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Hover/Fadeto/Toggle Multiple Class Changing

- by Slick Willis

So my problem is rather simple and complex at the same time. I am trying to create links that fade in when you mouseover them and fade out when you mouseout of them. At the same time that you are going over them I would like a pic to slide from the left. This is the easy part, I have every thing working. The image fades and another image slides. I did this by using a hover, fadeto, and toggle("slide"). I would like to do this in a table format with multiple images being able to be scrolled over and sliding images out. The problem is that I am calling my sliding image to a class and when I hover over the letters both images slide out. Does anybody have a solution for this? I posted the code that I used below: <html> <head> <script type='text/javascript' src='http://accidentalwords.squarespace.com/storage/jquery/jquery-1.4.2.min.js'></script> <script type='text/javascript' src='http://accidentalwords.squarespace.com/storage/jquery/jquery-custom-181/jquery-ui-1.8.1.custom.min.js'></script> <style type="text/css"> .text-slide { display: none; margin: 0px; width: 167px; height: 50px; } </style> <script> $(document).ready(function(){ $(".letterbox-fade").fadeTo(1,0.25); $(".letterbox-fade").hover(function () { $(this).stop().fadeTo(250,1); $(".text-slide").toggle("slide", {}, 1000); }, function() { $(this).stop().fadeTo(250,0.25); $(".text-slide").toggle("slide", {}, 1000); }); }); </script> </head> <body style="background-color: #181818"> <table> <tr> <td><div class="letterbox-fade"><img src="http://accidentalwords.squarespace.com/storage/sidebar/icons/A-Letterbox-Selected.png" /></div></td> <td><div class="text-slide"><img src="http://accidentalwords.squarespace.com/storage/sidebar/icons/TEST.png" /></div></td> </tr> <tr> <td><div class="letterbox-fade"><img src="http://accidentalwords.squarespace.com/storage/sidebar/icons/B-Letterbox-Selected.png" /></div></td> <td><div class="text-slide"><img src="http://accidentalwords.squarespace.com/storage/sidebar/icons/TEST.png" /></div></td> </tr> </table> </body> </html>

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Read files from directory to create a ZIP hadoop

- by Félix

I'm looking for hadoop examples, something more complex than the wordcount example. What I want to do It's read the files in a directory in hadoop and get a zip, so I have thought to collect al the files in the map class and create the zip file in the reduce class. Can anyone give me a link to a tutorial or example than can help me to built it? I don't want anyone to do this for me, i'm asking for a link with better examples than the wordaccount. This is what I have, maybe it's useful for someone public class Testing { private static class MapClass extends MapReduceBase implements Mapper<LongWritable, Text, Text, BytesWritable> { // reuse objects to save overhead of object creation Logger log = Logger.getLogger("log_file"); public void map(LongWritable key, Text value, OutputCollector<Text, BytesWritable> output, Reporter reporter) throws IOException { String line = ((Text) value).toString(); log.info("Doing something ... " + line); BytesWritable b = new BytesWritable(); b.set(value.toString().getBytes() , 0, value.toString().getBytes() .length); output.collect(value, b); } } private static class ReduceClass extends MapReduceBase implements Reducer<Text, BytesWritable, Text, BytesWritable> { Logger log = Logger.getLogger("log_file"); ByteArrayOutputStream bout; ZipOutputStream out; @Override public void configure(JobConf job) { super.configure(job); log.setLevel(Level.INFO); bout = new ByteArrayOutputStream(); out = new ZipOutputStream(bout); } public void reduce(Text key, Iterator<BytesWritable> values, OutputCollector<Text, BytesWritable> output, Reporter reporter) throws IOException { while (values.hasNext()) { byte[] data = values.next().getBytes(); ZipEntry entry = new ZipEntry("entry"); out.putNextEntry(entry); out.write(data); out.closeEntry(); } BytesWritable b = new BytesWritable(); b.set(bout.toByteArray(), 0, bout.size()); output.collect(key, b); } @Override public void close() throws IOException { // TODO Auto-generated method stub super.close(); out.close(); } } /** * Runs the demo. */ public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException { int mapTasks = 20; int reduceTasks = 1; JobConf conf = new JobConf(Prue.class); conf.setJobName("testing"); conf.setNumMapTasks(mapTasks); conf.setNumReduceTasks(reduceTasks); MultipleInputs.addInputPath(conf, new Path("/messages"), TextInputFormat.class, MapClass.class); conf.setOutputKeyClass(Text.class); conf.setOutputValueClass(BytesWritable.class); FileOutputFormat.setOutputPath(conf, new Path("/czip")); conf.setMapperClass(MapClass.class); conf.setCombinerClass(ReduceClass.class); conf.setReducerClass(ReduceClass.class); // Delete the output directory if it exists already JobClient.runJob(conf); } }

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Events do not propagate from a child element?

- by Legend

I was playing around with the Swipe jQuery plugin on my iPod Touch and Android devices. The following works: <html> <head> <script type="text/javascript" src="lib/jquery/jquery-1.3.2.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="lib/plugins/jquery.swipe.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> $(function() { $('body').swipe({ swipeLeft: function() { $('#container1').append("Swiped Left!"); }, swipeRight: function() { $('#container2').append("Swiped Right!");} }); }); </script> <style type="text/javascript"> body {width: 300px; height: 300px; background: #000;} </style> </head> <body> <div id="container1"> This is container one </div> <div id="container2"> This is container two </div> </body> </html> But if I have something like this: <html> <head> <script type="text/javascript" src="lib/jquery/jquery-1.3.2.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="lib/plugins/jquery.swipe.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> $(function() { $('#wrapper').swipe({ swipeLeft: function() { $('#container1').append("Swiped Left!"); }, swipeRight: function() { $('#container2').append("Swiped Right!");} }); }); </script> <style type="text/javascript"> body {width: 300px; height: 300px; background: #000;} </style> </head> <body> <div id="wrapper"> <div id="container1"> This is container one </div> <div id="container2"> This is container two </div> </div> </body> </html> Notice the "wrapper" div around the containers. Now, when I swipe on the div element, I was expecting it to actually trigger the event. This works in iPod touch as expected but does not work on my Android device unless I randomly start swiping everywhere until I happen to swipe on that small wrapper div element itself. I am not sure how to explain this but hink of it as sending events to the wrapper div itself. Both use the WebKit engine. Can someone tell me if I am doing something wrong?

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PHP-MySQL: Arranging rows from seperate tables together/Expression to determine row origin

- by Koroviev

I'm new to PHP and have a two part question. I need to take rows from two separate tables, and arrange them in descending order by their date. The rows do not correspond in order or number and have no relationship with each other. ---EDIT--- They each contain updates on a site, one table holds text, links, dates, titles etc. from a blog. The other has titles, links, specifications, etc. from images. I want to arrange some basic information (title, date, small description) in an updates section on the main page of the site, and for it to be in order of date. Merging them into one table and modifying it to suit both types isn't what I'd like to do here, the blog table is Wordpress' standard wp_posts and I don't feel comfortable adding columns to make it suit the image table too. I'm afraid it could clash with upgrading later on and it seems like a clumsy solution (but that doesn't mean I'll object if people here advise me it's the best solution). ------EDIT 2------ Here are the DESCRIBES of each table: mysql> describe images; +---------+--------------+------+-----+-------------------+----------------+ | Field | Type | Null | Key | Default | Extra | +---------+--------------+------+-----+-------------------+----------------+ | id | int(11) | NO | PRI | NULL | auto_increment | | project | varchar(255) | NO | | NULL | | | title | varchar(255) | NO | | NULL | | | time | timestamp | NO | | CURRENT_TIMESTAMP | | | img_url | varchar(255) | NO | | NULL | | | alt_txt | varchar(255) | YES | | NULL | | | text | text | YES | | NULL | | | text_id | int(11) | YES | | NULL | | +---------+--------------+------+-----+-------------------+----------------+ mysql> DESCRIBE wp_posts; +-----------------------+---------------------+------+-----+---------------------+----------------+ | Field | Type | Null | Key | Default | Extra | +-----------------------+---------------------+------+-----+---------------------+----------------+ | ID | bigint(20) unsigned | NO | PRI | NULL | auto_increment | | post_author | bigint(20) unsigned | NO | | 0 | | | post_date | datetime | NO | | 0000-00-00 00:00:00 | | | post_date_gmt | datetime | NO | | 0000-00-00 00:00:00 | | | post_content | longtext | NO | | NULL | | | post_title | text | NO | | NULL | | | post_excerpt | text | NO | | NULL | | | post_status | varchar(20) | NO | | publish | | | comment_status | varchar(20) | NO | | open | | | ping_status | varchar(20) | NO | | open | | | post_password | varchar(20) | NO | | | | | post_name | varchar(200) | NO | MUL | | | | to_ping | text | NO | | NULL | | | pinged | text | NO | | NULL | | | post_modified | datetime | NO | | 0000-00-00 00:00:00 | | | post_modified_gmt | datetime | NO | | 0000-00-00 00:00:00 | | | post_content_filtered | text | NO | | NULL | | | post_parent | bigint(20) unsigned | NO | MUL | 0 | | | guid | varchar(255) | NO | | | | | menu_order | int(11) | NO | | 0 | | | post_type | varchar(20) | NO | MUL | post | | | post_mime_type | varchar(100) | NO | | | | | comment_count | bigint(20) | NO | | 0 | | +-----------------------+---------------------+------+-----+---------------------+----------------+ ---END EDIT--- I can do this easily with a single table like this (I include it here in case I'm using an over-elaborate method without knowing it): $content = mysql_query("SELECT post_title, post_text, post_date FROM posts ORDER BY post_date DESC"); while($row = mysql_fetch_array($content)) { echo $row['post_date'], $row['post_title'], $row['post_text']; } But how is it possible to call both tables into the same array to arrange them correctly? By correctly, I mean that they will intermix their echoed results based on their date. Maybe I'm looking at this from the wrong perspective, and calling them to a single array isn't the answer? Additionally, I need a way to form a conditional expression based on which table they came from, so that rows from table 1 get echoed differently than rows from table 2? I want results from table 1 to be echoed differently (with different strings concatenated around them, I mean) for the purpose of styling them differently than those from table two. And vice versa. I know an if...else statement would work here, but I have no idea how can I write the expression that would determine which table the row is from. All and any help is appreciated, thanks.

