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• Silverlight with MVVM Inheritance: ModelView and View matching the Model

  - by moonground.de

  Hello Stackoverflowers! :) Today I have a special question on Silverlight (4 RC) MVVM and inheritance concepts and looking for a best practice solution... I think that i understand the basic idea and concepts behind MVVM. My Model doesn't know anything about the ViewModel as the ViewModel itself doesn't know about the View. The ViewModel knows the Model and the Views know the ViewModels. Imagine the following basic (example) scenario (I'm trying to keep anything short and simple): My Model contains a ProductBase class with a few basic properties, a SimpleProduct : ProductBase adding a few more Properties and ExtendedProduct : ProductBase adding another properties. According to this Model I have several ViewModels, most essential SimpleProductViewModel : ViewModelBase and ExtendedProductViewModel : ViewModelBase. Last but not least, according Views SimpleProductView and ExtendedProductView. In future, I might add many product types (and matching Views + VMs). 1. How do i know which ViewModel to create when receiving a Model collection? After calling my data provider method, it will finally end up having a List<ProductBase>. It containts, for example, one SimpleProduct and two ExtendedProducts. How can I transform the results to an ObservableCollection<ViewModelBase> having the proper ViewModel types (one SimpleProductViewModel and two ExtendedProductViewModels) in it? I might check for Model type and construct the ViewModel accordingly, i.e. foreach(ProductBase currentProductBase in resultList) if (currentProductBase is SimpleProduct) viewModels.Add( new SimpleProductViewModel((SimpleProduct)currentProductBase)); else if (currentProductBase is ExtendedProduct) viewModels.Add( new ExtendedProductViewModels((ExtendedProduct)currentProductBase)); ... } ...but I consider this very bad practice as this code doesn't follow the object oriented design. The other way round, providing abstract Factory methods would reduce the code to: foreach(ProductBase currentProductBase in resultList) viewModels.Add(currentProductBase.CreateViewModel()) and would be perfectly extensible but since the Model doesn't know the ViewModels, that's not possible. I might bring interfaces into game here, but I haven't seen such approach proven yet. 2. How do i know which View to display when selecting a ViewModel? This is pretty the same problem, but on a higher level. Ended up finally having the desired ObservableCollection<ViewModelBase> collection would require the main view to choose a matching View for the ViewModel. In WPF, there is a DataTemplate concept which can supply a View upon a defined DataType. Unfortunately, this doesn't work in Silverlight and the only replacement I've found was the ResourceSelector of the SLExtensions toolkit which is buggy and not satisfying. Beside that, all problems from Question 1 apply as well. Do you have some hints or even a solution for the problems I describe, which you hopefully can understand from my explanation? Thank you in advance! Thomas

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• Web-Frameworks for Education Management Systems?

  - by Indebi

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

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• Actionscript 3: Monitoring the activity level for multiple Microphones doesn't seem to work.

  - by Dave

  For a project I want to show all available webcams and microphones, so that the user can easily select whichever webcam/microphone combination they prefer. I run into an issue with the microphones listing though. Each microphone is listed with an activity animation and it's name. I am able to list all Microphones just fine (using the Microphone.names Array), but it seems like I can only get the activity viewer to work for one microphone. The other microphones show up with '-1' activity, which (as far as I know) is Flex for 'present, but not in use'. When unplugging the microphone that does show activity, the next one (in my case, the mic-in line on my motherboard) shows up with '0' activity (it's not connected, so that makes sense). During my testing I have a total of 3 microphones available, the not-connected onboard mic-in port, and two connected microphones. For testing purposes I use a timer that traces the current microphone activity each 100ms and the graph is also shown. It does not seem to matter what default microphone I set via flash' settings panel. The code I've only attached the revelant code snippets below to make it easier for you to read through them. Please let me know if you prefer the entire code. Main application.mxml Note: cont is a VBox. i is defined before this code snippet. var mics:Array = Microphone.names; for(i=0; i < mics.length; i++){ var mic:settingsMicEntry = new assets.settingsMicEntry; mic.d = {name: mics[i], index: i}; cont.addChild(mic); } assets/settingsMicEntry.mxml timer is defined before this code snippet. the SoundTransform is added to silence local microphone playback. Excluding this code does not solve the problem, sadly (I've tried). display is an MXML Canvas object. mic = Microphone.getMicrophone(d.index); if(mic){ // Temporary: The Microphones' visualizer var bar:Box = new Box(); bar.y = 50; bar.height = 0; bar.width = 66; bar.setStyle("backgroundColor", 0x003300); display.addChild(bar); var tf:SoundTransform = new SoundTransform(0); mic.setLoopBack(true); mic.soundTransform = tf; timer = new Timer(100); timer.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, function(e:TimerEvent):void{ var h:int = Math.floor((display.height/100)*mic.activityLevel); bar.height = (h>-1) ? h : 0; bar.y = (h>-1) ? display.height-h : display.height; trace('TIMER: '+h+' from '+d.name); }); timer.start(); } I'm pulling my hear out here, so any help is much appreciated! Thanks, -Dave Ps.: Pardon the messiness of the code!

