pass the HandleException method; that policy's configuration contains a LoggingExceptionHandler that references a logCategory; that logCategory should be added in the loggingConfiguration's categorySources section; that category references a listener; that listener should be added in the loggingConfiguration's listeners section, which specifies the name of the log file. One final note on error handling, as the proper way to handle WCF and MVC errors is a whole other very lengthy discussion. For AJAX calls to MVC action methods, depending on your configuration, an exception thrown here will result in ASP.NET'S Yellow Screen Of Death being sent back as a response, which is at best unnecessarily and uselessly verbose, and at worst a security risk as the internals of your application are exposed to potential hackers. I mitigated this by overriding my controller's OnException method, passing the exception off to the Exception Handling module as above. I created an ErrorModel class with as few properties as possible (e.g. an Error string), sending as little information to the client as possible, to both maximize bandwidth and mitigate risk. I then return an ErrorModel in JSON format for AJAX requests: if (filterContext.HttpContext.Request.IsAjaxRequest()){    filterContext.Result = Json(new ErrorModel(...));    filterContext.ExceptionHandled = true;} My $.ajax calls from the browser get a valid 200 OK response and go into the success handler. Before assuming everything is OK, I check if it's an ErrorModel or a model containing what I requested. If it's an ErrorModel, or null, I pass it to my error handler. If the client needs to handle different errors differently, ErrorModel can contain a flag, error code, string, etc. to differentiate, but again, sending as little information back as possible is ideal. Summary As any experienced ASP.NET developer knows, this is a far cry from where ASP.NET started when I began working with it 11 years ago. WCF services are far more powerful than ASMX ones, MVC is in many ways cleaner and certainly more unit test-friendly than Web Forms (if you don't consider the code/markup commingling you're doing again), the Enterprise Library makes error handling and logging almost entirely configuration-driven, AJAX makes a responsive UI more feasible, and jQuery makes JavaScript coding much less painful. It doesn't take much work to get a functional, maintainable, flexible application, though having it actually do something useful is a whole other matter.

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• Security Issues with Single Page Apps