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Problem with the output of Jquery function .offset in IE

- by vandalk

Hello! I'm new to jquery and javascript, and to web site developing overall, and I'm having a problem with the .offset function. I have the following code working fine on chrome and FF but not working on IE: $(document).keydown(function(k){ var keycode=k.which; var posk=$('html').offset(); var centeryk=screen.availHeight*0.4; var centerxk=screen.availWidth*0.4; $("span").text(k.which+","+posk.top+","+posk.left); if (keycode==37){ k.preventDefault(); $("html,body").stop().animate({scrollLeft:-1*posk.left-centerxk}) }; if (keycode==38){ k.preventDefault(); $("html,body").stop().animate({scrollTop:-1*posk.top-centeryk}) }; if (keycode==39){ k.preventDefault(); $("html,body").stop().animate({scrollLeft:-1*posk.left+centerxk}) }; if (keycode==40){ k.preventDefault(); $("html,body").stop().animate({scrollTop:-1*posk.top+centeryk}) }; }); hat I want it to do is to scroll the window a set percentage using the arrow keys, so my thought was to find the current coordinates of the top left corner of the document and add a percentage relative to the user screen to it and animate the scroll so that the content don't jump and the user looses focus from where he was. The $("span").text are just so I know what's happening and will be turned into comments when the code is complete. So here is what happens, on Chrome and Firefox the output of the $("span").text for the position variables is correct, starting at 0,0 and always showing how much of the content was scrolled in coordinates, but on IE it starts on -2,-2 and never gets out of it, even if I manually scroll the window until the end of it and try using the right arrow key it will still return the initial value of -2,-2 and scroll back to the beggining. I tried substituting the offset for document.body.scrollLetf and scrollTop but the result is the same, only this time the coordinates are 0,0. Am I doing something wrong? Or is this some IE bug? Is there a way around it or some other function I can use and achieve the same results? On another note, I did other two navigating options for the user in this section of the site, one is to click and drag anywhere on the screen to move it: $("html").mousedown(function(e) { var initx=e.pageX var inity=e.pageY $(document).mousemove(function(n) { var x_inc= initx-n.pageX; var y_inc= inity-n.pageY; window.scrollBy(x_inc*0.7,y_inc*0.7); initx=n.pageX; inity=n.pageY //$("span").text(initx+ "," +inity+ "," +x_inc+ "," +y_inc+ "," +e.pageX+ "," +e.pageY+ "," +n.pageX+ "," +n.pageY); // cancel out any text selections document.body.focus(); // prevent text selection in IE document.onselectstart = function () { return false; }; // prevent IE from trying to drag an image document.ondragstart = function() { return false; }; // prevent text selection (except IE) return false; }); }); $("html").mouseup(function() { $(document).unbind('mousemove'); }); The only part of this code I didn't write was the preventing text selection lines, these ones I found in a tutorial about clicking and draging objects, anyway, this code works fine on Chrome, FireFox and IE, though on Firefox and IE it's more often to happen some moviment glitches while you drag, sometimes it seems the "scrolling" is a litlle jagged, it's only a visual thing and not that much significant but if there's a way to prevent it I would like to know.

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How can you force a floating div to be the height of its parent?

- by ErnieStings

HTML markup: <div class="planRisk"> <div class="innerPlanRiskRight"> <div class="rmPlanFrequency">10 </div> <div class="rmPlanSeverity"> 5</div> <div class="rmPlanRiskFactor">50 </div> <div class="rmPlanNumSolutions">2</div> <div class="rmPlanPercentComplete">34% </div> <div class="rmPlanDeletePlanRisk"> X </div> </div> <div class="rmPlanRiskTitle"> Pandemic Influenza</div> </div> CSS: .planRisk{background-color:#DEECD1; border:1px solid #BEBEBE;} .innerPlanRiskRight{float:right; color:#000000;} .rmPlanFrequency{float:left; width:46px;background-color:#d9dee1; text-align:center; border-right:1px solid #ebebeb; padding:0.2em;} .rmPlanSeverity{float:left; width:46px; background-color:#dbe1d4; text-align:center; border-right:1px solid #ebebeb; padding:0.2em;} .rmPlanRiskFactor{float:left; width:46px; background-color:#e5d5da; text-align:center; border-right:1px solid #ebebeb; padding:0.2em;} .rmPlanNumSolutions{float:left; width:46px; background-color:#dae4e4; text-align:center; border-right:1px solid #ebebeb; padding:0.2em;} .rmPlanPercentComplete{float:left; width:46px; background-color:#dddddd; text-align:center; padding:0.2em; } .rmPlanDeletePlanRisk{float:left; width:30px; background-color:#DEECD1; text-align:center; padding:0.2em;} .rmPlanRiskTitle{padding:0.2em; } .rmPlanSolutionContainer{background-color:#f0f9e8; border: 0 1px 1px; border-left:1px solid #CDCDCD; border-right:1px solid #cdcdcd; } .innerSolutionRight{float:right;} .rmPlanSolution{border-bottom:1px solid #CDCDCD; padding-left:1em;} .rmPlanSolutionPercentComplete{float:left; width:46px; background-color:#E2EADA; padding-left:0.2em; padding-right:0.2em; text-align:center;} .rmPlanDeleteSolution{float:left; width:30px; text-align:center; padding-left:0.2em; padding-right:0.2em; }

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bind parent child listview asp.net

- by Chris

I'm trying to display two linq query results in a prent and child listview. I have the following code which gets the correct values to populate the listviews but when I nest the child listview inside the parent list view, I get an error saying "The name 'ListView2' does not exist in the current context". I presume I need to bind the two listviews in the code behind but my problem is I don't know how or the best way to do this. I have read a couple of posts on similar problems but my lack of knowledge on the subject doesn't make it clear to me. Please can somebody help me figure this out? It's the final piece of code I need to complete. Many thanks in advance. Here is my .aspx code: <asp:ListView ID="ListView1" runat="server"> <EmptyDataTemplate>No data was returned.</EmptyDataTemplate> <ItemSeparatorTemplate><br /></ItemSeparatorTemplate> <ItemTemplate> <li> <asp:Label ID="LabelID" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("RecordID") %>'></asp:Label><br /> <asp:Label ID="LabelNumber" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("CartID") %>'></asp:Label><br /> <asp:Label ID="LabelName" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("Number") %>'></asp:Label><br /> <asp:Label ID="LabelDestination" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("Destination") %>'></asp:Label><br /> <asp:Label ID="LabelPkgName" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("PkgName") %>'></asp:Label> <li>  <asp:ListView ID="ListView2" runat="server"> <EmptyDataTemplate>No data was returned.</EmptyDataTemplate> <ItemSeparatorTemplate><br /></ItemSeparatorTemplate> <ItemTemplate> <li> <asp:Label ID="LabelFeatureName" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("FeatureName") %>'></asp:Label><br /> <asp:Label ID="LabelFeatureSetUp" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("FeatureSetUp") %>'></asp:Label><br /> <asp:Label ID="LabelFeatureMonthly" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("FeatureMonthly") %>'></asp:Label><br /> </li> </ItemTemplate> <LayoutTemplate> <ul ID="itemPlaceholderContainer" runat="server" style=""> <li runat="server" id="itemPlaceholder" /> </ul> </LayoutTemplate> </asp:ListView>  </li> </li> </ItemTemplate> <LayoutTemplate> <ul ID="itemPlaceholderContainer" runat="server" style=""> <li runat="server" id="itemPlaceholder" /> </ul> </LayoutTemplate> </asp:ListView> Here is my code behind: MyShoppingCart userShoppingCart = new MyShoppingCart(); string cartID = userShoppingCart.GetShoppingCartId(); using (ShoppingCartv2Entities db = new ShoppingCartv2Entities()) { var CartNumber = from c in db.NewViews where c.CartID == cartID select c; foreach (NewView item in CartNumber) { ListView1.DataSource = CartNumber; ListView1.DataBind(); } var CartFeature = from f in db.NewViews join o in db.NumberFeatureViews on f.RecordID equals o.RecordID where f.CartID == cartID select new { o.FeatureName, o.FeatureSetUp, o.FeatureMonthly }; foreach (var x in CartFeature) { ListView2.DataSource = CartFeature; ListView2.DataBind(); } }

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How to concatenate the contents of all children of a node in XPath?

- by Brian

Is it possible with XPath to get a concatenated view of all of the children of a node? I am looking for something like the JQuery .html() method. For example, if I have the following XML: <h3 class="title"> <span class="content">this</span> <span class="content"> is</span> <span class="content"> some</span> <span class="content"> text</span> </h3> I would like an XPath query on "h3[@class='title']" that would give me "this is some text". That is the real question, but if more context/background is helpful, here it is: I am using XPath and I used this post to help me write some complex XSL. My source XML looks like this. <h3 class="title">Title</h3> <p> <span class="content">Some</span> <span class="content"> text</span> <span class="content"> for</span> <span class="content"> this</span> <span class="content"> section</span> </p> <p> <span class="content">Another</span> <span class="content"> paragraph</span> </p> <h3 class="title"> <span class="content">Title</span> <span class="content"> 2</span> <span class="content"> is</span> <span class="content"> complex</span> </h3> <p> <span class="content">Here</span> <span class="content"> is</span> <span class="content"> some</span> <span class="content"> text</span> </p> My output XML considers each <h3> as well as all <p> tags until the next <h3>. I wrote the XSL as follows: <xsl:template match="h3[@class='title']"> ... <xsl:apply-templates select="following-sibling::p[ generate-id(preceding-sibling::h3[1][@class='title'][text()=current()/text()]) = generate-id(current()) ]"/> ... </xsl:template> The problem is that I use the text() method to identify h3s that are the same. In the example above, the "Title 2 is complex" title's text() method returns whitespace. My thought was to use a method like JQuery's .html that would return me "Title 2 is complex"

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saved image in the picturebox shows no preview