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

  - by Sanoj

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

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• How to combine designable components with dependency injection

  - by Wim Coenen

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

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• Hard crash when drawing content for CALayer using quartz

  - by Lukasz

  I am trying to figure out why iOS crash my application in the harsh way (no crash logs, immediate shudown with black screen of death with spinner shown for a while). It happens when I render content for CALayer using Quartz. I suspected the memory issue (happens only when testing on the device), but memory logs, as well as instruments allocation logs looks quite OK. Let me past in the fatal function: - (void)renderTiles{ if (rendering) { //NSLog(@"====== RENDERING TILES SKIP ======="); return; } rendering = YES; CGRect b = tileLayer.bounds; CGSize s = b.size; CGFloat imageScale = [[UIScreen mainScreen] scale]; s.height *= imageScale; s.width *= imageScale; dispatch_async(queue, ^{ NSLog(@""); NSLog(@"====== RENDERING TILES START ======="); NSLog(@"1. Before creating context"); report_memory(); CGColorSpaceRef colorSpace = CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceRGB(); NSLog(@"2. After creating color space"); report_memory(); NSLog(@"3. About to create context with size: %@", NSStringFromCGSize(s)); CGContextRef ctx = CGBitmapContextCreate(NULL, s.width, s.height, 8, 0, colorSpace, kCGImageAlphaPremultipliedLast); NSLog(@"4. After creating context"); report_memory(); CGAffineTransform flipTransform = CGAffineTransformMake(1.0, 0.0, 0.0, -1.0, 0.0, s.height); CGContextConcatCTM(ctx, flipTransform); CGRect tileRect = CGRectMake(0, 0, tileImageScaledSize.width, tileImageScaledSize.height); CGContextDrawTiledImage(ctx, tileRect, tileCGImageScaled); NSLog(@"5. Before creating cgimage from context"); report_memory(); CGImageRef cgImage = CGBitmapContextCreateImage(ctx); NSLog(@"6. After creating cgimage from context"); report_memory(); dispatch_sync(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{ tileLayer.contents = (id)cgImage; }); NSLog(@"7. After asgning tile layer contents = cgimage"); report_memory(); CGColorSpaceRelease(colorSpace); CGContextRelease(ctx); CGImageRelease(cgImage); NSLog(@"8. After releasing image and context context"); report_memory(); NSLog(@"====== RENDERING TILES END ======="); NSLog(@""); rendering = NO; }); } Here are the logs: ====== RENDERING TILES START ======= 1. Before creating context Memory in use (in bytes): 28340224 / 519442432 (5.5%) 2. After creating color space Memory in use (in bytes): 28340224 / 519442432 (5.5%) 3. About to create context with size: {6324, 5208} 4. After creating context Memory in use (in bytes): 28344320 / 651268096 (4.4%) 5. Before creating cgimage from context Memory in use (in bytes): 153649152 / 651333632 (23.6%) 6. After creating cgimage from context Memory in use (in bytes): 153649152 / 783159296 (19.6%) 7. After asgning tile layer contents = cgimage Memory in use (in bytes): 153653248 / 783253504 (19.6%) 8. After releasing image and context context Memory in use (in bytes): 21688320 / 651288576 (3.3%) ====== RENDERING TILES END ======= Application crashes in random places. Sometimes when reaching en of the function and sometime in random step. Which direction should I look for a solution? Is is possible that GDC is causing the problem? Or maybe the context size or some Core Animation underlying references?

