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• T4 Template error - Assembly Directive cannot locate referenced assembly in Visual Studio 2010 proje

  - by CodeSniper

  I ran into the following error recently in Visual Studio 2010 while trying to port Phil Haack’s excellent T4CSS template which was originally built for Visual Studio 2008.   The Problem Error Compiling transformation: Metadata file 'dotless.Core' could not be found In “T4 speak”, this simply means that you have an Assembly directive in your T4 template but the T4 engine was not able to locate or load the referenced assembly. In the case of the T4CSS Template, this was a showstopper for making it work in Visual Studio 2010. On a side note: The T4CSS template is a sweet little wrapper to allow you to use DotLessCss to generate static .css files from .less files rather than using their default HttpHandler or command-line tool.    If you haven't tried DotLessCSS yet, go check it out now!  In short, it is a tool that allows you to templatize and program your CSS files so that you can use variables, expressions, and mixins within your CSS which enables rapid changes and a lot of developer-flexibility as you evolve your CSS and UI. Back to our regularly scheduled program… Anyhow, this post isn't about DotLessCss, its about the T4 Templates and the errors I ran into when converting them from Visual Studio 2008 to Visual Studio 2010. In VS2010, there were quite a few changes to the T4 Template Engine; most were excellent changes, but this one bit me with T4CSS: “Project assemblies are no longer used to resolve template assembly directives.” In VS2008, if you wanted to reference a custom assembly in your T4 Template (.tt file) you would simply right click on your project, choose Add Reference and select that assembly.  Afterwards you were allowed to use the following syntax in your T4 template to tell it to look at the local references: <#@ assembly name="dotless.Core.dll" #> This told the engine to look in the “usual place” for the assembly, which is your project references. However, this is exactly what they changed in VS2010.  They now basically sandbox the T4 Engine to keep your T4 assemblies separate from your project assemblies.  This can come in handy if you want to support different versions of an assembly referenced both by your T4 templates and your project. Who broke the build?  Oh, Microsoft Did! In our case, this change causes a problem since the templates are no longer compatible when upgrading to VS 2010 – thus its a breaking change.  So, how do we make this work in VS 2010? Luckily, Microsoft now offers several options for referencing assemblies from T4 Templates: GAC your assemblies and use Namespace Reference or Fully Qualified Type Name Use a hard-coded Fully Qualified UNC path Copy assembly to Visual Studio "Public Assemblies Folder" and use Namespace Reference or Fully Qualified Type Name.  Use or Define a Windows Environment Variable to build a Fully Qualified UNC path. Use a Visual Studio Macro to build a Fully Qualified UNC path. Option #1 & 2 were already supported in Visual Studio 2008, so if you want to keep your templates compatible with both Visual Studio versions, then you would have to adopt one of these approaches. Yakkety Yak, use the GAC! Option #1 requires an additional pre-build step to GAC the referenced assembly, which could be a pain.  But, if you go that route, then after you GAC, all you need is a simple type name or namespace reference such as: <#@ assembly name="dotless.Core" #> Hard Coding aint that hard! The other option of using hard-coded paths in Option #2 is pretty impractical in most situations since each developer would have to use the same local project folder paths, or modify this setting each time for their local machines as well as for production deployment.  However, if you want to go that route, simply use the following assembly directive style: <#@ assembly name="C:\Code\Lib\dotless.Core.dll" #> Lets go Public! Option #3, the Visual Studio Public Assemblies Folder, is the recommended place to put commonly used tools and libraries that are only needed for Visual Studio.  Think of it like a VS-only GAC.  This is likely the best place for something like dotLessCSS and is my preferred solution.  However, you will need to either use an installer or a pre-build action to copy the assembly to the right folder location.   Normally this is located at:  C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\PublicAssemblies Once you have copied your assembly there, you use the type name or namespace syntax again: <#@ assembly name="dotless.Core" #> Save the Environment! Option #4, using a Windows Environment Variable, is interesting for enterprise use where you may have standard locations for files, but less useful for demo-code, frameworks, and products where you don't have control over the local system.  The syntax for including a environment variable in your assembly directive looks like the following, just as you would expect: <#@ assembly name="%mypath%\dotless.Core.dll" #> “mypath” is a Windows environment variable you setup that points to some fully qualified UNC path on your system.  In the right situation this can be a great solution such as one where you use a msi installer for deployment, or where you have a pre-existing environment variable you can re-use. OMG Macros! Finally, Option #5 is a very nice option if you want to keep your T4 template’s assembly reference local and relative to the project or solution without muddying-up your dev environment or GAC with extra deployments.  An example looks like this: <#@ assembly name="$(SolutionDir)lib\dotless.Core.dll" #> In this example, I’m using the “SolutionDir” VS macro so I can reference an assembly in a “/lib” folder at the root of the solution.   This is just one of the many macros you can use.  If you are familiar with creating Pre/Post-build Event scripts, you can use its dialog to look at all of the different VS macros available. This option gives the best solution for local assemblies without the hassle of extra installers or other setup before the build.   However, its still not compatible with Visual Studio 2008, so if you have a T4 Template you want to use with both, then you may have to create multiple .tt files, one for each IDE version, or require the developer to set a value in the .tt file manually.   I’m not sure if T4 Templates support any form of compiler switches like “#if (VS2010)”  statements, but it would definitely be nice in this case to switch between this option and one of the ones more compatible with VS 2008. Conclusion As you can see, we went from 3 options with Visual Studio 2008, to 5 options (plus one problem) with Visual Studio 2010.  As a whole, I think the changes are great, but the short-term growing pains during the migration may be annoying until we get used to our new found power. Hopefully this all made sense and was helpful to you.  If nothing else, I’ll just use it as a reference the next time I need to port a T4 template to Visual Studio 2010.  Happy T4 templating, and “May the fourth be with you!”

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• Getting MySQL work with Entity Framework 4.0

  - by DigiMortal

  Does MySQL work with Entity Framework 4.0? The answer is: yes, it works! I just put up one experimental project to play with MySQL and Entity Framework 4.0 and in this posting I will show you how to get MySQL data to EF. Also I will give some suggestions how to deploy your applications to hosting and cloud environments. MySQL stuff As you may guess you need MySQL running somewhere. I have MySQL installed to my development machine so I can also develop stuff when I’m offline. The other thing you need is MySQL Connector for .NET Framework. Currently there is available development version of MySQL Connector/NET 6.3.5 that supports Visual Studio 2010. Before you start download MySQL and Connector/NET: MySQL Community Server Connector/NET 6.3.5 If you are not big fan of phpMyAdmin then you can try out free desktop client for MySQL – HeidiSQL. I am using it and I am really happy with this program. NB! If you just put up MySQL then create also database with couple of table there. To use all features of Entity Framework 4.0 I suggest you to use InnoDB or other engine that has support for foreign keys. Connecting MySQL to Entity Framework 4.0 Now create simple console project using Visual Studio 2010 and go through the following steps. 1. Add new ADO.NET Entity Data Model to your project. For model insert the name that is informative and that you are able later recognize. Now you can choose how you want to create your model. Select “Generate from database” and click OK. 2. Set up database connection Change data connection and select MySQL Database as data source. You may also need to set provider – there is only one choice. Select it if data provider combo shows empty value. Click OK and insert connection information you are asked about. Don’t forget to click test connection button to see if your connection data is okay. If everything works then click OK. 3. Insert context name Now you should see the following dialog. Insert your data model name for application configuration file and click OK. Click next button. 4. Select tables for model Now you can select tables and views your classes are based on. I have small database with events data. Uncheck the checkbox “Include foreign key columns in the model” – it is damn annoying to get them away from model later. Also insert informative and easy to remember name for your model. Click finish button. 5. Define your classes Now it’s time to define your classes. Here you can see what Entity Framework generated for you. Relations were detected automatically – that’s why we needed foreign keys. The names of classes and their members are not nice yet. After some modifications my class model looks like on the following diagram. Note that I removed attendees navigation property from person class. Now my classes look nice and they follow conventions I am using when naming classes and their members. NB! Don’t forget to see properties of classes (properties windows) and modify their set names if set names contain numbers (I changed set name for Entity from Entity1 to Entities). 6. Let’s test! Now let’s write simple testing program to see if MySQL data runs through Entity Framework 4.0 as expected. My program looks for events where I attended. using(var context = new MySqlEntities()) {     var myEvents = from e in context.Events                     from a in e.Attendees                     where a.Person.FirstName == "Gunnar" &&                             a.Person.LastName == "Peipman"                     select e;       Console.WriteLine("My events: ");       foreach(var e in myEvents)     {         Console.WriteLine(e.Title);     } }   Console.ReadKey(); And when I run it I get the result shown on screenshot on right. I checked out from database and these results are correct. At first run connector seems to work slow but this is only the effect of first run. As connector is loaded to memory by Entity Framework it works fast from this point on. Now let’s see what we have to do to get our program work in hosting and cloud environments where MySQL connector is not installed. Deploying application to hosting and cloud environments If your hosting or cloud environment has no MySQL connector installed you have to provide MySQL connector assemblies with your project. Add the following assemblies to your project’s bin folder and include them to your project (otherwise they are not packaged by WebDeploy and Azure tools): MySQL.Data MySQL.Data.Entity MySQL.Web You can also add references to these assemblies and mark references as local so these assemblies are copied to binary folder of your application. If you have references to these assemblies then you don’t have to include them to your project from bin folder. Also add the following block to your application configuration file. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <configuration> ...   <system.data>     <DbProviderFactories>         <add              name=”MySQL Data Provider”              invariant=”MySql.Data.MySqlClient”              description=”.Net Framework Data Provider for MySQL”              type=”MySql.Data.MySqlClient.MySqlClientFactory, MySql.Data,                   Version=6.2.0.0, Culture=neutral,                   PublicKeyToken=c5687fc88969c44d”          />     </DbProviderFactories>   </system.data> ... </configuration> Conclusion It was not hard to get MySQL connector installed and MySQL connected to Entity Framework 4.0. To use full power of Entity Framework we used InnoDB engine because it supports foreign keys. It was also easy to query our model. To get our project online we needed some easy modifications to our project and configuration files.

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• A Guided Tour of Complexity

  - by JoshReuben

  I just re-read Complexity – A Guided Tour by Melanie Mitchell , protégé of Douglas Hofstadter ( author of “Gödel, Escher, Bach”) http://www.amazon.com/Complexity-Guided-Tour-Melanie-Mitchell/dp/0199798109/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339744329&sr=8-1 here are some notes and links:   Evolved from Cybernetics, General Systems Theory, Synergetics some interesting transdisciplinary fields to investigate: Chaos Theory - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory – small differences in initial conditions (such as those due to rounding errors in numerical computation) yield widely diverging outcomes for chaotic systems, rendering long-term prediction impossible. System Dynamics / Cybernetics - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Dynamics – study of how feedback changes system behavior Network Theory - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_theory – leverage Graph Theory to analyze symmetric  / asymmetric relations between discrete objects Algebraic Topology - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebraic_topology – leverage abstract algebra to analyze topological spaces There are limits to deterministic systems & to computation. Chaos Theory definitely applies to training an ANN (artificial neural network) – different weights will emerge depending upon the random selection of the training set. In recursive Non-Linear systems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonlinear_system – output is not directly inferable from input. E.g. a Logistic map: Xt+1 = R Xt(1-Xt) Different types of bifurcations, attractor states and oscillations may occur – e.g. a Lorenz Attractor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenz_system Feigenbaum Constants http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feigenbaum_constants express ratios in a bifurcation diagram for a non-linear map – the convergent limit of R (the rate of period-doubling bifurcations) is 4.6692016 Maxwell’s Demon - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_demon - the Second Law of Thermodynamics has only a statistical certainty – the universe (and thus information) tends towards entropy. While any computation can theoretically be done without expending energy, with finite memory, the act of erasing memory is permanent and increases entropy. Life & thought is a counter-example to the universe’s tendency towards entropy. Leo Szilard and later Claude Shannon came up with the Information Theory of Entropy - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(information_theory) whereby Shannon entropy quantifies the expected value of a message’s information in bits in order to determine channel capacity and leverage Coding Theory (compression analysis). Ludwig Boltzmann came up with Statistical Mechanics - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_mechanics – whereby our Newtonian perception of continuous reality is a probabilistic and statistical aggregate of many discrete quantum microstates. This is relevant for Quantum Information Theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_information and the Physics of Information - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_information. Hilbert’s Problems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert's_problems pondered whether mathematics is complete, consistent, and decidable (the Decision Problem – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entscheidungsproblem – is there always an algorithm that can determine whether a statement is true).  Godel’s Incompleteness Theorems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_incompleteness_theorems  proved that mathematics cannot be both complete and consistent (e.g. “This statement is not provable”). Turing through the use of Turing Machines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_machine symbol processors that can prove mathematical statements) and Universal Turing Machines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Turing_machine Turing Machines that can emulate other any Turing Machine via accepting programs as well as data as input symbols) that computation is limited by demonstrating the Halting Problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem (is is not possible to know when a program will complete – you cannot build an infinite loop detector). You may be used to thinking of 1 / 2 / 3 dimensional systems, but Fractal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal systems are defined by self-similarity & have non-integer Hausdorff Dimensions !!!  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fractals_by_Hausdorff_dimension – the fractal dimension quantifies the number of copies of a self similar object at each level of detail – eg Koch Snowflake - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch_snowflake Definitions of complexity: size, Shannon entropy, Algorithmic Information Content (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithmic_information_theory - size of shortest program that can generate a description of an object) Logical depth (amount of info processed), thermodynamic depth (resources required). Complexity is statistical and fractal. John Von Neumann’s other machine was the Self-Reproducing Automaton http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_machine  . Cellular Automata http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_automaton are alternative form of Universal Turing machine to traditional Von Neumann machines where grid cells are locally synchronized with their neighbors according to a rule. Conway’s Game of Life http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life demonstrates various emergent constructs such as “Glider Guns” and “Spaceships”. Cellular Automatons are not practical because logical ops require a large number of cells – wasteful & inefficient. There are no compilers or general program languages available for Cellular Automatons (as far as I am aware). Random Boolean Networks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boolean_network are extensions of cellular automata where nodes are connected at random (not to spatial neighbors) and each node has its own rule –> they demonstrate the emergence of complex  & self organized behavior. Stephen Wolfram’s (creator of Mathematica, so give him the benefit of the doubt) New Kind of Science http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_New_Kind_of_Science proposes the universe may be a discrete Finite State Automata http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite-state_machine whereby reality emerges from simple rules. I am 2/3 through this book. It is feasible that the universe is quantum discrete at the plank scale and that it computes itself – Digital Physics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_physics – a simulated reality? Anyway, all behavior is supposedly derived from simple algorithmic rules & falls into 4 patterns: uniform , nested / cyclical, random (Rule 30 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_30) & mixed (Rule 110 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_110 localized structures – it is this that is interesting). interaction between colliding propagating signal inputs is then information processing. Wolfram proposes the Principle of Computational Equivalence - http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PrincipleofComputationalEquivalence.html - all processes that are not obviously simple can be viewed as computations of equivalent sophistication. Meaning in information may emerge from analogy & conceptual slippages – see the CopyCat program: http://cognitrn.psych.indiana.edu/rgoldsto/courses/concepts/copycat.pdf Scale Free Networks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale-free_network have a distribution governed by a Power Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_law - much more common than Normal Distribution). They are characterized by hubs (resilience to random deletion of nodes), heterogeneity of degree values, self similarity, & small world structure. They grow via preferential attachment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferential_attachment – tipping points triggered by positive feedback loops. 2 theories of cascading system failures in complex systems are Self-Organized Criticality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-organized_criticality and Highly Optimized Tolerance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highly_optimized_tolerance. Computational Mechanics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_mechanics – use of computational methods to study phenomena governed by the principles of mechanics. This book is a great intuition pump, but does not cover the more mathematical subject of Computational Complexity Theory – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_complexity_theory I am currently reading this book on this subject: http://www.amazon.com/Computational-Complexity-Christos-H-Papadimitriou/dp/0201530821/ref=pd_sim_b_1   stay tuned for that review!