- by Nivas

Hi iam new to C# and have loaded the image in the picture box using menustrip and have displayed some text using picturebox_Paint and label. now i tried to save the image (with image and text) using save event from the menustrip. in the saved location the file shows as no preview avaliable and when i tried to open the file it shows out of memory. can any one say where iam going worng.... my coades private void openToolStripMenuItem_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { string file = ""; OpenFD.FileName = ""; OpenFD.Title = "open image"; OpenFD.InitialDirectory = "C"; OpenFD.Filter = "JPEG|.jpg|Bmp|.bmp|All Files|..*"; if (OpenFD.ShowDialog() == DialogResult.OK) { file = OpenFD.FileName; pictureBox1.Image = Image.FromFile(file); sz = pictureBox1.Size; a=sz.Width; b= sz.Height; } private void pictureBox1_MouseMove(object sender, MouseEventArgs e) { switch (e.Button) { case MouseButtons.Left: { rect = new Rectangle(rect.Left, rect.Top, e.X - rect.Left, e.Y - rect.Top); this.Invalidate(); y = flag.e; Application.DoEvents(); break; } } } private void pictureBox1_MouseDown(object sender, MouseEventArgs e) { rect = new Rectangle(e.X, e.Y, 0, 0); this.Invalidate(); } private void pictureBox1_Paint(object sender, PaintEventArgs e) { using (Pen pen = new Pen(Color.Red, 2)) e.Graphics.DrawRectangle(pen, rect); //e.Graphics.DrawString(label1.Text, label1.Font, new // SolidBrush(label1.ForeColor), label1.Left - pictureBox1.Left, label1.Top - pictureBox1.Top); if (label1.TextAlign == ContentAlignment.TopLeft) { e.Graphics.DrawString(label1.Text, label1.Font, new SolidBrush(label1.ForeColor), label1.Bounds); } else if (label1.TextAlign == ContentAlignment.TopCenter) { SizeF size = e.Graphics.MeasureString(label1.Text, label1.Font); float left = ((float)this.Width + label1.Left) / 2 - size.Width / 2; RectangleF rect1 = new RectangleF(left, (float)label1.Top, size.Width, label1.Height); e.Graphics.DrawString(label1.Text, label1.Font, new SolidBrush(label1.ForeColor), rect1); } else { SizeF size = e.Graphics.MeasureString(label1.Text, label1.Font); float left = (float)label1.Width - size.Width + label1.Left; RectangleF rect1 = new RectangleF(left, (float)label1.Top, size.Width, label1.Height); e.Graphics.DrawString(label1.Text, label1.Font, new SolidBrush(label1.ForeColor), rect1); } label1.Top = rect.Top; label1.Left = rect.Left; label1.Width = rect.Width; label1.Height = rect.Height; } private void saveToolStripMenuItem_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { SaveFileDialog SaveFD1 = new SaveFileDialog(); //string Sd_file = ""; SaveFD1.FileName = ""; SaveFD1.InitialDirectory = "C"; SaveFD1.Title = "save file Name"; SaveFD1.Filter= "JPG|.jpg|Bmp|.bmp"; if (SaveFD1.ShowDialog() != DialogResult.Cancel) { System.IO.Stream filename = (System.IO.FileStream)SaveFD1.OpenFile(); if (SaveFD1.Filter == "JPG") pictureBox1.Image.Save(SaveFD1.FileName); //pictureBox1.Image.Save (filename, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Jpeg); else if (SaveFD1.Filter == "Bmp") { //pictureBox1.Image.Save(filename, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Bmp); } filename.Close(); } }

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Trying to convert string to datetime

- by user1596472

I am trying to restrict a user from entering a new record if the date requested already exits. I was trying to do a count to see if the table that the record would be placed in already has that date 1 or not 0. I have a calendar extender attached to a text box which has the date. I keep getting either a: String was not recognized as a valid DateTime. or Unable to cast object of type 'System.Web.UI.WebControls.TextBox' to type 'System.IConvertible'. depending on the different things I have tried. Here is my code. TextBox startd = (TextBox)(DetailsView1.FindControl("TextBox5")); TextBox endd = (TextBox)(DetailsView1.FindControl("TextBox7")); DropDownList lvtype = (DropDownList)(DetailsView1.FindControl("DropDownList6")); DateTime scheduledDate = DateTime.ParseExact(startd.Text, "dd/MM/yyyy", null); DateTime endDate = DateTime.ParseExact(endd.Text, "dd/MM/yyyy", null); DateTime newstartDate = Convert.ToDateTime(startd.Text); DateTime newendDate = Convert.ToDateTime(endd.Text); //foreach (DataRow row in sd.Tables[0].Rows) DateTime dt = newstartDate; while (dt <= newendDate) { //for retreiving from table Decimal sd = SelectCountDate(dt, lvtype.SelectedValue, countDate); String ndt = Convert.ToDateTime(dt).ToShortDateString(); // //start = string.CompareOrdinal(scheduledDate, ndt); // // end = string.CompareOrdinal(endDate, ndt); //trying to make say when leavetpe is greater than count 1 then throw error. if (sd > 0) { Response.Write("<script>alert('Date Already Requested');</script>"); } dt.AddDays(1); } ^^^ This version throws the: "String was not recognized as valid date type" error But if i replace the string with either of these : /*-----------------------Original------------------------------------ string scheduledDate = Convert.ToDateTime(endd).ToShortDateString(); string endDate = Convert.ToDateTime(endd).ToShortDateString(); -------------------------------------------------------------------*/ /*----------10-30--------------------------------------- DateTime scheduledDate = DateTime.Parse(startd.Text); DateTime endDate = DateTime.Parse(endd.Text); ------------------------------------------------------*/ I get the "Unable to cast object of type 'System.Web.UI.WebControls.TextBox' to type 'System.IConvertible'." error. I am just trying to stop a user from entering a record date that already exits. <InsertItemTemplate> <asp:TextBox ID="TextBox5" runat="server" Height="19px" Text='<%# Bind("lstdate", "{0:MM/dd/yyyy}") %>' Width="67px"></asp:TextBox> <asp:CalendarExtender ID="TextBox5_CalendarExtender" runat="server" Enabled="True" TargetControlID="TextBox5"> </asp:CalendarExtender> <asp:RequiredFieldValidator ID="RequiredFieldValidator2" runat="server" ControlToValidate="TextBox5" ErrorMessage="*Leave Date Required" ForeColor="Red"></asp:RequiredFieldValidator> <br /> <asp:CompareValidator ID="CompareValidator18" runat="server" ControlToCompare="TextBox7" ControlToValidate="TextBox5" ErrorMessage="Leave date cannot be after start date" ForeColor="Red" Operator="LessThanEqual" ToolTip="Must choose start date before end date"></asp:CompareValidator> </InsertItemTemplate>

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C# LINQ filtering with nested if statements

- by Tim Sumrall

I have a learning project where a data grid is filtered by 3 controls (a checkbox and 2 dropdowns) I'm about to wrap up and move on to another project as it works well but I don't like the complexity of nesting IF statements to capture all the possible combinations of the 3 filters and was wondering if there is a better way. For example: Something that would allow for more filters to be added easily rather than walking through all the nests and adding another level of madness. private void BuildQuery() { EntityQuery<MASTER_DOCKS> query = QDocksContext.GetMASTER_DOCKSQuery(); if (Tonnage.IsChecked.HasValue && Tonnage.IsChecked.Value) { if (null != FilterWaterWay.SelectedValue) { string WaterwaytoFilterBy = FilterWaterWay.SelectedValue.ToString(); if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(WaterwaytoFilterBy) && WaterwaytoFilterBy != "[Select WaterWay]") { if (null != FilterState.SelectedValue) { string StateToFilterBy = FilterState.SelectedValue.ToString(); if (null != FilterState.SelectedValue && !string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(StateToFilterBy) && StateToFilterBy != "[Select State]") { if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(StateToFilterBy) && StateToFilterBy != "[Select State]") { query = query.Where(s => s.WTWY_NAME == WaterwaytoFilterBy && s.STATE == StateToFilterBy && (s.Tons != "0" && s.Tons != "")).OrderBy(s => s.WTWY_NAME); MyQuery.Text = "Tonnage, WW and State"; } } if (StateToFilterBy == "[Select State]") //waterway but no state { query = query.Where(s => s.WTWY_NAME == WaterwaytoFilterBy && (s.Tons != "0" && s.Tons != "")).OrderBy(s => s.WTWY_NAME); MyQuery.Text = "Tonnage, WW No State"; } } } else { if (null != FilterState.SelectedValue) { string StateToFilterBy = FilterState.SelectedValue.ToString(); if (null != FilterState.SelectedValue && !string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(StateToFilterBy) && StateToFilterBy != "[Select State]") { if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(StateToFilterBy) && StateToFilterBy != "[Select State]") { query = query.Where(s => s.STATE == StateToFilterBy && (s.Tons != "0" && s.Tons != "")).OrderBy(s => s.WTWY_NAME); MyQuery.Text = "Tonnage State No WW"; } } else { query = query.Where(s => (s.Tons != "0" && s.Tons != "")); MyQuery.Text = "Tonnage No State No WW"; } } } } } else //no tonnage { if (null != FilterWaterWay.SelectedValue) { string WaterwaytoFilterBy = FilterWaterWay.SelectedValue.ToString(); if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(WaterwaytoFilterBy) && WaterwaytoFilterBy != "[Select WaterWay]") { if (null != FilterState.SelectedValue) { string StateToFilterBy = FilterState.SelectedValue.ToString(); if (null != FilterState.SelectedValue && !string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(StateToFilterBy) && StateToFilterBy != "[Select State]") { if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(StateToFilterBy) && StateToFilterBy != "[Select State]") { query = query.Where(s => s.WTWY_NAME == WaterwaytoFilterBy && s.STATE == StateToFilterBy).OrderBy(s => s.WTWY_NAME); MyQuery.Text = "No Tonnage, WW and State"; } } if (StateToFilterBy == "[Select State]") //waterway but no state { query = query.Where(s => s.WTWY_NAME == WaterwaytoFilterBy).OrderBy(s => s.WTWY_NAME); MyQuery.Text = "No Tonnage, WW No State"; } } } else { if (null != FilterState.SelectedValue) { string StateToFilterBy = FilterState.SelectedValue.ToString(); if (null != FilterState.SelectedValue && !string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(StateToFilterBy) && StateToFilterBy != "[Select State]") { if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(StateToFilterBy) && StateToFilterBy != "[Select State]") { query = query.Where(s => s.STATE == StateToFilterBy).OrderBy(s => s.WTWY_NAME); MyQuery.Text = "No Tonnage State No WW"; } } else { LoadAllData(); MyQuery.Text = "No Tonnage No State No WW"; } } } } } LoadOperation<MASTER_DOCKS> loadOp = this.QDocksContext.Load(query); DocksGrid.ItemsSource = loadOp.Entities; }