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• Scaling an image using the mouse in a WinForms application?

  - by Gaax

  I'm trying to use the position of the mouse to calculate the scaling factor for scaling an image. Basically, the further you get away from the center of the image, the bigger it gets; and the closer to the center you get, the smaller it gets. I have some code so far but it's acting really strange and I have absolutely no more ideas. First I'll let you know, one thing I was trying to do is average out 5 distances to get a more smooth resize animation. Here's my code: private void pictureBoxScale_MouseMove(object sender, MouseEventArgs e) { if (rotateScaleMode && isDraggingToScale) { // For Scaling int sourceWidth = pictureBox1.Image.Width; int sourceHeight = pictureBox1.Image.Height; float dCurrCent = 0; // distance between the current mouse pos and the center of the image float dPrevCent = 0; // distance between the previous mouse pos and the center of the image System.Drawing.Point imgCenter = new System.Drawing.Point(); imgCenter.X = pictureBox1.Location.X + (sourceWidth / 2); imgCenter.Y = pictureBox1.Location.Y + (sourceHeight / 2); // Calculating the distance between the current mouse location and the center of the image dCurrCent = (float)Math.Sqrt(Math.Pow(e.X - imgCenter.X, 2) + Math.Pow(e.Y - imgCenter.Y, 2)); // Calculating the distance between the previous mouse location and the center of the image dPrevCent = (float)Math.Sqrt(Math.Pow(prevMouseLoc.X - imgCenter.X, 2) + Math.Pow(prevMouseLoc.Y - imgCenter.Y, 2)); if (smoothScaleCount < 5) { dCurrCentSmooth[smoothScaleCount] = dCurrCent; dPrevCentSmooth[smoothScaleCount] = dPrevCent; } if (smoothScaleCount == 4) { float currCentSum = 0; float prevCentSum = 0; for (int i = 0; i < 4; i++) { currCentSum += dCurrCentSmooth[i]; } for (int i = 0; i < 4; i++) { prevCentSum += dPrevCentSmooth[i]; } float scaleAvg = (currCentSum / 5) / (prevCentSum / 5); int destWidth = (int)(sourceWidth * scaleAvg); int destHeight = (int)(sourceHeight * scaleAvg); // If statement is for limiting the size of the image if (destWidth > (currentRotatedImage.Width / 2) && destWidth < (currentRotatedImage.Width * 3) && destHeight > (currentRotatedImage.Height / 2) && destWidth < (currentRotatedImage.Width * 3)) { AForge.Imaging.Filters.ResizeBilinear resizeFilter = new AForge.Imaging.Filters.ResizeBilinear(destWidth, destHeight); pictureBox1.Image = resizeFilter.Apply((Bitmap)currentRotatedImage); pictureBox1.Size = pictureBox1.Image.Size; pictureBox1.Refresh(); } smoothScaleCount = -1; } prevMouseLoc = e.Location; currentScaledImage = pictureBox1.Image; smoothScaleCount++; } }

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• Populating a GridView with ImageViews dynamically/programmatically using a ImageAdapter