  - by Stephen.Walther

  Last week, I was asked to do a code review of a Single Page App built using the ASP.NET Web API, Durandal, and Knockout (good stuff!). In particular, I was asked to investigate whether there any special security issues associated with building a Single Page App which are not present in the case of a traditional server-side ASP.NET application. In this blog entry, I discuss two areas in which you need to exercise extra caution when building a Single Page App. I discuss how Single Page Apps are extra vulnerable to both Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attacks and Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) attacks. This goal of this blog post is NOT to persuade you to avoid writing Single Page Apps. I’m a big fan of Single Page Apps. Instead, the goal is to ensure that you are fully aware of some of the security issues related to Single Page Apps and ensure that you know how to guard against them. Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Attacks According to WhiteHat Security, over 65% of public websites are open to XSS attacks. That’s bad. By taking advantage of XSS holes in a website, a hacker can steal your credit cards, passwords, or bank account information. Any website that redisplays untrusted information is open to XSS attacks. Let me give you a simple example. Imagine that you want to display the name of the current user on a page. To do this, you create the following server-side ASP.NET page located at http://MajorBank.com/SomePage.aspx: <%@Page Language="C#" %> <html> <head> <title>Some Page</title> </head> <body> Welcome <%= Request["username"] %> </body> </html> Nothing fancy here. Notice that the page displays the current username by using Request[“username”]. Using Request[“username”] displays the username regardless of whether the username is present in a cookie, a form field, or a query string variable. Unfortunately, by using Request[“username”] to redisplay untrusted information, you have now opened your website to XSS attacks. Here’s how. Imagine that an evil hacker creates the following link on another website (hackers.com): <a href="/SomePage.aspx?username=<script src=Evil.js></script>">Visit MajorBank</a> Notice that the link includes a query string variable named username and the value of the username variable is an HTML <SCRIPT> tag which points to a JavaScript file named Evil.js. When anyone clicks on the link, the <SCRIPT> tag will be injected into SomePage.aspx and the Evil.js script will be loaded and executed. What can a hacker do in the Evil.js script? Anything the hacker wants. For example, the hacker could display a popup dialog on the MajorBank.com site which asks the user to enter their password. The script could then post the password back to hackers.com and now the evil hacker has your secret password. ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC have two automatic safeguards against this type of attack: Request Validation and Automatic HTML Encoding. Protecting Coming In (Request Validation) In a server-side ASP.NET app, you are protected against the XSS attack described above by a feature named Request Validation. If you attempt to submit “potentially dangerous” content — such as a JavaScript <SCRIPT> tag — in a form field or query string variable then you get an exception. Unfortunately, Request Validation only applies to server-side apps. Request Validation does not help in the case of a Single Page App. In particular, the ASP.NET Web API does not pay attention to Request Validation. You can post any content you want – including <SCRIPT> tags – to an ASP.NET Web API action. For example, the following HTML page contains a form. When you submit the form, the form data is submitted to an ASP.NET Web API controller on the server using an Ajax request: <!DOCTYPE html> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title></title> </head> <body> <form data-bind="submit:submit"> <div> <label> User Name: <input data-bind="value:user.userName" /> </label> </div> <div> <label> Email: <input data-bind="value:user.email" /> </label> </div> <div> <input type="submit" value="Submit" /> </div> </form> <script src="Scripts/jquery-1.7.1.js"></script> <script src="Scripts/knockout-2.1.0.js"></script> <script> var viewModel = { user: { userName: ko.observable(), email: ko.observable() }, submit: function () { $.post("/api/users", ko.toJS(this.user)); } }; ko.applyBindings(viewModel); </script> </body> </html> The form above is using Knockout to bind the form fields to a view model. When you submit the form, the view model is submitted to an ASP.NET Web API action on the server. Here’s the server-side ASP.NET Web API controller and model class: public class UsersController : ApiController { public HttpResponseMessage Post(UserViewModel user) { var userName = user.UserName; return Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK); } } public class UserViewModel { public string UserName { get; set; } public string Email { get; set; } } If you submit the HTML form, you don’t get an error. The “potentially dangerous” content is passed to the server without any exception being thrown. In the screenshot below, you can see that I was able to post a username form field with the value “<script>alert(‘boo’)</script”. So what this means is that you do not get automatic Request Validation in the case of a Single Page App. You need to be extra careful in a Single Page App about ensuring that you do not display untrusted content because you don’t have the Request Validation safety net which you have in a traditional server-side ASP.NET app. Protecting Going Out (Automatic HTML Encoding) Server-side ASP.NET also protects you from XSS attacks when you render content. By default, all content rendered by the razor view engine is HTML encoded. For example, the following razor view displays the text “<b>Hello!</b>” instead of the text “Hello!” in bold: @{ var message = "<b>Hello!</b>"; } @message   If you don’t want to render content as HTML encoded in razor then you need to take the extra step of using the @Html.Raw() helper. In a Web Form page, if you use <%: %> instead of <%= %> then you get automatic HTML Encoding: <%@ Page Language="C#" %> <% var message = "<b>Hello!</b>"; %> <%: message %> This automatic HTML Encoding will prevent many types of XSS attacks. It prevents <script> tags from being rendered and only allows &lt;script&gt; tags to be rendered which are useless for executing JavaScript. (This automatic HTML encoding does not protect you from all forms of XSS attacks. For example, you can assign the value “javascript:alert(‘evil’)” to the Hyperlink control’s NavigateUrl property and execute the JavaScript). The situation with Knockout is more complicated. If you use the Knockout TEXT binding then you get HTML encoded content. On the other hand, if you use the HTML binding then you do not: <!-- This JavaScript DOES NOT execute --> <div data-bind="text:someProp"></div> <!-- This Javacript DOES execute --> <div data-bind="html:someProp"></div> <script src="Scripts/jquery-1.7.1.js"></script> <script src="Scripts/knockout-2.1.0.js"></script> <script> var viewModel = { someProp : "<script>alert('Evil!')<" + "/script>" }; ko.applyBindings(viewModel); </script>   So, in the page above, the DIV element which uses the TEXT binding is safe from XSS attacks. According to the Knockout documentation: “Since this binding sets your text value using a text node, it’s safe to set any string value without risking HTML or script injection.” Just like server-side HTML encoding, Knockout does not protect you from all types of XSS attacks. For example, there is nothing in Knockout which prevents you from binding JavaScript to a hyperlink like this: <a data-bind="attr:{href:homePageUrl}">Go</a> <script src="Scripts/jquery-1.7.1.min.js"></script> <script src="Scripts/knockout-2.1.0.js"></script> <script> var viewModel = { homePageUrl: "javascript:alert('evil!')" }; ko.applyBindings(viewModel); </script> In the page above, the value “javascript:alert(‘evil’)” is bound to the HREF attribute using Knockout. When you click the link, the JavaScript executes. Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) Attacks Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) attacks rely on the fact that a session cookie does not expire until you close your browser. In particular, if you visit and login to MajorBank.com and then you navigate to Hackers.com then you will still be authenticated against MajorBank.com even after you navigate to Hackers.com. Because MajorBank.com cannot tell whether a request is coming from MajorBank.com or Hackers.com, Hackers.com can submit requests to MajorBank.com pretending to be you. For example, Hackers.com can post an HTML form from Hackers.com to MajorBank.com and change your email address at MajorBank.com. Hackers.com can post a form to MajorBank.com using your authentication cookie. After your email address has been changed, by using a password reset page at MajorBank.com, a hacker can access your bank account. To prevent CSRF attacks, you need some mechanism for detecting whether a request is coming from a page loaded from your website or whether the request is coming from some other website. The recommended way of preventing Cross-Site Request Forgery attacks is to use the “Synchronizer Token Pattern” as described here: https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Cross-Site_Request_Forgery_%28CSRF%29_Prevention_Cheat_Sheet When using the Synchronizer Token Pattern, you include a hidden input field which contains a random token whenever you display an HTML form. When the user opens the form, you add a cookie to the user’s browser with the same random token. When the user posts the form, you verify that the hidden form token and the cookie token match. Preventing Cross-Site Request Forgery Attacks with ASP.NET MVC ASP.NET gives you a helper and an action filter which you can use to thwart Cross-Site Request Forgery attacks. For example, the following razor form for creating a product shows how you use the @Html.AntiForgeryToken() helper: @model MvcApplication2.Models.Product <h2>Create Product</h2> @using (Html.BeginForm()) { @Html.AntiForgeryToken(); <div> @Html.LabelFor( p => p.Name, "Product Name:") @Html.TextBoxFor( p => p.Name) </div> <div> @Html.LabelFor( p => p.Price, "Product Price:") @Html.TextBoxFor( p => p.Price) </div> <input type="submit" /> } The @Html.AntiForgeryToken() helper generates a random token and assigns a serialized version of the same random token to both a cookie and a hidden form field. (Actually, if you dive into the source code, the AntiForgeryToken() does something a little more complex because it takes advantage of a user’s identity when generating the token). Here’s what the hidden form field looks like: <input name=”__RequestVerificationToken” type=”hidden” value=”NqqZGAmlDHh6fPTNR_mti3nYGUDgpIkCiJHnEEL59S7FNToyyeSo7v4AfzF2i67Cv0qTB1TgmZcqiVtgdkW2NnXgEcBc-iBts0x6WAIShtM1″ /> And here’s what the cookie looks like using the Google Chrome developer toolbar: You use the [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] action filter on the controller action which is the recipient of the form post to validate that the token in the hidden form field matches the token in the cookie. If the tokens don’t match then validation fails and you can’t post the form: public ActionResult Create() { return View(); } [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] [HttpPost] public ActionResult Create(Product productToCreate) { if (ModelState.IsValid) { // save product to db return RedirectToAction("Index"); } return View(); } How does this all work? Let’s imagine that a hacker has copied the Create Product page from MajorBank.com to Hackers.com – the hacker grabs the HTML source and places it at Hackers.com. Now, imagine that the hacker trick you into submitting the Create Product form from Hackers.com to MajorBank.com. You’ll get the following exception: The Cross-Site Request Forgery attack is blocked because the anti-forgery token included in the Create Product form at Hackers.com won’t match the anti-forgery token stored in the cookie in your browser. The tokens were generated at different times for different users so the attack fails. Preventing Cross-Site Request Forgery Attacks with a Single Page App In a Single Page App, you can’t prevent Cross-Site Request Forgery attacks using the same method as a server-side ASP.NET MVC app. In a Single Page App, HTML forms are not generated on the server. Instead, in a Single Page App, forms are loaded dynamically in the browser. Phil Haack has a blog post on this topic where he discusses passing the anti-forgery token in an Ajax header instead of a hidden form field. He also describes how you can create a custom anti-forgery token attribute to compare the token in the Ajax header and the token in the cookie. See: http://haacked.com/archive/2011/10/10/preventing-csrf-with-ajax.aspx Also, take a look at Johan’s update to Phil Haack’s original post: http://johan.driessen.se/posts/Updated-Anti-XSRF-Validation-for-ASP.NET-MVC-4-RC (Other server frameworks such as Rails and Django do something similar. For example, Rails uses an X-CSRF-Token to prevent CSRF attacks which you generate on the server – see http://excid3.com/blog/rails-tip-2-include-csrf-token-with-every-ajax-request/#.UTFtgDDkvL8 ). For example, if you are creating a Durandal app, then you can use the following razor view for your one and only server-side page: @{ Layout = null; } <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <title>Index</title> </head> <body> @Html.AntiForgeryToken() <div id="applicationHost"> Loading app.... </div> @Scripts.Render("~/scripts/vendor") <script type="text/javascript" src="~/App/durandal/amd/require.js" data-main="/App/main"></script> </body> </html> Notice that this page includes a call to @Html.AntiForgeryToken() to generate the anti-forgery token. Then, whenever you make an Ajax request in the Durandal app, you can retrieve the anti-forgery token from the razor view and pass the token as a header: var csrfToken = $("input[name='__RequestVerificationToken']").val(); $.ajax({ headers: { __RequestVerificationToken: csrfToken }, type: "POST", dataType: "json", contentType: 'application/json; charset=utf-8', url: "/api/products", data: JSON.stringify({ name: "Milk", price: 2.33 }), statusCode: { 200: function () { alert("Success!"); } } }); Use the following code to create an action filter which you can use to match the header and cookie tokens: using System.Linq; using System.Net.Http; using System.Web.Helpers; using System.Web.Http.Controllers; namespace MvcApplication2.Infrastructure { public class ValidateAjaxAntiForgeryToken : System.Web.Http.AuthorizeAttribute { protected override bool IsAuthorized(HttpActionContext actionContext) { var headerToken = actionContext .Request .Headers .GetValues("__RequestVerificationToken") .FirstOrDefault(); ; var cookieToken = actionContext .Request .Headers .GetCookies() .Select(c => c[AntiForgeryConfig.CookieName]) .FirstOrDefault(); // check for missing cookie or header if (cookieToken == null || headerToken == null) { return false; } // ensure that the cookie matches the header try { AntiForgery.Validate(cookieToken.Value, headerToken); } catch { return false; } return base.IsAuthorized(actionContext); } } } Notice that the action filter derives from the base AuthorizeAttribute. The ValidateAjaxAntiForgeryToken only works when the user is authenticated and it will not work for anonymous requests. Add the action filter to your ASP.NET Web API controller actions like this: [ValidateAjaxAntiForgeryToken] public HttpResponseMessage PostProduct(Product productToCreate) { // add product to db return Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK); } After you complete these steps, it won’t be possible for a hacker to pretend to be you at Hackers.com and submit a form to MajorBank.com. The header token used in the Ajax request won’t travel to Hackers.com. This approach works, but I am not entirely happy with it. The one thing that I don’t like about this approach is that it creates a hard dependency on using razor. Your single page in your Single Page App must be generated from a server-side razor view. A better solution would be to generate the anti-forgery token in JavaScript. Unfortunately, until all browsers support a way to generate cryptographically strong random numbers – for example, by supporting the window.crypto.getRandomValues() method — there is no good way to generate anti-forgery tokens in JavaScript. So, at least right now, the best solution for generating the tokens is the server-side solution with the (regrettable) dependency on razor. Conclusion The goal of this blog entry was to explore some ways in which you need to handle security differently in the case of a Single Page App than in the case of a traditional server app. In particular, I focused on how to prevent Cross-Site Scripting and Cross-Site Request Forgery attacks in the case of a Single Page App. I want to emphasize that I am not suggesting that Single Page Apps are inherently less secure than server-side apps. Whatever type of web application you build – regardless of whether it is a Single Page App, an ASP.NET MVC app, an ASP.NET Web Forms app, or a Rails app – you must constantly guard against security vulnerabilities.