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antlr line after line processing

- by pawloch

I'm writing simple language in ANTLR, and I'd like to write shell where I can put line of code, hit ENTER and have it executed, enter another line, and have it executed. I have already written grammar which execute all alines of input at one. Example input: int a,b,c; string d; string e; d=\"dziala\"; a=4+7; b=a+33; c=(b/11)*2; grammar Kalkulator; options { language = Java; output=AST; ASTLabelType=CommonTree; } tokens { NEG; } @header { package lab4; } @lexer::header { package lab4; } line : (assignment | declaration)* EOF ; declaration : type^ IDENT (','! IDENT)* ';'! ; type : 'int' | 'string' ; assignment : IDENT '='^ expression ';'! ; term : IDENT | INTEGER | STRING_LITERAL | '('! expression ')'! ; unary : (( negation^ | '+'! ))* term ; negation : '-' -> NEG ; mult : unary ( ('*'^ | '/'^) unary )* ; exp2 :mult ( ('-'^ | '+'^) mult)* ; expression : exp2 ('&'^ exp2)* ; fragment LETTER : ('a'..'z'|'A'..'Z'); fragment DIGIT : '0'..'9'; INTEGER : DIGIT+; IDENT : LETTER (LETTER | DIGIT)* ; WS : (' ' | '\t' | '\n' | '\r' | '\f')+ {$channel=HIDDEN;}; STRING_LITERAL : '\"' .* '\"'; and: tree grammar Evaluator; options { language = Java; tokenVocab = Kalkulator; ASTLabelType = CommonTree; } @header { package lab4; import java.util.Map; import java.util.HashMap; } @members { private Map<String, Object> zmienne = new HashMap<String, Object>(); } line returns [Object result] : (declaration | assignment { result = $assignment.result; })* EOF ; declaration : ^(type ( IDENT { if("string".equals($type.result)){ zmienne.put($IDENT.text,""); //add definition } else{ zmienne.put($IDENT.text,0); //add definition } System.out.println($type.result + " " + $IDENT.text);//write output } )* ) ; assignment returns [Object result] : ^('=' IDENT e=expression) { if(zmienne.containsKey($IDENT.text)) {zmienne.put($IDENT.text, e); result = e; System.out.println(e); } else{ System.out.println("Blad: Niezadeklarowana zmienna"); } } ; type returns [Object result] : 'int' {result="int";}| 'string' {result="string";} ; expression returns [Object result] : ^('+' op1=expression op2=expression) { result = (Integer)op1 + (Integer)op2; } | ^('-' op1=expression op2=expression) { result = (Integer)op1 - (Integer)op2; } | ^('*' op1=expression op2=expression) { result = (Integer)op1 * (Integer)op2; } | ^('/' op1=expression op2=expression) { result = (Integer)op1 / (Integer)op2; } | ^('%' op1=expression op2=expression) { result = (Integer)op1 \% (Integer)op2; } | ^('&' op1=expression op2=expression) { result = (String)op1 + (String)op2; } | ^(NEG e=expression) { result = -(Integer)e; } | IDENT { result = zmienne.get($IDENT.text); } | INTEGER { result = Integer.parseInt($INTEGER.text); } | STRING_LITERAL { String t=$STRING_LITERAL.text; result = t.substring(1,t.length()-1); } ; Can I make it process line-by-line or is that easier to make it all again?

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Jquery mobile ajax request not working after 4-5 request is made in Android

- by Coder_sLaY

I am developing an application using jQuery mobile 1.1.0 RC1 and phonegap 1.5.0 I have a single HTML page which contains all the pages in it as a div(through data-role="page") here is my code <!DOCTYPE HTML> <html> <head> <title>Index Page</title>  <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">  <script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8" src="cordova/cordova-1.5.0.js"></script>  <script type="text/javascript" src="jquery/jquery-1.7.1.min.js"></script> <link rel="stylesheet" href="jquerymobile/jquery.mobile-1.1.0-rc.1.min.css" /> <script type="text/javascript" src="jquery/jquery.validate.min.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="jquerymobile/jquery.mobile-1.1.0-rc.1.min.js"></script> <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/colors.css"> <script type="text/javascript"> function page1(){ $.mobile.changePage("#page2", { transition : "slide" }); } function page2(){ $.mobile.changePage("#page1", { transition : "slide" }); } $("#page1").live("pageshow", function(e) { $.ajax({ type : 'GET', cache : false, url : "http://192.168.1.198:9051/something.xml" + "?time=" + Date.now(), data : { key : "value" }, dataType : "xml", success : function(xml) { console.log("Success Page1"); }, error : function(xhr) { } }); }); $("#page2").live("pageshow", function(e) { $.ajax({ type : 'GET', cache : false, url : "http://192.168.1.198:9051/something.xml" + "?time=" + Date.now(), data : { key : "value" }, dataType : "xml", success : function(xml) { console.log("Success Page2"); }, error : function(xhr) { } }); }); </script> <body> <div data-role="page" id="page1"> <div data-role="header">Page 1</div> <div data-role="content"> <input type="text" name="page1GetTime" id="page1GetTime" value="" /><a href="#" data-role="button" onclick="page1()" id="gotopage2"> Go to Page 2 </a> </div> </div> <div data-role="page" id="page2"> <div data-role="header">Page 2</div> <div data-role="content"> <input type="text" name="page2GetTime" id="page2GetTime" value="" /><a href="#" data-role="button" onclick="page2()" id="gotopage1">Go to Page 1</a> </div> </div> </body> Now when i click to "Go to page2" then page2 will be shown along with one ajax request .. If i keep on moving from one page to another then a ajax request is made.. This request stops responding after 4 to 5 request... Why is it happening?

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Netflix, jQuery, JSONP, and OData

- by Stephen Walther

At the last MIX conference, Netflix announced that they are exposing their catalog of movie information using the OData protocol. This is great news! This means that you can take advantage of all of the advanced OData querying features against a live database of Netflix movies. In this blog entry, I’ll demonstrate how you can use Netflix, jQuery, JSONP, and OData to create a simple movie lookup form. The form enables you to enter a movie title, or part of a movie title, and display a list of matching movies. For example, Figure 1 illustrates the movies displayed when you enter the value robot into the lookup form. Using the Netflix OData Catalog API You can learn about the Netflix OData Catalog API at the following website: http://developer.netflix.com/docs/oData_Catalog The nice thing about this website is that it provides plenty of samples. It also has a good general reference for OData. For example, the website includes a list of OData filter operators and functions. The Netflix Catalog API exposes 4 top-level resources: Titles – A database of Movie information including interesting movie properties such as synopsis, BoxArt, and Cast. People – A database of people information including interesting information such as Awards, TitlesDirected, and TitlesActedIn. Languages – Enables you to get title information in different languages. Genres – Enables you to get title information for specific movie genres. OData is REST based. This means that you can perform queries by putting together the right URL. For example, if you want to get a list of the movies that were released after 2010 and that had an average rating greater than 4 then you can enter the following URL in the address bar of your browser: http://odata.netflix.com/Catalog/Titles?$filter=ReleaseYear gt 2010&AverageRating gt 4 Entering this URL returns the movies in Figure 2. Creating the Movie Lookup Form The complete code for the Movie Lookup form is contained in Listing 1. Listing 1 – MovieLookup.htm <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title>Netflix with jQuery</title> <style type="text/css"> #movieTemplateContainer div { width:400px; padding: 10px; margin: 10px; border: black solid 1px; } </style> <script src="http://ajax.microsoft.com/ajax/jquery/jquery-1.4.2.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="App_Scripts/Microtemplates.js" type="text/javascript"></script> </head> <body> <label>Search Movies:</label> <input id="movieName" size="50" /> <button id="btnLookup">Lookup</button> <div id="movieTemplateContainer"></div> <script id="movieTemplate" type="text/html"> <div> <img src="<%=BoxArtSmallUrl %>" /> <strong><%=Name%></strong> <p> <%=Synopsis %> </p> </div> </script> <script type="text/javascript"> $("#btnLookup").click(function () { // Build OData query var movieName = $("#movieName").val(); var query = "http://odata.netflix.com/Catalog" // netflix base url + "/Titles" // top-level resource + "?$filter=substringof('" + escape(movieName) + "',Name)" // filter by movie name + "&$callback=callback" // jsonp request + "&$format=json"; // json request // Make JSONP call to Netflix $.ajax({ dataType: "jsonp", url: query, jsonpCallback: "callback", success: callback }); }); function callback(result) { // unwrap result var movies = result["d"]["results"]; // show movies in template var showMovie = tmpl("movieTemplate"); var html = ""; for (var i = 0; i < movies.length; i++) { // flatten movie movies[i].BoxArtSmallUrl = movies[i].BoxArt.SmallUrl; // render with template html += showMovie(movies[i]); } $("#movieTemplateContainer").html(html); } </script> </body> </html> The HTML page in Listing 1 includes two JavaScript libraries: <script src="http://ajax.microsoft.com/ajax/jquery/jquery-1.4.2.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="App_Scripts/Microtemplates.js" type="text/javascript"></script> The first script tag retrieves jQuery from the Microsoft Ajax CDN. You can learn more about the Microsoft Ajax CDN by visiting the following website: http://www.asp.net/ajaxLibrary/cdn.ashx The second script tag is used to reference Resig’s micro-templating library. Because I want to use a template to display each movie, I need this library: http://ejohn.org/blog/javascript-micro-templating/ When you enter a value into the Search Movies input field and click the button, the following JavaScript code is executed: // Build OData query var movieName = $("#movieName").val(); var query = "http://odata.netflix.com/Catalog" // netflix base url + "/Titles" // top-level resource + "?$filter=substringof('" + escape(movieName) + "',Name)" // filter by movie name + "&$callback=callback" // jsonp request + "&$format=json"; // json request // Make JSONP call to Netflix $.ajax({ dataType: "jsonp", url: query, jsonpCallback: "callback", success: callback }); This code Is used to build a query that will be executed against the Netflix Catalog API. For example, if you enter the search phrase King Kong then the following URL is created: http://odata.netflix.com/Catalog/Titles?$filter=substringof(‘King%20Kong’,Name)&$callback=callback&$format=json This query includes the following parameters: $filter – You assign a filter expression to this parameter to filter the movie results. $callback – You assign the name of a JavaScript callback method to this parameter. OData calls this method to return the movie results. $format – you assign either the value json or xml to this parameter to specify how the format of the movie results. Notice that all of the OData parameters -- $filter, $callback, $format -- start with a dollar sign $. The Movie Lookup form uses JSONP to retrieve data across the Internet. Because WCF Data Services supports JSONP, and Netflix uses WCF Data Services to expose movies using the OData protocol, you can use JSONP when interacting with the Netflix Catalog API. To learn more about using JSONP with OData, see Pablo Castro’s blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/pablo/archive/2009/02/25/adding-support-for-jsonp-and-url-controlled-format-to-ado-net-data-services.aspx The actual JSONP call is performed by calling the $.ajax() method. When this call successfully completes, the JavaScript callback() method is called. The callback() method looks like this: function callback(result) { // unwrap result var movies = result["d"]["results"]; // show movies in template var showMovie = tmpl("movieTemplate"); var html = ""; for (var i = 0; i < movies.length; i++) { // flatten movie movies[i].BoxArtSmallUrl = movies[i].BoxArt.SmallUrl; // render with template html += showMovie(movies[i]); } $("#movieTemplateContainer").html(html); } The movie results from Netflix are passed to the callback method. The callback method takes advantage of Resig’s micro-templating library to display each of the movie results. A template used to display each movie is passed to the tmpl() method. The movie template looks like this: <script id="movieTemplate" type="text/html"> <div> <img src="<%=BoxArtSmallUrl %>" /> <strong><%=Name%></strong> <p> <%=Synopsis %> </p> </div> </script> This template looks like a server-side ASP.NET template. However, the template is rendered in the client (browser) instead of the server. Summary The goal of this blog entry was to demonstrate how well jQuery works with OData. We managed to use a number of interesting open-source libraries and open protocols while building the Movie Lookup form including jQuery, JSONP, JSON, and OData.