  - by Julian Vogels

  Hi folks, this is my first question at stackoverflow, but it's a little tricky already... I try to develop an Android App which allows the user to fetch data from flickr and show it in a gridview (with some nice 3D-Animation). After some adventures i got it almost running, but now I'm stuck. Here's the problem: I got a UI Thread "LoadPhotosTask" which gets the pictures from flickr, just like the open source application photostream. In the method onProgressUpdate(LoadedPhoto... value) of that subclass I call addPhoto(). Until now everythings fine - I got some nice Bitmap and Flickr.photo data with all the information I need. @Override public void onProgressUpdate(LoadedPhoto... value) { addPhoto(value); } On the other hand I have got a GridView. Now I want to fill it with the Photos. It has got an adapter called ImageAdapter (which extends BaseAdapter, see this tutorial). If I use an array inside the ImageAdapter class I can populate the GridView with some sample images. But if I want to populate it at runtime, I don't know what to do. How do I have to set up the getView method in the ImageAdapter? I was trying to fill the array inside the ImageAdapter class with my values in addPhoto, but it doesn't display anything. So first of all I was setting up the array with the amount of Photos i wanted to display in the grid like that (code is inside the ImageAdapter class): // class variable private ImageView[] mThumbIds; [...] public void setupArray(int count) { this.mThumbIds = new ImageView[count]; } Then I call this method with the lenght of my photolist: final Flickr.PhotoList list = params[0]; final int count = list.getCount(); int helper = 0; imagead.setupArray(count); Afterwards I call the getView method manually inside the addPhoto method: private void addPhoto(LoadedPhoto... value) { ImageView image = (ImageView) mInflater.inflate( R.layout.grid_item_photo, null); image.setImageBitmap(value[0].mBitmap); image.setTag(value[0].mPhoto); imagead.setmThumbIds(image, value[0].mPosition); imagead.getView(value[0].mPosition, null, mpicturesGrid); } That is the getView method inside ImageAdapter: public View getView(int position, View convertView, ViewGroup parent) { if (convertView == null) { // if it's not recycled, initialize some // attributes imageView = new ImageView(mContext); imageView.setLayoutParams(new GridView.LayoutParams(EDGE_LENGTH, EDGE_LENGTH)); imageView.setScaleType(ImageView.ScaleType.CENTER_CROP); imageView.setPadding(0, 0, 0, 0); imageView.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE); } else { imageView = (ImageView) convertView; } imageView.setImageDrawable(mThumbIds[position].getDrawable()); imageView.setTag(mThumbIds[position].getTag()); return imageView; } Ok, finally I apologize for my poor english and I hope you can give me some help with the information I provided. Greetings, Julian

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• Formatting Telerik Chart and Legend Labels in Silverlight

  - by Bryan

  I am trying to format a column called 'Month' using the 3-character month abbreviation in my data grid which is bound to a bar chart. My grid and chart are based on this demo example: http://demos.telerik.com/silverlight/#Chart/Aggregates. Basically, the grid compiles data and summarizes by Year, Quarter, Month, and then some other categories as well. For the Month column, I tried two different methods (for sorting purposes, I have to use an integer or some date value for the month). First, I just made Month an integer field and then used a converter mapped in the xaml for the 'Month' field to display 'JAN', 'FEB', etc. This worked fine for the grid, but the chart would display 1, 2, etc. instead of the month abbreviation. I researched this and was not able to come up with a solution to map the converter to the chart. So, I tried making the Month field a datetime and then set the value to 1/1/1900, 2/1/1900, etc. and specified the format of the field to 'MMM' in the xaml for the grid. I then used the following statement to set the the format in the chart when the user grouped by month: SalesAnalysisChart.DefaultView.ChartArea.AxisX.DefaultLabelFormat = "MMM"; This partially worked in that when the months were displayed across the x-axis they were labeled properly, but not when they appeared in the legend (the user, of course, can group by any of the columns which may or may not include month). I've tried setting LegendItemLabelFormat, ItemLabelFormat, etc. but without success. I'm not sure of the element on which to set the property. I only need to change the default format for just the Month column - all other columns should display normally when grouped. I also came across a class called 'LegendItemFormatConverter' which looks promising but I can't find any examples as to how to implement it. I would actually prefer the converter method because the converter I wrote displays the month abbreviation in all caps, whereas the 'MMM' format displays in upper/lower case. Here is the converter code that I originally used for the grid: using System; using System.Net; using System.Windows; using System.Windows.Controls; using System.Windows.Documents; using System.Windows.Ink; using System.Windows.Input; using System.Windows.Media; using System.Windows.Media.Animation; using System.Windows.Shapes; using System.Windows.Data; namespace ApolloSL { public class MonthConverter : IValueConverter { public object Convert(object value, Type targetType, object parameter, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) { if (value != null) { DateTime date = new DateTime(1900, (Int32)value, 1); return date.ToString("MMM").ToUpper(); } else { return ""; } } public object ConvertBack(object value, Type targetType, object parameter, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) { return value.ToString(); } } } Please help... Thanks in advance for your assistance, Bryan

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• How to get data from struts2 action with jQuery?