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, March 07, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, March 07, 2012Popular ReleasesStackBuilder: StackBuilder 1.0.5.0: + Added Collada/WebGL export to show 3D animation of pallet solutions...Delta Engine: Delta Engine Beta Preview v0.9.4: v0.9.4 is the release for February 2012, but it was delayed till 2012-03-07 until content generation worked much better for v0.9.4. The main improvements were done on the server side (content generation and improved build support for iOS and Android). v0.9.4 is also the first version everyone can use to deploy their application onto all supported platforms, see Marketplace Licensing for details: http://deltaengine.net/Marketplace Documentation for this version can be found at: http://help.de...PDFsharp - A .NET library for processing PDF: PDFsharp and MigraDoc Foundation 1.32: PDFsharp and MigraDoc Foundation 1.32 is a stable version that fixes a few bugs that were found with version 1.31. Version 1.32 includes solutions for Visual Studio 2010 only (but it should be possible to add the project files to existing solutions for VS 2005 or VS 2008). Users of VS 2005 or VS 2008 can still download version 1.31 with the solutions for those versions that allow them to easily try the samples that are included. While it may create smaller PDF files than version 1.30 because...Terminals: Version 2.0 - Release: Changes since version 1.9a:New art works New usability in Organize favorites window Improved usability of imports/exports and scans Large number of fixes Improvements in single instance mode Comparing November beta 4, this corrects: New application icons Doesn't show Logon error codes Fixed command line arguments exception for single instance mode Fixed detaching of tabs improved usability in detached window Fixed option settings for Capture manager Fixed system tray noti...MFCMAPI: March 2012 Release: Build: 15.0.0.1032 Full release notes at SGriffin's blog. If you just want to run the MFCMAPI or MrMAPI, get the executables. If you want to debug them, get the symbol files and the source. The 64 bit builds will only work on a machine with Outlook 2010 64 bit installed. All other machines should use the 32 bit builds, regardless of the operating system. Facebook BadgeSimple Injector: Simple Injector v1.4.1: This release adds two small improvements to the SimpleInjector.Extensions.dll. No changes have been made to the core library. New features and improvements in this release for the SimpleInjector.Extensions.dll The RegisterManyForOpenGeneric extension methods now accept non-generic decorator, as long as they implement the given open generic service type. GetTypesToRegister methods added to the OpenGenericBatchRegistrationExtensions class which allows to customize the behavior. Note that the...CommonLibrary: Code: CodePowerGUI Visual Studio Extension: PowerGUI VSX 1.5.2: Added support for PowerGUI 3.2.VidCoder: 1.3.1: Updated HandBrake core to 0.9.6 release (svn 4472). Removed erroneous "None" container choice. Change some logic and help text to stop assuming you have to pick the VIDEO_TS folder for a DVD scan. This should make previewing DVD titles on the Queue Multiple Titles window possible when you've picked the root DVD directory.ExtAspNet: ExtAspNet v3.1.0: ExtAspNet - ?? ExtJS ??? ASP.NET 2.0 ???，????? AJAX ?????????? ExtAspNet ????? ExtJS ??? ASP.NET 2.0 ???，????? AJAX ??????????。 ExtAspNet ??????? JavaScript，?? CSS，?? UpdatePanel，?? ViewState，?? WebServices ???????。 ??????: IE 7.0, Firefox 3.6, Chrome 3.0, Opera 10.5, Safari 3.0+ ????：Apache License 2.0 (Apache) ??：http://extasp.net/ ??：http://bbs.extasp.net/ ??：http://extaspnet.codeplex.com/ ??：http://sanshi.cnblogs.com/ ????： +2012-03-04 v3.1.0 -??Hidden???????（〓?〓）。 -?PageManager??...AcDown????? - Anime&Comic Downloader: AcDown????? v3.9.1: ?? ●AcDown??????????、??、??????，????1M，????，????，?????????????????????????。???????????Acfun、????(Bilibili)、??、??、YouTube、??、???、??????、SF????、????????????。??????AcPlay?????，??????、????????????????。 ● AcDown???????????????????????????，???，???????????????????。 ● AcDown???????C#??，????.NET Framework 2.0??。?????"Acfun?????"。 ????32??64? Windows XP/Vista/7/8 ????????????? ??：????????Windows XP???,?????????.NET Framework 2.0???(x86)，?????"?????????"??? ??????????????，??????????： ??"AcDo...Windows Phone Commands for VS2010: Version 1.0: Initial Release Version 1.0 Connect from device or emulator (Monitors the connection) Show Device information (Plataform, build , version, avaliable memory, total memory, architeture Manager installed applications (Launch, uninstall and explorer isolate storage files) Manager core applications (Launch blocked applications from emulator (Office, Calculator, alarm, calendar , etc) Manager blocked settings from emulator (Airplane Mode, Celullar Network, Wifi, etc) Deploy and update ap...DNN Metro7 style Skin package: Metro7 style Skin for DotNetNuke 06.01.00: Changes on Version 06.01.00 Fixed issue on GraySmallTitle container, that breaks the layout Fixed issue on Blue Metro7 Skin where the Search, Login, Register, Date is missing Fixed issue with the Version numbers on the target file Fixed issue where the jQuery and jQuery-UI files not deleted on upgrade from Version 01.00.00 Added a internal page where the Image Slider would be replaces with a BannerPaneMedia Companion: MC 3.433b Release: General More GUI tweaks (mostly imperceptible!) Updates for mc_com.exe TV The 'Watched' button has been re-instigated Added TV Menu sub-option to search ALL for new Episodes (includes locked shows) Movies Added 'Source' field (eg DVD, Bluray, HDTV), customisable in Advanced Preferences (try it out, let us know how it works!) Added HTML <<format>> tag with optional parameters for video container, source, and resolution (updated HTML tags to be added to Documentation shortly) Known Issu...Picturethrill: Version 2.3.2.0: Release includes Self-Update feature for Picturethrill. What that means for users is that they are always guaranteed to have a fresh copy of Picturethrill on their computers with all latest fixes. When Picturethrill adds a new website to get pictures from, you will get it too!Simple MVVM Toolkit for Silverlight, WPF and Windows Phone: Simple MVVM Toolkit v3.0.0.0: Added support for Silverlight 5.0 and Windows Phone 7.1. Upgraded project templates and samples. Upgraded installer. There are some new prerequisites required for this version, namely Silverlight 5 Tools, Expression Blend Preview for Silverlight 5 (until the SDK is released), Windows Phone 7.1 SDK. Because it is in the experimental band, I have also removed the dependency on the Silverlight Testing Framework. You can use it if you wish, but the Ria Services project template no longer uses ...CODE Framework: 4.0.20301: The latest version adds a number of new features to the WPF system (such as stylable and testable messagebox support) as well as various new features throughout the system (especially in the Utilities namespace).MyRouter (Virtual WiFi Router): MyRouter 1.0.2 (Beta): A friendlier User Interface. A logger file to catch exceptions so you may send it to use to improve and fix any bugs that may occur. A feedback form because we always love hearing what you guy's think of MyRouter. Check for update menu item for you to stay up to date will the latest changes. Facebook fan page so you may spread the word and share MyRouter with friends and family And Many other exciting features were sure your going to love!WPF Sound Visualization Library: WPF SVL 0.3 (Source, Binaries, Examples, Help): Version 0.3 of WPFSVL. This includes three new controls: an equalizer, a digital clock, and a time editor.Orchard Project: Orchard 1.4: Please read our release notes for Orchard 1.4: http://docs.orchardproject.net/Documentation/Orchard-1-4-Release-NotesNew Projects1-2-3 Music Store Downloads Server: The 1-2-3 Music Store Downloads server is a WCF-powered web service allowing owners of the now defunct Easybe 1-2-3 music store to access downloads for their installation of the 1-2-3 music store via a web service.Bootstrap for Orchard: Bootstrap Framework for Orchard. Provides a dynamic build of the Bootstrap CSS framework allowing developers of modules and themes to dynamically add css (in less of course), variables, mixins, and settings. (includes the Orchard dotless module)Calculating With Workflow: Basic example of using the Workflow Foundation 4.CRM JS Helper for REST Endpoint: CRM JS Helper for REST EndpointDev3Lib: Dev3Lib is an opensource library. It tries to ease your daily business coding. You can find quite a few handy functions, class to facilitate your coding experiences. Have a fun in this library.Emotiv Engine Client: Provides an event-driven .NET framework wrapper around the managed Emotiv EPOC neuroheadset API.Ewk: All kinds of things.GeoTransformer: GeoTransformer focuses on making it easier for geocachers to process GPX files and publish them on their GPS devices.Glioma Visualizer 2: This C#.NET application does space-time analytical simulations for glioma modeling.Government of Canada Usability Web Experience Toolkit: This toolkit addresses the Governement of Canada usability for CLF. It is based on SharePoint 2010 Server and provides templates for a publishing site with variations enabled. This toolkit includes: 1. Master Pages 2. Page Layouts 3. Custom User Controls 4. Source CodeHappy Frog @ WinPhone: It is just another Angry-Birds-like game using Farseer physics engine and XNA framework. This project has didn't finish yet, but it is already stopped. Our developers had moved to another project base on this one, whatever, we'd like to public the code, as what we thought at begin —— this project is open source, under LGPL license 2.1.HyperVBackup: HyperVBackup is an open source tool to backup Hyper-V virtual machines, including support for Cluster Shared Storage (CSV).iBIOFind 3: This is a console based C#.NET application for experimental research work in informational retrieval for medical research.JV.MVVM: Jv.mvvm intents to bring the mvvm pattern to winform projects. This project provide a windows form extender control that allows to provide more rich binding information per control. The control interpret the bindings and manages them properly. It is developed in C#, and uses other projects like TinyPG, and Emmiter.jWeaving: Javascript PackageMicro APIs: Small APIs for .NETModel Maker 3: A C#.NET application for time series analysis.Neural Scribe 2: This C#.NET application classification of EEG signals.Object To Html Mapping (OHM) jQuery Plugin: Object To HTML Mapping(OHM) Is a jQuery Plugin that enables the ability to quickly transfer javascript object (or JSON) into your HTML and from the HTML revert back to object after user changes, easy use with ASP.NET . see http://www.lotofcode.blogspot.comRandomSamples: All my random tests and samplesRelate2spot: A C# and WPF application that finds relationships between entities using Latent Semantic Analysis in a large collection of texts.school15py: A Website base on Flask.Secure SQL Server: TBDSharePoint 2010 - Add Documents and List Items to Quick Deploy from ECB Dropdown: Adds functionality to the SharePoint 2010 graphical interface to allow end-users to add document library and list items to a Quick Deploy content deployment job. I copied http://quickdeploydoc.codeplex.com/ and made it 2010 compatible and for any item or document.SharePoint 2010 HTML5 MasterPage Templates: This project is the modification of the SharePoint 2010 v4.master template to support the HTML5 features in advanced browsers. It will provide a WSP package of the solutions with source to allow modification and deployment of a customized masterpage supporting HTML5.Sharepoint 2010 Workflow History & Task Custom SPField Column: This project was inspired by Marc D Anderson while attending Office365 Saturday event in Redmond, WA on February 25, 2012. While giving his presentation he mentioned that he created a solution to show tasks for a workflow via a jQuery dialog. Although I liked his idea, I hated that his solution was tailored for one client only, and could not be easily applied to any out of the box SPList. This is how this project came to be and I hope you can find it useful.SharePoint Content Database Size Monitor: Monitor and track the size of your SharePoint content databases and log files directly from Central AdministrationSNSpirit: A sns clientSoGames : jeux multi-écrans: SoGames : codes source des jeux mutli-écrans présentés aux Techdays 2012 Avec la palette des technologies et outils proposée par Microsoft, il est assez simple de réaliser des applications originales et de bonne qualité. Pour autant, rien n'est magique et quelques concepts nécessitent de se retrousser un peu les manches. Pour mieux les saisir, vous trouverez ici les codes source de nos jeux collaboratifs : - SoSlam : Le premier joueur doit lancer un écureuil dans les airs à l'aide de s...SPAC (SharePoint Auto Coder): SPAC is a code generation tool which developers can easily generate custom code to be used in custom SharePoint development projects. SPAC can generate code for a given language of choice based on a predefined code template. Developers can choose to define the code template and then with few clicks SPAC will generate the code based on the defined template.Sushi Library: ASP.Net MVC Helpers Library using BootStrap from TwitterSystemOfVote: ?????39?????，????2?： 1.??????，?????????，???????????????????； 2.?????????????????。test140880: testingTheatre: ??????Time Maestro 2: This is a C#.NET application for times series modeling and forecasting in the cloud.USGS DEM File Reader: USGS DEM file readerVoluntariado mobile (windows phone): Se trata de desarrollar una aplicación nativa para windows phone que ofrezca al usuario una oferta de oportunidades de voluntariado geolocalizadas en las que poder participarWCF Format Extensions for CSV, TXT: This project add support for Legacy formats like CSV, TXT (CSV Export) to the data service output and allow $format=txt query. By default WCF Data Services support Atom and JSON responses however legacy systems do not understand ATOM or JSON but they understand CSV, TXT formats. This project is intended to develop and TXT (CSV) for WCF Data services so that it can be used with legacy application.