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, March 22, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, March 22, 2010New Projects[Tool] Vczh Non-public DLL Classes Caller: Generate C# code for you to call non-public classes in DLLs very easily.Artefact Animator: Artefact Animator provides an easy to use framework for procedural time-based animations in Silverlight and WPF.cacheroo: Cacheroo is a social networking community that will make it easier for people who love geocaching to get connected.Data Processing Toolkit: An utility app to collected data from different sources (i.e. bugzilla bug reports) in a structured way. We are currently setting up the site. Mo...eXternal SQL Bridge (PHP): The eXternal SQL Bridge (XSB) allows you to bridge two websites together in a secure manner through pre-shared keys. XSB is resilient against repla...'G' - Language to Define Gestures for Touch Based Applications: A cross plat form multi-touch application framework with a language to define gestures. The application is build on Silverlight 4.0 and the languag...IIS Network Diagnostic Tools: Web implementation of "looking glass" like services (ping, traceroute) as HTTP modules for Internet Information Services.Interop Router: This project establishes a communication framework and job dispatcher for a mixed operating system cluster environment.L2 Commander: L2Commander makes it easier for both new and old l2j users to manage your server.You no longer have to waste time on finding the files you need and...MediaHelper: A utility to help clean up empty/unwanted files and folders in your filesystem.mhinze: matt hinze stuffOneMan: Focus on Silverlight and WCF technology.Rss Photo Frame Android Widget: RSS Photo Frame Android Widget permits showing pictures from any RSS feed on your Android device's desktopSingle Web Session: Web Tool Kits Current project provide developer with different tools that help to enhance web site performance, security, and other common functio...Work Item Visualization: Use DGML to visualize and analyze your TFS Work Items. Included is the ability to perform basic risk/impact analysis. It helps answer the question,...New Releases[Tool] Vczh Non-public DLL Classes Caller: Wrapper Coder (beta): Click "<Click Me To Open Assembly File>", WrapperCoder will load the assembly and referenced assembly. Check the non-public classes that you want...APS - Automatic Print Screen: APS 1.0: APS automatizes the tasks of paste the image in Paint and save it after print screen or alt+print screen. Choose directory, name and file extension...BTP Tools: e-Sword generator build 20100321: 1. Modify the indent after subtitle. 2. Add 2 spaces after subtitle.Combres - WebForm & MVC Client-side Resource Combine Library: Combres 2.0: Changes since last version (1.2) Support ignore Combres pipeline in debug mode - see issue #6088 Debug mode generates comment helping identify in...Desafio Office 2010 Brasil: DesafioOutlook: Controlando um robo com o Outlook 2010dylan.NET: dylan.NET v. 9.4: Adding Platform Invocation Services Support, full Managed Pointer Support, Charset,Dllimport,Callconv setting for P/Invoke, MarshalAs for parametersFamily Tree Analyzer: Version 1.3.2.0: Version 1.3.2.0 Add open folder button to IGI Search Form Fixes to Fact Location processing - IGIName renamed to RegionID Fix if Region ID not fou...Fasterflect - A Fast and Simple Reflection API: Fasterflect 2.0: We are pleased to release version 2.0 of Fasterflect, which contains a lot of additions and improvements from the previous version. Please refer t...IIS Network Diagnostic Tools: 1.0: Initial public release.Informant: Informant (Desktop) v0.1: This release allows users to send sms messages to 1-Many Groups or 1-Many contacts. It is a very basic release of the application. No styling has b...InfoService: InfoService v1.5 - MPE1 Package: InfoService Release v1.5.0.65 Please read Plugin installation for installation instructions.InfoService: InfoService v1.5 - RAR Package: InfoService Release v1.5.0.65 Please read Plugin installation for installation instructions.L2 Commander: Source Code Link: Where to find our source.ModularCMS: ModularCMS 1.2: Minor bug fixes.NMTools: NMTools-v40b0-20100321-0: The most noticeable aspect of this release is that NMTools is now an independent project. It will no longer tied to OpenSLIM. Nevertheless, OpenSLI...SharePoint LogViewer: SharePoint LogViewer 1.5.3: Log loading performance enhanced. Search text box now has auto complete feature.Single Web Session: Single Web Session: !Single Web Session! <httpModules> <add name="SingleSession" type="SingleWebSession.Model.WebSessionModule, SingleWebSession"/> </httpModules>Sprite Sheet Packer: 2.1 Release: Made a few crucial fixes from 2.0: - Fixed error with paths having spaces. - Fixed error with UI not unlocking. - Fixed NullReferenceException on ...uManage - AD Self-Service Portal: uManage v1.1 (.NET 4.0 RC): Updated Releasev1.1 Adds the primary ability to setup and configure the application through a setup wizard. The setup wizard will continue to evol...VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30321.0: Automatic drop of latest buildVS ChessMania: VS ChessMania V2 March Beta: Second Beta Release with move correction and making application more safe for user. New features will be added soon.WatchersNET CKEditor™ Provider for DotNetNuke: CKEditor Provider 1.9.00: Whats New Added New Toolbar Plugin (By Kent Safransk) 'MediaEmbed' to Include Embed Media from Youtube, Vimeo, etc. Media Embed Plugin Added New ...WeatherBar: WeatherBar 1.0 [No Installation]: Extract the ZIP archive and run WeatherBar.exe. Current release contains some bugs that will be fixed in the next version. Check the Issue Tracker...Work Item Visualization: Release 1.0: This is the initial release of the Work Item Visualization tool. There are no known issues when it comes to the visualization aspects of the tool b...WPF Application Framework (WAF): WPF Application Framework (WAF) 1.0.0.10: Version: 1.0.0.10 (Milestone 10): This release contains the source code of the WPF Application Framework (WAF) and the sample applications. Requi...WPF AutoComplete TextBox Control: Version 1.2: What's Newadds AutoAppend feature adds a new provider: UrlHistoryDataProvider sample application is updated to reflect the new things Bug Fixe...ZoomBarPlus: V2 (Beta): - Fixed bug: if the active window changed while you were in the middle of a single tap delay, long tap delay, or swipe-repeat, it would continue re...Most Popular ProjectsMetaSharpSavvy DateTimeRawrWBFS ManagerSilverlight ToolkitASP.NET Ajax LibraryMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseAJAX Control ToolkitLiveUpload to FacebookWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)Most Active ProjectsLINQ to TwitterRawrOData SDK for PHPjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesDirectQPHPExcelFarseer Physics Enginepatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryBlogEngine.NETNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog Module

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• Adaptive ADF/WebCenter template for the iPad

  - by Maiko Rocha

  One of my WebCenter Portal customers was asking about adaptive design with ADF/WebCenter Portal and how they could go about creating an adaptive iPad template for their WebCenter Portal application. They were looking not only for the out-of-the-box support for mobile Safari which is certified against PS5+ (11.1.1.6) for ADF/WebCenter - but also to create a specific template to streamline their workflow on the iPad. Seems like they wanted something in the lines of Yahoo! Mail provides for the iPad - so the example I will use is shamelessly inspired by Y! Mail's iPad UI.  But first, let's quickly understand how can we bake in some adaptive goodness into ADF Faces. First thing we need to understand is, yes, there are a couple of constraints that we will need to work around, namely, the use or layout managers and skins. Please also keep in mind that I'm not and I don't pretend to be a web designer, much less an UX specialist, so feel free to leave your thoughts on the matter in the comments section. Now, back to the limitations. Layout Managers ADF Faces layout managers create an abstraction on top of the generated HTML code for a page so a developer doesn't need to be worried about how to size and dimension the UI layout (eg, af:panelStretchLayout). Although layout managers are very helpful, in this specific situation we will need to know a little bit more of how the final HTML is being rendered so we can apply the CSS class accordingly and create transition containers where the media queries will be applied - now, if you're using 11gR2 (11.1.2.2.3) there's the new component af:panelGridLayout (here and here) that will greatly improve creating responsive templates and pages because it is based on the grid/fluid systems and will generate straight out to DIVs on your final page. For now, I'm limited to PS5 and the af:panelStretchLayout component as a starting point because that's the release my customer is on. Skins You won't be able to use media queries, or use anything with "@" notation on the skin CSS file - the skin pre-processor will remove all extraneous "@" from the CSS file. The solution is to split your CSS in two separate files: a skin CSS file and plain CSS where you will add the media queries. The issue here is that you won't be able to use media queries for any faces components. We can, though, still apply the media queries for the components like af:panelGroupLayout and af:panelBorderLayout through their styleClass property to enable these components to be responsive to to the iPad orientation, by changing its dimensions, font sizes, hide/show areas, etc. Difference between responsive and adaptive design The best definition of adaptive vs responsive web design I could find is this: “Responsive web design,” as coined by Ethan Marcotte, means “fluid grids, fluid images/media & media queries.” “Adaptive web design,” as I use it, is about creating interfaces that adapt to the user’s capabilities (in terms of both form and function). To me, “adaptive web design” is just another term for “progressive enhancement” of which responsive web design can (an often should) be an integral part, but is a more holistic approach to web design in that it also takes into account varying levels of markup, CSS, JavaScript and assistive technology support. Responsive/adapative web design is much more than slapping an HTML template with CSS around your content or application. The content and application themselves are part of your web design - in other words, a responsive template is just an afterthought if it is not originating from a responsive design the involves the whole web application/s. Tips on responsive / adapative design with ADF/WebCenter Some of the tips listed below were already mentioned in multiple blog posts about ADF layout and skinning, but it is still worth remembering: a simple guideline for ADF/WebCenter apps would be to first create a high-level group of devices, for example: smartphones, tablets,  and desktop. For each of these large groups, create the basic structure to provide responsiveness: a page template, a skin, and an external CSS: pagetemplate_smartphone.jspx, smartphone_skin.css, smartphone-responsive.css pagetemplate_tablet.jspx, tablet_skin.css, tablet-responsive.css pagetemplate_desktop.jspx, desktop_skin.css, desktop-responsive.css These three assets can be changed on the fly through an user-agent check on the server side, delivering the right UI to the right device. Within each of the assets, you can make fine adjustments for each subgroup of devices with media queries - for example, smart phones with different screen dimensions and pixel density. Having these three groups and the corresponding assets per group seem to be a good compromise between trying to put everything on a single set of assets - specially considering the constraints above - and going to the other side of the spectrum to create assets per discrete device (iPhone4, iPhone5, Nexus, S3, etc.). Keep in mind that these are my rules and are not in any shape or form a best practice - this is how it fits best for the scenarios I've been working with. If you need to use HTML tags on your page, surround them with af:group to protect the DOM structure For stretchable/fluid layouts: Use non-stretching containers: panelGroupLayout, panelBorderLayout, … panelBorderLayout can be used to approximate HTML table component To avoid multiple scroll bars, do not nest scrolling PanelGroupLayout components. Consider layout="vertical" For stretchable/fluid layouts: Most stretchable ADF components also work in flowing context with dimensionsFrom="auto" To stretch a component horizontally, use styleClass="AFStretchWidth" instead of  "width:100%" Skinning Don't use CSS3 @media, @import, animations, etc. on skin css files. They will be removed. CSS3 properties within a class (box-shadow, transition, etc.) work just fine. Consider resetting some skin classes to better control their rendering: body {color: inherit;font: inherit;} af|document {-tr-inhibit: all;} af|commandLink {-tr-inhibit: all;} af|goLink {-tr-inhibit: all;} af|inputText::content {font: inherit;} Specific meta tags and CSS properties: Use  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, minimum-scale=1.0, maximum-scale=1.0"/> to avoid zooming (if you want) Use -webkit-overflow-scrolling: touch to enable native momentum scrolling within overflown areas (here) Use text-rendering: optmizeLegibility to improve readability. (here) User text-overflow: ellipsis to gracefully crop overflown text. (here) The meta-tags are included in each and every page in the metaContainer facet of af:document tag. You can also use a javascript to inject the meta-tags from the template. For the purpose of the example, I wanted to use as few workarounds as possible.   The iPad template and sample application This sample application has been built as a WebCenter Portal application, but you will also be able to reuse the template and techniques on your vanilla ADF application. Keep in mind that I'm neither a designer nor a CSS specialist, so please don't bash me too much on the messy CSS file you'll find on the application.  I've extended the provided PreferencesBean class that comes with WebCenter Portal and added code to dinamically change the template and skin on the fly.   This is the sample application in landscape orientation: This is the sample application in portrait orientation - the left side menu hides automatically based on a CSS media query: Another screenshot with a skinned popup opened: This is a sample application for you to play with - ideally you shouldn't use it as a starting point. On the left side bar you will find links rendered from a WebCenter Portal navigation model - the link triggers a full request through an af:goLink, while the light blue PPR button triggers a PPR navigation. The dark blue toolbar buttons at the top don't have any function,while the Approve and Reject buttons show a skinned popup. The search box of course doesn't have any behavior attahed to it either. There's a known issue right now with some PPR calls that are randomly generating a 403 error redirecting to the login page - I didn't have time to investigate if this is iOS6 specific or not - if you have any insights please let me know your findings. You can download the sample here.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, June 14, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, June 14, 2010New ProjectsBD File Hash: BD File Hash is a convenient file hash and hash compare tool for Windows which currently works with MD5, SHA-1, and SHA-256 algorithms. FileScan: This is an application that searches through a drive or directory structure for files matching a filter. This project was converted from VB to ...genesis9: genesis9HeinanOS: HeinanOS is an operating system developed mainly in C++. HeinanOS is a light OS (1.44 MB image) with a lot of capabilites and many more are being ...MediaBrowserWS - Creates a Web Service for the popular MediaBrowser plugin: Creates a web service in Media Center for accessing your MediaBrowser collection. Allows for external devices (Tablets/phones/laptops) to access a ...MME: New Edition of Managed Menu Extensions for Visual Studio 2010 The Main goal of "MME" is to provide easy access to adding Right Click menus in the ...MVMMapper: Generate the ViewModel and its mapping to the Model when implementing MVVM in .NET. Developed using T4 templates. Current version supports Silver...ProjectArDotNet: Si te agarro te parto! Si te agarro te emperno no me importa que seas menor de edad!Scriptagility for DotNetNuke: Scriptagility is a DotNetNuke module for Javascript developers. This module provides dynamic client scripting infrastructure for developing javascr...simpleLinux Distro: SimpleLinux. is a Linux distributions that is easy to use. Simple Linux website: http://simplelinux.tkTag Cloud Control for asp.net: Tag Cloud Control for asp.net allows the user to display the most important keywords to display in tag cloud. Each Tag has it own navigation url to...thefreeimdb: fsadie qwUppityUp: UppityUp is a simple and light-weight tray application which monitors a remote server and shows a notification when it comes online. This is usefu...Vivid3D 2 - DirectX 10 3D ToolKit: The sequel to my first ever engine wrote several years ago. It is not based on it in anyway. VSIDev: VSI DevXTQXK_WORK: Actionscript 3.0东坡博客: 这是一个ASP。net mvc 2博客。New Releases.NET Extensions - Extension Methods Library: Release 2010.08: Added extension methods for Bitmap manipulation (scaling for now): - Bitmap.ScaleToSize() - Bitmap.ScaleToSizeProportional() - Bitmap.ScaleProport...Black Falcon Software's Database Data-Access-Layers: “SQLHELPER”, “ORAHELPER” - Handling Binary Data: See attached document...BTech Networking Library: BTech Networking Library: Same as pervious just new namespace, extended networking coming soon!!!Community Forums NNTP bridge: Community Forums NNTP Bridge V37: Release of the Community Forums NNTP Bridge to access the social and anwsers MS forums with a single, open source NNTP bridge. This release has ad...Generic Entity Model 2: GEM2 build 54383: This is second BETA release of GEM2! Please see source code change sets for updates! Following implementation is not included in this release: My...Hades: Projet Hadès - Official Demo - Version 0.1.0 Beta: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Projet Hadès - Official Demo - Version 0.1.0 Beta ------------------...HeinanOS: HeinanOS M1 Source Code: You can download HeinanOS M1 Source Code and contribute to HeinanOS development! Be aware that you should not use this code for your own systems! ...HeinanOS: Milestone 1: This is the first major release for HeinanOS 1.0 Please note this is a PRE-RELEASE! This release includes the following features: -Bootable DOS-...HKGolden Express: HKGoldenExpress (Build 201006131900): New features: (None) Bug fix: Incorrect message submit date of message/ replies. (Note: Showing message submit date is enabled since Build 20100...HKGolden Express: HKGoldenExpress (Build 201006140110): New features: (None) Bug fix: (None) Improvements: (None) Other changes: Set time zone of message date as Hong Kong. Adjusted the format of messa...MediaCoder.NET: MediaCoder.NET v1.0 Beta 1.5: Installer file for MediaCoder.NET v1.0 beta 1.5. Now converts multiple files.MME: First release: Features of this release 1. One installer MME.msi. However you can also install MMEMenuManagerSetup.vsix which installs a project template that e...MSBuild Launch Pad (mPad): 1.1 Beta 1: Platform selection box is added.MVMMapper: MVMMapper Release v 1.0.1: This release has no downloadable documentation. Please use the Documentation section to get started.NginxTray: NginxTray 0.7 RC2: NginxTray 0.7 RC2PowerAuras: PowerAuras-3.0.0K-beta3: New Auras: Item Name Equipment Slot Tracking Changes from beta1 5 new aura textures Fixed Tracking bug Added graphical equipment slot sele...PowerAuras: PowerAuras-3.0.0K-beta4: New Auras: Item Name Equipment Slot Tracking Changes from beta1 5 new aura textures Fixed Tracking bug Added graphical equipment slot sele...Scriptagility for DotNetNuke: Scriptagility 1.0 (Beta): Initial public release please evaluate and feedbackSharpDevelop: SharpDevelop 4.0 Beta 1: Release notes: http://community.sharpdevelop.net/forums/t/11388.aspxsimpleLinux Distro: Project X3: This is an example of download for simpleLinuxSOAPI - StackOverflow API Parser/Wrapper Generator: SOAPI Beta 3: The SOAPI Beta 3 download will be made availabe later today when the initial documentation is complete. The previously available Beta 1 download h...Sofa: Initial release V1.0: This is the first release of Sofa. As it is made of code being previously used, as we tested it is a stable release. But bugs are always possible,...Tag Cloud Control for asp.net: Tag Cloud Control for asp.net: Tag Cloud Control for asp.net allows the user to display the most important keywords to display in tag cloud. Each Tag has it own navigation url to...UppityUp: UppityUp v0.1: First functional version, supports monitoring availability by ping (ICMP) requests. Fit for general use. Consists of one standalone .exe file - no...VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30613.0: Automatic drop of latest buildWindStyle ExifInfo for Windows Live Writer: 1.1.0.0: Add: Multiple Language(English and Simplified Chinese); Add: Insert multiple files; Fix: Error when insert pictures without Exif info; Update: Icon...Work Recorder - Hold on own time!: WorkRecorder 1.2: +Add a whole day chartXsltDb - DotNetNuke Module Builder: 01.01.24: Syntax highlighting delivered!New samples for RadControls. On single page you can find RadTreeView, RadRating, RadChart, RadFormDecorator, RadEdito...xUnit.net Contrib: xunitcontrib 0.4 (ReSharper 5.0 RTM + dotCover): xunitcontrib release 0.4 (ReSharper runner) This release provides a test runner plugin for Resharper 5.0, 4.5 and 4.1, targetting all versions of x...Most Popular ProjectsCommunity Forums NNTP bridgeRIA Services EssentialsNeatUploadBxf (Basic XAML Framework)Agile Personal Development Methodology.NET Transactional File ManagerSOLID by exampleASP.NET MVC Time PlannerWEI ShareSiverlight ProjectMost Active ProjectsjQuery Library for SharePoint Web Servicespatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog ModuleRhyduino - Arduino and Managed CodeCommunity Forums NNTP bridgeCassandraemonBlogEngine.NETLightweight Fluent WorkflowMediaCoder.NETAndrew's XNA Helpers

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• You are probably NOT a SharePoint Development Expert if&hellip;