  - by Rafa Romero

  I have an Struts2 Web with GoogleMaps. I want to load a list of markers which are saved in a SQL DDBB. To do this, I tried with jQuery and Ajax. Here you are the code: loadMarkers.java public class loadMarkers extends ActionSupport implements ServletRequestAware,ServletResponseAware{ //Variables de sesion/cookie FunctionClass ses; protected HttpServletResponse servletResponse; protected HttpServletRequest servletRequest; private String userID=""; //Variables del marker private List<marker> markersList = new ArrayList<marker>(); public String execute() throws Exception{ FunctionClass friends = new FunctionClass(); //Leemos de la cookie for(Cookie c : servletRequest.getCookies()) { if (c.getName().equals("userID")) userID = (c.getValue()); } System.out.println("en el loadMarkers"); connectionBBDD con = new connectionBBDD(); markersList = con.loadMarkers(userID); return SUCCESS; } I want to use the markerList array in Javascript, to create the markers. This is the struts.xml file: <package name="jsonActions" namespace="/test" extends="json-default"> <action name="LoadMarkers" class="web.localizadroid.maps.loadMarkers"> <interceptor-ref name="basicStack"/> <result type="json"> <param name="root">markersList</param> </result> </action> </package> And here you are the Javascript (jQuery) code: function loadMarkersJ(){ alert("dentro"); $.ajax({ type : "post", url : "LoadMarkers", dataType: "json", success : function(data) { alert(data); var image = new google.maps.MarkerImage ('http://i53.tinypic.com/ettquh.png'); var jSon_Object = eval("(" + data + ")"); //For para analizar los datos (Json) obtenidos de la BBDD for (x = 0; x < jSon_Object.length; x++) { var markersArray = []; var myLatlng = new google.maps.LatLng(jSon_Object[x].lat, jSon_Object[x].lon); markerLoaded = new google.maps.Marker( { position : myLatlng, map : map, icon: image, title: "NOMBRE: " + jSon_Object[x].tarjetName + "\n" + "ANOTACIONES: " + jSon_Object[x].anotaciones + "\n" + "TIME: " + jSon_Object[x].time }); markersArray.push(markerLoaded); if (markersArray) { for (i in markersArray) { alert("entro en forColocaMarkers"); if (markersArray[i].getAnimation() != null) { markersArray[i].setAnimation(null); } else { markersArray[i].setAnimation(google.maps.Animation.BOUNCE); } markersArray[i].setMap(map); } } } } }); } From success : function(data) { to the end, is JavaScript code to create de markers, and this it's OK. The problem is whith ajax, because I don't get to obtain markerList Array by jSon data return...I think that the problem is in the url attribute from $.ajax...I tried loadMarkers.action and loadMarkers, but nothing happens. When I execute the web, only prints the alert alert("dentro"), the alert alert(data) never has been printed. I have forgotten to add the code where I call the Javascript function (loadMarkersJ). Here you are: <p><s:a action="LoadMarkers.action" namespace="/test" onclick="loadMarkersJ(this)">Cargar Marcadores S</s:a></p> Somebody can help me please?