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• Understanding the value of Customer Experience & Loyalty for the Telecommunications Industry

  - by raul.goycoolea

  Worried by economic woes and market forces, especially in mature markets, communications service providers (CSPs) increasingly focus on improving customer experience. In fact, it seems difficult to find a major message by a C-level executive in the developed world that does not include something on "meeting and exceeding customers' needs". Frequently in customer satisfaction studies by prominent firms, CSPs fall short of the leadership demonstrated by other industries that take customer-centric approaches to their bottom-line strategies. Consider the following:Despite the continued impact of global economic crisis, in July 2010, Apple Computer posted record revenue and net quarterly profit. Those who attribute the results primarily to the iPhone 4 launch should note that Apple also shipped around 30% more Macintosh computers than the same period the previous year. Even sales of the iPod line increased by 8% in a highly commoditized, shrinking media player market. Finally, Apple began selling iPads during the quarter, with total sales of more than 3 million units. What does Apple have that the others lack? Well, some great products (and services) to be sure, but it also excels at customer service and support, marketing, and distribution, and has one of the strongest brands globally. Its products are useful, simple to use, easy to acquire and augment, high quality, and considered very cool. They also evoke such an emotional response from many of Apple's customers, which they turn up their noses at competitive products.In other words, Apple appears to have mastered virtually every aspect of customer experience and the resultant loyalty of its customer base - even in difficult financial times. Through that unwavering customer focus, Apple continues to drive its revenues and profits to new heights. Other customer loyalty leaders like Wal-Mart, Google, Toyota and Honda are also doing well by focusing on customer experience as an essential driver of profitability. Service providers should note this performance and ask themselves how they might leverage the same principles to increase their own profitability. After all, that is what customer experience and loyalty are all about: profitability.To successfully manage all the critical touch points of customer experience, CSPs must shun the one-size-fits-all approach. They can no longer afford to view customer service fundamentally as an act of altruism - which mentality dates back to the industry's civil service days, when CSPs were typically government organizations that were critical to economic development and public safety.As regulators and public officials have pushed, and continue to push, service providers to new heights of reliability - using incentives and punishments - most CSPs already have some of the fundamental building blocks of customer service in place. Yet despite that history and experience, service providers still lag other industries in providing what is seen as good customer service.As we observed in the TMF's 2009 Insights Research report, Customer Experience Management: Driving Loyalty & Profitability there has been resurgence in interest by CSPs. More and more of them have stated ambitions to catch up other industries, and they are realizing that good customer service is a powerful strategy for increasing business performance and profitability, not an act of good will.CSPs are recognizing the connection between customer experience and profitability, as demonstrated in many studies. For example, according to research by Bain & Company, a 5 percent improvement in customer retention rates can yield as much as a 75 percent increase in profits for companies across a range of industries.After decades of customer experience strategy formulation, Bain partner and business author, Frederick Reichheld, considers "would you recommend us to a friend?" as the ultimate question for a customer. How many times have you or your friends recommended an iPod, iPhone or a Mac? What do your children recommend to their peers? Their peers to them?There are certain steps service providers have to take to create more personalized relationships with their customers, as well as reduce churn and increase profitability, all while becoming leaner and more agile. First, they have to define customer experience, we define it as the result of the sum of observations, perceptions, thoughts and feelings arising from interactions and relationships between customers and their service provider(s). Virtually every customer touch point - whether directly or indirectly linked to service providers and their partners - contributes to customer perception, satisfaction, loyalty, and ultimately profitability. Gaining leadership in customer experience and satisfaction will not be a simple task, as it is affected by virtually every customer-facing aspect of the service provider, and in turn impacts the service provider deeply - especially on the all-important bottom line. The scope of issues affecting customer experience is complex and dynamic.With new services, devices and applications extending the basis of customer experience to domains beyond the direct control of the service provider, it is likely to increase in complexity and dynamism.Customer loyalty = increased profitsAs stated earlier, customer experience programs are not fundamentally altruistic exercises, but a strategic means of improving competitiveness and profitability in the short and long term. Loyalty is essential to deriving long term profits from customers.Some of the earliest loyalty programs date back to the 1930s, when packaged goods companies offered embedded coupons for rewards to buyers, and eventually retail chains began offering reward programs to frequent shoppers. These programs continued for decades but were leapfrogged in the 1980s by more aggressive programs from the airlines.This movement was led by American Airlines, which launched the first full-scale loyalty marketing program of the modern era with the AAdvantage frequent flyer scheme. It was the first to reward frequent fliers with notional air miles that could be accumulated and later redeemed for free travel. Figure 1: Opportunities example of Customer loyalty driven profitOther airlines and travel providers were quick to grasp the incredible value of providing customers with an incentive to use their company exclusively. Within a few years, dozens of travel industry companies launched similar initiatives and now loyalty programs are achieving near-ubiquity in many service industries, especially those in which it is difficult to differentiate offerings by product attributes.The belief is that increased profitability will result from customer retention efforts because:•    The cost of acquisition occurs only at the beginning of a relationship: the longer the relationship, the lower the amortized cost;•    Account maintenance costs decline as a percentage of total costs, or as a percentage of revenue, over the lifetime of the relationship;•    Long term customers tend to be less inclined to switch and less price sensitive which can result in stable unit sales volume and increases in dollar-sales volume;•    Long term customers may initiate word-of-mouth promotions and referrals, which cost the company nothing and arguably are the most effective form of advertising;•    Long-term customers are more likely to buy ancillary products and higher margin supplemental products;•    Long term customers tend to be satisfied with their relationship with the company and are less likely to switch to competitors, making market entry or competitors gaining market share difficult;•    Regular customers tend to be less expensive to service, as they are familiar with the processes involved, require less 'education', and are consistent in their order placement;•    Increased customer retention and loyalty makes the employees' jobs easier and more satisfying. In turn, happy employees feed back into higher customer satisfaction in a virtuous circle. Figure 2: The virtuous circle of customer loyaltyFigure 2 represents a high-level example of a virtuous cycle driven by customer satisfaction and loyalty, depicting how superiority in product and service offerings, as well as strong customer support by competent employees, lead to higher sales and ultimately profitability. As stated above, this is not a new concept, but succeeding with it is difficult. It has eluded many a company driven to achieve profitability goals. Of course, for this circle to be virtuous, the customer relationship(s) must be profitable.Trying to maintain the loyalty of unprofitable customers is not a viable business strategy. It is, therefore, important that marketers can assess the profitability of each customer (or customer segment), and either improve or terminate relationships that are not profitable. This means each customer's 'relationship costs' must be understood and compared to their 'relationship revenue'. Customer lifetime value (CLV) is the most commonly used metric here, as it is generally accepted as a representation of exactly how much each customer is worth in monetary terms, and therefore a determinant of exactly how much a service provider should be willing to spend to acquire or retain that customer.CLV models make several simplifying assumptions and often involve the following inputs:•    Churn rate represents the percentage of customers who end their relationship with a company in a given period;•    Retention rate is calculated by subtracting the churn rate percentage from 100;•    Period/horizon equates to the units of time into which a customer relationship can be divided for analysis. A year is the most commonly used period for this purpose. Customer lifetime value is a multi-period calculation, often projecting three to seven years into the future. In practice, analysis beyond this point is viewed as too speculative to be reliable. The model horizon is the number of periods used in the calculation;•    Periodic revenue is the amount of revenue collected from a customer in a given period (though this is often extended across multiple periods into the future to understand lifetime value), such as usage revenue, revenues anticipated from cross and upselling, and often some weighting for referrals by a loyal customer to others; •    Retention cost describes the amount of money the service provider must spend, in a given period, to retain an existing customer. Again, this is often forecast across multiple periods. Retention costs include customer support, billing, promotional incentives and so on;•    Discount rate means the cost of capital used to discount future revenue from a customer. Discounting is an advanced method used in more sophisticated CLV calculations;•    Profit margin is the projected profit as a percentage of revenue for the period. This may be reflected as a percentage of gross or net profit. Again, this is generally projected across the model horizon to understand lifetime value.A strong focus on managing these inputs can help service providers realize stronger customer relationships and profits, but there are some obstacles to overcome in achieving accurate calculations of CLV, such as the complexity of allocating costs across the customer base. There are many costs that serve all customers which must be properly allocated across the base, and often a simple proportional allocation across the whole base or a segment may not accurately reflect the true cost of serving that customer;  This is made worse by the fragmentation of customer information, which is likely to be across a variety of product or operations groups, and may be difficult to aggregate due to different representations.In addition, there is the complexity of account relationships and structures to take into consideration. Complex account structures may not be understood or properly represented. For example, a profitable customer may have a separate account for a second home or another family member, which may appear to be unprofitable. If the service provider cannot relate the two accounts, CLV is not properly represented and any resultant cancellation of the apparently unprofitable account may result in the customer churning from the profitable one.In summary, if service providers are to realize strong customer relationships and their attendant profits, there must be a very strong focus on data management. This needs to be coupled with analytics that help business managers and those who work in customer-facing functions offer highly personalized solutions to customers, while maintaining profitability for the service provider. It's clear that acquiring new customers is expensive. Advertising costs, campaign management expenses, promotional service pricing and discounting, and equipment subsidies make a serious dent in a new customer's profitability. That is especially true given the rising subsidies for Smartphone users, which service providers hope will result in greater profits from profits from data services profitability in future.  The situation is made worse by falling prices and greater competition in mature markets.Customer acquisition through industry consolidation isn't cheap either. A North American service provider spent about $2,000 per subscriber in its acquisition of a smaller company earlier this year. While this has allowed it to leapfrog to become the largest mobile service provider in the country, it required a total investment of more than $28 billion (including assumption of the acquiree's debt).While many operating cost synergies clearly made this deal more attractive to the acquiring company, this is certainly an expensive way to acquire customers: the cost per subscriber in this case is not out of line with the prices others have paid for acquisitions.While growth by acquisition certainly increases overall revenues, it often creates tremendous challenges for profitability. Organic growth through increased customer loyalty and retention is a more effective driver of profit, as well as a stronger predictor of future profitability. Service providers, especially those in mature markets, are increasingly recognizing this and taking steps toward a creating a more personalized, flexible and satisfying experience for their customers.In summary, the clearest path to profitability for companies in virtually all industries is through customer retention and maximization of lifetime value. Service providers would do well to recognize this and focus attention on profitable customer relationships.