  - by Mark Rackley

  So, all you aspiring SharePoint experts out there (especially those of you who put “expert” in your resumes).  It’s time for a cold cool splash of reality. More than likely you are NOT an expert (I know I’m not). Yes, you may have some expertise in certain aspects in SharePoint (it’s questionable if I have THAT some days), but make sure you’ve got the basics down before you start throwing that word “expert” around. I know that it becomes frustrating to those looking to hire SharePoint people and having to sift through all the resumes of those who think very highly of themselves and their skills only to find those gaping holes in common best practices. I’m much more willing to hire a decent dev who KNOWS they are not an expert than to hire a decent+ dev who THINKS they are an expert.  So… I’ve compiled a small reality check for you SharePoint Devs. and a “red flag” check for those of you wishing to hire a SharePoint developer. If any of these apply to you, you are probably not a SharePoint Development Expert. You are not a SharePoint Development Expert if you manually copy your DLLs Seriously, I don’t care if you write the best code in the world. If you are manually copying files to each web front end you are NOT a SharePoint Development expert. Yes, I realize the admins are generally the ones who do the actual deployments, but if you don’t know how to create solution packages for your admins, you are going to end up doing more damage than good some day. There are TONS of tools out there to help generate deployable solutions for you. You have ZERO excuse. You are not a SharePoint Development expert if you can’t tell me the main artifacts of a solution package Directly related to the first one. If you don’t know what the Manifest, DDF, WSP, and Feature files are and how they are used in a solution package, you are NOT a SharePoint development expert. I’m not asking you to be able to write them all from scratch (heck, I can’t even do that), but you MUST know what they are and how to tweak them if necessary. You are not a SharePoint Development expert if you don’t know what a Content Type or a Site Column is You would be absolutely amazed at how many “Expert” SharePoint Developers have NEVER EVER created a Content Type or Site Column or even know what they are. I mean, why would you ever want to create those when you can just do everything as a custom list or custom field? right???? (that’s sarcasm). You also need to know how to package a Content Type and a Site Column into a deployable package by the way. You are not a SharePoint Development expert if you have not created at least one Web Part, Workflow, Timer Job, and Event Handler. If you haven’t written at least one of each, you don’t fully understand what they do or their limitations. Again, I expect NO ONE to be able to write these things blind. I think the last time I wrote an application from scratch without copying and pasting from another project I had done before was back in 1994? Seriously, coding is like a Sour Dough starter, you get it from someone else and keep adding to it. You are not a SharePoint Development expert if you don’t know how to properly dispose of objects Another biggie with zero excuse for getting it wrong. It is so well known that you must dispose of your SPWeb and SPSite objects that if you aren’t doing it then you are not an expert. Heck, if you utilize “using” when handling SPWeb and SPSite objects and don’t realize that it disposes of those objects for you, then you are not a SharePoint Development expert. You are not a SharePoint Development expert if you do not know how to properly elevate privileges Just one of those development basics that any decent SharePoint Developer has got to have down and understand how and why it’s used You are not a SharePoint Development expert if you don’t know all of the development options available to SharePoint and when they should be used Okay… so all you hard core .NET SharePoint dev geeks take a moment to listen. You may be the most top not SharePoint .NET developer in the world, but if you are opening Visual Studio to solve every problem in SharePoint, then you are NOT a SharePoint development expert. The SharePoint developer’s tool kit is growing every day with tools like Visual Studio, Data View Web Parts, XSL, jQuery, SPServices, etc. etc… If you don’t have the ability to at least recognize that “hey, you can basically do the same thing here but just dropping in Easy Tabs instead of writing some weird web part” then you are NOT a SharePoint Development expert AND you are doing a huge disservice to your clients and customers. You are probably NOT a SharePoint Development expert if you call yourself an Expert So, truth telling time. I’m not an expert. There, I said it. I feel so much better. Now, I realize the word “expert” has been used with my name before, but I am quick to point out that I KNOW the experts and know that they will help me if I need it, but I’m not an expert in all things SharePoint. The minute you take on that moniker you are setting yourself up for a fall. It’s too big, there’s too much to know, and there’s WAY too much you can do wrong. You are not a SharePoint Development expert if you are not involved in the community I expect to get the most flack for this one, but it’s always a huge red flag for me when someone says they are an expert and has ZERO knowledge of the SharePoint community. The SharePoint community is ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL to be an effective SharePoint developer, admin, architect, power user or whatever the heck you are!! The community keeps you sane, tells you when you are NOT using a best practice, recommends the best practice, and even knows when Microsoft is giving you the wrong information (*gasp* it does happen). If you can’t tell me who you are following on twitter, who's blog you read, what conferences you attend, or name the experts who you monitor to make sure you are not doing something stupid, then you are probably doing something stupid. Again, not asking you to be a speaker, blogger, or the least bit extroverted but you should be at LEAST stalking the experts. So… what’s the point? So… yeah… what’s my point in all this. Well, first of all let me point out that this is by far not a finished list and I could come up with a LOT more specific “deep dive” questions, but these should be high enough level that even non experts can recognize and ask them. If you have some common ones you run into let me know and add them in the comments below. Also, keep in mind I’m not saying you as a developer HAVE to know EVERYTHING, but you DO need to know what you don’t know and proudly and honestly state “I don’t know, but I’ll learn and find out”.  Those of us hiring SharePoint developers and know and have a passion for SharePoint are not looking for that elusive “expert” who knows everything. We are looking for someone who “gets it”, has a similar passion, great attitude, an understanding that they DON’T know everything, and a desire to do it right.  I would bet money that most SharePoint development disasters happen because of “experts” who think they know everything rather than the developer who is cautious and knows he doesn’t. Lastly, I know there’s a raging debate over what a “SharePoint Developer” is (I should know, as I keep bringing it up). So, obviously this blog post is more closely tied to the .NET side of SharePoint development and less towards the client side, middle tier, or whatever you want to call it. So, let’s please not get that argument going here as well…  Thanks

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• Keeping track of File System Utilization in Ops Center 12c

  - by S Stelting

  Enterprise Manager Ops Center 12c provides significant monitoring capabilities, combined with very flexible incident management. These capabilities even extend to monitoring the file systems associated with Solaris or Linux assets. Depending on your needs you can monitor and manage incidents, or you can fine tune alert monitoring rules to specific file systems. This article will show you how to use Ops Center 12c to Track file system utilization Adjust file system monitoring rules Disable file system rules Create custom monitoring rules If you're interested in this topic, please join us for a WebEx presentation! Date: Thursday, November 8, 2012 Time: 11:00 am, Eastern Standard Time (New York, GMT-05:00) Meeting Number: 598 796 842 Meeting Password: oracle123 To join the online meeting ------------------------------------------------------- 1. Go to https://oracleconferencing.webex.com/oracleconferencing/j.php?ED=209833597&UID=1512095432&PW=NOWQ3YjJlMmYy&RT=MiMxMQ%3D%3D 2. If requested, enter your name and email address. 3. If a password is required, enter the meeting password: oracle123 4. Click "Join". To view in other time zones or languages, please click the link: https://oracleconferencing.webex.com/oracleconferencing/j.php?ED=209833597&UID=1512095432&PW=NOWQ3YjJlMmYy&ORT=MiMxMQ%3D%3D   Monitoring File Systems for OS Assets The Libraries tab provides basic, device-level information about the storage associated with an OS instance. This tab shows you the local file system associated with the instance and any shared storage libraries mounted by Ops Center. More detailed information about file system storage is available under the Analytics tab under the sub-tab named Charts. Here, you can select and display the individual mount points of an OS, and export the utilization data if desired: In this example, the OS instance has a basic root file partition and several NFS directories. Each file system mount point can be independently chosen for display in the Ops Center chart. File Systems and Incident  Reporting Every asset managed by Ops Center has a "monitoring policy", which determines what represents a reportable issue with the asset. The policy is made up of a bunch of monitoring rules, where each rule describes An attribute to monitor The conditions which represent an issue The level or levels of severity for the issue When the conditions are met, Ops Center sends a notification and creates an incident. By default, OS instances have three monitoring rules associated with file systems: File System Reachability: Triggers an incident if a file system is not reachable NAS Library Status: Triggers an incident for a value of "WARNING" or "DEGRADED" for a NAS-based file system File System Used Space Percentage: Triggers an incident when file system utilization grows beyond defined thresholds You can view these rules in the Monitoring tab for an OS: Of course, the default monitoring rules is that they apply to every file system associated with an OS instance. As a result, any issue with NAS accessibility or disk utilization will trigger an incident. This can cause incidents for file systems to be reported multiple times if the same shared storage is used by many assets, as shown in this screen shot: Depending on the level of control you'd like, there are a number of ways to fine tune incident reporting. Note that any changes to an asset's monitoring policy will detach it from the default, creating a new monitoring policy for the asset. If you'd like, you can extract a monitoring policy from an asset, which allows you to save it and apply the customized monitoring profile to other OS assets. Solution #1: Modify the Reporting Thresholds In some cases, you may want to modify the basic conditions for incident reporting in your file system. The changes you make to a default monitoring rule will apply to all of the file systems associated with your operating system. Selecting the File Systems Used Space Percentage entry and clicking the "Edit Alert Monitoring Rule Parameters" button opens a pop-up dialog which allows you to modify the rule. The first screen lets you decide when you will check for file system usage, and how long you will wait before opening an incident in Ops Center. By default, Ops Center monitors continuously and reports disk utilization issues which exist for more than 15 minutes. The second screen lets you define actual threshold values. By default, Ops Center opens a Warning level incident is utilization rises above 80%, and a Critical level incident for utilization above 95% Solution #2: Disable Incident Reporting for File System If you'd rather not report file system incidents, you can disable the monitoring rules altogether. In this case, you can select the monitoring rules and click the "Disable Alert Monitoring Rule(s)" button to open the pop-up confirmation dialog. Like the first solution, this option affects all file system monitoring. It allows you to completely disable incident reporting for NAS library status or file system space consumption. Solution #3: Create New Monitoring Rules for Specific File Systems If you'd like to have the greatest flexibility when monitoring file systems, you can create entirely new rules. Clicking the "Add Alert Monitoring Rule" (the icon with the green plus sign) opens a wizard which allows you to define a new rule.  This rule will be based on a threshold, and will be used to monitor operating system assets. We'd like to add a rule to track disk utilization for a specific file system - the /nfs-guest directory. To do this, we specify the following attribute FileSystemUsages.name=/nfs-guest.usedSpacePercentage The value of name in the attribute allows us to define a specific NFS shared directory or file system... in the case of this OS, we could have chosen any of the values shown in the File Systems Utilization chart at the beginning of this article. usedSpacePercentage lets us define a threshold based on the percentage of total disk space used. There are a number of other values that we could use for threshold-based monitoring of FileSystemUsages, including freeSpace freeSpacePercentage totalSpace usedSpace usedSpacePercentage The final sections of the screen allow us to determine when to monitor for disk usage, and how long to wait after utilization reaches a threshold before creating an incident. The next screen lets us define the threshold values and severity levels for the monitoring rule: If historical data is available, Ops Center will display it in the screen. Clicking the Apply button will create the new monitoring rule and active it in your monitoring policy. If you combine this with one of the previous solutions, you can precisely define which file systems will generate incidents and notifications. For example, this monitoring policy has the default "File System Used Space Percentage" rule disabled, but the new rule reports ONLY on utilization for the /nfs-guest directory. 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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, April 08, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, April 08, 2010New ProjectsBackUpAnyWhere: BackUpAnyWhereCustomFormbyEndUser: 在项目开发中，经常遇到不同的用户对同一报表有不同要求的情况，有时甚至用户需要从头生成一个报表，在以前可能使用第三方的开发工具来实现。在SQL Server2005中，通过使用Reporting Services可以使最终用户不通过编码，只要了解数据结构就能自行编辑报表。本例使用Adventur...DbExecutor - linq based database executor: IEnumerable based database reader. (linq like primitive sql executor)DeepZoomRenderingPack: A collection of libraries and plug-ins architecture that turns various files (like PDF, PS, etc.) into a "Visual" representation that the DeepZoom ...DotNetNuke Russian Language packs: DNNRussianLP - DotNetNuke Russian Language pack. F# Refactor: Deisgned to bring Code Refactoring capabilities to the F# Language in Visual Studio 2010. Invocando WebService e Site HTTP dinamicamente com HTTPWebRequest C#: Invocando Site HTTP e WebService dinamicamente com HTTPWebRequest Passando o SoapAction e Envelope XML Escrito em C# www.biztalkbrasil.c...Jitbit WYSWYG BBCode Editor: "Jitbit WYSIWYG-BBCode" is a browser-based JavaScript-powered WYSIWYG BBCode editorMRDS Services for Phidgets: MRDS (Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio) Services for Phidgets provides additional services for Phidgets sensors and controllers that are not inc...MSBuild Addin: This tool is a simple addin for VisualStudio 2008 used in association with Microsoft MSBuild. It allows you to run MSBuild directly inside Visual S...NISHIL-BizTalk Custom Eventlog Functiod: While testing our maps at times when it fails we cant trace it because we don’t know what the output of the functiods are. Normally in a single ma...Northest GNSG: Supinfo B3C Paris Northest University project. Galego, Neveu, Simon, Geissmann.Oily: Composite application project for oil parameters. It's developed in C#Outlook.Utility: The MSDN article Outlook Customization for Integrating with Enterprise Applications at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/Aa479345 has quite a...Particle Plot Pivot: Scan select particle physics experiment web sites for plots and generate a Pivot display for easy browsing.project tca: project tca - translating chat application. Satisfyr: A new way of performing assertions on tests so that they remain agnostic to the underlying test framework, and leverage .NET built-in lambda syntax.sejce2008: jce se course wiki and projects linksSGB Controls: SGB Controls is a set of standard .net controls that include a number of enhancements to make life easier for the developer. These controls incl...Syringe: Syringe is a lightweight service container and dependency injection library designed for use with ASP.NET MVC2. Supported features: Dependency inj...topicbox: topicboxUr-Index: Ur-Index makes it a lot easier to create onomastic indexes for books in pdf format.VietGeeks ZohoDocApis: Implement .NET Zoho Document Apis library to help developer can intergrate Zoho Docs easy with their websitesWebometrics Dashboard: Webometrics Dashboardwebpress: It is a WebBased CMS and Blog platform.WPF Ink Canvas Toolbar: WPF Ink Canvas Toolbar makes it easy for WPF developers to use pen input in TabletPC or UMPC applications. The WPF InkCanvas control has drawing, e...WS-TMS: WS GISG HTT TMSNew ReleasesBatterySaver: Version 1.0: Fixed battery increase/decrease events not firing Fixed memory corruption error Added working set trimming (used very sparingly) Fixed poorly rende...Chargify.NET: Chargify.NET 0.65: Added in Transactions, Subscription Re-activation, and finally XML documentation (which has been missing in the previous releases).DbExecutor - linq based database executor: DbExecutor ver.1.0.0.1: renameDotNetNuke Russian Language packs: Russian Language Pack for DotNetNuke 04.09.02: Russian Language Pack for DotNetNuke 04.09.02Encrypted Notes: Encrypted Notes 1.6.3: This is the latest version of Encrypted Notes (1.6.3), with general improvements. It has an installer that will create a directory 'CPascoe' in My ...Invocando WebService e Site HTTP dinamicamente com HTTPWebRequest C#: Código projeto CallSiteHTTP: Código escrito em C#.NET 2.0 - VS2005 Contem: Solution completa(código e executável) XML de configuração - Config.xml ...Jitbit WYSWYG BBCode Editor: Main package: Contains the JS-file, CSS-file and a sample.Live Writer Picasa Plugin: Live Writer Picasa Plugin 1.1.0: Changelog Communication with Picasa Web Albums is done directly via HTTP now (v1.0.0 used Google's GData .NET Libraries) The plugin can search fo...MRDS Services for Phidgets: Phidgets for RDS 2008 R3: First Beta Release This ZIP file contains a web page called Readme_CodePlex.html that explains how to install the RDS Phidgets services for RDS 200...MSBuild Addin: MsBuildAddin-v1.0.0: Initial versionMSBuild Addin: MsBuildAddin-v1.0.0-src.zip: Initial versionOutlook.Utility: Outlook.Utility v1: I have used most of the code in previous projects and seems to be quite stable. Of course the point of open sourcing this is so this project is use...Scrum Dashboard: Scrum Dashboard v3 Alpha 1: Scrum Dashboard v3 is targeting .NET 4, TFS 2010 and the brand new Scrum for Team System v3 process templates. Most of the code has been rewritten ...SharePoint Labs: SPLab4004A-FRA-Level100: SPLab4004A-FRA-Level100 This SharePoint Lab will teach you the 4th best practice you should apply when writing code with the SharePoint API. Lab La...SharePoint Labs: SPLab5012A-FRA-Level100: SPLab5012A-FRA-Level100 This SharePoint Lab will teach you how to provision a new welcome page (how to change and rename the default.aspx page) on ...Shweet: SharePoint 2010 Team Messaging built with Pex: Shweet Source Code: Although the latest version pex and moles used with this project is not available, we thought it would be useful to provide a download to the source.Syringe: Syringe 1.0: Features Dependency injection on properties of services in container Dependency injection on constructors of services in container ASP.Net Mvc ...Text to HTML: 0.4.1.0: Cambios de la versiónOptimización del código de exportación reduciendo el código. Cambio en el icono de exportación. Añadido menú Seleccionar t...VsTortoise - a TortoiseSVN add-in for Microsoft Visual Studio: VsTortoise Build 23: Build 23 Fix: Executing "Blame" through the Solution Explorer on a file opens TortoiseMerge rather than TortoiseBlame. Build 22 (beta) New: Visua...WPF Ink Canvas Toolbar: WPF Ink Canvas Toolbar 1.0: First release - included custom colour selectionMost Popular ProjectsRawrWBFS ManagerMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseASP.NET Ajax LibrarySilverlight ToolkitAJAX Control ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)ASP.NETMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesFacebook Developer ToolkitMost Active ProjectsGraffiti CMSnopCommerce. Open Source online shop e-commerce solution.RawrShweet: SharePoint 2010 Team Messaging built with Pexpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryAcadsysAutoPocoIonics Isapi Rewrite FilterNcqrs Framework - The CQRS framework for .NETFarseer Physics Engine