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Integrate Bing Search API into ASP.Net application

- by sreejukg

Couple of months back, I wrote an article about how to integrate Bing Search engine (API 2.0) with ASP.Net website. You can refer the article here http://weblogs.asp.net/sreejukg/archive/2012/04/07/integrate-bing-api-for-search-inside-asp-net-web-application.aspx Things are changing rapidly in the tech world and Bing has also changed! The Bing Search API 2.0 will work until August 1, 2012, after that it will not return results. Shocked? Don’t worry the API has moved to Windows Azure market place and available for you to sign up and continue using it and there is a free version available based on your usage. In this article, I am going to explain how you can integrate the new Bing API that is available in the Windows Azure market place with your website. You can access the Windows Azure market place from the below link https://datamarket.azure.com/ There is lot of applications available for you to subscribe and use. Bing is one of them. You can find the new Bing Search API from the below link https://datamarket.azure.com/dataset/5BA839F1-12CE-4CCE-BF57-A49D98D29A44 To get access to Bing Search API, first you need to register an account with Windows Azure market place. Sign in to the Windows Azure market place site using your windows live account. Once you sign in with your windows live account, you need to register to Windows Azure Market place account. From the Windows Azure market place, you will see the sign in button it the top right of the page. Clicking on the sign in button will take you to the Windows live ID authentication page. You can enter a windows live ID here to login. Once logged in you will see the Registration page for the Windows Azure market place as follows. You can agree or disagree for the email address usage by Microsoft. I believe selecting the check box means you will get email about what is happening in Windows Azure market place. Click on continue button once you are done. In the next page, you should accept the terms of use, it is not optional, you must agree to terms and conditions. Scroll down to the page and select the I agree checkbox and click on Register Button. Now you are a registered member of Windows Azure market place. You can subscribe to data applications. In order to use BING API in your application, you must obtain your account Key, in the previous version of Bing you were required an API key, the current version uses Account Key instead. Once you logged in to the Windows Azure market place, you can see “My Account” in the top menu, from the Top menu; go to “My Account” Section. From the My Account section, you can manage your subscriptions and Account Keys. Account Keys will be used by your applications to access the subscriptions from the market place. Click on My Account link, you can see Account Keys in the left menu and then Add an account key or you can use the default Account key available. Creating account key is very simple process. Also you can remove the account keys you create if necessary. The next step is to subscribe to BING Search API. At this moment, Bing Offers 2 APIs for search. The available options are as follows. 1. Bing Search API - https://datamarket.azure.com/dataset/5ba839f1-12ce-4cce-bf57-a49d98d29a44 2. Bing Search API – Web Results only - https://datamarket.azure.com/dataset/8818f55e-2fe5-4ce3-a617-0b8ba8419f65 The difference is that the later will give you only web results where the other you can specify the source type such as image, video, web, news etc. Carefully choose the API based on your application requirements. In this article, I am going to use Web Results Only API, but the steps will be similar to both. Go to the API page https://datamarket.azure.com/dataset/8818f55e-2fe5-4ce3-a617-0b8ba8419f65, you can see the subscription options in the right side. And in the bottom of the page you can see the free option Since I am going to use the free options, just Click the Sign Up link for that. Just select I agree check box and click on the Sign Up button. You will get a recipt pagethat detail your subscription. Now you are ready Bing Search API – Web results. The next step is to integrate the API into your ASP.Net application. Now if you go to the Search API page (as well as in the Receipt page), you can see a .Net C# Class Library link, click on the link, you will get a code file named “BingSearchContainer.cs”. In the following sections I am going to demonstrate the use of Bing Search API from an ASP.Net application. Create an empty ASP.Net web application. In the solution explorer, the application will looks as follows. Now add the downloaded code file (“BingSearchContainer.cs”) to the project. Right click your project in solution explorer, Add -> existing item, then browse to the downloaded location, select the “BingSearchContainer.cs” file and add it to the project. To build the code file you need to add reference to the following library. System.Data.Services.Client You can find the library in the .Net tab, when you select Add -> Reference Try to build your project now; it should build without any errors. Add an ASP.Net page to the project. I have included a text box and a button, then a Grid View to the page. The idea is to Search the text entered and display the results in the gridview. The page will look in the Visual Studio Designer as follows. The markup of the page is as follows. In the button click event handler for the search button, I have used the following code. Now run your project and enter some text in the text box and click the Search button, you will see the results coming from Bing, cool. I entered the text “Microsoft” in the textbox and clicked on the button and I got the following results. Searching Specific Websites If you want to search a particular website, you pass the site url with site:<site url name> and if you have more sites, use pipe (|). e.g. The following search query site:microsoft.com | site:adobe.com design will search the word design and return the results from Microsoft.com and Adobe.com See the sample code that search only Microsoft.com for the text entered for the above sample. var webResults = bingContainer.Web("site:www.Microsoft.com " + txtSearch.Text, null, null, null, null, null, null); Paging the results returned by the API By default the BING API will return 100 results based on your query. The default code file that you downloaded from BING doesn’t include any option for this. You can modify the downloaded code to perform this paging. The BING API supports two parameters $top (for number of results to return) and $skip (for number of records to skip). So if you want 3rd page of results with page size = 10, you need to pass $top = 10 and $skip=20. Open the BingSearchContainer.cs in the editor. You can see the Web method in it as follows. public DataServiceQuery<WebResult> Web(String Query, String Market, String Adult, Double? Latitude, Double? Longitude, String WebFileType, String Options) { In the method signature, I have added two more parameters public DataServiceQuery<WebResult> Web(String Query, String Market, String Adult, Double? Latitude, Double? Longitude, String WebFileType, String Options, int resultCount, int pageNo) { and in the method, you need to pass the parameters to the query variable. query = query.AddQueryOption("$top", resultCount); query = query.AddQueryOption("$skip", (pageNo -1)*resultCount); return query; Note that I didn’t perform any validation, but you need to check conditions such as resultCount and pageCount should be greater than or equal to 1. If the parameters are not valid, the Bing Search API will throw the error. The modified method is as follows. The changes are highlighted. Now see the following code in the SearchPage.aspx.cs file protected void btnSearch_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { var bingContainer = new Bing.BingSearchContainer(new Uri(https://api.datamarket.azure.com/Bing/SearchWeb/)); // replace this value with your account key var accountKey = "your key"; // the next line configures the bingContainer to use your credentials. bingContainer.Credentials = new NetworkCredential(accountKey, accountKey); var webResults = bingContainer.Web("site:microsoft.com" +txtSearch.Text , null, null, null, null, null, null,3,2); lstResults.DataSource = webResults; lstResults.DataBind(); } The following code will return 3 results starting from second page (by skipping first 3 results). See the result page as follows. Bing provides complete integration to its offerings. When you develop search based applications, you can use the power of Bing to perform the search. Integrating Bing Search API to ASP.Net application is a simple process and without investing much time, you can develop a good search based application. Make sure you read the terms of use before designing the application and decide which API usage is suitable for you. Further readings BING API Migration Guide http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=248077 Bing API FAQ http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=252146 Bing API Schema Guide http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=252151

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Generating PDF Files With iTextSharp

- by Ricardo Peres

I recently had the need to generate a PDF file containing a table where some of the cells included images. Of course, I used iTextSharp to do it. Because it has some obscure parts, I decided to publish a simplified version of the code I used. using iTextSharp; using iTextSharp.text; using iTextSharp.text.pdf; using iTextSharp.text.html; //... protected void OnGeneratePdfClick() { String text = "Multi\nline\ntext"; String name = "Some Name"; String number = "12345"; Int32 rows = 7; Int32 cols = 3; Single headerHeight = 47f; Single footerHeight = 45f; Single rowHeight = 107.4f; String pdfName = String.Format("Labels - {0}", name); PdfPTable table = new PdfPTable(3) { WidthPercentage = 100, HeaderRows = 1 }; PdfPCell headerCell = new PdfPCell(new Phrase("Header")) { Colspan = cols, FixedHeight = headerHeight, HorizontalAlignment = Element.ALIGN_CENTER, BorderWidth = 0f }; table.AddCell(headerCell); FontFactory.RegisterDirectory(@"C:\WINDOWS\Fonts"); //required for the Verdana font Font cellFont = FontFactory.GetFont("Verdana", 6f, Font.NORMAL); for (Int32 r = 0; r SyntaxHighlighter.config.clipboardSwf = 'http://alexgorbatchev.com/pub/sh/2.0.320/scripts/clipboard.swf'; SyntaxHighlighter.brushes.CSharp.aliases = ['c#', 'c-sharp', 'csharp']; SyntaxHighlighter.all();