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• A jQuery Plug-in to monitor Html Element CSS Changes

  - by Rick Strahl

  Here's a scenario I've run into on a few occasions: I need to be able to monitor certain CSS properties on an HTML element and know when that CSS element changes. The need for this arose out of wanting to build generic components that could 'attach' themselves to other objects and monitor changes on the ‘parent’ object so the dependent object can adjust itself accordingly. What I wanted to create is a jQuery plug-in that allows me to specify a list of CSS properties to monitor and have a function fire in response to any change to any of those CSS properties. The result are the .watch() and .unwatch() jQuery plug-ins. Here’s a simple example page of this plug-in that demonstrates tracking changes to an element being moved with draggable and closable behavior: http://www.west-wind.com/WestWindWebToolkit/samples/Ajax/jQueryPluginSamples/WatcherPlugin.htm Try it with different browsers – IE and FireFox use the DOM event handlers and Chrome, Safari and Opera use setInterval handlers to manage this behavior. It should work in all of them but all but IE and FireFox will show a bit of lag between the changes in the main element and the shadow. The relevant HTML for this example is this fragment of a main <div> (#notebox) and an element that is to mimic a shadow (#shadow). <div class="containercontent"> <div id="notebox" style="width: 200px; height: 150px;position: absolute; z-index: 20; padding: 20px; background-color: lightsteelblue;"> Go ahead drag me around and close me! </div> <div id="shadow" style="background-color: Gray; z-index: 19;position:absolute;display: none;"> </div> </div> The watcher plug in is then applied to the main <div> and shadow in sync with the following plug-in code: <script type="text/javascript"> $(document).ready(function () { var counter = 0; $("#notebox").watch("top,left,height,width,display,opacity", function (data, i) { var el = $(this); var sh = $("#shadow"); var propChanged = data.props[i]; var valChanged = data.vals[i]; counter++; showStatus("Prop: " + propChanged + " value: " + valChanged + " " + counter); var pos = el.position(); var w = el.outerWidth(); var h = el.outerHeight(); sh.css({ width: w, height: h, left: pos.left + 5, top: pos.top + 5, display: el.css("display"), opacity: el.css("opacity") }); }) .draggable() .closable() .css("left", 10); }); </script> When you run this page as you drag the #notebox element the #shadow element will maintain and stay pinned underneath the #notebox element effectively keeping the shadow attached to the main element. Likewise, if you hide or fadeOut() the #notebox element the shadow will also go away – show the #notebox element and the shadow also re-appears because we are assigning the display property from the parent on the shadow. Note we’re attaching the .watch() plug-in to the #notebox element and have it fire whenever top,left,height,width,opacity or display CSS properties are changed. The passed data element contains a props[] and vals[] array that holds the properties monitored and their current values. An index passed as the second parm tells you which property has changed and what its current value is (propChanged/valChanged in the code above). The rest of the watcher handler code then deals with figuring out the main element’s position and recalculating and setting the shadow’s position using the jQuery .css() function. Note that this is just an example to demonstrate the watch() behavior here – this is not the best way to create a shadow. If you’re interested in a more efficient and cleaner way to handle shadows with a plug-in check out the .shadow() plug-in in ww.jquery.js (code search for fn.shadow) which uses native CSS features when available but falls back to a tracked shadow element on browsers that don’t support it, which is how this watch() plug-in came about in the first place :-) How does it work? The plug-in works by letting the user specify a list of properties to monitor as a comma delimited string and a handler function: el.watch("top,left,height,width,display,opacity", function (data, i) {}, 100, id) You can also specify an interval (if no DOM event monitoring isn’t available in the browser) and an ID that identifies the event handler uniquely. The watch plug-in works by hooking up to DOMAttrModified in FireFox, to onPropertyChanged in Internet Explorer, or by using a timer with setInterval to handle the detection of changes for other browsers. Unfortunately WebKit doesn’t support DOMAttrModified consistently at the moment so Safari and Chrome currently have to use the slower setInterval mechanism. In response to a changed property (or a setInterval timer hit) a JavaScript handler is fired which then runs through all the properties monitored and determines if and which one has changed. The DOM events fire on all property/style changes so the intermediate plug-in handler filters only those hits we’re interested in. If one of our monitored properties has changed the specified event handler function is called along with a data object and an index that identifies the property that’s changed in the data.props/data.vals arrays. The jQuery plugin to implement this functionality looks like this: (function($){ $.fn.watch = function (props, func, interval, id) { /// <summary> /// Allows you to monitor changes in a specific /// CSS property of an element by polling the value. /// when the value changes a function is called. /// The function called is called in the context /// of the selected element (ie. this) /// </summary> /// <param name="prop" type="String">CSS Properties to watch sep. by commas</param> /// <param name="func" type="Function"> /// Function called when the value has changed. /// </param> /// <param name="interval" type="Number"> /// Optional interval for browsers that don't support DOMAttrModified or propertychange events. /// Determines the interval used for setInterval calls. /// </param> /// <param name="id" type="String">A unique ID that identifies this watch instance on this element</param> /// <returns type="jQuery" /> if (!interval) interval = 100; if (!id) id = "_watcher"; return this.each(function () { var _t = this; var el$ = $(this); var fnc = function () { __watcher.call(_t, id) }; var data = { id: id, props: props.split(","), vals: [props.split(",").length], func: func, fnc: fnc, origProps: props, interval: interval, intervalId: null }; // store initial props and values $.each(data.props, function (i) { data.vals[i] = el$.css(data.props[i]); }); el$.data(id, data); hookChange(el$, id, data); }); function hookChange(el$, id, data) { el$.each(function () { var el = $(this); if (typeof (el.get(0).onpropertychange) == "object") el.bind("propertychange." + id, data.fnc); else if ($.browser.mozilla) el.bind("DOMAttrModified." + id, data.fnc); else data.intervalId = setInterval(data.fnc, interval); }); } function __watcher(id) { var el$ = $(this); var w = el$.data(id); if (!w) return; var _t = this; if (!w.func) return; // must unbind or else unwanted recursion may occur el$.unwatch(id); var changed = false; var i = 0; for (i; i < w.props.length; i++) { var newVal = el$.css(w.props[i]); if (w.vals[i] != newVal) { w.vals[i] = newVal; changed = true; break; } } if (changed) w.func.call(_t, w, i); // rebind event hookChange(el$, id, w); } } $.fn.unwatch = function (id) { this.each(function () { var el = $(this); var data = el.data(id); try { if (typeof (this.onpropertychange) == "object") el.unbind("propertychange." + id, data.fnc); else if ($.browser.mozilla) el.unbind("DOMAttrModified." + id, data.fnc); else clearInterval(data.intervalId); } // ignore if element was already unbound catch (e) { } }); return this; } })(jQuery); Note that there’s a corresponding .unwatch() plug-in that can be used to stop monitoring properties. The ID parameter is optional both on watch() and unwatch() – a standard name is used if you don’t specify one, but it’s a good idea to use unique names for each element watched to avoid overlap in event ids especially if you’re monitoring many elements. The syntax is: $.fn.watch = function(props, func, interval, id) props A comma delimited list of CSS style properties that are to be watched for changes. If any of the specified properties changes the function specified in the second parameter is fired. func The function fired in response to a changed styles. Receives this as the element changed and an object parameter that represents the watched properties and their respective values. The first parameter is passed in this structure: { id: watcherId, props: [], vals: [], func: thisFunc, fnc: internalHandler, origProps: strPropertyListOnWatcher }; A second parameter is the index of the changed property so data.props[i] or data.vals[i] gets the property and changed value. interval The interval for setInterval() for those browsers that don't support property watching in the DOM. In milliseconds. id An optional id that identifies this watcher. Required only if multiple watchers might be hooked up to the same element. The default is _watcher if not specified. It’s been a Journey I started building this plug-in about two years ago and had to make many modifications to it in response to changes in jQuery and also in browser behaviors. I think the latest round of changes made should make this plug-in fairly future proof going forward (although I hope there will be better cross-browser change event notifications in the future). One of the big problems I ran into had to do with recursive change notifications – it looks like starting with jQuery 1.44 and later, jQuery internally modifies element properties on some calls to some .css()  property retrievals and things like outerHeight/Width(). In IE this would cause nasty lock up issues at times. In response to this I changed the code to unbind the events when the handler function is called and then rebind when it exits. This also makes user code less prone to stack overflow recursion as you can actually change properties on the base element. It also means though that if you change one of the monitors properties in the handler the watch() handler won’t fire in response – you need to resort to a setTimeout() call instead to force the code to run outside of the handler: $("#notebox") el.watch("top,left,height,width,display,opacity", function (data, i) { var el = $(this); … // this makes el changes work setTimeout(function () { el.css("top", 10) },10); }) Since I’ve built this component I’ve had a lot of good uses for it. The .shadow() fallback functionality is one of them. Resources The watch() plug-in is part of ww.jquery.js and the West Wind West Wind Web Toolkit. You’re free to use this code here or the code from the toolkit. West Wind Web Toolkit Latest version of ww.jquery.js (search for fn.watch) watch plug-in documentation © Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2011Posted in ASP.NET  JavaScript  jQuery  