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• SQL SERVER – Step by Step Guide to Beginning Data Quality Services in SQL Server 2012 – Introduction to DQS

  - by pinaldave

  Data Quality Services is a very important concept of SQL Server. I have recently started to explore the same and I am really learning some good concepts. Here are two very important blog posts which one should go over before continuing this blog post. Installing Data Quality Services (DQS) on SQL Server 2012 Connecting Error to Data Quality Services (DQS) on SQL Server 2012 This article is introduction to Data Quality Services for beginners. We will be using an Excel file Click on the image to enlarge the it. In the first article we learned to install DQS. In this article we will see how we can learn about building Knowledge Base and using it to help us identify the quality of the data as well help correct the bad quality of the data. Here are the two very important steps we will be learning in this tutorial. Building a New Knowledge Base  Creating a New Data Quality Project Let us start the building the Knowledge Base. Click on New Knowledge Base. In our project we will be using the Excel as a knowledge base. Here is the Excel which we will be using. There are two columns. One is Colors and another is Shade. They are independent columns and not related to each other. The point which I am trying to show is that in Column A there are unique data and in Column B there are duplicate records. Clicking on New Knowledge Base will bring up the following screen. Enter the name of the new knowledge base. Clicking NEXT will bring up following screen where it will allow to select the EXCE file and it will also let users select the source column. I have selected Colors and Shade both as a source column. Creating a domain is very important. Here you can create a unique domain or domain which is compositely build from Colors and Shade. As this is the first example, I will create unique domain – for Colors I will create domain Colors and for Shade I will create domain Shade. Here is the screen which will demonstrate how the screen will look after creating domains. Clicking NEXT it will bring you to following screen where you can do the data discovery. Clicking on the START will start the processing of the source data provided. Pre-processed data will show various information related to the source data. In our case it shows that Colors column have unique data whereas Shade have non-unique data and unique data rows are only two. In the next screen you can actually add more rows as well see the frequency of the data as the values are listed unique. Clicking next will publish the knowledge base which is just created. Now the knowledge base is created. We will try to take any random data and attempt to do DQS implementation over it. I am using another excel sheet here for simplicity purpose. In reality you can easily use SQL Server table for the same. Click on New Data Quality Project to see start DQS Project. In the next screen it will ask which knowledge base to use. We will be using our Colors knowledge base which we have recently created. In the Colors knowledge base we had two columns – 1) Colors and 2) Shade. In our case we will be using both of the mappings here. User can select one or multiple column mapping over here. Now the most important phase of the complete project. Click on Start and it will make the cleaning process and shows various results. In our case there were two columns to be processed and it completed the task with necessary information. It demonstrated that in Colors columns it has not corrected any value by itself but in Shade value there is a suggestion it has. We can train the DQS to correct values but let us keep that subject for future blog posts. Now click next and keep the domain Colors selected left side. It will demonstrate that there are two incorrect columns which it needs to be corrected. Here is the place where once corrected value will be auto-corrected in future. I manually corrected the value here and clicked on Approve radio buttons. As soon as I click on Approve buttons the rows will be disappeared from this tab and will move to Corrected Tab. If I had rejected tab it would have moved the rows to Invalid tab as well. In this screen you can see how the corrected 2 rows are demonstrated. You can click on Correct tab and see previously validated 6 rows which passed the DQS process. Now let us click on the Shade domain on the left side of the screen. This domain shows very interesting details as there DQS system guessed the correct answer as Dark with the confidence level of 77%. It is quite a high confidence level and manual observation also demonstrate that Dark is the correct answer. I clicked on Approve and the row moved to corrected tab. On the next screen DQS shows the summary of all the activities. It also demonstrates how the correction of the quality of the data was performed. The user can explore their data to a SQL Server Table, CSV file or Excel. The user also has an option to either explore data and all the associated cleansing info or data only. I will select Data only for demonstration purpose. Clicking explore will generate the files. Let us open the generated file. It will look as following and it looks pretty complete and corrected. Well, we have successfully completed DQS Process. The process is indeed very easy. I suggest you try this out yourself and you will find it very easy to learn. In future we will go over advanced concepts. Are you using this feature on your production server? If yes, would you please leave a comment with your environment and business need. It will be indeed interesting to see where it is implemented. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Business Intelligence, Data Warehousing, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Data Quality Services, DQS

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• Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.2 Event and its SNMP Interface

  - by user12609115

  Background The cluster event SNMP interface was first introduced in Oracle Solaris Cluster 3.2 release. The details of the SNMP interface are described in the Oracle Solaris Cluster System Administration Guide and the Cluster 3.2 SNMP blog. Prior to the Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.2 release, when the event SNMP interface was enabled, it would take effect on WARNING or higher severity events. The events with WARNING or higher severity are usually for the status change of a cluster component from ONLINE to OFFLINE. The interface worked like an alert/alarm interface when some components in the cluster were out of service (changed to OFFLINE). The consumers of this interface could not get notification for all status changes and configuration changes in the cluster. Cluster Event and its SNMP Interface in Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.2 The user model of the cluster event SNMP interface is the same as what was provided in the previous releases. The cluster event SNMP interface is not enabled by default on a freshly installed cluster; you can enable it by using the cluster event SNMP administration commands on any cluster nodes. Usually, you only need to enable it on one of the cluster nodes or a subset of the cluster nodes because all cluster nodes get the same cluster events. When it is enabled, it is responsible for two basic tasks. • Logs up to 100 most recent NOTICE or higher severity events to the MIB. • Sends SNMP traps to the hosts that are configured to receive the above events. The changes in the Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.2 release are1) Introduction of the NOTICE severity for the cluster configuration and status change events.The NOTICE severity is introduced for the cluster event in the 4.2 release. It is the severity between the INFO and WARNING severity. Now all severities for the cluster events are (from low to high) • INFO (not exposed to the SNMP interface) • NOTICE (newly introduced in the 4.2 release) • WARNING • ERROR • CRITICAL • FATAL In the 4.2 release, the cluster event system is enhanced to make sure at least one event with the NOTICE or a higher severity will be generated when there is a configuration or status change from a cluster component instance. In other words, the cluster events from a cluster with the NOTICE or higher severities will cover all status and configuration changes in the cluster (include all component instances). The cluster component instance here refers to an instance of the following cluster componentsnode, quorum, resource group, resource, network interface, device group, disk, zone cluster and geo cluster heartbeat. For example, pnode1 is an instance of the cluster node component, and oracleRG is an instance of the cluster resource group. With the introduction of the NOTICE severity event, when the cluster event SNMP interface is enabled, the consumers of the SNMP interface will get notification for all status and configuration changes in the cluster. A thrid-party system management platform with the cluster SNMP interface integration can generate alarms and clear alarms programmatically, because it can get notifications for the status change from ONLINE to OFFLINE and also from OFFLINE to ONLINE. 2) Customization for the cluster event SNMP interface • The number of events logged to the MIB is 100. When the number of events stored in the MIB reaches 100 and a new qualified event arrives, the oldest event will be removed before storing the new event to the MIB (FIFO, first in, first out). The 100 is the default and minimum value for the number of events stored in the MIB. It can be changed by setting the log_number property value using the clsnmpmib command. The maximum number that can be set for the property is 500. • The cluster event SNMP interface takes effect on the NOTICE or high severity events. The NOTICE severity is also the default and lowest event severity for the SNMP interface. The SNMP interface can be configured to take effect on other higher severity events, such as WARNING or higher severity events by setting the min_severity property to the WARNING. When the min_severity property is set to the WARNING, the cluster event SNMP interface would behave the same as the previous releases (prior to the 4.2 release). Examples, • Set the number of events stored in the MIB to 200 # clsnmpmib set -p log_number=200 event • Set the interface to take effect on WARNING or higher severity events. # clsnmpmib set -p min_severity=WARNING event Administering the Cluster Event SNMP Interface Oracle Solaris Cluster provides the following three commands to administer the SNMP interface. • clsnmpmib: administer the SNMP interface, and the MIB configuration. • clsnmphost: administer hosts for the SNMP traps • clsnmpuser: administer SNMP users (specific for SNMP v3 protocol) Only clsnmpmib is changed in the 4.2 release to support the aforementioned customization of the SNMP interface. Here are some simple examples using the commands. Examples: 1. Enable the cluster event SNMP interface on the local node # clsnmpmib enable event 2. Display the status of the cluster event SNMP interface on the local node # clsnmpmib show -v 3. Configure my_host to receive the cluster event SNMP traps. # clsnmphost add my_host Cluster Event SNMP Interface uses the common agent container SNMP adaptor, which is based on the JDMK SNMP implementation as its SNMP agent infrastructure. By default, the port number for the SNMP MIB is 11161, and the port number for the SNMP traps is 11162. The port numbers can be changed by using the cacaoadm. For example, # cacaoadm list-params Print all changeable parameters. The output includes the snmp-adaptor-port and snmp-adaptor-trap-port properties. # cacaoadm set-param snmp-adaptor-port=1161 Set the SNMP MIB port number to 1161. # cacaoadm set-param snmp-adaptor-trap-port=1162 Set the SNMP trap port number to 1162. The cluster event SNMP MIB is defined in sun-cluster-event-mib.mib, which is located in the /usr/cluster/lib/mibdirectory. Its OID is 1.3.6.1.4.1.42.2.80, that can be used to walk through the MIB data. Again, for more detail information about the cluster event SNMP interface, please see the Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.2 System Administration Guide. - Leland Chen 

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• Mocking the Unmockable: Using Microsoft Moles with Gallio

  - by Thomas Weller

  Usual opensource mocking frameworks (like e.g. Moq or Rhino.Mocks) can mock only interfaces and virtual methods. In contrary to that, Microsoft’s Moles framework can ‘mock’ virtually anything, in that it uses runtime instrumentation to inject callbacks in the method MSIL bodies of the moled methods. Therefore, it is possible to detour any .NET method, including non-virtual/static methods in sealed types. This can be extremely helpful when dealing e.g. with code that calls into the .NET framework, some third-party or legacy stuff etc… Some useful collected resources (links to website, documentation material and some videos) can be found in my toolbox on Delicious under this link: http://delicious.com/thomasweller/toolbox+moles A Gallio extension for Moles Originally, Moles is a part of Microsoft’s Pex framework and thus integrates best with Visual Studio Unit Tests (MSTest). However, the Moles sample download contains some additional assemblies to also support other unit test frameworks. They provide a Moled attribute to ease the usage of mole types with the respective framework (there are extensions for NUnit, xUnit.net and MbUnit v2 included with the samples). As there is no such extension for the Gallio platform, I did the few required lines myself – the resulting Gallio.Moles.dll is included with the sample download. With this little assembly in place, it is possible to use Moles with Gallio like that: [Test, Moled] public void SomeTest() {     ... What you can do with it Moles can be very helpful, if you need to ‘mock’ something other than a virtual or interface-implementing method. This might be the case when dealing with some third-party component, legacy code, or if you want to ‘mock’ the .NET framework itself. Generally, you need to announce each moled type that you want to use in a test with the MoledType attribute on assembly level. For example: [assembly: MoledType(typeof(System.IO.File))] Below are some typical use cases for Moles. For a more detailed overview (incl. naming conventions and an instruction on how to create the required moles assemblies), please refer to the reference material above.  Detouring the .NET framework Imagine that you want to test a method similar to the one below, which internally calls some framework method:   public void ReadFileContent(string fileName) {     this.FileContent = System.IO.File.ReadAllText(fileName); } Using a mole, you would replace the call to the File.ReadAllText(string) method with a runtime delegate like so: [Test, Moled] [Description("This 'mocks' the System.IO.File class with a custom delegate.")] public void ReadFileContentWithMoles() {     // arrange ('mock' the FileSystem with a delegate)     System.IO.Moles.MFile.ReadAllTextString = (fname => fname == FileName ? FileContent : "WrongFileName");       // act     var testTarget = new TestTarget.TestTarget();     testTarget.ReadFileContent(FileName);       // assert     Assert.AreEqual(FileContent, testTarget.FileContent); } Detouring static methods and/or classes A static method like the below… public static string StaticMethod(int x, int y) {     return string.Format("{0}{1}", x, y); } … can be ‘mocked’ with the following: [Test, Moled] public void StaticMethodWithMoles() {     MStaticClass.StaticMethodInt32Int32 = ((x, y) => "uups");       var result = StaticClass.StaticMethod(1, 2);       Assert.AreEqual("uups", result); } Detouring constructors You can do this delegate thing even with a class’ constructor. The syntax for this is not all  too intuitive, because you have to setup the internal state of the mole, but generally it works like a charm. For example, to replace this c’tor… public class ClassWithCtor {     public int Value { get; private set; }       public ClassWithCtor(int someValue)     {         this.Value = someValue;     } } … you would do the following: [Test, Moled] public void ConstructorTestWithMoles() {     MClassWithCtor.ConstructorInt32 =            ((@class, @value) => new MClassWithCtor(@class) {ValueGet = () => 99});       var classWithCtor = new ClassWithCtor(3);       Assert.AreEqual(99, classWithCtor.Value); } Detouring abstract base classes You can also use this approach to ‘mock’ abstract base classes of a class that you call in your test. Assumed that you have something like that: public abstract class AbstractBaseClass {     public virtual string SaySomething()     {         return "Hello from base.";     } }      public class ChildClass : AbstractBaseClass {     public override string SaySomething()     {         return string.Format(             "Hello from child. Base says: '{0}'",             base.SaySomething());     } } Then you would set up the child’s underlying base class like this: [Test, Moled] public void AbstractBaseClassTestWithMoles() {     ChildClass child = new ChildClass();     new MAbstractBaseClass(child)         {                 SaySomething = () => "Leave me alone!"         }         .InstanceBehavior = MoleBehaviors.Fallthrough;       var hello = child.SaySomething();       Assert.AreEqual("Hello from child. Base says: 'Leave me alone!'", hello); } Setting the moles behavior to a value of  MoleBehaviors.Fallthrough causes the ‘original’ method to be called if a respective delegate is not provided explicitly – here it causes the ChildClass’ override of the SaySomething() method to be called. There are some more possible scenarios, where the Moles framework could be of much help (e.g. it’s also possible to detour interface implementations like IEnumerable<T> and such…). One other possibility that comes to my mind (because I’m currently dealing with that), is to replace calls from repository classes to the ADO.NET Entity Framework O/R mapper with delegates to isolate the repository classes from the underlying database, which otherwise would not be possible… Usage Since Moles relies on runtime instrumentation, mole types must be run under the Pex profiler. This only works from inside Visual Studio if you write your tests with MSTest (Visual Studio Unit Test). While other unit test frameworks generally can be used with Moles, they require the respective tests to be run via command line, executed through the moles.runner.exe tool. A typical test execution would be similar to this: moles.runner.exe <mytests.dll> /runner:<myframework.console.exe> /args:/<myargs> So, the moled test can be run through tools like NCover or a scripting tool like MSBuild (which makes them easy to run in a Continuous Integration environment), but they are somewhat unhandy to run in the usual TDD workflow (which I described in some detail here). To make this a bit more fluent, I wrote a ReSharper live template to generate the respective command line for the test (it is also included in the sample download – moled_cmd.xml). - This is just a quick-and-dirty ‘solution’. Maybe it makes sense to write an extra Gallio adapter plugin (similar to the many others that are already provided) and include it with the Gallio download package, if  there’s sufficient demand for it. As of now, the only way to run tests with the Moles framework from within Visual Studio is by using them with MSTest. From the command line, anything with a managed console runner can be used (provided that the appropriate extension is in place)… A typical Gallio/Moles command line (as generated by the mentioned R#-template) looks like that: "%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Moles\bin\moles.runner.exe" /runner:"%ProgramFiles%\Gallio\bin\Gallio.Echo.exe" "Gallio.Moles.Demo.dll" /args:/r:IsolatedAppDomain /args:/filter:"ExactType:TestFixture and Member:ReadFileContentWithMoles" -- Note: When using the command line with Echo (Gallio’s console runner), be sure to always include the IsolatedAppDomain option, otherwise the tests won’t use the instrumentation callbacks! -- License issues As I already said, the free mocking frameworks can mock only interfaces and virtual methods. if you want to mock other things, you need the Typemock Isolator tool for that, which comes with license costs (Although these ‘costs’ are ridiculously low compared to the value that such a tool can bring to a software project, spending money often is a considerable gateway hurdle in real life...).  The Moles framework also is not totally free, but comes with the same license conditions as the (closely related) Pex framework: It is free for academic/non-commercial use only, to use it in a ‘real’ software project requires an MSDN Subscription (from VS2010pro on). The demo solution The sample solution (VS 2008) can be downloaded from here. It contains the Gallio.Moles.dll which provides the here described Moled attribute, the above mentioned R#-template (moled_cmd.xml) and a test fixture containing the above described use case scenarios. To run it, you need the Gallio framework (download) and Microsoft Moles (download) being installed in the default locations. Happy testing…

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• Silverlight for Windows Embedded Tutorial (step 5 and a bit of Windows Phone 7)