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Building a Windows Phone 7 Twitter Application using Silverlight

- by ScottGu

On Monday I had the opportunity to present the MIX 2010 Day 1 Keynote in Las Vegas (you can watch a video of it here). In the keynote I announced the release of the Silverlight 4 Release Candidate (we’ll ship the final release of it next month) and the VS 2010 RC tools for Silverlight 4. I also had the chance to talk for the first time about how Silverlight and XNA can now be used to build Windows Phone 7 applications. During my talk I did two quick Windows Phone 7 coding demos using Silverlight – a quick “Hello World” application and a “Twitter” data-snacking application. Both applications were easy to build and only took a few minutes to create on stage. Below are the steps you can follow yourself to build them on your own machines as well. [Note: In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu] Building a “Hello World” Windows Phone 7 Application First make sure you’ve installed the Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP – this includes the Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone development tool (which will be free forever and is the only thing you need to develop and build Windows Phone 7 applications) as well as an add-on to the VS 2010 RC that enables phone development within the full VS 2010 as well. After you’ve downloaded and installed the Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP, launch the Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone that it installs or launch the VS 2010 RC (if you have it already installed), and then choose “File”->”New Project.” Here, you’ll find the usual list of project template types along with a new category: “Silverlight for Windows Phone”. The first CTP offers two application project templates. The first is the “Windows Phone Application” template - this is what we’ll use for this example. The second is the “Windows Phone List Application” template - which provides the basic layout for a master-details phone application: After creating a new project, you’ll get a view of the design surface and markup. Notice that the design surface shows the phone UI, letting you easily see how your application will look while you develop. For those familiar with Visual Studio, you’ll also find the familiar ToolBox, Solution Explorer and Properties pane. For our HelloWorld application, we’ll start out by adding a TextBox and a Button from the Toolbox. Notice that you get the same design experience as you do for Silverlight on the web or desktop. You can easily resize, position and align your controls on the design surface. Changing properties is easy with the Properties pane. We’ll change the name of the TextBox that we added to username and change the page title text to “Hello world.” We’ll then write some code by double-clicking on the button and create an event handler in the code-behind file (MainPage.xaml.cs). We’ll start out by changing the title text of the application. The project template included this title as a TextBlock with the name textBlockListTitle (note that the current name incorrectly includes the word “list”; that will be fixed for the final release.) As we write code against it we get intellisense showing the members available. Below we’ll set the Text property of the title TextBlock to “Hello “ + the Text property of the TextBox username: We now have all the code necessary for a Hello World application. We have two choices when it comes to deploying and running the application. We can either deploy to an actual device itself or use the built-in phone emulator: Because the phone emulator is actually the phone operating system running in a virtual machine, we’ll get the same experience developing in the emulator as on the device. For this sample, we’ll just press F5 to start the application with debugging using the emulator. Once the phone operating system loads, the emulator will run the new “Hello world” application exactly as it would on the device: Notice that we can change several settings of the emulator experience with the emulator toolbar – which is a floating toolbar on the top right. This includes the ability to re-size/zoom the emulator and two rotate buttons. Zoom lets us zoom into even the smallest detail of the application: The orientation buttons allow us easily see what the application looks like in landscape mode (orientation change support is just built into the default template): Note that the emulator can be reused across F5 debug sessions - that means that we don’t have to start the emulator for every deployment. We’ve added a dialog that will help you from accidentally shutting down the emulator if you want to reuse it. Launching an application on an already running emulator should only take ~3 seconds to deploy and run. Within our Hello World application we’ll click the “username” textbox to give it focus. This will cause the software input panel (SIP) to open up automatically. We can either type a message or – since we are using the emulator – just type in text. Note that the emulator works with Windows 7 multi-touch so, if you have a touchscreen, you can see how interaction will feel on a device just by pressing the screen. We’ll enter “MIX 10” in the textbox and then click the button – this will cause the title to update to be “Hello MIX 10”: We provide the same Visual Studio experience when developing for the phone as other .NET applications. This means that we can set a breakpoint within the button event handler, press the button again and have it break within the debugger: Building a “Twitter” Windows Phone 7 Application using Silverlight Rather than just stop with “Hello World” let’s keep going and evolve it to be a basic Twitter client application. We’ll return to the design surface and add a ListBox, using the snaplines within the designer to fit it to the device screen and make the best use of phone screen real estate. We’ll also rename the Button “Lookup”: We’ll then return to the Button event handler in Main.xaml.cs, and remove the original “Hello World” line of code and take advantage of the WebClient networking class to asynchronously download a Twitter feed. This takes three lines of code in total: (1) declaring and creating the WebClient, (2) attaching an event handler and then (3) calling the asynchronous DownloadStringAsync method. In the DownloadStringAsync call, we’ll pass a Twitter Uri plus a query string which pulls the text from the “username” TextBox. This feed will pull down the respective user’s most frequent posts in an XML format. When the call completes, the DownloadStringCompleted event is fired and our generated event handler twitter_DownloadStringCompleted will be called: The result returned from the Twitter call will come back in an XML based format. To parse this we’ll use LINQ to XML. LINQ to XML lets us create simple queries for accessing data in an xml feed. To use this library, we’ll first need to add a reference to the assembly (right click on the References folder in the solution explorer and choose “Add Reference): We’ll then add a “using System.Xml.Linq” namespace reference at the top of the code-behind file at the top of Main.xaml.cs file: We’ll then add a simple helper class called TwitterItem to our project. TwitterItem has three string members – UserName, Message and ImageSource: We’ll then implement the twitter_DownloadStringCompleted event handler and use LINQ to XML to parse the returned XML string from Twitter. What the query is doing is pulling out the three key pieces of information for each Twitter post from the username we passed as the query string. These are the ImageSource for their profile image, the Message of their tweet and their UserName. For each Tweet in the XML, we are creating a new TwitterItem in the IEnumerable<XElement> returned by the Linq query. We then assign the generated TwitterItem sequence to the ListBox’s ItemsSource property: We’ll then do one more step to complete the application. In the Main.xaml file, we’ll add an ItemTemplate to the ListBox. For the demo, I used a simple template that uses databinding to show the user’s profile image, their tweet and their username. <ListBox Height="521" HorizonalAlignment="Left" Margin="0,131,0,0" Name="listBox1" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="476"> <ListBox.ItemTemplate> <DataTemplate> <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" Height="132"> <Image Source="{Binding ImageSource}" Height="73" Width="73" VerticalAlignment="Top" Margin="0,10,8,0"/> <StackPanel Width="370"> <TextBlock Text="{Binding UserName}" Foreground="#FFC8AB14" FontSize="28" /> <TextBlock Text="{Binding Message}" TextWrapping="Wrap" FontSize="24" /> </StackPanel> </StackPanel> </DataTemplate> </ListBox.ItemTemplate> </ListBox> Now, pressing F5 again, we are able to reuse the emulator and re-run the application. Once the application has launched, we can type in a Twitter username and press the Button to see the results. Try my Twitter user name (scottgu) and you’ll get back a result of TwitterItems in the Listbox: Try using the mouse (or if you have a touchscreen device your finger) to scroll the items in the Listbox – you should find that they move very fast within the emulator. This is because the emulator is hardware accelerated – and so gives you the same fast performance that you get on the actual phone hardware. Summary Silverlight and the VS 2010 Tools for Windows Phone (and the corresponding Expression Blend Tools for Windows Phone) make building Windows Phone applications both really easy and fun. At MIX this week a number of great partners (including Netflix, FourSquare, Seesmic, Shazaam, Major League Soccer, Graphic.ly, Associated Press, Jackson Fish and more) showed off some killer application prototypes they’ve built over the last few weeks. You can watch my full day 1 keynote to see them in action. I think they start to show some of the promise and potential of using Silverlight with Windows Phone 7. I’ll be doing more blog posts in the weeks and months ahead that cover that more. Hope this helps, Scott

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What markup languages are good for programming articles/tutorials?

- by Vilx-

I very much wish to write a programming tutorial in my native language (Latvian). There are far too few of those. I am however unsure on what markup language to use for writing it. Here are a few things I would like to achieve: The same source can be compiled to both HTML for online viewing and printed form (PDF?). In HTML form it would allow superior interaction and appearance (see below), while the print form would look good on paper (layout etc). I have the idea that the tutorial could be multi-language. Different students have different requirements in their schools. For example, some schools teach Java, some teach C#. You could choose the language on the top of the HTML page and the relevant code snippets (and occasionally pieces of text) would swap out. Most of the text is the same anyway, only the language syntax is a bit different. The text would occasionally contain images too of course and these would need to be included in both the HTML and the printed version In the HTML version the code snippets should get automatic syntax coloring which should ideally be the same as in the recommended IDE for the tutorial. In case there are ambiguities, hints for the syntax colorer should be possible, but I don't want to do the whole coloring by hand. "Output" syntax coloring which would emulate a standard 80x25 text console (since many of the initial programs would be console applicatioins) Collapsible sections for answers to questions (aka "spoiler tags") Automatically generated index/table-of-contents Links to other parts of the tutorial (rendered as links in HTML and as references in print version) "Side note" sections, rendered as separate blocks on the side. Other functions useful in publications that I'm not aware of :) I know this is a bit much to ask, but is there something close enough that I could take it as a starting point and add the necessary features myself? Or is there something in the whole list (like the desire to have both HTML and print versions from the same source) that makes it all fundametally infeasible?