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• ANTS Memory Profiler 7.0 Review

  - by Michael B. McLaughlin

  (This is my first review as a part of the GeeksWithBlogs.net Influencers program. It’s a program in which I (and the others who have been selected for it) get the opportunity to check out new products and services and write reviews about them. We don’t get paid for this, but we do generally get to keep a copy of the software or retain an account for some period of time on the service that we review. In this case I received a copy of Red Gate Software’s ANTS Memory Profiler 7.0, which was released in January. I don’t have any upgrade rights nor is my review guided, restrained, influenced, or otherwise controlled by Red Gate or anyone else. But I do get to keep the software license. I will always be clear about what I received whenever I do a review – I leave it up to you to decide whether you believe I can be objective. I believe I can be. If I used something and really didn’t like it, keeping a copy of it wouldn’t be worth anything to me. In that case though, I would simply uninstall/deactivate/whatever the software or service and tell the company what I didn’t like about it so they could (hopefully) make it better in the future. I don’t think it’d be polite to write up a terrible review, nor do I think it would be a particularly good use of my time. There are people who get paid for a living to review things, so I leave it to them to tell you what they think is bad and why. I’ll only spend my time telling you about things I think are good.) Overview of Common .NET Memory Problems When coming to land of managed memory from the wilds of unmanaged code, it’s easy to say to one’s self, “Wow! Now I never have to worry about memory problems again!” But this simply isn’t true. Managed code environments, such as .NET, make many, many things easier. You will never have to worry about memory corruption due to a bad pointer, for example (unless you’re working with unsafe code, of course). But managed code has its own set of memory concerns. For example, failing to unsubscribe from events when you are done with them leaves the publisher of an event with a reference to the subscriber. If you eliminate all your own references to the subscriber, then that memory is effectively lost since the GC won’t delete it because of the publishing object’s reference. When the publishing object itself becomes subject to garbage collection then you’ll get that memory back finally, but that could take a very long time depending of the life of the publisher. Another common source of resource leaks is failing to properly release unmanaged resources. When writing a class that contains members that hold unmanaged resources (e.g. any of the Stream-derived classes, IsolatedStorageFile, most classes ending in “Reader” or “Writer”), you should always implement IDisposable, making sure to use a properly written Dispose method. And when you are using an instance of a class that implements IDisposable, you should always make sure to use a 'using' statement in order to ensure that the object’s unmanaged resources are disposed of properly. (A ‘using’ statement is a nicer, cleaner looking, and easier to use version of a try-finally block. The compiler actually translates it as though it were a try-finally block. Note that Code Analysis warning 2202 (CA2202) will often be triggered by nested using blocks. A properly written dispose method ensures that it only runs once such that calling dispose multiple times should not be a problem. Nonetheless, CA2202 exists and if you want to avoid triggering it then you should write your code such that only the innermost IDisposable object uses a ‘using’ statement, with any outer code making use of appropriate try-finally blocks instead). Then, of course, there are situations where you are operating in a memory-constrained environment or else you want to limit or even eliminate allocations within a certain part of your program (e.g. within the main game loop of an XNA game) in order to avoid having the GC run. On the Xbox 360 and Windows Phone 7, for example, for every 1 MB of heap allocations you make, the GC runs; the added time of a GC collection can cause a game to drop frames or run slowly thereby making it look bad. Eliminating allocations (or else minimizing them and calling an explicit Collect at an appropriate time) is a common way of avoiding this (the other way is to simplify your heap so that the GC’s latency is low enough not to cause performance issues). ANTS Memory Profiler 7.0 When the opportunity to review Red Gate’s recently released ANTS Memory Profiler 7.0 arose, I jumped at it. In order to review it, I was given a free copy (which does not include upgrade rights for future versions) which I am allowed to keep. For those of you who are familiar with ANTS Memory Profiler, you can find a list of new features and enhancements here. If you are an experienced .NET developer who is familiar with .NET memory management issues, ANTS Memory Profiler is great. More importantly still, if you are new to .NET development or you have no experience or limited experience with memory profiling, ANTS Memory Profiler is awesome. From the very beginning, it guides you through the process of memory profiling. If you’re experienced and just want dive in however, it doesn’t get in your way. The help items GAHSFLASHDAJLDJA are well designed and located right next to the UI controls so that they are easy to find without being intrusive. When you first launch it, it presents you with a “Getting Started” screen that contains links to “Memory profiling video tutorials”, “Strategies for memory profiling”, and the “ANTS Memory Profiler forum”. I’m normally the kind of person who looks at a screen like that only to find the “Don’t show this again” checkbox. Since I was doing a review, though, I decided I should examine them. I was pleasantly surprised. The overview video clocks in at three minutes and fifty seconds. It begins by showing you how to get started profiling an application. It explains that profiling is done by taking memory snapshots periodically while your program is running and then comparing them. ANTS Memory Profiler (I’m just going to call it “ANTS MP” from here) analyzes these snapshots in the background while your application is running. It briefly mentions a new feature in Version 7, a new API that give you the ability to trigger snapshots from within your application’s source code (more about this below). You can also, and this is the more common way you would do it, take a memory snapshot at any time from within the ANTS MP window by clicking the “Take Memory Snapshot” button in the upper right corner. The overview video goes on to demonstrate a basic profiling session on an application that pulls information from a database and displays it. It shows how to switch which snapshots you are comparing, explains the different sections of the Summary view and what they are showing, and proceeds to show you how to investigate memory problems using the “Instance Categorizer” to track the path from an object (or set of objects) to the GC’s root in order to find what things along the path are holding a reference to it/them. For a set of objects, you can then click on it and get the “Instance List” view. This displays all of the individual objects (including their individual sizes, values, etc.) of that type which share the same path to the GC root. You can then click on one of the objects to generate an “Instance Retention Graph” view. This lets you track directly up to see the reference chain for that individual object. In the overview video, it turned out that there was an event handler which was holding on to a reference, thereby keeping a large number of strings that should have been freed in memory. Lastly the video shows the “Class List” view, which lets you dig in deeply to find problems that might not have been clear when following the previous workflow. Once you have at least one memory snapshot you can begin analyzing. The main interface is in the “Analysis” tab. You can also switch to the “Session Overview” tab, which gives you several bar charts highlighting basic memory data about the snapshots you’ve taken. If you hover over the individual bars (and the individual colors in bars that have more than one), you will see a detailed text description of what the bar is representing visually. The Session Overview is good for a quick summary of memory usage and information about the different heaps. You are going to spend most of your time in the Analysis tab, but it’s good to remember that the Session Overview is there to give you some quick feedback on basic memory usage stats. As described above in the summary of the overview video, there is a certain natural workflow to the Analysis tab. You’ll spin up your application and take some snapshots at various times such as before and after clicking a button to open a window or before and after closing a window. Taking these snapshots lets you examine what is happening with memory. You would normally expect that a lot of memory would be freed up when closing a window or exiting a document. By taking snapshots before and after performing an action like that you can see whether or not the memory is really being freed. If you already know an area that’s giving you trouble, you can run your application just like normal until just before getting to that part and then you can take a few strategic snapshots that should help you pin down the problem. Something the overview didn’t go into is how to use the “Filters” section at the bottom of ANTS MP together with the Class List view in order to narrow things down. The video tutorials page has a nice 3 minute intro video called “How to use the filters”. It’s a nice introduction and covers some of the basics. I’m going to cover a bit more because I think they’re a really neat, really helpful feature. Large programs can bring up thousands of classes. Even simple programs can instantiate far more classes than you might realize. In a basic .NET 4 WPF application for example (and when I say basic, I mean just MainWindow.xaml with a button added to it), the unfiltered Class List view will have in excess of 1000 classes (my simple test app had anywhere from 1066 to 1148 classes depending on which snapshot I was using as the “Current” snapshot). This is amazing in some ways as it shows you how in stark detail just how immensely powerful the WPF framework is. But hunting through 1100 classes isn’t productive, no matter how cool it is that there are that many classes instantiated and doing all sorts of awesome things. Let’s say you wanted to examine just the classes your application contains source code for (in my simple example, that would be the MainWindow and App). Under “Basic Filters”, click on “Classes with source” under “Show only…”. Voilà. Down from 1070 classes in the snapshot I was using as “Current” to 2 classes. If you then click on a class’s name, it will show you (to the right of the class name) two little icon buttons. Hover over them and you will see that you can click one to view the Instance Categorizer for the class and another to view the Instance List for the class. You can also show classes based on which heap they live on. If you chose both a Baseline snapshot and a Current snapshot then you can use the “Comparing snapshots” filters to show only: “New objects”; “Surviving objects”; “Survivors in growing classes”; or “Zombie objects” (if you aren’t sure what one of these means, you can click the helpful “?” in a green circle icon to bring up a popup that explains them and provides context). Remember that your selection(s) under the “Show only…” heading will still apply, so you should update those selections to make sure you are seeing the view you want. There are also links under the “What is my memory problem?” heading that can help you diagnose the problems you are seeing including one for “I don’t know which kind I have” for situations where you know generally that your application has some problems but aren’t sure what the behavior you have been seeing (OutOfMemoryExceptions, continually growing memory usage, larger memory use than expected at certain points in the program). The Basic Filters are not the only filters there are. “Filter by Object Type” gives you the ability to filter by: “Objects that are disposable”; “Objects that are/are not disposed”; “Objects that are/are not GC roots” (GC roots are things like static variables); and “Objects that implement _______”. “Objects that implement” is particularly neat. Once you check the box, you can then add one or more classes and interfaces that an object must implement in order to survive the filtering. Lastly there is “Filter by Reference”, which gives you the option to pare down the list based on whether an object is “Kept in memory exclusively by” a particular item, a class/interface, or a namespace; whether an object is “Referenced by” one or more of those choices; and whether an object is “Never referenced by” one or more of those choices. Remember that filtering is cumulative, so anything you had set in one of the filter sections still remains in effect unless and until you go back and change it. There’s quite a bit more to ANTS MP – it’s a very full featured product – but I think I touched on all of the most significant pieces. You can use it to debug: a .NET executable; an ASP.NET web application (running on IIS); an ASP.NET web application (running on Visual Studio’s built-in web development server); a Silverlight 4 browser application; a Windows service; a COM+ server; and even something called an XBAP (local XAML browser application). You can also attach to a .NET 4 process to profile an application that’s already running. The startup screen also has a large number of “Charting Options” that let you adjust which statistics ANTS MP should collect. The default selection is a good, minimal set. It’s worth your time to browse through the charting options to examine other statistics that may also help you diagnose a particular problem. The more statistics ANTS MP collects, the longer it will take to collect statistics. So just turning everything on is probably a bad idea. But the option to selectively add in additional performance counters from the extensive list could be a very helpful thing for your memory profiling as it lets you see additional data that might provide clues about a particular problem that has been bothering you. ANTS MP integrates very nicely with all versions of Visual Studio that support plugins (i.e. all of the non-Express versions). Just note that if you choose “Profile Memory” from the “ANTS” menu that it will launch profiling for whichever project you have set as the Startup project. One quick tip from my experience so far using ANTS MP: if you want to properly understand your memory usage in an application you’ve written, first create an “empty” version of the type of project you are going to profile (a WPF application, an XNA game, etc.) and do a quick profiling session on that so that you know the baseline memory usage of the framework itself. By “empty” I mean just create a new project of that type in Visual Studio then compile it and run it with profiling – don’t do anything special or add in anything (except perhaps for any external libraries you’re planning to use). The first thing I tried ANTS MP out on was a demo XNA project of an editor that I’ve been working on for quite some time that involves a custom extension to XNA’s content pipeline. The first time I ran it and saw the unmanaged memory usage I was convinced I had some horrible bug that was creating extra copies of texture data (the demo project didn’t have a lot of texture data so when I saw a lot of unmanaged memory I instantly figured I was doing something wrong). Then I thought to run an empty project through and when I saw that the amount of unmanaged memory