  - by Valter Minute

  If you haven’t spent the last week in the middle of the Sahara desert or traveling on a sled in the north pole area you should have heard something about the launch of Windows Phone 7 Series (or Windows Phone Series 7, or Windows Series Phone 7 or something like that). Even if you are in the middle of the desert or somewhere around the north pole you may have been reached by the news, since it seems that WP7S (using the full name will kill my available bandwidth!) is generating a lot of buzz in the development and IT communities. One of the most important aspects of this new platform is that it will be programmed using a new set of tools and frameworks, completely different from the ones used on older releases of Windows Mobile (or SmartPhone, or PocketPC or whatever…). WP7S applications can be developed using Silverlight or XNA. If you want to learn something more about WP7S development you can download the preview of Charles Petzold’s book about it: http://www.charlespetzold.com/phone/index.html Charles Petzold is also the author of “Programming Windows”, the first book I ever read about programming on Windows (it was Windows 3.0 at that time!). The fact that even I was able to learn how to develop Windows application is a proof of the quality of Petzold’s work. This book is up to his standards and the 150pages preview is already rich in technical contents without being boring or complicated to understand. I may be able to become a Windows Phone developer thanks to mr. Petzold. Mr. Petzold uses some nice samples to introduce the basic concepts of Silverlight development on WP7S. On this new platform you’ll use managed code to develop your application, so those samples can’t be ported on Windows CE R3 as they are, but I would like to take one of the first samples (called “SilverlightTapHello1”) and adapt it to Silverlight for Windows Embedded to show that even plain old native code can be used to develop “cool” user interfaces! The sample shows the standard WP7S title header and a textbox with an hello world message inside it. When the user touches the textbox, it will change its color. When the user touches the background (Grid) behind it, its default color (plain old White) will be restored. Let’s see how we can implement the same features on our embedded device! I took the XAML code of the sample (you can download the book samples here: http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/D/B/1DB49641-3956-41F1-BAFA-A021673C709E/CodeSamples_DRAFTPreview_ProgrammingWindowsPhone7Series.zip) and changed it a little bit to remove references to WP7S or managed runtime. If you compare the resulting files you will see that I was able to keep all the resources inside the App.xaml files and the structure of  MainPage.XAML almost intact. This is the Silverlight for Windows Embedded version of MainPage.XAML: <UserControl x:Class="SilverlightTapHello1.MainPage" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" xmlns:phoneNavigation="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Phone.Controls;assembly=Microsoft.Phone.Controls.Navigation" xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008" xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006" mc:Ignorable="d" d:DesignWidth="480" d:DesignHeight="800" FontFamily="{StaticResource PhoneFontFamilyNormal}" FontSize="{StaticResource PhoneFontSizeNormal}" Foreground="{StaticResource PhoneForegroundBrush}" Width="640" Height="480">   <Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot" Background="{StaticResource PhoneBackgroundBrush}"> <Grid.RowDefinitions> <RowDefinition Height="Auto"/> <RowDefinition Height="*"/> </Grid.RowDefinitions>   <!--TitleGrid is the name of the application and page title--> <Grid x:Name="TitleGrid" Grid.Row="0"> <TextBlock Text="SILVERLIGHT TAP HELLO #1" x:Name="textBlockPageTitle" Style="{StaticResource PhoneTextPageTitle1Style}"/> <TextBlock Text="main page" x:Name="textBlockListTitle" Style="{StaticResource PhoneTextPageTitle2Style}"/> </Grid>   <!--ContentGrid is empty. Place new content here--> <Grid x:Name="ContentGrid" Grid.Row="1" MouseLeftButtonDown="ContentGrid_MouseButtonDown" Background="{StaticResource PhoneBackgroundBrush}"> <TextBlock x:Name="TextBlock" Text="Hello, Silverlight for Windows Embedded!" HorizontalAlignment="Center" VerticalAlignment="Center" /> </Grid> </Grid> </UserControl> If you compare it to the WP7S sample (not reported here to avoid any copyright issue) you’ll notice that I had to replace the original phoneNavigation:PhoneApplicationPage with UserControl as the root node. This make sense because there is not support for phone applications on CE 6. I also had to specify width and height of my main page (on the WP7S device this will be adjusted by the OS) and I had to replace the multi-touch event handler with the MouseLeftButtonDown event (no multitouch support for Windows CE R3, still). I also changed the hello message, of course. I used XAML2CPP to generate the boring part of our application and then added the initialization code to WinMain: int WINAPI WinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE hPrevInstance, LPTSTR lpCmdLine, int nCmdShow) { if (!XamlRuntimeInitialize()) return -1;   HRESULT retcode;   IXRApplicationPtr app; if (FAILED(retcode=GetXRApplicationInstance(&app))) return -1; XRXamlSource dictsrc;   dictsrc.SetResource(hInstance,TEXT("XAML"),IDR_XAML_App);   if (FAILED(retcode=app->LoadResourceDictionary(&dictsrc,NULL))) return -1;   MainPage page;   if (FAILED(page.Init(hInstance,app))) return -1;   UINT exitcode;   if (FAILED(page.GetVisualHost()->StartDialog(&exitcode))) return -1;   return exitcode; }   You may have noticed that there is something different from the previous samples. I added the code to load a resource dictionary. Resources are an important feature of XAML that allows you to define some values that could be replaced inside any XAML file loaded by the runtime. You can use resources to define custom styles for your fonts, backgrounds, controls etc. and to support internationalization, by providing different strings for different languages. The rest of our WinMain isn’t that different. It creates an instances of our MainPage object and displays it. The MainPage class implements an event handler for the MouseLeftButtonDown event of the ContentGrid: class MainPage : public TMainPage<MainPage> { public:   HRESULT ContentGrid_MouseButtonDown(IXRDependencyObject* source,XRMouseButtonEventArgs* args) { HRESULT retcode; IXRSolidColorBrushPtr brush; IXRApplicationPtr app;   if (FAILED(retcode=GetXRApplicationInstance(&app))) return retcode;   if (FAILED(retcode=app->CreateObject(IID_IXRSolidColorBrush,&brush))) return retcode;   COLORREF color=RGBA(0xff,0xff,0xff,0xff);   if (args->pOriginalSource==TextBlock) color=RGBA(rand()&0xFF,rand()&0xFF,rand()&0xFF,0xFF);   if (FAILED(retcode=brush->SetColor(color))) return retcode;   if (FAILED(retcode=TextBlock->SetForeground(brush))) return retcode; return S_OK; } }; As you can see this event is generated when a used clicks inside the grid or inside one of the objects it contains. Since our TextBlock is inside the grid, we don’t need to provide an event handler for its MouseLeftButtonDown event. We can just use the pOriginalSource member of the event arguments to check if the event was generated inside the textblock. If the event was generated inside the grid we create a white brush,if it’s inside the textblock we create some randomly colored brush. Notice that we need to use the RGBA macro to create colors, specifying also a transparency value for them. If we use the RGB macro the resulting color will have its Alpha channel set to zero and will be transparent. Using the SetForeground method we can change the color of our control. You can compare this to the managed code that you can find at page 40-41 of Petzold’s preview book and you’ll see that the native version isn’t much more complex than the managed one. As usual you can download the full code of the sample here: http://cid-9b7b0aefe3514dc5.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/SilverlightTapHello1.zip And remember to pre-order Charles Petzold’s “Programming Windows Phone 7 series”, I bet it will be a best-seller! Technorati Tags: Silverlight for Windows Embedded,Windows CE

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• WCF – interchangeable data-contract types

  - by nmarun

  In a WSDL based environment, unlike a CLR-world, we pass around the ‘state’ of an object and not the reference of an object. Well firstly, what does ‘state’ mean and does this also mean that we can send a struct where a class is expected (or vice-versa) as long as their ‘state’ is one and the same? Let’s see. So I have an operation contract defined as below: 1: [ServiceContract] 2: public interface ILearnWcfServiceExtend : ILearnWcfService 3: { 4: [OperationContract] 5: Employee SaveEmployee(Employee employee); 6: } 7:  8: [ServiceBehavior] 9: public class LearnWcfService : ILearnWcfServiceExtend 10: { 11: public Employee SaveEmployee(Employee employee) 12: { 13: employee.EmployeeId = 123; 14: return employee; 15: } 16: } Quite simplistic operation there (which translates to ‘absolutely no business value’). Now, the data contract Employee mentioned above is a struct. 1: public struct Employee 2: { 3: public int EmployeeId { get; set; } 4:  5: public string FName { get; set; } 6: } After compilation and consumption of this service, my proxy (in the Reference.cs file) looks like below (I’ve ignored the rest of the details just to avoid unwanted confusion): 1: public partial struct Employee : System.Runtime.Serialization.IExtensibleDataObject, System.ComponentModel.INotifyPropertyChanged I call the service with the code below: 1: private static void CallWcfService() 2: { 3: Employee employee = new Employee { FName = "A" }; 4: Console.WriteLine("IsValueType: {0}", employee.GetType().IsValueType); 5: Console.WriteLine("IsClass: {0}", employee.GetType().IsClass); 6: Console.WriteLine("Before calling the service: {0} - {1}", employee.EmployeeId, employee.FName); 7: employee = LearnWcfServiceClient.SaveEmployee(employee); 8: Console.WriteLine("Return from the service: {0} - {1}", employee.EmployeeId, employee.FName); 9: } The output is: I now change my Employee type from a struct to a class in the proxy class and run the application: 1: public partial class Employee : System.Runtime.Serialization.IExtensibleDataObject, System.ComponentModel.INotifyPropertyChanged { The output this time is: The state of an object implies towards its composition, the properties and the values of these properties and not based on whether it is a reference type (class) or a value type (struct). And as shown above, we’re actually passing an object by its state and not by reference. Continuing on the same topic of ‘type-interchangeability’, WCF treats two data contracts as equivalent if they have the same ‘wire-representation’. We can do so using the DataContract and DataMember attributes’ Name property. 1: [DataContract] 2: public struct Person 3: { 4: [DataMember] 5: public int Id { get; set; } 6:  7: [DataMember] 8: public string FirstName { get; set; } 9: } 10:  11: [DataContract(Name="Person")] 12: public class Employee 13: { 14: [DataMember(Name = "Id")] 15: public int EmployeeId { get; set; } 16:  17: [DataMember(Name="FirstName")] 18: public string FName { get; set; } 19: } I’ve created two data contracts with the exact same wire-representation. Just remember that the names and the types of data members need to match to be considered equivalent. The question then arises as to what gets generated in the proxy class. Despite us declaring two data contracts (Person and Employee), only one gets emitted – Person. This is because we’re saying that the Employee type has the same wire-representation as the Person type. Also that the signature of the SaveEmployee operation gets changed on the proxy side: 1: [System.CodeDom.Compiler.GeneratedCodeAttribute("System.ServiceModel", "4.0.0.0")] 2: [System.ServiceModel.ServiceContractAttribute(ConfigurationName="ServiceProxy.ILearnWcfServiceExtend")] 3: public interface ILearnWcfServiceExtend 4: { 5: [System.ServiceModel.OperationContractAttribute(Action="http://tempuri.org/ILearnWcfServiceExtend/SaveEmployee", ReplyAction="http://tempuri.org/ILearnWcfServiceExtend/SaveEmployeeResponse")] 6: ClientApplication.ServiceProxy.Person SaveEmployee(ClientApplication.ServiceProxy.Person employee); 7: } But, on the service side, the SaveEmployee still accepts and returns an Employee data contract. 1: [ServiceBehavior] 2: public class LearnWcfService : ILearnWcfServiceExtend 3: { 4: public Employee SaveEmployee(Employee employee) 5: { 6: employee.EmployeeId = 123; 7: return employee; 8: } 9: } Despite all these changes, our output remains the same as the last one: This is type-interchangeability at work! Here’s one more thing to ponder about. Our Person type is a struct and Employee type is a class. Then how is it that the Person type got emitted as a ‘class’ in the proxy? It’s worth mentioning that WSDL describes a type called Employee and does not say whether it is a class or a struct (see the SOAP message below): 1: <soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" 2: xmlns:tem="http://tempuri.org/" 3: xmlns:ser="http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/ServiceApplication"> 4: <soapenv:Header/> 5: <soapenv:Body> 6: <tem:SaveEmployee> 7: <!--Optional:--> 8: <tem:employee> 9: <!--Optional:--> 10: <ser:EmployeeId>?</ser:EmployeeId> 11: <!--Optional:--> 12: <ser:FName>?</ser:FName> 13: </tem:employee> 14: </tem:SaveEmployee> 15: </soapenv:Body> 16: </soapenv:Envelope> There are some differences between how ‘Add Service Reference’ and the svcutil.exe generate the proxy class, but turns out both do some kind of reflection and determine the type of the data contract and emit the code accordingly. So since the Employee type is a class, the proxy ‘Person’ type gets generated as a class. In fact, reflecting on svcutil.exe application, you’ll see that there are a couple of places wherein a flag actually determines a type as a class or a struct. One example is in the ExportISerializableDataContract method in the System.Runtime.Serialization.CodeExporter class. Seems like these flags have a say in deciding whether the type gets emitted as a struct or a class. This behavior is different if you use the WSDL tool though. WSDL tool does not do any kind of reflection of the data contract / serialized type, it emits the type as a class by default. You can check this using the two command lines below:   Note to self: Remember ‘state’ and type-interchangeability when traversing through the WSDL planet!

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• Setup and Use SpecFlow BDD with DevExpress XAF

  - by Patrick Liekhus

  Let’s get started with using the SpecFlow BDD syntax for writing tests with the DevExpress XAF EasyTest scripting syntax.  In order for this to work you will need to download and install the prerequisites listed below.  Once they are installed follow the steps outlined below and enjoy. Prerequisites Install the following items: DevExpress eXpress Application Framework (XAF) found here SpecFlow found here Liekhus BDD/XAF Testing library found here Assumptions I am going to assume at this point that you have created your XAF application and have your Module, Win.Module and Win ready for usage.  You should have also set any attributes and/or settings as you see fit. Setup So where to start. Create a new testing project within your solution. I typically call this with a similar naming convention as used by XAF, my project name .FunctionalTests (i.e. AlbumManager.FunctionalTests). Add the following references to your project.  It should look like the reference list below. DevExpress.Data.v11.x DevExpress.Persistent.Base.v11.x DevExpress.Persistent.BaseImpl.v11.x DevExpress.Xpo.v11.2 Liekhus.Testing.BDD.Core Liekhus.Testing.BDD.DevExpress TechTalk.SpecFlow TestExecutor.v11.x (found in %Program Files%\DevExpress 2011.x\eXpressApp Framework\Tools\EasyTest Right click the TestExecutor reference and set the “Copy Local” setting to True.  This forces the TestExecutor executable to be available in the bin directory which is where the EasyTest script will be executed further down in the process. Add an Application Configuration File (app.config) to your test application.  You will need to make a few modifications to have SpecFlow generate Microsoft style unit tests.  First add the section handler for SpecFlow and then set your choice of testing framework.  I prefer MS Tests for my projects. Add the EasyTest configuration file to your project.  Add a new XML file and call it Config.xml. Open the properties window for the Config.xml file and set the “Copy to Ouput Directory” to “Copy Always”. You will setup the Config file according to the specifications of the EasyTest library my mapping to your executable and other settings.  You can find the details for the configuration of EasyTest here.  My file looks like this Create a new folder in your test project called “StepDefinitions”.  Add a new SpecFlow Step Definition file item under the StepDefinitions folder.  I typically call this class StepDefinition.cs. Have your step definition inherit from the Liekhus.Testing.BDD.DevExpress.StepDefinition class.  This will give you the default behaviors for your test in the next section. OK.  Now that we have done this series of steps, we will work on simplifying this.  This is an early preview of this new project and is not fully ready for consumption.  If you would like to experiment with it, please feel free.  Our goals are to make this a installable project on it’s own with it’s own project templates and default settings.  This will be coming in later versions.  Currently this project is in Alpha release. Let’s write our first test Remove the basic test that is created for you. We will not use the default test but rather create our own SpecFlow “Feature” files. Add a new item to your project and select the SpecFlow Feature file under C#. Name your feature file as you do your class files after the test they are performing. Writing a feature file uses the Cucumber syntax of Given… When… Then.  Think of it in these terms.  Givens are the pre-conditions for the test.  The Whens are the actual steps for the test being performed.  The Thens are the verification steps that confirm your test either passed or failed.  All of these steps are generated into a an EasyTest format and executed against your XAF project.  You can find more on the Cucumber syntax by using the Secret Ninja Cucumber Scrolls.  This document has several good styles of tests, plus you can get your fill of Chuck Norris vs Ninjas.  Pretty humorous document but full of great content. My first test is going to test the entry of a new Album into the application and is outlined below. The Feature section at the top is more for your documentation purposes.  Try to be descriptive of the test so that it makes sense to the next person behind you.  The Scenario outline is described in the Ninja Scrolls, but think of it as test template.  You can write one test outline and have multiple datasets (Scenarios) executed against that test.  Here are the steps of my test and their descriptions Given I am starting a new test – tells our test to create a new EasyTest file And (Given) the application is open – tells EasyTest to open our application defined in the Config.xml When I am at the “Albums” screen – tells XAF to navigate to the Albums list view And (When) I click the “New:Album” button – tells XAF to click the New Album button on the ribbon And (When) I enter the following information – tells XAF to find the field on the screen and put the value in that field And (When) I click the “Save and Close” button – tells XAF to click the “Save and Close” button on the detail window Then I verify results as “user” – tells the testing framework to execute the EasyTest as your configured user Once you compile and prepare your tests you should see the following in your Test View.  For each of your CreateNewAlbum lines in your scenarios, you will see a new test ready to execute. From here you will use your testing framework of choice to execute the test.  This in turn will execute the EasyTest framework to call back into your XAF application and test your business application. Again, please remember that this is an early preview and we are still working out the details.  Please let us know if you have any comments/questions/concerns. Thanks and happy testing.