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Exam 70-480 Study Material: Programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3

- by Stacy Vicknair

Here’s a list of sources of information for the different elements that comprise the 70-480 exam: General Resources http://www.w3schools.com (As pointed out in David Pallmann’s blog some of this content is unverified, but it is a decent source of information. For more about when it isn’t decent, see http://www.w3fools.com ) http://www.bloggedbychris.com/2012/09/19/microsoft-exam-70-480-study-guide/ (A guy who did a lot of what I did already, sadly I found this halfway through finishing my resources list. This list is expertly put together so I would recommend checking it out.) http://davidpallmann.blogspot.com/2012/08/microsoft-certification-exam-70-480.html http://pluralsight.com/training/Courses (Yes, this isn’t free, but if you look at the course listing there is an entire section on HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript. You can always try the trial!) Some of the links I put below will overlap with the other resources above, but I tried to find explanations that looked beneficial to me on links outside those already mentioned. Test Breakdown Implement and Manipulate Document Structures and Objects (24%) Create the document structure. o This objective may include but is not limited to: structure the UI by using semantic markup, including for search engines and screen readers (Section, Article, Nav, Header, Footer, and Aside); create a layout container in HTML http://www.w3schools.com/html/html5_new_elements.asp Write code that interacts with UI controls. o This objective may include but is not limited to: programmatically add and modify HTML elements; implement media controls; implement HTML5 canvas and SVG graphics http://www.w3schools.com/html/html5_canvas.asp http://www.w3schools.com/html/html5_svg.asp Apply styling to HTML elements programmatically. o This objective may include but is not limited to: change the location of an element; apply a transform; show and hide elements Implement HTML5 APIs. o This objective may include but is not limited to: implement storage APIs, AppCache API, and Geolocation API http://www.w3schools.com/html/html5_geolocation.asp http://www.w3schools.com/html/html5_webstorage.asp http://www.w3schools.com/html/html5_app_cache.asp Establish the scope of objects and variables. o This objective may include but is not limited to: define the lifetime of variables; keep objects out of the global namespace; use the “this” keyword to reference an object that fired an event; scope variables locally and globally http://robertnyman.com/2008/10/09/explaining-javascript-scope-and-closures/ http://www.quirksmode.org/js/this.html Create and implement objects and methods. o This objective may include but is not limited to: implement native objects; create custom objects and custom properties for native objects using prototypes and functions; inherit from an object; implement native methods and create custom methods http://www.javascriptkit.com/javatutors/object.shtml http://www.crockford.com/javascript/inheritance.html http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1635116/javascript-class-method-vs-class-prototype-method http://www.javascriptkit.com/javatutors/proto.shtml Implement Program Flow (25%) Implement program flow. o This objective may include but is not limited to: iterate across collections and array items; manage program decisions by using switch statements, if/then, and operators; evaluate expressions http://www.javascriptkit.com/jsref/looping.shtml http://www.javascriptkit.com/javatutors/varshort.shtml http://www.javascriptkit.com/javatutors/switch.shtml Raise and handle an event. o This objective may include but is not limited to: handle common events exposed by DOM (OnBlur, OnFocus, OnClick); declare and handle bubbled events; handle an event by using an anonymous function http://dev.w3.org/2006/webapi/DOM-Level-3-Events/html/DOM3-Events.html http://javascript.info/tutorial/bubbling-and-capturing Implement exception handling. o This objective may include but is not limited to: set and respond to error codes; throw an exception; request for null checks; implement try-catch-finally blocks http://www.javascriptkit.com/javatutors/trycatch.shtml Implement a callback. o This objective may include but is not limited to: receive messages from the HTML5 WebSocket API; use jQuery to make an AJAX call; wire up an event; implement a callback by using anonymous functions; handle the “this” pointer http://www.w3.org/TR/2011/WD-websockets-20110419/ http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/websockets/basics/ http://api.jquery.com/jQuery.ajax/ Create a web worker process. o This objective may include but is not limited to: start and stop a web worker; pass data to a web worker; configure timeouts and intervals on the web worker; register an event listener for the web worker; limitations of a web worker https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/DOM/Using_web_workers http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/workers/basics/ Access and Secure Data (26%) Validate user input by using HTML5 elements. o This objective may include but is not limited to: choose the appropriate controls based on requirements; implement HTML input types and content attributes (for example, required) to collect user input http://diveintohtml5.info/forms.html Validate user input by using JavaScript. o This objective may include but is not limited to: evaluate a regular expression to validate the input format; validate that you are getting the right kind of data type by using built-in functions; prevent code injection http://www.regular-expressions.info/javascript.html http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/66ztdbe6(v=vs.94).aspx https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/JavaScript/Reference/Operators/typeof http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2008/06/safe-html-and-xss/ http://stackoverflow.com/questions/942011/how-to-prevent-javascript-injection-attacks-within-user-generated-html Consume data. o This objective may include but is not limited to: consume JSON and XML data; retrieve data by using web services; load data or get data from other sources by using XMLHTTPRequest http://www.erichynds.com/jquery/working-with-xml-jquery-and-javascript/ http://www.webdevstuff.com/86/javascript-xmlhttprequest-object.html http://www.json.org/ http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4935632/how-to-parse-json-in-javascript Serialize, deserialize, and transmit data. o This objective may include but is not limited to: binary data; text data (JSON, XML); implement the jQuery serialize method; Form.Submit; parse data; send data by using XMLHTTPRequest; sanitize input by using URI/form encoding http://api.jquery.com/serialize/ http://www.javascript-coder.com/javascript-form/javascript-form-submit.phtml http://stackoverflow.com/questions/327685/is-there-a-way-to-read-binary-data-into-javascript https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/encodeURI Use CSS3 in Applications (25%) Style HTML text properties. o This objective may include but is not limited to: apply styles to text appearance (color, bold, italics); apply styles to text font (WOFF and @font-face, size); apply styles to text alignment, spacing, and indentation; apply styles to text hyphenation; apply styles for a text drop shadow http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_text.asp http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_font.asp http://nicewebtype.com/notes/2009/10/30/how-to-use-css-font-face/ http://webdesign.about.com/od/beginningcss/p/aacss5text.htm http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-text/ http://www.css3.info/preview/box-shadow/ Style HTML box properties. o This objective may include but is not limited to: apply styles to alter appearance attributes (size, border and rounding border corners, outline, padding, margin); apply styles to alter graphic effects (transparency, opacity, background image, gradients, shadow, clipping); apply styles to establish and change an element’s position (static, relative, absolute, fixed) http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/html-css-techniques/10-css3-properties-you-need-to-be-familiar-with/ http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_image_transparency.asp http://www.w3schools.com/cssref/pr_background-image.asp http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/graphics/cssgradientbackgroundmaker/default.html http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/visufx.html http://www.barelyfitz.com/screencast/html-training/css/positioning/ http://davidwalsh.name/css-fixed-position Create a flexible content layout. o This objective may include but is not limited to: implement a layout using a flexible box model; implement a layout using multi-column; implement a layout using position floating and exclusions; implement a layout using grid alignment; implement a layout using regions, grouping, and nesting http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/flexbox/quick/ http://www.css3.info/preview/multi-column-layout/ http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ie/hh673558(v=vs.85).aspx http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css3-grid-layout/ http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css3-regions/ Create an animated and adaptive UI. o This objective may include but is not limited to: animate objects by applying CSS transitions; apply 3-D and 2-D transformations; adjust UI based on media queries (device adaptations for output formats, displays, and representations); hide or disable controls http://www.bloggedbychris.com/2012/09/19/microsoft-exam-70-480-study-guide/ Find elements by using CSS selectors and jQuery. o This objective may include but is not limited to: choose the correct selector to reference an element; define element, style, and attribute selectors; find elements by using pseudo-elements and pseudo-classes (for example, :before, :first-line, :first-letter, :target, :lang, :checked, :first-child) http://www.bloggedbychris.com/2012/09/19/microsoft-exam-70-480-study-guide/ Structure a CSS file by using CSS selectors. o This objective may include but is not limited to: reference elements correctly; implement inheritance; override inheritance by using !important; style an element based on pseudo-elements and pseudo-classes (for example, :before, :first-line, :first-letter, :target, :lang, :checked, :first-child) http://www.bloggedbychris.com/2012/09/19/microsoft-exam-70-480-study-guide/ Technorati Tags: 70-480,CSS3,HTML5,HTML,CSS,JavaScript,Certification

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Making a Case For The Command Line