was virtually identical, it dawned on me that the CLR itself sits in unmanaged memory and that (thankfully) there was nothing wrong with my code! Quite a relief. Earlier, when discussing the overview video, I mentioned the API that lets you take snapshots from within your application. I gave it a quick trial and it’s very easy to integrate and make use of and is a really nice addition (especially for projects where you want to know what, if any, allocations there are in a specific, complicated section of code). The only concern I had was that if I hadn’t watched the overview video I might never have known it existed. Even then it took me five minutes of hunting around Red Gate’s website before I found the “Taking snapshots from your code" article that explains what DLL you need to add as a reference and what method of what class you should call in order to take an automatic snapshot (including the helpful warning to wrap it in a try-catch block since, under certain circumstances, it can raise an exception, such as trying to call it more than 5 times in 30 seconds. The difficulty in discovering and then finding information about the automatic snapshots API was one thing I thought could use improvement. Another thing I think would make it even better would be local copies of the webpages it links to. Although I’m generally always connected to the internet, I imagine there are more than a few developers who aren’t or who are behind very restrictive firewalls. For them (and for me, too, if my internet connection happens to be down), it would be nice to have those documents installed locally or to have the option to download an additional “documentation” package that would add local copies. Another thing that I wish could be easier to manage is the Filters area. Finding and setting individual filters is very easy as is understanding what those filter do. And breaking it up into three sections (basic, by object, and by reference) makes sense. But I could easily see myself running a long profiling session and forgetting that I had set some filter a long while earlier in a different filter section and then spending quite a bit of time trying to figure out why some problem that was clearly visible in the data wasn’t showing up in, e.g. the instance list before remembering to check all the filters for that one setting that was only culling a few things from view. Some sort of indicator icon next to the filter section names that appears you have at least one filter set in that area would be a nice visual clue to remind me that “oh yeah, I told it to only show objects on the Gen 2 heap! That’s why I’m not seeing those instances of the SuperMagic class!” Something that would be nice (but that Red Gate cannot really do anything about) would be if this could be used in Windows Phone 7 development. If Microsoft and Red Gate could work together to make this happen (even if just on the WP7 emulator), that would be amazing. Especially given the memory constraints that apps and games running on mobile devices need to work within, a good memory profiler would be a phenomenally helpful tool. If anyone at Microsoft reads this, it’d be really great if you could make something like that happen. Perhaps even a (subsidized) custom version just for WP7 development. (For XNA games, of course, you can create a Windows version of the game and use ANTS MP on the Windows version in order to get a better picture of your memory situation. For Silverlight on WP7, though, there’s quite a bit of educated guess work and WeakReference creation followed by forced collections in order to find the source of a memory problem.) The only other thing I found myself wanting was a “Back” button. Between my Windows Phone 7, Zune, and other things, I’ve grown very used to having a “back stack” that lets me just navigate back to where I came from. The ANTS MP interface is surprisingly easy to use given how much it lets you do, and once you start using it for any amount of time, you learn all of the different areas such that you know where to go. And it does remember the state of the areas you were previously in, of course. So if you go to, e.g., the Instance Retention Graph from the Class List and then return back to the Class List, it will remember which class you had selected and all that other state information. Still, a “Back” button would be a welcome addition to a future release. Bottom Line ANTS Memory Profiler is not an inexpensive tool. But my time is valuable. I can easily see ANTS MP saving me enough time tracking down memory problems to justify it on a cost basis. More importantly to me, knowing what is happening memory-wise in my programs and having the confidence that my code doesn’t have any hidden time bombs in it that will cause it to OOM if I leave it running for longer than I do when I spin it up real quickly for debugging or just to see how a new feature looks and feels is a good feeling. It’s a feeling that I like having and want to continue to have. I got the current version for free in order to review it. Having done so, I’ve now added it to my must-have tools and will gladly lay out the money for the next version when it comes out. It has a 14 day free trial, so if you aren’t sure if it’s right for you or if you think it seems interesting but aren’t really sure if it’s worth shelling out the money for it, give it a try.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, March 04, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, March 04, 2012Popular ReleasesWDTVHubGen - Adds Metadata, thumbnails and subtitles to WDTV Live Hubs: v2.1.2 (Maintenance Release): This release was added to add a quick feature to allow renaming the processed video file back to its original name as a "just in case" when you process all and it screws up the directory. This is a "right click" option in the menu over the file that is screwed up. I wouldn't download this unless you need this fix, or you just want the latest latest latest version. I am in the process of adding a lot of fixes and changes to the existing system and releasing it with an alternate interface, s...People's Note: People's Note 0.38: Version 0.38 allows you to choose "All Notebooks" to browse, search, and sync all your notebooks together. To install: copy the appropriate CAB file onto your WM device and run it.ASP.NET MVC Framework - Abstracting Data Annotations, HTML5, Knockout JS techs: Version 1.0: Please download the source code. I am not associating any dll for release.ExtAspNet: ExtAspNet v3.1.0: ExtAspNet - ?? ExtJS ??? ASP.NET 2.0 ???，????? AJAX ?????????? ExtAspNet ????? ExtJS ??? ASP.NET 2.0 ???，????? AJAX ??????????。 ExtAspNet ??????? JavaScript，?? CSS，?? UpdatePanel，?? ViewState，?? WebServices ???????。 ??????: IE 7.0, Firefox 3.6, Chrome 3.0, Opera 10.5, Safari 3.0+ ????：Apache License 2.0 (Apache) ??：http://extasp.net/ ??：http://bbs.extasp.net/ ??：http://extaspnet.codeplex.com/ ??：http://sanshi.cnblogs.com/ ????： +2012-03-04 v3.1.0 -??Hidden???????（〓?〓）。 -?PageManager??...AcDown????? - Anime&Comic Downloader: AcDown????? v3.9.1: ?? ●AcDown??????????、??、??????，????1M，????，????，?????????????????????????。???????????Acfun、????(Bilibili)、??、??、YouTube、??、???、??????、SF????、????????????。??????AcPlay?????，??????、????????????????。 ● AcDown???????????????????????????，???，???????????????????。 ● AcDown???????C#??，????.NET Framework 2.0??。?????"Acfun?????"。 ????32??64? Windows XP/Vista/7/8 ????????????? ??：????????Windows XP???,?????????.NET Framework 2.0???(x86)，?????"?????????"??? ??????????????，??????????： ??"AcDo...Windows Phone Commands for VS2010: Version 1.0: Initial Release Version 1.0 Connect from device or emulator (Monitors the connection) Show Device information (Plataform, build , version, avaliable memory, total memory, architeture Manager installed applications (Launch, uninstall and explorer isolate storage files) Manager core applications (Launch blocked applications from emulator (Office, Calculator, alarm, calendar , etc) Manager blocked settings from emulator (Airplane Mode, Celullar Network, Wifi, etc) Deploy and update ap...DNN Metro7 style Skin package: Metro7 style Skin for DotNetNuke 06.01.00: Changes on Version 06.01.00 Fixed issue on GraySmallTitle container, that breaks the layout Fixed issue on Blue Metro7 Skin where the Search, Login, Register, Date is missing Fixed issue with the Version numbers on the target file Fixed issue where the jQuery and jQuery-UI files not deleted on upgrade from Version 01.00.00 Added a internal page where the Image Slider would be replaces with a BannerPaneMedia Companion: MC 3.433b Release: General More GUI tweaks (mostly imperceptible!) Updates for mc_com.exe TV The 'Watched' button has been re-instigated Added TV Menu sub-option to search ALL for new Episodes (includes locked shows) Movies Added 'Source' field (eg DVD, Bluray, HDTV), customisable in Advanced Preferences (try it out, let us know how it works!) Added HTML <<format>> tag with optional parameters for video container, source, and resolution (updated HTML tags to be added to Documentation shortly) Known Issu...Picturethrill: Version 2.3.2.0: Release includes Self-Update feature for Picturethrill. What that means for users is that they are always guaranteed to have a fresh copy of Picturethrill on their computers with all latest fixes. When Picturethrill adds a new website to get pictures from, you will get it too!Simple MVVM Toolkit for Silverlight, WPF and Windows Phone: Simple MVVM Toolkit v3.0.0.0: Added support for Silverlight 5.0 and Windows Phone 7.1. Upgraded project templates and samples. Upgraded installer. There are some new prerequisites required for this version, namely Silverlight 5 Tools, Expression Blend Preview for Silverlight 5 (until the SDK is released), Windows Phone 7.1 SDK. Because it is in the experimental band, I have also removed the dependency on the Silverlight Testing Framework. You can use it if you wish, but the Ria Services project template no longer uses ...CODE Framework: 4.0.20301: The latest version adds a number of new features to the WPF system (such as stylable and testable messagebox support) as well as various new features throughout the system (especially in the Utilities namespace).MyRouter (Virtual WiFi Router): MyRouter 1.0.1 (Beta): A friendlier User Interface. A logger file to catch exceptions so you may send it to use to improve and fix any bugs that may occur. A feedback form because we always love hearing what you guy's think of MyRouter. Check for update menu item for you to stay up to date will the latest changes. Facebook fan page so you may spread the word and share MyRouter with friends and family And Many other exciting features were sure your going to love!WPF Sound Visualization Library: WPF SVL 0.3 (Source, Binaries, Examples, Help): Version 0.3 of WPFSVL. This includes three new controls: an equalizer, a digital clock, and a time editor.Orchard Project: Orchard 1.4: Please read our release notes for Orchard 1.4: http://docs.orchardproject.net/Documentation/Orchard-1-4-Release-NotesFluentData -Micro ORM with a fluent API that makes it simple to query a database: FluentData version 1.2: New features: - QueryValues method - Added support for automapping to enumerations (both int and string are supported). Fixed 2 reported issues.NetSqlAzMan - .NET SQL Authorization Manager: 3.6.0.15: 3.6.0.15 28-Feb-2012 • Fix: The communication object, System.ServiceModel.Channels.ServiceChannel, cannot be used for communication because it is in the Faulted state. Work Item 10435: http://netsqlazman.codeplex.com/workitem/10435 • Fix: Made StorageCache thread safe. Thanks to tangrl. • Fix: Members property of SqlAzManApplicationGroup is not functioning. Thanks to tangrl. Work Item 10267: http://netsqlazman.codeplex.com/workitem/10267 • Fix: Indexer are making database calls. Thanks to t...SCCM Client Actions Tool: Client Actions Tool v1.1: SCCM Client Actions Tool v1.1 is the latest version. It comes with following changes since last version: Added stop button to stop the ongoing process. Added action "Query update status". Added option "saveOnlineComputers" in config.ini to enable saving list of online computers from last session. Default value for "LatestClientVersion" set to SP2 R3 (4.00.6487.2157). Wuauserv service manual startup mode is considered healthy on Windows 7. Errors are now suppressed in checkReleases...SharpCompress - a fully native C# library for RAR, 7Zip, Zip, Tar, GZip, BZip2: SharpCompress 0.8: API Updates: SOLID Extract Method for Archives (7Zip and RAR). ExtractAllEntries method on Archive classes will extract archives as a streaming file. This can offer better 7Zip extraction performance if any of the entries are solid. The IsSolid method on 7Zip archives will return true if any are solid. Removed IExtractionListener was removed in favor of events. Unit tests show example. Bug fixes: PPMd passes tests plus other fixes (Thanks Pavel) Zip used to always write a Post Descri...SQL Live Monitor: SQL Live Monitor 1.31: A quick fix to make it this version work with SQL 2012. Version 2 already has 2012 working, but am still developing the UI in version 2, so this is just an interim fix to allow user to monitor SQL 2012.DotNet.Highcharts: DotNet.Highcharts 1.1 with Examples: Fixed small bug in JsonSerializer about the numbers represented as string. Fixed Issue 310: decimal values don't work Fixed Issue 345: Disable Animation Refactored Highcharts class. Implemented Issue 341: More charts on one page. Added new class Container which can combine and display multiple charts. Usage: new Container(new[] { chart1, chart2, chart3, chart4 }) Implemented Feature 302: Inside an UpdatePanel - Added method (InFunction) which create the Highchart inside JavaScript f...New ProjectsAddress Manager: Projet pour ma mémoireAkumuLogger: AkumuLogger is a configurable C++ logger for windows. Developed for educational purposes in association with the GoDevMental blog.ASP.NET MVC Framework - Abstracting Data Annotations, HTML5, Knockout JS techs: ASP.NET MVC Framework that abstracts Data Annotations, HTML5, Knockout JS technologies and gives super power to front end developer.BabySmash! Html5: HTML5 port of http://babysmash.codeplex.com/ using canvas, svg and audio.Business Solutions On SharePoint: A series of seed solutions for business solutions based on SharePoint 2010. First solution is an HR On-boarding solution.C# Psp Emulator: A C# Psp EmulatorClear Mine: The classic minesweeper game that implemented by WPF, trying to demonstrate a few practices in WPF programming to make application localized decoupled, extensible and support skin. DancingSite: It's time to dance.DynamicMVVM: Dynamic MVVM enables you to quickly build a functional MVVM application, based on WPF without ICommand and XAML and viewmodel Validation.flickerwin8: flicker client sample for windows 8Form and List Plus: Form and List plus 5.1.3 with more data typesHappyFunTimes :): wtf nigga ?Kavand WPF Kit: Kavand.WpfKit makes it easier for WPF developers to develop MVVM-based applications. It also contains some useful controls. It's developed in C#.NET 4Library Management System: ??????—??????MPTrackWP7: First attempt at Converting the ModPlug application written by Olivier Lapicue for Windows Phone 7 in C#My Note Pal: MyNotePal is a personal financial management tool on your Phone.Nhom: demolam nhomPrabor jQuery Plugins: Little but helpful jQuery plugins from Prabor teamReSharper GammaXaml Plugin: A plugin for JetBrains ReSharper 6.1 that enhances XAML editing and working with WPF and Silverlight in general.Road Trip 2012: Just my code for appharborSharePoint Optimizer: Tool to optimize SharePointYALV! - Yet Another Log4Net Viewer: YALV! is a log viewer for Log4Net that allow to compare multiple logs file simultaneously; include features like merging, filtering, open most recently used files, items sorting. It is a WPF Application based on .NET Framework 4.0 and written with C# language.