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• A pseudo-listener for AlwaysOn Availability Groups for SQL Server virtual machines running in Azure

  - by MikeD

  I am involved in a project that is implementing SharePoint 2013 on virtual machines hosted in Azure. The back end data tier consists of two Azure VMs running SQL Server 2012, with the SharePoint databases contained in an AlwaysOn Availability Group. I used this "Tutorial: AlwaysOn Availability Groups in Windows Azure (GUI)" to help me implement this setup.Because Azure DHCP will not assign multiple unique IP addresses to the same VM, having an AG Listener in Azure is not currently supported.  I wanted to figure out another mechanism to support a "pseudo listener" of some sort. First, I created a CNAME (alias) record in the DNS zone with a short TTL (time to live) of 5 minutes (I may yet make this even shorter). The record represents a logical name (let's say the alias is SPSQL) of the server to connect to for the databases in the availability group (AG). When Server1 was hosting the primary replica of the AG, I would set the CNAME of SPSQL to be SERVER1. When the AG failed over to Server1, I wanted to set the CNAME to SERVER2. Seemed simple enough.(It's important to point out that the connection strings for my SharePoint services should use the CNAME alias, and not the actual server name. This whole thing falls apart otherwise.)To accomplish this, I created identical SQL Agent Jobs on Server1 and Server2, with two steps:1. Step 1: Determine if this server is hosting the primary replica.This is a TSQL step using this script:declare @agName sysname = 'AGTest'set nocount on declare @primaryReplica sysnameselect @primaryReplica = agState.primary_replicafrom sys.dm_hadr_availability_group_states agState   join sys.availability_groups ag on agstate.group_id = ag.group_id   where ag.name = @AGname if not exists(   select *    from sys.dm_hadr_availability_group_states agState   join sys.availability_groups ag on agstate.group_id = ag.group_id   where @@Servername = agstate.primary_replica    and ag.name = @AGname)begin   raiserror ('Primary replica of %s is not hosted on %s, it is hosted on %s',17,1,@Agname, @@Servername, @primaryReplica) endThis script determines if the primary replica value of the AG group is the same as the server name, which means that our server is hosting the current AG (you should update the value of the @AgName variable to the name of your AG). If this is true, I want the DNS alias to point to this server. If the current server is not hosting the primary replica, then the script raises an error. Also, if the script can't be executed because it cannot connect to the server, that also will generate an error. For the job step settings, I set the On Failure option to "Quit the job reporting success". The next step in the job will set the DNS alias to this server name, and I only want to do that if I know that it is the current primary replica, otherwise I don't want to do anything. I also include the step output in the job history so I can see the error message.Job Step 2: Update the CNAME entry in DNS with this server's name.I used a PowerShell script to accomplish this:$cname = "SPSQL.contoso.com"$query = "Select * from MicrosoftDNS_CNAMEType"$dns1 = "dc01.contoso.com"$dns2 = "dc02.contoso.com"if ((Test-Connection -ComputerName $dns1 -Count 1 -Quiet) -eq $true){    $dnsServer = $dns1}elseif ((Test-Connection -ComputerName $dns2 -Count 1 -Quiet) -eq $true) {   $dnsServer = $dns2}else{  $msg = "Unable to connect to DNS servers: " + $dns1 + ", " + $dns2   Throw $msg}$record = Get-WmiObject -Namespace "root\microsoftdns" -Query $query -ComputerName $dnsServer  | ? { $_.Ownername -match $cname }$thisServer = [System.Net.Dns]::GetHostEntry("LocalHost").HostName + "."$currentServer = $record.RecordData if ($currentServer -eq $thisServer ) {     $cname + " CNAME is up to date: " + $currentServer}else{    $cname + " CNAME is being updated to " + $thisServer + ". It was " + $currentServer    $record.RecordData = $thisServer    $record.put()}This script does a few things:finds a responsive domain controller (Test-Connection does a ping and returns a Boolean value if you specify the -Quiet parameter)makes a WMI call to the domain controller to get the current CNAME record value (Get-WmiObject)gets the FQDN of this server (GetHostEntry)checks if the CNAME record is correct and updates it if necessary(You should update the values of the variables $cname, $dns1 and $dns2 for your environment.)Since my domain controllers are also hosted in Azure VMs, either one of them could be down at any point in time, so I need to find a DC that is responsive before attempting the DNS call. The other little thing here is that the CNAME record contains the FQDN of a machine, plus it ends with a period. So the comparison of the CNAME record has to take the trailing period into account. When I tested this step, I was getting ACCESS DENIED responses from PowerShell for the Get-WmiObject cmdlet that does a remote lookup on the DC. This occurred because the SQL Agent service account was not a member of the Domain Admins group, so I decided to create a SQL Credential to store the credentials for a domain administrator account and use it as a PowerShell proxy (rather than give the service account Domain Admins membership).In SQL Management Studio, right click on the Credentials node (under the server's Security node), and choose New Credential...Then, under SQL Agent-->Proxies, right click on the PowerShell node and choose New Proxy...Finally, in the job step properties for the PowerShell step, select the new proxy in the Run As drop down.I created this two step Job on both nodes of the Availability Group, but if you had more than two nodes, just create the same job on all the servers. I set the schedule for the job to execute every minute.When the server that is hosting the primary replica is running the job, the job history looks like this:The job history on the secondary server looks like this: When a failover occurs, the SQL Agent job on the new primary replica will detect that the CNAME needs to be updated within a minute. Based on the TTL of the CNAME (which I said at the beginning was 5 minutes), the SharePoint servers will get the new alias within five minutes and should be able to reconnect. I may want to shorten up the TTL to reduce the time it takes for the client connections to use the new alias. Using a DNS CNAME and a SQL Agent Job on all servers hosting AG replicas, I was able to create a pseudo-listener to automatically change the name of the server that was hosting the primary replica, for a scenario where I cannot use a regular AG listener (in this case, because the servers are all hosted in Azure).    

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, May 09, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, May 09, 2010New ProjectsArtificial Spy: ASPX, C#, XML, This is big project for creation application for: People Search. People connection. Background check. Crime Prevention. Socia...Chef Framework: CHEF: CSS, HTML, Events, & Functions. Is a collection of libraries to help build concerns separated websites.Crabit Full File Manger: File manager SystemEPiMVC - EPiServer CMS with ASP.NET MVC: A framework for using EPiServer CMS with ASP.NET MVC.Fimyid IX: all My projects In ONE!Hosting Folder Sizes: When you run a hosting environment with the ability to upload files, and you're charging per gigabyte per month, you need quick statistics about di...Let's Up: A tool that breaks you every 50 minutes to protect your health.MediaXenter: MediaXenterMSClub BY: Microsoft community web-site projectOrbisArca: Windows Mobile gameSpatial Gateway: A common and standardized way of accessing spatial data stored in different datastores. This also includes functionality for replication across dif...Squiggle - A Free open source Lan Messenger: Squiggle is a free lan messenger that does not require a server. Just download and run it and you're ready to talk to everyone on your lan. Squi...Video Downloader: Video Downloader makes it easier for developers to generate download links for videos from You-Tube. You'll no longer have to search through source...ViewModelSupport: This is not an MVVM framework. It is just the base class I use to reduce the friction when writing ViewModels. Making it public to share my ideas.WPF CCTV Surveillance Control with IP Cameras.: Integracion de Video IP en WPF. IP Camera. WPF dinamic Control and Events in Video System. Surveillance system. CCTV system. .NetNew Releases.NET Extensions - Extension Methods Library: Release 2010.07: Added some extension methods for ICollection<T> and IList<T> for demonstrating the differences between both interfaces: - ICollection<T>.AddRangeU...bitly.net: bitly.dll: This is a .net DLL that works with the on-line URL shortening service bit.ly Compiled using .net 4.0 but the source code should run with version 2 ...Crabit Full File Manger: Crabit V1.0: Firts file manager system previewCSharp Intellisense: V1.9: this is a major release that was focus on bug fix, tooltip support and styling.Fimyid IX: fimyid ix 1.0: New Liscence!Gherkin editor: Beta: Added support for i18n (all languages supported by Gherkin/Cucumber are suported). Removed auto-completion of statements like As a user and followi...Grunty OS: GruntyOSAlphaSC: Grunty os sourceHKGolden Express: HKGoldenExpress (Build 201005081830): New features: Users can post new message or reply to a message. Special thanks for help from members 劉佳偉 (ID: 179892) and Maize. (ID: 142974). Bu...iLove SharePoint: Lookup Field with Picker 2010: Just forget the fuc**** dropdowns! Requirements: SharePoint Foundation 2010 Features * Single- and multi-Selection Mode * Search in pick...LazyNet: LazyNet Beta 2: Refresh Network Bug fixed.LazyNet: LazyNEt_Beta3: Beta 3 Release, Better Network RefreshingLazyNet: LazyNetBeta3_SRC: Refresh NetworkLet's Up: 1.0 (Build 100509): This is the first versionLive Distributed Objects: Windows Installer r48444 (2010-05-08): current development snapshotMDownloader: MDownloader-0.15.12.58576: Fixed presenting Hotfile's captcha. Fixed FilesTube searching. Fixed determining Rapidshare postpone period. Fixed minor bugs.NSIS Autorun: NSIS Autorun 0.1.7: This release includes source code, executable binaries and example materials.SharpDevelop: SharpDevelop 3.2: Release notes: http://community.sharpdevelop.net/forums/t/11165.aspxSilverlight SDK for Bing: Silverlight SDK for Bing 1.4: Build for Visual Studio 2010 and Silverlight 4 Issues Addressed10337 10342 10367 10804 10805 10806 10807 DownloadsSilverlight SDK For B...sqwarea: Sqwarea 0.0.252.0 (alpha): This release corrects a critical bug in Persistence.GameProvider.GetNextKingId. We strongly recommend you to upgrade to this version.Stratosphere: Stratosphere 1.0.5.1: Added many features to Amazon Web Services Shell (AwsSh) Improved scalable table reader for SimpleDB multi-valued attributes Added more functio...TechEdOneNoter: TechEdOneNoter verison 2010.5.9.2010: TechEdOneNoter is a utility to create OneNote Pages based on sessions selected in the TechEd North America 2010 Session Builder. This is the first...Video Downloader: Version 1.0: Version 1.0 See Home Page for usage and more information. Please remember changes at You-Tube can prevent this software from working.Visual Studio - Lua Language Support: May 8th Update: Release NotesThis release adds collapsible functions and tables. What's new:Collapsible functions and tables Using latest version of Irony Maj...WPF CCTV Surveillance Control with IP Cameras.: Hungry Foxx CCTV Preview: Este release, corresponde a una muestra del programa completo. La idea es poder contar con una solucion para los integradores de sistemas CCTV o d...XsltDb - DotNetNuke XSLT module: 01.01.08: Bugs fixed: 17204 17203 Many new features, but undocumented yet. I'm going to update docs in a week or two, but...Most Popular ProjectsWBFS ManagerRawrAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)patterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesASP.NETPHPExcelMost Active Projectspatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryRawrThe Information Literacy Education Learning Environment (ILE)AJAX Control FrameworkCaliburn: An Application Framework for WPF and SilverlightMirror Testing SystemjQuery Library for SharePoint Web Servicespatterns & practices - UnityBlogEngine.NETTweetSharp

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, March 27, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, March 27, 2010New ProjectsAlter gear SQL index Management: SQL Index management displays a list of indexes available for the chosen database and allows you to select an individual / group of indexes to be r...ASP League Ladder System: An ASP ladder / league system for online gaming league or real life leagues also.Augmented Reality Strategy Simulator: Augmented Reality Strategy Simulator is a software suite to promote computer aided strategy planning. Sports team can visualize their strategy usin...Boo syntax highlighting for Visual Studio 2010: Simple syntax hightlighting VSX add-in for Boo language in Visual Studio 2010.easySan: easySan zur einfachen Mitgliedsverwaltung im BRKFsUnit: FsUnit makes unit-testing with F# more enjoyable. It adds a special syntax to your favorite .NET testing framework.Laughing Dog XNA Framework: Laughing Dog is a simple to use, component based 2D framework for XNA game development. At present it is very early in development and as such is f...miniTodo: WPFでMVVMの練習にてきとうに作ったTODOアプリ 実用は無理です。My Common Library on .NET with CSharp: My Common Library on .NET with CSharp, it conclude database assecc, encrypt string, data caching, StringUtility, thank you for your view.Native code wrapping using c# : fsutil sparse commands: Ever thought about creating HUGE FILES for future use but felt bad for the wasted memory? Well, SPARSE FILES are the ANSWER! This FSUTIL SPARSE CO...Open SOA Platform: A centralized system for administering applications throught a SOA Enterprise Service Bus: Runtime environment (PROD, DEV, ...) , application and s...P-DBMS: Network and Database ProjectPraiseSight: PraiseSight is supposed to become a practical tool for churches to catalog an present their songs, lyrics and presentations on a beamer. The soluti...Pretty Good Frontend: Pretty Good Frontend is a sample frontend for ConfigMgr (SCCM) 2007 and MDT 2010 Zero Touch. S3Appender (Appender for Log4Net that Uses Amazon S3 For Storing Log Files): The S3Appender is a log4net appender that stores log events in either a MemoryStream or FileStream and sends them to S3 based on time intervals and...sEmit: sEmit (sms emitter) is an application written in C# which was built to send text messages. The project was founded in May 2009 by cansik. It works ...Silverlight RIA Tools: A tool set that generates a full RIA Solutions in Silverlightthommo cannon: Cannon for shooting down ThommosTianjin Polytechnic University Online Judge: Online Judge System Built on Microsoft technologies. Vision & Scope: A distributed OJ Solution on Windows and Cloud. Technologies used or planed...Tinare: Tinare is an byte encryption and decryption alogrithm. The input key is a string password.TinyPlug: Small Plugin Manager, written in C# Allows a project to define supported interfaces, and at runtime add plugins which support (inherit) these in...Utility niconv helps to convert text from one encoding to another: .NET implementation of GUN iconv console converter utility. The niconv program converts text from one encoding to another encoding. In the future r...WareFeed - Software Business Analytics: WareFeed is a simple but effective Software Business Analytics tool written in PHP and compatible others languages such as .NET, Java or Python. It...Y36API1: Semestralni projekt na Y36APINew ReleasesAlter gear SQL index Management: Setup 1.0.0: setup for first alpha releaseASP League Ladder System: ASPLeagueRelease_0_4_1: Release v 0.41Augmented Reality Strategy Simulator: Augmented Reality Strategy Simulator: Version 1.0 InstallerAutoAudit: AutoAudit 1.10e: Version 1.10e will be the final iteration of version 1 development. Version 2 will begin adding switches and options. Pleae email your suggestio...Boo syntax highlighting for Visual Studio 2010: Boo syntax VS 2010 - alpha: First release TODO: Multiline comments!Chargify.NET: Chargify.NET 0.6: Updated library, using Metered Components and updated Product information.Composer: V1.0.326.1000 Alpha: Initial Alpha release. Should be stable, with minor issues.CoNatural Components: CoNatural Components 1.6: Code fixes: Created helper classes to generate source code for type mapper/materializer. Fixed issue in optimized type materializer when loading ...CRM External View: 1.2: New Features in v1.2 release Password protected views. No more using Web Data Access role from v1. Filtering capabilities Caching for performan...Designit Video Embed Package: Release 1.1.0 beta1: You can now either have the video embeded directly in the template or have a preview in template that opens the video in a lightbox window.FsUnit: FsUnit 0.9.0 for NUnit: This release is for F# 2.0 and NUnit 2.5+.Laughing Dog XNA Framework: Laughing Dog 0.0.1: Laughing Dog - Alpla - v 0.0.1 First released version of the Laughing Dog framework.LiveUpload to Facebook: LiveUpload to Facebook 3.2: Version 3.2Become a fan on Facebook! Features Quickly and easily upload your photos and videos to Facebook, including any people tags added in Win...MapWindow6: MapWindow 6.0 msi March 26: This version adds the Join feature for creating a new "featureset" with attributes that are joined with attributes from a Excel data label named 'D...Mobile Broadband Logging Monitor: Mobile Broadband Logging Monitor 1.2.2: This edition supports: Newer and older editions of Birdstep Technology's EasyConnect HUAWEI Mobile Partner MWConn User defined location for s...Multiplayer Quiz: Release 1_6_351_0: A beta release of the next version. Please leave any errors in discussions or comments.Native code wrapping using c# : fsutil sparse commands: Fsutil sparse file native code - c sharp wrapper: Project Description A C# code wrapping a native code-Sparse files1 The code is about SPARSE files- the abillity to create huge files (for future us...Nice Libraries: 1.30 build 50325.01: Release 1.30 build 50325.01Pretty Good Frontend: Pretty Good Frontend binaries v1.0: This is the first public release of the Pretty Good Frontend binariesPylor: Pylor 0.1 alpha: This is the very first published version. I hope I can put a sample project soon.Quick Performance Monitor: Version 1.1 refresh: There was a typo or two in the sample batch file. Corrected now.Rapidshare Episode Downloader: RED v0.8.3: 0.8.1 introduced the ability to advance to the next episode. In 0.8.2 a bug was found that if episode number is less then 10, then the preceding 0...RapidWebDev - .NET Enterprise Software Development Infrastructure: RapidWebDev 1.52: RapidWebDev is an infrastructure helps to develop enterprise software solutions in Microsoft .NET easily and productively. This is the release vers...thommo cannon: game: gamethommo cannon: setup: setupthommo cannon: test: testTinare: Tinare DLL: Tinare DLL is a dynamic-link library written in C# which provides the functions to encrypt and decrypt a byte stream with tinare.WeatherBar: WeatherBar 2.1 [No Installation]: Minor changes to release 2.0 (http://weatherbar.codeplex.com/releases/view/42490). Fixed the bug that caused an exception to be thrown if the user...Most Popular ProjectsMetaSharpRawrWBFS ManagerASP.NET Ajax LibrarySilverlight ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseAJAX Control ToolkitLiveUpload to FacebookWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)ASP.NETMost Active ProjectsRawrjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesBlogEngine.NETMicrosoft Biology FoundationFarseer Physics Enginepatterns & practices: Composite WPF and SilverlightLINQ to TwitterTable2ClassFluent Ribbon Control SuiteNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog Module