- by Jesse Taber

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/GruffCode/archive/2013/06/30/making-a-case-for-the-command-line.aspxI have had an idea percolating in the back of my mind for over a year now that I’ve just recently started to implement. This idea relates to building out “internal tools” to ease the maintenance and on-going support of a software system. The system that I currently work on is (mostly) web-based, so we traditionally we have built these internal tools in the form of pages within the app that are only accessible by our developers and support personnel. These pages allow us to perform tasks within the system that, for one reason or another, we don’t want to let our end users perform (e.g. mass create/update/delete operations on data, flipping switches that turn paid modules of the system on or off, etc). When we try to build new tools like this we often struggle with the level of effort required to build them. Effort Required Creating a whole new page in an existing web application can be a fairly large undertaking. You need to create the page and ensure it will have a layout that is consistent with the other pages in the app. You need to decide what types of input controls need to go onto the page. You need to ensure that everything uses the same style as the rest of the site. You need to figure out what the text on the page should say. Then, when you figure out that you forgot about an input that should really be present you might have to go back and re-work the entire thing. Oh, and in addition to all of that, you still have to, you know, write the code that actually performs the task. Everything other than the code that performs the task at hand is just overhead. We don’t need a fancy date picker control in a nicely styled page for the vast majority of our internal tools. We don’t even really need a page, for that matter. We just need a way to issue a command to the application and have it, in turn, execute the code that we’ve written to accomplish a given task. All we really need is a simple console application! Plumbing Problems A former co-worker of mine, John Sonmez, always advocated the Unix philosophy for building internal tools: start with something that runs at the command line, and then build a UI on top of that if you need to. John’s idea has a lot of merit, and we tried building out some internal tools as simple Console applications. Unfortunately, this was often easier said that done. Doing a “File –> New Project” to build out a tool for a mature system can be pretty daunting because that new project is totally empty. In our case, the web application code had a lot of of “plumbing” built in: it managed authentication and authorization, it handled database connection management for our multi-tenanted architecture, it managed all of the context that needs to follow a user around the application such as their timezone and regional/language settings. In addition, the configuration file for the web application (a web.config in our case because this is an ASP .NET application) is large and would need to be reproduced into a similar configuration file for a Console application. While most of these problems are could be solved pretty easily with some refactoring of the codebase, building Console applications for internal tools still potentially suffers from one pretty big drawback: you’d have to execute them on a machine with network access to all of the needed resources. Obviously, our web servers can easily communicate the the database servers and can publish messages to our service bus, but the same is not true for all of our developer and support personnel workstations. We could have everyone run these tools remotely via RDP or SSH, but that’s a bit cumbersome and certainly a lot less convenient than having the tools built into the web application that is so easily accessible. Mix and Match So we need a way to build tools that are easily accessible via the web application but also don’t require the overhead of creating a user interface. This is where my idea comes into play: why not just build a command line interface into the web application? If it’s part of the web application we get all of the plumbing that comes along with that code, and we’re executing everything on the web servers which means we’ll have access to any external resources that we might need. Rather than having to incur the overhead of creating a brand new page for each tool that we want to build, we can create one new page that simply accepts a command in text form and executes it as a request on the web server. In this way, we can focus on writing the code to accomplish the task. If the tool ends up being heavily used, then (and only then) should we consider spending the time to build a better user experience around it. To be clear, I’m not trying to downplay the importance of building great user experiences into your system; we should all strive to provide the best UX possible to our end users. I’m only advocating this sort of bare-bones interface for internal consumption by the technical staff that builds and supports the software. This command line interface should be the “back end” to a highly polished and eye-pleasing public face. Implementation As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, this is an idea that I’ve had for awhile but have only recently started building out. I’ve outlined some general guidelines and design goals for this effort as follows: Text in, text out: In the interest of keeping things as simple as possible, I want this interface to be purely text-based. Users will submit commands as plain text, and the application will provide responses in plain text. Obviously this text will be “wrapped” within the context of HTTP requests and responses, but I don’t want to have to think about HTML or CSS when taking input from the user or displaying responses back to the user. Task-oriented code only: After building the initial “harness” for this interface, the only code that should need to be written to create a new internal tool should be code that is expressly needed to accomplish the task that the tool is intended to support. If we want to encourage and enable ourselves to build good tooling, we need to lower the barriers to entry as much as possible. Built-in documentation: One of the great things about most command line utilities is the ‘help’ switch that provides usage guidelines and details about the arguments that the utility accepts. Our web-based command line utility should allow us to build the documentation for these tools directly into the code of the tools themselves. I finally started trying to implement this idea when I heard about a fantastic open-source library called CLAP (Command Line Auto Parser) that lets me meet the guidelines outlined above. CLAP lets you define classes with public methods that can be easily invoked from the command line. Here’s a quick example of the code that would be needed to create a new tool to do something within your system: 1: public class CustomerTools 2: { 3: [Verb] 4: public void UpdateName(int customerId, string firstName, string lastName) 5: { 6: //invoke internal services/domain objects/hwatever to perform update 7: } 8: } This is just a regular class with a single public method (though you could have as many methods as you want). The method is decorated with the ‘Verb’ attribute that tells the CLAP library that it is a method that can be invoked from the command line. Here is how you would invoke that code: Parser.Run(args, new CustomerTools()); Note that ‘args’ is just a string[] that would normally be passed passed in from the static Main method of a Console application. Also, CLAP allows you to pass in multiple classes that define [Verb] methods so you can opt to organize the code that CLAP will invoke in any way that you like. You can invoke this code from a command line application like this: SomeExe UpdateName -customerId:123 -firstName:Jesse -lastName:Taber ‘SomeExe’ in this example just represents the name of .exe that is would be created from our Console application. CLAP then interprets the arguments passed in order to find the method that should be invoked and automatically parses out the parameters that need to be passed in. After a quick spike, I’ve found that invoking the ‘Parser’ class can be done from within the context of a web application just as easily as it can from within the ‘Main’ method entry point of a Console application. There are, however, a few sticking points that I’m working around: Splitting arguments into the ‘args’ array like the command line: When you invoke a standard .NET console application you get the arguments that were passed in by the user split into a handy array (this is the ‘args’ parameter referenced above). Generally speaking they get split by whitespace, but it’s also clever enough to handle things like ignoring whitespace in a phrase that is surrounded by quotes. We’ll need to re-create this logic within our web application so that we can give the ‘args’ value to CLAP just like a console application would. Providing a response to the user: If you were writing a console application, you might just use Console.WriteLine to provide responses to the user as to the progress and eventual outcome of the command. We can’t use Console.WriteLine within a web application, so I’ll need to find another way to provide feedback to the user. Preferably this approach would allow me to use the same handler classes from both a Console application and a web application, so some kind of strategy pattern will likely emerge from this effort. Submitting files: Often an internal tool needs to support doing some kind of operation in bulk, and the easiest way to submit the data needed to support the bulk operation is in a file. Getting the file uploaded and available to the CLAP handler classes will take a little bit of effort. Mimicking the console experience: This isn’t really a requirement so much as a “nice to have”. To start out, the command-line interface in the web application will probably be a single ‘textarea’ control with a button to submit the contents to a handler that will pass it along to CLAP to be parsed and run. I think it would be interesting to use some javascript and CSS trickery to change that page into something with more of a “shell” interface look and feel. I’ll be blogging more about this effort in the future and will include some code snippets (or maybe even a full blown example app) as I progress. I also think that I’ll probably end up either submitting some pull requests to the CLAP project or possibly forking/wrapping it into a more web-friendly package and open sourcing that.

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Improving the performance of a db import process

- by mmr

I have a program in Microsoft Access that processes text and also inserts data in MySQL database. This operation takes 30 mins or less to finished. I translated it into VB.NET and it takes 2 hours to finish. The program goes like this: A text file contains individual swipe from a corresponding person, it contains their id, time and date of swipe in the machine, and an indicator if it is a time-in or a time-out. I process this text, segregate the information and insert the time-in and time-out per row. I also check if there are double occurrences in the database. After checking, I simply merge the time-in and time-out of the corresponding person into one row only. This process takes 2 hours to finished in VB.NET considering I have a table to compare which contains 600,000+ rows. Now, I read in the internet that python is best in text processing, i already have a test but i doubt in database operation. What do you think is the best programming language for this kind of problem? How can I speed up the process? My first idea was using python instead of VB.NET, but since people here telling me here on SO that this most probably won't help I am searching for different solutions.

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GRE subject Computer science

- by Maddy.Shik

How do I prepare for the GRE Computer Science subject test? Are there any standard text books I should follow? Agree that its under graduation level and one doesn't need to dig to deep for it. I have done my computer engineering from a college who ranks in top 20 in India. So may be my curriculum has not been that good as compared to international students. Since now i want to get admission in to world renowned university's Ph. D. program. I want to enhance my basic skills up to a level to beat other international students in competition. I want to know good book references which are recommended by professors in international school like CMU, MIT, Standford etc. Like for Algorithms Coreman is considered very good. Good books builds concepts from very basic so that one doesn't need to mug up even a basic concepts. Coreman is just too good with good blend of Mathematics and programming concepts. Definitely Test paper are must but that can be practiced once one has read text books thoroughly. Besides its been 2 years i passed out from college so its is essential for me to revise all concepts from text books. Please tell me standard text books for each subject like Computer Architecture, Database Design, Operating Systems, Discrete Maths etc.

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Copy Formatting in Word

- by Ahamad Patan

Many a times you may need to copy the "Format" in Word. The "Copy Format" feature lets you quickly and easily "copy" all the formatting characteristics from one group of selected text to another. This is helpful when you have several headings that you want consistent formatting. Here are steps on how to Copy Formatting: 1. Select, or highlight, the item of text containing the format you wish to copy. 2. Office 2003 - Click on the Format Painter Button in the Standard Toolbar (looks like Paintbrush). Office 2007 - Format Painter Button is located on the Home tab (looks like a Paintbrush). Office 2003 - An I-beam with a small cross to the left will appear as you move your mouse. Office 2007 - An I-beam with a small paintbrush will appear as you move your mouse. 3. Select the text you wish to copy the formatting to. 4. Formatting of the selected text will automatically change. For multiple formatting changes, double-click on the Format Painter button in Step 2. Remember, you'll have to click it again to deselect it or press Esc.

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Doesn't installing "All locales" install necessary fonts too?

- by its_me

I recently noticed that my browsers rendered blank text (or invisible text?) on some websites in foreign languages, like Chinese. inside.com.tw, for example. Later I learnt that by default Debian only installs one locale (the one you choose during the installation process), and others need to be installed manually. So, I ran the command: # dpkg-reconfigure locales And selected All locales from the options screen that followed, and proceeded with the rest of the process, which also includes changing the default locale (which I set to en_US.UTF-8). Then I restarted my system. I still can't read the website that I mentioned earlier (inside.com.tw). Most of the text is blank, i.e. invisible. With the page translated by Chrome to my default language (en_US), the text is visible; BUT not in the original language. Why is this happening? Does this mean that installing locales isn't actually necessary, and all I have to do is install the fonts for all supported languages? If so, how do I install all the fonts necessary for All locales? UPDATE: An easy fix is to install the unifont package which adds support for all Unicode 5.1 characters. But the rendering is of very bad quality. So, how I install all font packages? I notice that there are three sets, ones starting with fonts-*, another with xfonts-*, and ttf-*? Which set should I exactly go with, and how do I install that set of fonts. Looking for a knowledgeable solution.

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Translation and Localization Resources for UX Designers

- by ultan o'broin

Here is a handy list of translation and localization-related resources for user experience professionals. Following these will help you design an easily translatable user experience. Most of the references here are for web pages or software. Fundamentally, remember your designs will be consumed globally, and never divorce the design process from the development or deployment effort that goes into bringing your designs to life in code. Ask yourself today: Do you know how the text you are using in your designs are delivered to the customer, even in English? Key areas that UX designers always seen to fall foul of, in my space anyway, are: Terminology that is impossible to translate (jargon, multiple modifiers, gerunds) or is used inconsistently Poorly written, verbose text (really, just write well in English, no special considerations) String construction (concatenation of parts assembled dynamically) Composite widget positioning (my favourite) Hard-coded fonts, small font sizes, or character formatting or casing that doesn't work globally Format that is not separate from content Restricted real estate not allowing for text expansion in translation Forcing formatting with breaks, and hard-coding alphabetical sorting Graphics that do not work in Bi-Di languages (because they indicate directionality and can't flip) or contain embedded text. The problems of culturally offensive icons are well known by now in the enterprise applications space, though there are some dangers, such as the use of flags to indicate language, for example. Resources Internationalization Techniques: Authoring HTML & CSS Global By Design Insert Title Here : Variables in Interface Language Prose: Internationalisation Doc and help considerations I can deal with later.

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