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• Convert from Procedural to Object Oriented Code

  - by Anthony

  I have been reading Working Effectively with Legacy Code and Clean Code with the goal of learning strategies on how to begin cleaning up the existing code-base of a large ASP.NET webforms application. This system has been around since 2005 and since then has undergone a number of enhancements. Originally the code was structured as follows (and is still largely structured this way): ASP.NET (aspx/ascx) Code-behind (c#) Business Logic Layer (c#) Data Access Layer (c#) Database (Oracle) The main issue is that the code is procedural masquerading as object-oriented. It virtually violates all of the guidelines described in both books. This is an example of a typical class in the Business Logic Layer: public class AddressBO { public TransferObject GetAddress(string addressID) { if (StringUtils.IsNull(addressID)) { throw new ValidationException("Address ID must be entered"); } AddressDAO addressDAO = new AddressDAO(); return addressDAO.GetAddress(addressID); } public TransferObject Insert(TransferObject addressDetails) { if (StringUtils.IsNull(addressDetails.GetString("EVENT_ID")) || StringUtils.IsNull(addressDetails.GetString("LOCALITY")) || StringUtils.IsNull(addressDetails.GetString("ADDRESS_TARGET")) || StringUtils.IsNull(addressDetails.GetString("ADDRESS_TYPE_CODE")) || StringUtils.IsNull(addressDetails.GetString("CREATED_BY"))) { throw new ValidationException( "You must enter an Event ID, Locality, Address Target, Address Type Code and Created By."); } string addressID = Sequence.GetNextValue("ADDRESS_ID_SEQ"); addressDetails.SetValue("ADDRESS_ID", addressID); string syncID = Sequence.GetNextValue("SYNC_ID_SEQ"); addressDetails.SetValue("SYNC_ADDRESS_ID", syncID); TransferObject syncDetails = new TransferObject(); Transaction transaction = new Transaction(); try { AddressDAO addressDAO = new AddressDAO(); addressDAO.Insert(addressDetails, transaction); // insert the record for the target TransferObject addressTargetDetails = new TransferObject(); switch (addressDetails.GetString("ADDRESS_TARGET")) { case "PARTY_ADDRESSES": { addressTargetDetails.SetValue("ADDRESS_ID", addressID); addressTargetDetails.SetValue("ADDRESS_TYPE_CODE", addressDetails.GetString("ADDRESS_TYPE_CODE")); addressTargetDetails.SetValue("PARTY_ID", addressDetails.GetString("PARTY_ID")); addressTargetDetails.SetValue("EVENT_ID", addressDetails.GetString("EVENT_ID")); addressTargetDetails.SetValue("CREATED_BY", addressDetails.GetString("CREATED_BY")); addressDAO.InsertPartyAddress(addressTargetDetails, transaction); break; } case "PARTY_CONTACT_ADDRESSES": { addressTargetDetails.SetValue("ADDRESS_ID", addressID); addressTargetDetails.SetValue("ADDRESS_TYPE_CODE", addressDetails.GetString("ADDRESS_TYPE_CODE")); addressTargetDetails.SetValue("PUBLIC_RELEASE_FLAG", addressDetails.GetString("PUBLIC_RELEASE_FLAG")); addressTargetDetails.SetValue("CONTACT_ID", addressDetails.GetString("CONTACT_ID")); addressTargetDetails.SetValue("EVENT_ID", addressDetails.GetString("EVENT_ID")); addressTargetDetails.SetValue("CREATED_BY", addressDetails.GetString("CREATED_BY")); addressDAO.InsertContactAddress(addressTargetDetails, transaction); break; } << many more cases here >> default: { break; } } // synchronise SynchronisationBO synchronisationBO = new SynchronisationBO(); syncDetails = synchronisationBO.Synchronise("I", transaction, "ADDRESSES", addressDetails.GetString("ADDRESS_TARGET"), addressDetails, addressTargetDetails); // commit transaction.Commit(); } catch (Exception) { transaction.Rollback(); throw; } return new TransferObject("ADDRESS_ID", addressID, "SYNC_DETAILS", syncDetails); } << many more methods are here >> } It has a lot of duplication, the class has a number of responsibilities, etc, etc - it is just generally 'un-clean' code. All of the code throughout the system is dependent on concrete implementations. This is an example of a typical class in the Data Access Layer: public class AddressDAO : GenericDAO { public static readonly string BASE_SQL_ADDRESSES = "SELECT " + " a.address_id, " + " a.event_id, " + " a.flat_unit_type_code, " + " fut.description as flat_unit_description, " + " a.flat_unit_num, " + " a.floor_level_code, " + " fl.description as floor_level_description, " + " a.floor_level_num, " + " a.building_name, " + " a.lot_number, " + " a.street_number, " + " a.street_name, " + " a.street_type_code, " + " st.description as street_type_description, " + " a.street_suffix_code, " + " ss.description as street_suffix_description, " + " a.postal_delivery_type_code, " + " pdt.description as postal_delivery_description, " + " a.postal_delivery_num, " + " a.locality, " + " a.state_code, " + " s.description as state_description, " + " a.postcode, " + " a.country, " + " a.lock_num, " + " a.created_by, " + " TO_CHAR(a.created_datetime, '" + SQL_DATETIME_FORMAT + "') as created_datetime, " + " a.last_updated_by, " + " TO_CHAR(a.last_updated_datetime, '" + SQL_DATETIME_FORMAT + "') as last_updated_datetime, " + " a.sync_address_id, " + " a.lat," + " a.lon, " + " a.validation_confidence, " + " a.validation_quality, " + " a.validation_status " + "FROM ADDRESSES a, FLAT_UNIT_TYPES fut, FLOOR_LEVELS fl, STREET_TYPES st, " + " STREET_SUFFIXES ss, POSTAL_DELIVERY_TYPES pdt, STATES s " + "WHERE a.flat_unit_type_code = fut.flat_unit_type_code(+) " + "AND a.floor_level_code = fl.floor_level_code(+) " + "AND a.street_type_code = st.street_type_code(+) " + "AND a.street_suffix_code = ss.street_suffix_code(+) " + "AND a.postal_delivery_type_code = pdt.postal_delivery_type_code(+) " + "AND a.state_code = s.state_code(+) "; public TransferObject GetAddress(string addressID) { //Build the SELECT Statement StringBuilder selectStatement = new StringBuilder(BASE_SQL_ADDRESSES); //Add WHERE condition selectStatement.Append(" AND a.address_id = :addressID"); ArrayList parameters = new ArrayList{DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("addressID", OracleDbType.Decimal, addressID)}; // Execute the SELECT statement Query query = new Query(); DataSet results = query.Execute(selectStatement.ToString(), parameters); // Check if 0 or more than one rows returned if (results.Tables[0].Rows.Count == 0) { throw new NoDataFoundException(); } if (results.Tables[0].Rows.Count > 1) { throw new TooManyRowsException(); } // Return a TransferObject containing the values return new TransferObject(results); } public void Insert(TransferObject insertValues, Transaction transaction) { // Store Values string addressID = insertValues.GetString("ADDRESS_ID"); string syncAddressID = insertValues.GetString("SYNC_ADDRESS_ID"); string eventID = insertValues.GetString("EVENT_ID"); string createdBy = insertValues.GetString("CREATED_BY"); // postal delivery string postalDeliveryTypeCode = insertValues.GetString("POSTAL_DELIVERY_TYPE_CODE"); string postalDeliveryNum = insertValues.GetString("POSTAL_DELIVERY_NUM"); // unit/building string flatUnitTypeCode = insertValues.GetString("FLAT_UNIT_TYPE_CODE"); string flatUnitNum = insertValues.GetString("FLAT_UNIT_NUM"); string floorLevelCode = insertValues.GetString("FLOOR_LEVEL_CODE"); string floorLevelNum = insertValues.GetString("FLOOR_LEVEL_NUM"); string buildingName = insertValues.GetString("BUILDING_NAME"); // street string lotNumber = insertValues.GetString("LOT_NUMBER"); string streetNumber = insertValues.GetString("STREET_NUMBER"); string streetName = insertValues.GetString("STREET_NAME"); string streetTypeCode = insertValues.GetString("STREET_TYPE_CODE"); string streetSuffixCode = insertValues.GetString("STREET_SUFFIX_CODE"); // locality/state/postcode/country string locality = insertValues.GetString("LOCALITY"); string stateCode = insertValues.GetString("STATE_CODE"); string postcode = insertValues.GetString("POSTCODE"); string country = insertValues.GetString("COUNTRY"); // esms address string esmsAddress = insertValues.GetString("ESMS_ADDRESS"); //address/GPS string lat = insertValues.GetString("LAT"); string lon = insertValues.GetString("LON"); string zoom = insertValues.GetString("ZOOM"); //string validateDate = insertValues.GetString("VALIDATED_DATE"); string validatedBy = insertValues.GetString("VALIDATED_BY"); string confidence = insertValues.GetString("VALIDATION_CONFIDENCE"); string status = insertValues.GetString("VALIDATION_STATUS"); string quality = insertValues.GetString("VALIDATION_QUALITY"); // the insert statement StringBuilder insertStatement = new StringBuilder("INSERT INTO ADDRESSES ("); StringBuilder valuesStatement = new StringBuilder("VALUES ("); ArrayList parameters = new ArrayList(); // build the insert statement insertStatement.Append("ADDRESS_ID, EVENT_ID, CREATED_BY, CREATED_DATETIME, LOCK_NUM "); valuesStatement.Append(":addressID, :eventID, :createdBy, SYSDATE, 1 "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("addressID", OracleDbType.Decimal, addressID)); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("eventID", OracleDbType.Decimal, eventID)); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("createdBy", OracleDbType.Varchar2, createdBy)); // build the insert statement if (!StringUtils.IsNull(syncAddressID)) { insertStatement.Append(", SYNC_ADDRESS_ID"); valuesStatement.Append(", :syncAddressID"); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("syncAddressID", OracleDbType.Decimal, syncAddressID)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(postalDeliveryTypeCode)) { insertStatement.Append(", POSTAL_DELIVERY_TYPE_CODE"); valuesStatement.Append(", :postalDeliveryTypeCode "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("postalDeliveryTypeCode", OracleDbType.Varchar2, postalDeliveryTypeCode)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(postalDeliveryNum)) { insertStatement.Append(", POSTAL_DELIVERY_NUM"); valuesStatement.Append(", :postalDeliveryNum "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("postalDeliveryNum", OracleDbType.Varchar2, postalDeliveryNum)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(flatUnitTypeCode)) { insertStatement.Append(", FLAT_UNIT_TYPE_CODE"); valuesStatement.Append(", :flatUnitTypeCode "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("flatUnitTypeCode", OracleDbType.Varchar2, flatUnitTypeCode)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(lat)) { insertStatement.Append(", LAT"); valuesStatement.Append(", :lat "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("lat", OracleDbType.Decimal, lat)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(lon)) { insertStatement.Append(", LON"); valuesStatement.Append(", :lon "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("lon", OracleDbType.Decimal, lon)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(zoom)) { insertStatement.Append(", ZOOM"); valuesStatement.Append(", :zoom "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("zoom", OracleDbType.Decimal, zoom)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(flatUnitNum)) { insertStatement.Append(", FLAT_UNIT_NUM"); valuesStatement.Append(", :flatUnitNum "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("flatUnitNum", OracleDbType.Varchar2, flatUnitNum)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(floorLevelCode)) { insertStatement.Append(", FLOOR_LEVEL_CODE"); valuesStatement.Append(", :floorLevelCode "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("floorLevelCode", OracleDbType.Varchar2, floorLevelCode)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(floorLevelNum)) { insertStatement.Append(", FLOOR_LEVEL_NUM"); valuesStatement.Append(", :floorLevelNum "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("floorLevelNum", OracleDbType.Varchar2, floorLevelNum)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(buildingName)) { insertStatement.Append(", BUILDING_NAME"); valuesStatement.Append(", :buildingName "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("buildingName", OracleDbType.Varchar2, buildingName)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(lotNumber)) { insertStatement.Append(", LOT_NUMBER"); valuesStatement.Append(", :lotNumber "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("lotNumber", OracleDbType.Varchar2, lotNumber)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(streetNumber)) { insertStatement.Append(", STREET_NUMBER"); valuesStatement.Append(", :streetNumber "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("streetNumber", OracleDbType.Varchar2, streetNumber)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(streetName)) { insertStatement.Append(", STREET_NAME"); valuesStatement.Append(", :streetName "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("streetName", OracleDbType.Varchar2, streetName)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(streetTypeCode)) { insertStatement.Append(", STREET_TYPE_CODE"); valuesStatement.Append(", :streetTypeCode "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("streetTypeCode", OracleDbType.Varchar2, streetTypeCode)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(streetSuffixCode)) { insertStatement.Append(", STREET_SUFFIX_CODE"); valuesStatement.Append(", :streetSuffixCode "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("streetSuffixCode", OracleDbType.Varchar2, streetSuffixCode)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(locality)) { insertStatement.Append(", LOCALITY"); valuesStatement.Append(", :locality"); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("locality", OracleDbType.Varchar2, locality)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(stateCode)) { insertStatement.Append(", STATE_CODE"); valuesStatement.Append(", :stateCode"); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("stateCode", OracleDbType.Varchar2, stateCode)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(postcode)) { insertStatement.Append(", POSTCODE"); valuesStatement.Append(", :postcode "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("postcode", OracleDbType.Varchar2, postcode)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(country)) { insertStatement.Append(", COUNTRY"); valuesStatement.Append(", :country "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("country", OracleDbType.Varchar2, country)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(esmsAddress)) { insertStatement.Append(", ESMS_ADDRESS"); valuesStatement.Append(", :esmsAddress "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("esmsAddress", OracleDbType.Varchar2, esmsAddress)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(validatedBy)) { insertStatement.Append(", VALIDATED_DATE"); valuesStatement.Append(", SYSDATE "); insertStatement.Append(", VALIDATED_BY"); valuesStatement.Append(", :validatedBy "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("validatedBy", OracleDbType.Varchar2, validatedBy)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(confidence)) { insertStatement.Append(", VALIDATION_CONFIDENCE"); valuesStatement.Append(", :confidence "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("confidence", OracleDbType.Decimal, confidence)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(status)) { insertStatement.Append(", VALIDATION_STATUS"); valuesStatement.Append(", :status "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("status", OracleDbType.Varchar2, status)); } if (!StringUtils.IsNull(quality)) { insertStatement.Append(", VALIDATION_QUALITY"); valuesStatement.Append(", :quality "); parameters.Add(DBUtils.CreateOracleParameter("quality", OracleDbType.Decimal, quality)); } // finish off the statement insertStatement.Append(") "); valuesStatement.Append(")"); // build the insert statement string sql = insertStatement + valuesStatement.ToString(); // Execute the INSERT Statement Dml dmlDAO = new Dml(); int rowsAffected = dmlDAO.Execute(sql, transaction, parameters); if (rowsAffected == 0) { throw new NoRowsAffectedException(); } } << many more methods go here >> } This system was developed by me and a small team back in 2005 after a 1 week .NET course. Before than my experience was in client-server applications. Over the past 5 years I've come to recognise the benefits of automated unit testing, automated integration testing and automated acceptance testing (using Selenium or equivalent) but the current code-base seems impossible to introduce these concepts. We are now starting to work on a major enhancement project with tight time-frames. The team consists of 5 .NET developers - 2 developers with a few years of .NET experience and 3 others with little or no .NET experience. None of the team (including myself) has experience in using .NET unit testing or mocking frameworks. What strategy would you use to make this code cleaner, more object-oriented, testable and maintainable?

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