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, April 15, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, April 15, 2010New ProjectsApplication Logging Repository (ALR): The ALR is a light-weight logging framework that allows applications to log events and exceptions to a central repository.Arkane.FileProperties.DSS: Arkane.FileProperties.Dss is a library for parsing the file header of a .DSS file (as used by Olympus digital dictaphone systems) to obtain time, v...B in conTrol project: This project enables controling log-in and locking your workstation automatically, identifyng you bluetooth.DarkBook: DarkBook is a personal library project.Direct2D for Microsoft .Net: Direct2D, DirectWrite and Windows Imaging wrappers for .Net. This library allows to access Direct2D, DirectWrite and Windows Imaging Windows API f...DJ Ware: DJ Ware is an extensible music player with plugin support and innovative features to organize and explore music files. It is developed with C#, WPF...gpsMe: gpsMe is a Windows Mobile 6.x mapping solution allowing to place the user on a personnalized map. The screen requirements are VGA or WVGA but, you ...jErrorLog: jErrorLog is an error logging component for use in DotNet 2.0 or later applications. It can log error messages to any of the following: database, e...KEMET_API: Java Library (open - source). This library is a help to study egyptian hieroglyphs.Meadow: A web site project for a Swedish floorball team called Slackers. Home page built with ASP.NET 2.0, ASP.NET AJAX and SQL Server 2005.Mustang Math: Mustang Math makes it easier for young children to practice basic math facts on the computer. No keyboard or mouse required - just say the answer!...Net.Formats.oEmbed: oEmbed format implementation in c#. oEmbed is a format for allowing an embedded representation of a URL on third party sites. The simple API allows...Normlize O/R Mapper: Open source O/RM tool that participates with traditional inheritance object models as well as Hibernate/nHibernate style class shells. As I have t...N-Twill Twitter Client for VB.NET: Proyecto de cliente twitter hecho con la libreria TwitterVB2 y hecho en VB.net 2008.SIQM: Spatial Information Quality Management Toolset TIMETABLEASY Web: Under developmentTweetSharp: TweetSharp is a complete .NET library for micro-blogging platforms that allows you to write short and sweet expressions that fly to Twitter, Yammer...UISandbox: UISandbox is a sample C# source code showing how to deal with plugins requiring sandbox, when those plugins must interact with WPF application inte...WinForm SharePoint Web Part Manager: The SharePoint Web Part Manager is a WinForm tool using the SharePoint object model that enables developers and power users to add, update, delete,...WoW Character Viewer: View your World of Warcraft character (or anyone else's character), using this application. 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• Complex type support in process flow &ndash; XMLTYPE

  - by shawn

      Before OWB 11.2 release, there are only 5 simple data types supported in process flow: DATE, BOOLEAN, INTEGER, FLOAT and STRING. A new complex data type – XMLTYPE is added in 11.2, in order to support complex data being passed between the process flow activities. In this article we will give a simple example to illustrate the usage of the new type and some related editors.     Suppose there is a bookstore that uses XML format orders as shown below (we use the simplest form for the illustration purpose), then we can create a process flow to handle the order, take the order as the input, then extract necessary information, and generate a confirmation email to the customer automatically. <order id=’0001’>     <customer>         <name>Tom</name>         <email>[email protected]</email>     </customer>     <book id=’Java_001’>         <quantity>3</quantity>     </book> </order>     Considering a simple user case here: we use an input parameter/variable with XMLTYPE to hold the XML content of the order; then we can use an Assign activity to retrieve the email info from the order; after that, we can create an email activity to send the email (Other activities might be added in practical case, but will not be described here). 1) Set XML content value     For testing purpose, we will create a variable to hold the sample order, and then this will be used among the process flow activities. When the variable is of XMLTYPE and the “Literal” value is set the true, the advance editor will be enabled.     Click the “Advance Editor” shown as above, a simple xml editor will popup. The editor has basic features like syntax highlight and check as shown below:     We can also do the basic validation or validation against schema with the editor by selecting the normalized schema. With this, it will be easier to provide the value for XMLTYPE variables. 2) Extract information from XML content     After setting the value, we need to extract the email information with the Assign activity. In process flow, an enhanced expression builder is used to help users construct the XPath for extracting values from XML content. When the variable’s literal value is set the false, the advance editor is enabled.     Click the button, the advance editor will popup, as shown below:     The editor is based on the expression builder (which is often used in mapping etc), an XPath lib panel is appended which provides some help information on how to write the XPath. The expression used here is: “XMLTYPE.EXTRACT(XML_ORDER,'/order/customer/email/text()').getStringVal()”, which uses ‘/order/customer/email/text()’ as the XPath to extract the email info from the XML document.     A variable called “EMAIL_ADDR” is created with String data type to hold the value extracted.     Then we bind the “VARIABLE” parameter of Assign activity to “EMAIL_ADDR” variable, which means the value of the “EMAIL_ADDR” activity will be set to the result of the “VALUE” parameter of Assign activity. 3) Use the extracted information in Email activity     We bind the “TO_ADDRESS” parameter of the email activity to the “EMAIL_ADDR” variable created in above step.     We can also extract other information from the xml order directly through the expression, for example, we can set the “MESSAGE_BODY” with value “'Dear '||XMLTYPE.EXTRACT(XML_ORDER,'/order/customer/name/text()').getStringVal()||chr(13)||chr(10)||'   You have ordered '||XMLTYPE.EXTRACT(XML_ORDER,'/order/book/quantity/text()').getStringVal()||' '||XMLTYPE.EXTRACT(XML_ORDER,'/order/book/@id').getStringVal()”. This expression will extract the customer name, the quantity and the book id from the order to compose the message body.     To make the email activity work, we need provide some other necessary information, Such as “SMTP_SERVER” (which is the SMTP server used to send the emails, like “mail.bookstore.com”. The default PORT number is set to 25. You need to change the value accordingly), “FROM_ADDRESS” and “SUBJECT”. Then the process flow is ready to go.     After deploying the process flow package, we can simply run the process flow to check if the result is as expected (An email will be sent to the specified email address with proper subject and message body).     Note: In oracle 11g, there is an enhanced security feature - ACL (Access Control List), which restrict the network access within db, so we need to edit the list to allow UTL_SMTP work if you are using oracle 11g. Refer to chapter “Access Control Lists for UTL_TCP/HTTP/SMTP” and “Managing Fine-Grained Access to External Network Services” for more details.       In previous releases, XMLTYPE already exists in other OWB objects, like mapping/transformation etc. When the mapping/transformation is dragged into a process flow, the parameters with XMLTYPE are mapped to STRING. Now with the XMLTYPE support in process flow, the XMLTYPE will map to XMLTYPE in a more natural way, and we can leverage the new data type for the design.

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• Using Table-Valued Parameters in SQL Server

  - by Jesse

  I work with stored procedures in SQL Server pretty frequently and have often found myself with a need to pass in a list of values at run-time. Quite often this list contains a set of ids on which the stored procedure needs to operate the size and contents of which are not known at design time. In the past I’ve taken the collection of ids (which are usually integers), converted them to a string representation where each value is separated by a comma and passed that string into a VARCHAR parameter of a stored procedure. The body of the stored procedure would then need to parse that string into a table variable which could be easily consumed with set-based logic within the rest of the stored procedure. This approach works pretty well but the VARCHAR variable has always felt like an un-wanted “middle man” in this scenario. Of course, I could use a BULK INSERT operation to load the list of ids into a temporary table that the stored procedure could use, but that approach seems heavy-handed in situations where the list of values is usually going to contain only a few dozen values. Fortunately SQL Server 2008 introduced the concept of table-valued parameters which effectively eliminates the need for the clumsy middle man VARCHAR parameter. Example: Customer Transaction Summary Report Let’s say we have a report that can summarize the the transactions that we’ve conducted with customers over a period of time. The report returns a pretty simple dataset containing one row per customer with some key metrics about how much business that customer has conducted over the date range for which the report is being run. Sometimes the report is run for a single customer, sometimes it’s run for all customers, and sometimes it’s run for a handful of customers (i.e. a salesman runs it for the customers that fall into his sales territory). This report can be invoked from a website on-demand, or it can be scheduled for periodic delivery to certain users via SQL Server Reporting Services. Because the report can be created from different places and the query to generate the report is complex it’s been packed into a stored procedure that accepts three parameters: @startDate – The beginning of the date range for which the report should be run. @endDate – The end of the date range for which the report should be run. @customerIds – The customer Ids for which the report should be run. Obviously, the @startDate and @endDate parameters are DATETIME variables. The @customerIds parameter, however, needs to contain a list of the identity values (primary key) from the Customers table representing the customers that were selected for this particular run of the report. In prior versions of SQL Server we might have made this parameter a VARCHAR variable, but with SQL Server 2008 we can make it into a table-valued parameter. Defining And Using The Table Type In order to use a table-valued parameter, we first need to tell SQL Server about what the table will look like. We do this by creating a user defined type. For the purposes of this stored procedure we need a very simple type to model a table variable with a single integer column. We can create a generic type called ‘IntegerListTableType’ like this: CREATE TYPE IntegerListTableType AS TABLE (Value INT NOT NULL) Once defined, we can use this new type to define the @customerIds parameter in the signature of our stored procedure. The parameter list for the stored procedure definition might look like: 1: CREATE PROCEDURE dbo.rpt_CustomerTransactionSummary 2: @starDate datetime, 3: @endDate datetime, 4: @customerIds IntegerListTableTableType READONLY   Note the ‘READONLY’ statement following the declaration of the @customerIds parameter. SQL Server requires any table-valued parameter be marked as ‘READONLY’ and no DML (INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE) statements can be performed on a table-valued parameter within the routine in which it’s used. Aside from the DML restriction, however, you can do pretty much anything with a table-valued parameter as you could with a normal TABLE variable. With the user defined type and stored procedure defined as above, we could invoke like this: 1: DECLARE @cusomterIdList IntegerListTableType 2: INSERT @customerIdList VALUES (1) 3: INSERT @customerIdList VALUES (2) 4: INSERT @customerIdList VALUES (3) 5:  6: EXEC dbo.rpt_CustomerTransationSummary 7: @startDate = '2012-05-01', 8: @endDate = '2012-06-01' 9: @customerIds = @customerIdList   Note that we can simply declare a variable of type ‘IntegerListTableType’ just like any other normal variable and insert values into it just like a TABLE variable. We could also populate the variable with a SELECT … INTO or INSERT … SELECT statement if desired. Using The Table-Valued Parameter With ADO .NET Invoking a stored procedure with a table-valued parameter from ADO .NET is as simple as building a DataTable and passing it in as the Value of a SqlParameter. Here’s some example code for how we would construct the SqlParameter for the @customerIds parameter in our stored procedure: 1: var customerIdsParameter = new SqlParameter(); 2: customerIdParameter.Direction = ParameterDirection.Input; 3: customerIdParameter.TypeName = "IntegerListTableType"; 4: customerIdParameter.Value = selectedCustomerIds.ToIntegerListDataTable("Value");   All we’re doing here is new’ing up an instance of SqlParameter, setting the pamameters direction, specifying the name of the User Defined Type that this parameter uses, and setting its value. We’re assuming here that we have an IEnumerable<int> variable called ‘selectedCustomerIds’ containing all of the customer Ids for which the report should be run. The ‘ToIntegerListDataTable’ method is an extension method of the IEnumerable<int> type that looks like this: 1: public static DataTable ToIntegerListDataTable(this IEnumerable<int> intValues, string columnName) 2: { 3: var intergerListDataTable = new DataTable(); 4: intergerListDataTable.Columns.Add(columnName); 5: foreach(var intValue in intValues) 6: { 7: var nextRow = intergerListDataTable.NewRow(); 8: nextRow[columnName] = intValue; 9: intergerListDataTable.Rows.Add(nextRow); 10: } 11:  12: return intergerListDataTable; 13: }   Since the ‘IntegerListTableType’ has a single int column called ‘Value’, we pass that in for the ‘columnName’ parameter to the extension method. The method creates a new single-columned DataTable using the provided column name then iterates over the items in the IEnumerable<int> instance adding one row for each value. We can then use this SqlParameter instance when invoking the stored procedure just like we would use any other parameter. Advanced Functionality Using passing a list of integers into a stored procedure is a very simple usage scenario for the table-valued parameters feature, but I’ve found that it covers the majority of situations where I’ve needed to pass a collection of data for use in a query at run-time. I should note that BULK INSERT feature still makes sense for passing large amounts of data to SQL Server for processing. MSDN seems to suggest that 1000 rows of data is the tipping point where the overhead of a BULK INSERT operation can pay dividends. I should also note here that table-valued parameters can be used to deal with more complex data structures than single-columned tables of integers. A User Defined Type that backs a table-valued parameter can use things like identities and computed columns. That said, using some of these more advanced features might require the use the SqlDataRecord and SqlMetaData classes instead of a simple DataTable. Erland Sommarskog has a great article on his website that describes when and how to use these classes for table-valued parameters. What About Reporting Services? Earlier in the post I referenced the fact that our example stored procedure would be called from both a web application and a SQL Server Reporting Services report. Unfortunately, using table-valued parameters from SSRS reports can be a bit tricky and warrants its own blog post which I’ll be putting together and posting sometime in the near future.

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• Database continuous integration step by step

  - by David Atkinson

  This post will describe how to set up basic database continuous integration using TeamCity to initiate the build process, SQL Source Control to put your database under source control, and the SQL Compare command line to keep a test database up to date. In my example I will be using Subversion as my source control repository. If you wish to follow my steps verbatim, please make sure you have TortoiseSVN, SQL Compare and SQL Source Control installed. Downloading and Installing TeamCity TeamCity (http://www.jetbrains.com/teamcity/index.html) is free for up to three agents, so it a great no-risk tool you can use to experiment with. 1. Download the latest version from the JetBrains website. For some reason the TeamCity executable didn't download properly for me, stalling frustratingly at 99%, so I tried again with the zip file download option (see screenshot below), which worked flawlessly. 2. Run the installer using the defaults. This results in a set-up with the server component and agent installed on the same machine, which is ideal for getting started with ease. 3. Check that the build agent is pointing to the server correctly. This has caught me out a few times before. This setting is in C:\TeamCity\buildAgent\conf\buildAgent.properties and for my installation is serverUrl=http\://localhost\:80 . If you need to change this value, if for example you've had to install the Server console to a different port number, the TeamCity Build Agent Service will need to be restarted for the change to take effect. 4. Open the TeamCity admin console on http://localhost , and specify your own designated username and password at first startup. Putting your database in source control using SQL Source Control 5. Assuming you've got SQL Source Control installed, select a development database in the SQL Server Management Studio Object Explorer and select Link Database to Source Control. 6. For the Link step you can either create your own empty folder in source control, or you can select Just Evaluating, which just creates a local subversion repository for you behind the scenes. 7. Once linked, note that your database turns green in the Object Explorer. Visit the Commit tab to do an initial commit of your database objects by typing in an appropriate comment and clicking Commit. 8. There is a hidden feature in SQL Source Control that opens up TortoiseSVN (provided it is installed) pointing to the linked repository. Keep Shift depressed and right click on the text to the right of 'Linked to', in the example below, it's the red Evaluation Repository text. Select Open TortoiseSVN Repo Browser. This screen should give you an idea of how SQL Source Control manages the object files behind the scenes. Back in the TeamCity admin console, we'll now create a new project to monitor the above repository location and to trigger a 'build' each time the repository changes. 9. In TeamCity Adminstration, select Create Project and give it a name, such as "My first database CI", and click Create. 10. Click on Create Build Configuration, and name it something like "Integration build". 11. Click VCS settings and then Create And Attach new VCS root. This is where you will tell TeamCity about the repository it should monitor. 12. In my case since I'm using the Just Evaluating option in SQL Source Control, I should select Subversion. 13. In the URL field paste your repository location. In my case this is file:///C:/Users/David.Atkinson/AppData/Local/Red Gate/SQL Source Control 3/EvaluationRepositories/WidgetDevelopment/WidgetDevelopment 14. Click on Test Connection to ensure that you can communicate with your source control system. Click Save. 15. Click Add Build Step, and Runner Type: Command Line. Should you be familiar with the other runner types, such as NAnt, MSBuild or Powershell, you can opt for these, but for the same of keeping it simple I will pick the simplest option. 16. If you have installed SQL Compare in the default location, set the Command Executable field to: C:\Program Files (x86)\Red Gate\SQL Compare 10\sqlcompare.exe 17. Flip back to SSMS briefly and add a new database to your server. This will be the database used for continuous integration testing. 18. Set the command parameters according to your server and the name of the database you have created. In my case I created database RedGateCI on server .\sql2008r2 /scripts1:. /server2:.\sql2008r2 /db2:RedGateCI /sync /verbose Note that if you pick a server instance that isn't on your local machine, you'll need the TCP/IP protocol enabled in SQL Server Configuration Manager otherwise the SQL Compare command line will not be able to connect. 19. Save and select Build Triggering / Add New Trigger / VCS Trigger. This is where you tell TeamCity when it should initiate a build. Click Save. 20. Now return to SQL Server Management Studio and make a schema change (eg add a new object) to your linked development database. A blue indicator will appear in the Object Explorer. Commit this change, typing in an appropriate check-in comment. All being good, within 60 seconds (a TeamCity default that can be changed) a build will be triggered. 21. Click on Projects in TeamCity to get back to the overview screen: The build log will show you the console output, which is useful for troubleshooting any issues: That's it! You now have continuous integration on your database. In future posts I'll cover how you can generate and test the database creation script, the database upgrade script, and run database unit tests as part of your continuous integration script. If you have any trouble getting this up and running please let me know, either by commenting on this post, or email me directly using the email address below. Technorati Tags: SQL Server

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• Enabling Service Availability in WCF Services