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• SurfaceView drawn on top of other elements after coming back from specific activity

  - by spirytus

  I have an activity with video preview displayed via SurfaceView and other views positioned over it. The problem is when user navigates to Settings activity (code below) and comes back then the surfaceview is drawn on top of everything else. This does not happen when user goes to another activity I have, neither when user navigates outside of app eg. to task manager. Now, you see in code below that I have setContentVIew() call wrapped in conditionals so it is not called every time when onStart() is executed. If its not wrapped in if statements then all works fine, but its causing loosing lots of memory (5MB+) each time onStart() is called. I tried various combinations and nothing seems to work so any help would be much appreciated. @Override public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); //Toast.makeText(this,"Create ", 2000).show(); // set 32 bit window (draw correctly transparent images) getWindow().getAttributes().format = android.graphics.PixelFormat.RGBA_8888; // set the layout of the screen based on preferences of the user sharedPref = PreferenceManager.getDefaultSharedPreferences(this); } public void onStart() { super.onStart(); String syncConnPref = null; syncConnPref = sharedPref.getString("screensLayouts", "default"); if(syncConnPref.contentEquals("default") && currentlLayout!="default") { setContentView(R.layout.fight_recorder_default); } else if(syncConnPref.contentEquals("simple") && currentlLayout!="simple") { setContentView(R.layout.fight_recorder_simple); } // I I uncomment line below so it will be called every time without conditionals above, it works fine but every time onStart() is called I'm losing 5+ MB memory (memory leak?). The preview however shows under the other elements exactly as I need memory leak makes it unusable after few times though // setContentView(R.layout.fight_recorder_default); if(getCamera()==null) { Toast.makeText(this,"Sorry, camera is not available and fight recording will not be permanently stored",2000).show(); // TODO also in here put some code replacing the background with something nice return; } // now we have camera ready and we need surface to display picture from camera on so // we instantiate CameraPreviw object which is simply surfaceView containing holder object. // holder object is the surface where the image will be drawn onto // this is where camera live cameraPreview will be displayed cameraPreviewLayout = (FrameLayout) findViewById(id.camera_preview); cameraPreview = new CameraPreview(this); // now we add surface view to layout cameraPreviewLayout.removeAllViews(); cameraPreviewLayout.addView(cameraPreview); // get layouts prepared for different elements (views) // this is whole recording screen, as big as screen available recordingScreenLayout=(FrameLayout) findViewById(R.id.recording_screen); // this is used to display sores as they are added, it displays like a path // each score added is a new text view simply and as user undos these are removed one by one allScoresLayout=(LinearLayout) findViewById(R.id.all_scores); // layout prepared for controls like record/stop buttons etc startStopLayout=(RelativeLayout) findViewById(R.id.start_stop_layout); // set up timer so it can be turned on when needed //fightTimer=new FightTimer(this); fightTimer = (FightTimer) findViewById(id.fight_timer); // get views for displaying scores score1=(TextView) findViewById(id.score1); score2=(TextView) findViewById(id.score2); advantages1=(TextView) findViewById(id.advantages1); advantages2=(TextView) findViewById(id.advantages2); penalties1=(TextView) findViewById(id.penalties1); penalties2=(TextView) findViewById(id.penalties2); RelativeLayout welcomeScreen=(RelativeLayout) findViewById(id.welcome_screen); Animation fadeIn = AnimationUtils.loadAnimation(this, R.anim.fade_in); welcomeScreen.startAnimation(fadeIn); Toast.makeText(this,"Start ", 2000).show(); animateViews(); } Settings activity is below, after coming back from this activity surfaceview is drawn on top of other elements. public class SettingsActivity extends PreferenceActivity { @Override public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); if(MyFirstAppActivity.getCamera()==null) { Toast.makeText(this,"Sorry, camera is not available",2000).show(); return; } addPreferencesFromResource(R.xml.preferences); } }

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• WndProc(ref Message m), Prevent minimize Games, Send key strokes.