  - by cibrax

  It is very important for the enterprise to know which services are operational at any given point. There are many factors that can affect the availability of the services, some of them are external like a database not responding or any dependant service not working. However, in some cases, you only want to know whether a service is up or down, so a simple heart-beat mechanism with “Ping” messages would do the trick. Unfortunately, WCF does not provide a built-in mechanism to support this functionality, and you probably don’t to implement a “Ping” operation in any service that you have out there. For solving this in a generic way, there is a WCF extensibility point that comes to help us, the “Operation Invokers”. In a nutshell, an operation invoker is the class responsible invoking the service method with a set of parameters and generate the output parameters with the return value. What I am going to do here is to implement a custom operation invoker that intercepts any call to the service, and detects whether a “Ping” header was attached to the message. If the “Ping” header is detected, the operation invoker returns a new header to tell the client that the service is alive, and the real operation execution is omitted. In that way, we have a simple heart beat mechanism based on the messages that include a "Ping” header, so the client application can determine at any point whether the service is up or down. My operation invoker wraps the default implementation attached by default to any operation by WCF. internal class PingOperationInvoker : IOperationInvoker { IOperationInvoker innerInvoker; object[] outputs = null; object returnValue = null; public const string PingHeaderName = "Ping"; public const string PingHeaderNamespace = "http://tellago.serviceModel"; public PingOperationInvoker(IOperationInvoker innerInvoker, OperationDescription description) { this.innerInvoker = innerInvoker; outputs = description.SyncMethod.GetParameters() .Where(p => p.IsOut) .Select(p => DefaultForType(p.ParameterType)).ToArray(); var returnValue = DefaultForType(description.SyncMethod.ReturnType); } private static object DefaultForType(Type targetType) { return targetType.IsValueType ? Activator.CreateInstance(targetType) : null; } public object Invoke(object instance, object[] inputs, out object[] outputs) { object returnValue; if (Invoke(out returnValue, out outputs)) { return returnValue; } else { return this.innerInvoker.Invoke(instance, inputs, out outputs); } } private bool Invoke(out object returnValue, out object[] outputs) { object untypedProperty = null; if (OperationContext.Current .IncomingMessageProperties.TryGetValue(HttpRequestMessageProperty.Name, out untypedProperty)) { var httpRequestProperty = untypedProperty as HttpRequestMessageProperty; if (httpRequestProperty != null) { if (httpRequestProperty.Headers[PingHeaderName] != null) { outputs = this.outputs; if (OperationContext.Current .IncomingMessageProperties.TryGetValue(HttpRequestMessageProperty.Name, out untypedProperty)) { var httpResponseProperty = untypedProperty as HttpResponseMessageProperty; httpResponseProperty.Headers.Add(PingHeaderName, "Ok"); } returnValue = this.returnValue; return true; } } } var headers = OperationContext.Current.IncomingMessageHeaders; if (headers.FindHeader(PingHeaderName, PingHeaderNamespace) > -1) { outputs = this.outputs; MessageHeader<string> header = new MessageHeader<string>("Ok"); var untyped = header.GetUntypedHeader(PingHeaderName, PingHeaderNamespace); OperationContext.Current.OutgoingMessageHeaders.Add(untyped); returnValue = this.returnValue; return true; } returnValue = null; outputs = null; return false; } } The implementation above looks for the “Ping” header either in the Http Request or the Soap message. The next step is to implement a behavior for attaching this operation invoker to the services we want to monitor. [AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Method | AttributeTargets.Class, AllowMultiple = false, Inherited = true)] public class PingBehavior : Attribute, IServiceBehavior, IOperationBehavior { public void AddBindingParameters(ServiceDescription serviceDescription, ServiceHostBase serviceHostBase, Collection<ServiceEndpoint> endpoints, BindingParameterCollection bindingParameters) { } public void ApplyDispatchBehavior(ServiceDescription serviceDescription, ServiceHostBase serviceHostBase) { } public void Validate(ServiceDescription serviceDescription, ServiceHostBase serviceHostBase) { foreach (var endpoint in serviceDescription.Endpoints) { foreach (var operation in endpoint.Contract.Operations) { if (operation.Behaviors.Find<PingBehavior>() == null) operation.Behaviors.Add(this); } } } public void AddBindingParameters(OperationDescription operationDescription, BindingParameterCollection bindingParameters) { } public void ApplyClientBehavior(OperationDescription operationDescription, ClientOperation clientOperation) { } public void ApplyDispatchBehavior(OperationDescription operationDescription, DispatchOperation dispatchOperation) { dispatchOperation.Invoker = new PingOperationInvoker(dispatchOperation.Invoker, operationDescription); } public void Validate(OperationDescription operationDescription) { } } As an operation invoker can only be added in an “operation behavior”, a trick I learned in the past is that you can implement a service behavior as well and use the “Validate” method to inject it in all the operations, so the final configuration is much easier and cleaner. You only need to decorate the service with a simple attribute to enable the “Ping” functionality. [PingBehavior] public class HelloWorldService : IHelloWorld { public string Hello(string name) { return "Hello " + name; } } On the other hand, the client application needs to send a dummy message with a “Ping” header to detect whether the service is available or not. In order to simplify this task, I created a extension method in the WCF client channel to do this work. public static class ClientChannelExtensions { const string PingNamespace = "http://tellago.serviceModel"; const string PingName = "Ping"; public static bool IsAvailable<TChannel>(this IClientChannel channel, Action<TChannel> operation) { try { using (OperationContextScope scope = new OperationContextScope(channel)) { MessageHeader<string> header = new MessageHeader<string>(PingName); var untyped = header.GetUntypedHeader(PingName, PingNamespace); OperationContext.Current.OutgoingMessageHeaders.Add(untyped); try { operation((TChannel)channel); var headers = OperationContext.Current.IncomingMessageHeaders; if (headers.Any(h => h.Name == PingName && h.Namespace == PingNamespace)) { return true; } else { return false; } } catch (CommunicationException) { return false; } } } catch (Exception) { return false; } } } This extension method basically adds a “Ping” header to the request message, executes the operation passed as argument (Action<TChannel> operation), and looks for the corresponding “Ping” header in the response to see the results. The client application can use this extension with a single line of code, var client = new ServiceReference.HelloWorldClient(); var isAvailable = client.InnerChannel.IsAvailable<IHelloWorld>((c) => c.Hello(null)); The “isAvailable” variable will tell the client application whether the service is available or not. You can download the complete implementation from this location.    

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• Java EE 6 and NoSQL/MongoDB on GlassFish using JPA and EclipseLink 2.4 (TOTD #175)

  - by arungupta

  TOTD #166 explained how to use MongoDB in your Java EE 6 applications. The code in that tip used the APIs exposed by the MongoDB Java driver and so requires you to learn a new API. However if you are building Java EE 6 applications then you are already familiar with Java Persistence API (JPA). Eclipse Link 2.4, scheduled to release as part of Eclipse Juno, provides support for NoSQL databases by mapping a JPA entity to a document. Their wiki provides complete explanation of how the mapping is done. This Tip Of The Day (TOTD) will show how you can leverage that support in your Java EE 6 applications deployed on GlassFish 3.1.2. Before we dig into the code, here are the key concepts ... A POJO is mapped to a NoSQL data source using @NoSQL or <no-sql> element in "persistence.xml". A subset of JPQL and Criteria query are supported, based upon the underlying data store Connection properties are defined in "persistence.xml" Now, lets lets take a look at the code ... Download the latest EclipseLink 2.4 Nightly Bundle. There is a Installer, Source, and Bundle - make sure to download the Bundle link (20120410) and unzip. Download GlassFish 3.1.2 zip and unzip. Install the Eclipse Link 2.4 JARs in GlassFish Remove the following JARs from "glassfish/modules": org.eclipse.persistence.antlr.jar org.eclipse.persistence.asm.jar org.eclipse.persistence.core.jar org.eclipse.persistence.jpa.jar org.eclipse.persistence.jpa.modelgen.jar org.eclipse.persistence.moxy.jar org.eclipse.persistence.oracle.jar Add the following JARs from Eclipse Link 2.4 nightly build to "glassfish/modules": org.eclipse.persistence.antlr_3.2.0.v201107111232.jar org.eclipse.persistence.asm_3.3.1.v201107111215.jar org.eclipse.persistence.core.jpql_2.4.0.v20120407-r11132.jar org.eclipse.persistence.core_2.4.0.v20120407-r11132.jar org.eclipse.persistence.jpa.jpql_2.0.0.v20120407-r11132.jar org.eclipse.persistence.jpa.modelgen_2.4.0.v20120407-r11132.jar org.eclipse.persistence.jpa_2.4.0.v20120407-r11132.jar org.eclipse.persistence.moxy_2.4.0.v20120407-r11132.jar org.eclipse.persistence.nosql_2.4.0.v20120407-r11132.jar org.eclipse.persistence.oracle_2.4.0.v20120407-r11132.jar Start MongoDB Download latest MongoDB from here (2.0.4 as of this writing). Create the default data directory for MongoDB as: sudo mkdir -p /data/db/sudo chown `id -u` /data/db Refer to Quickstart for more details. Start MongoDB as: arungup-mac:mongodb-osx-x86_64-2.0.4 <arungup> ->./bin/mongod./bin/mongod --help for help and startup optionsMon Apr  9 12:56:02 [initandlisten] MongoDB starting : pid=3124 port=27017 dbpath=/data/db/ 64-bit host=arungup-mac.localMon Apr  9 12:56:02 [initandlisten] db version v2.0.4, pdfile version 4.5Mon Apr  9 12:56:02 [initandlisten] git version: 329f3c47fe8136c03392c8f0e548506cb21f8ebfMon Apr  9 12:56:02 [initandlisten] build info: Darwin erh2.10gen.cc 9.8.0 Darwin Kernel Version 9.8.0: Wed Jul 15 16:55:01 PDT 2009; root:xnu-1228.15.4~1/RELEASE_I386 i386 BOOST_LIB_VERSION=1_40Mon Apr  9 12:56:02 [initandlisten] options: {}Mon Apr  9 12:56:02 [initandlisten] journal dir=/data/db/journalMon Apr  9 12:56:02 [initandlisten] recover : no journal files present, no recovery neededMon Apr  9 12:56:02 [websvr] admin web console waiting for connections on port 28017Mon Apr  9 12:56:02 [initandlisten] waiting for connections on port 27017 Check out the JPA/NoSQL sample from SVN repository. The complete source code built in this TOTD can be downloaded here. Create Java EE 6 web app Create a Java EE 6 Maven web app as: mvn archetype:generate -DarchetypeGroupId=org.codehaus.mojo.archetypes -DarchetypeArtifactId=webapp-javaee6 -DgroupId=model -DartifactId=javaee-nosql -DarchetypeVersion=1.5 -DinteractiveMode=false Copy the model files from the checked out workspace to the generated project as: cd javaee-nosqlcp -r ~/code/workspaces/org.eclipse.persistence.example.jpa.nosql.mongo/src/model src/main/java Copy "persistence.xml" mkdir src/main/resources cp -r ~/code/workspaces/org.eclipse.persistence.example.jpa.nosql.mongo/src/META-INF ./src/main/resources Add the following dependencies: <dependency> <groupId>org.eclipse.persistence</groupId> <artifactId>org.eclipse.persistence.jpa</artifactId> <version>2.4.0-SNAPSHOT</version> <scope>provided</scope></dependency><dependency> <groupId>org.eclipse.persistence</groupId> <artifactId>org.eclipse.persistence.nosql</artifactId> <version>2.4.0-SNAPSHOT</version></dependency><dependency> <groupId>org.mongodb</groupId> <artifactId>mongo-java-driver</artifactId> <version>2.7.3</version></dependency> The first one is for the EclipseLink latest APIs, the second one is for EclipseLink/NoSQL support, and the last one is the MongoDB Java driver. And the following repository: <repositories> <repository> <id>EclipseLink Repo</id> <url>http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/download.php?r=1&amp;nf=1&amp;file=/rt/eclipselink/maven.repo</url> <snapshots> <enabled>true</enabled> </snapshots> </repository>  </repositories> Copy the "Test.java" to the generated project: mkdir src/main/java/examplecp -r ~/code/workspaces/org.eclipse.persistence.example.jpa.nosql.mongo/src/example/Test.java ./src/main/java/example/ This file contains the source code to CRUD the JPA entity to MongoDB. This sample is explained in detail on EclipseLink wiki. Create a new Servlet in "example" directory as: package example;import java.io.IOException;import java.io.PrintWriter;import javax.servlet.ServletException;import javax.servlet.annotation.WebServlet;import javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet;import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;/** * @author Arun Gupta */@WebServlet(name = "TestServlet", urlPatterns = {"/TestServlet"})public class TestServlet extends HttpServlet { protected void processRequest(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws ServletException, IOException { response.setContentType("text/html;charset=UTF-8"); PrintWriter out = response.getWriter(); try { out.println("<html>"); out.println("<head>"); out.println("<title>Servlet TestServlet</title>"); out.println("</head>"); out.println("<body>"); out.println("<h1>Servlet TestServlet at " + request.getContextPath() + "</h1>"); try { Test.main(null); } catch (Exception ex) { ex.printStackTrace(); } out.println("</body>"); out.println("</html>"); } finally { out.close(); } } @Override protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws ServletException, IOException { processRequest(request, response); } @Override protected void doPost(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws ServletException, IOException { processRequest(request, response); }} Build the project and deploy it as: mvn clean packageglassfish3/bin/asadmin deploy --force=true target/javaee-nosql-1.0-SNAPSHOT.war Accessing http://localhost:8080/javaee-nosql/TestServlet shows the following messages in the server.log: connecting(EISLogin( platform=> MongoPlatform user name=> "" MongoConnectionSpec())) . . .Connected: User: Database: 2.7  Version: 2.7 . . .Executing MappedInteraction() spec => null properties => {mongo.collection=CUSTOMER, mongo.operation=INSERT} input => [DatabaseRecord( CUSTOMER._id => 4F848E2BDA0670307E2A8FA4 CUSTOMER.NAME => AMCE)]. . .Data access result: [{TOTALCOST=757.0, ORDERLINES=[{DESCRIPTION=table, LINENUMBER=1, COST=300.0}, {DESCRIPTION=balls, LINENUMBER=2, COST=5.0}, {DESCRIPTION=rackets, LINENUMBER=3, COST=15.0}, {DESCRIPTION=net, LINENUMBER=4, COST=2.0}, {DESCRIPTION=shipping, LINENUMBER=5, COST=80.0}, {DESCRIPTION=handling, LINENUMBER=6, COST=55.0},{DESCRIPTION=tax, LINENUMBER=7, COST=300.0}], SHIPPINGADDRESS=[{POSTALCODE=L5J1H7, PROVINCE=ON, COUNTRY=Canada, CITY=Ottawa,STREET=17 Jane St.}], VERSION=2, _id=4F848E2BDA0670307E2A8FA8,DESCRIPTION=Pingpong table, CUSTOMER__id=4F848E2BDA0670307E2A8FA7, BILLINGADDRESS=[{POSTALCODE=L5J1H8, PROVINCE=ON, COUNTRY=Canada, CITY=Ottawa, STREET=7 Bank St.}]}] You'll not see any output in the browser, just the output in the console. But the code can be easily modified to do so. Once again, the complete Maven project can be downloaded here. Do you want to try accessing relational and non-relational (aka NoSQL) databases in the same PU ?

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• Adding RSS to tags in Orchard

  - by Bertrand Le Roy

  A year ago, I wrote a scary post about RSS in Orchard. RSS was one of the first features we implemented in our CMS, and it has stood the test of time rather well, but the post was explaining things at a level that was probably too abstract whereas my readers were expecting something a little more practical. Well, this post is going to correct this by showing how I built a module that adds RSS feeds for each tag on the site. Hopefully it will show that it's not very complicated in practice, and also that the infrastructure is pretty well thought out. In order to provide RSS, we need to do two things: generate the XML for the feed, and inject the address of that feed into the existing tag listing page, in order to make the feed discoverable. Let's start with the discoverability part. One might be tempted to replace the controller or the view that are responsible for the listing of the items under a tag. Fortunately, there is no need to do any of that, and we can be a lot less obtrusive. Instead, we can implement a filter: public class TagRssFilter : FilterProvider, IResultFilter .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } On this filter, we can implement the OnResultExecuting method and simply check whether the current request is targeting the list of items under a tag. If that is the case, we can just register our new feed: public void OnResultExecuting(ResultExecutingContext filterContext) { var routeValues = filterContext.RouteData.Values; if (routeValues["area"] as string == "Orchard.Tags" && routeValues["controller"] as string == "Home" && routeValues["action"] as string == "Search") { var tag = routeValues["tagName"] as string; if (! string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(tag)) { var workContext = _wca.GetContext(); _feedManager.Register( workContext.CurrentSite + " – " + tag, "rss", new RouteValueDictionary { { "tag", tag } } ); } } } The registration of the new feed is just specifying the title of the feed, its format (RSS) and the parameters that it will need (the tag). _wca and _feedManager are just instances of IWorkContextAccessor and IFeedManager that Orchard injected for us. That is all that's needed to get the following tag to be added to the head of our page, without touching an existing controller or view: <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="VuLu - Science" href="/rss?tag=Science"/> Nifty. Of course, if we navigate to the URL of that feed, we'll get a 404. This is because no implementation of IFeedQueryProvider knows about the tag parameter yet. Let's build one that does: public class TagFeedQuery : IFeedQueryProvider, IFeedQuery IFeedQueryProvider has one method, Match, that we can implement to take over any feed request that has a tag parameter: public FeedQueryMatch Match(FeedContext context) { var tagName = context.ValueProvider.GetValue("tag"); if (tagName == null) return null; return new FeedQueryMatch { FeedQuery = this, Priority = -5 }; } This is just saying that if there is a tag parameter, we will handle it. All that remains to be done is the actual building of the feed now that we have accepted to handle it. This is done by implementing the Execute method of the IFeedQuery interface: public void Execute(FeedContext context) { var tagValue = context.ValueProvider.GetValue("tag"); if (tagValue == null) return; var tagName = (string)tagValue.ConvertTo(typeof (string)); var tag = _tagService.GetTagByName(tagName); if (tag == null) return; var site = _services.WorkContext.CurrentSite; var link = new XElement("link"); context.Response.Element.SetElementValue("title", site.SiteName + " - " + tagName); context.Response.Element.Add(link); context.Response.Element.SetElementValue("description", site.SiteName + " - " + tagName); context.Response.Contextualize(requestContext => link.Add(GetTagUrl(tagName, requestContext))); var items = _tagService.GetTaggedContentItems(tag.Id, 0, 20); foreach (var item in items) { context.Builder.AddItem(context, item.ContentItem); } } This code is resolving the tag content item from its name and then gets content items tagged with it, using the tag services provided by the Orchard.Tags module. Then we add those items to the feed. And that is it. To summarize, we handled the request unobtrusively in order to inject the feed's link, then handled requests for feeds with a tag parameter and generated the list of items for that tag. It remains fairly simple and still it is able to handle arbitrary content types. That makes me quite happy about our little piece of over-engineered code from last year. The full code for this can be found in the Vandelay.TagCloud module: http://orchardproject.net/gallery/List/Modules/ Orchard.Module.Vandelay.TagCloud/1.2

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