  - by Stanomatic

  Overview: I am going to create a touch application that interfaces with games and other apps. This concept is similar to the app found on touch-buddy.com but I will be using C# and WPF instead of how the application is written in Perl. I have a few challenges I would like to evaluate. The touch-buddy app uses two approaches while interacting with games; 1. Client mode (Same machine runs both game and touch-buddy). 2. Server / Client mode where a separate box sends commands to the game machine. The reason I believe for this method was to circumvent the issue with games minimizing. In Client only mode I am faced with the issue where I touch a screen OTHER than the main screen where the game is viewed and then the game minimizes. Not all games have this behavior but I would like to conquer the games that do minimize and prevent it. Is it possible to keep a game front and center Focused and prevent minimizing utilizing C# WndProc(ref Message m)? I have been experimenting with WndProc(ref Message m) where I created a win form and when I press minimize on my own Win form and it will close an instance of notepad. This proves to me that I can capture a message, prevent that message from bubbling up and then send a message to another application. I then tried to click on notepad with my touch screen and keep my win form application in focus and not minimize. At this point I am unsuccessful. I need more time understanding message codes. Is this the right approach? Can it be done? Should I look at other libraries such as Windows Automation? Key input is my other concern. What is the best way to send key strokes to other apps/games. Should I tap into DirectX, use some kind of send key, Automation Framework? Can any of these handle the multiple key strokes that some simulation games require? I appreciate any links and or insight you may have. If you have gone down this path for any reason I would love to hear your comments. Stan

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• UITextView doesn't not resize when keyboard appear if loaded from a tab bar cotroller

  - by elio.d

  I have a simple view controller (SecondViewController) used to manage a UITextview (I'm building a simple editor) this is the code of the SecondViewController.h @interface SecondViewController : UIViewController { IBOutlet UITextView *textView; } @property (nonatomic,retain) IBOutlet UITextView *textView; @end and this is the SecondViewController.m // // EditorViewController.m // Editor // // Created by elio d'antoni on 13/01/11. // Copyright 2011 none. All rights reserved. // @implementation SecondViewController @synthesize textView; /* // Implement loadView to create a view hierarchy programmatically, without using a nib. - (void)loadView { } */ // Implement viewDidLoad to do additional setup after loading the view, typically from a nib. - (void)viewDidLoad { [super viewDidLoad]; self.view.backgroundColor = [UIColor colorWithPatternImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"uiViewBg.png"]]; textView.layer.borderWidth=1; textView.layer.cornerRadius=5; textView.layer.borderColor=[[UIColor darkGrayColor] CGColor]; [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self selector:@selector(keyboardWillAppear:) name:UIKeyboardWillShowNotification object:nil]; [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self selector:@selector(keyboardWillDisappear:) name:UIKeyboardWillHideNotification object:nil]; } -(void) matchAnimationTo:(NSDictionary *) userInfo { NSLog(@"match animation method"); [UIView setAnimationDuration:[[userInfo objectForKey:UIKeyboardAnimationDurationUserInfoKey] doubleValue]]; [UIView setAnimationCurve:[[userInfo objectForKey:UIKeyboardAnimationCurveUserInfoKey] intValue]]; } -(CGFloat) keyboardEndingFrameHeight:(NSDictionary *) userInfo { NSLog(@"keyboardEndingFrameHeight method"); CGRect keyboardEndingUncorrectedFrame = [[ userInfo objectForKey:UIKeyboardFrameEndUserInfoKey ] CGRectValue]; CGRect keyboardEndingFrame = [self.view convertRect:keyboardEndingUncorrectedFrame fromView:nil]; return keyboardEndingFrame.size.height; } -(CGRect) adjustFrameHeightBy:(CGFloat) change multipliedBy:(NSInteger) direction { NSLog(@"adjust method"); return CGRectMake(20, 57, self.textView.frame.size.width, self.textView.frame.size.height + change * direction); } -(void)keyboardWillAppear:(NSNotification *)notification { NSLog(@"keyboard appear"); [UIView beginAnimations:nil context:NULL]; [self matchAnimationTo:[notification userInfo]]; self.textView.frame = [self adjustFrameHeightBy:[self keyboardEndingFrameHeight: [notification userInfo]] multipliedBy:-1]; [UIView commitAnimations]; } -(void)keyboardWillDisappear:(NSNotification *) notification { NSLog(@"keyboard disappear"); [UIView beginAnimations:nil context:NULL]; [self matchAnimationTo:[notification userInfo]]; self.textView.frame = [self adjustFrameHeightBy:[self keyboardEndingFrameHeight: [notification userInfo]] multipliedBy:1]; [UIView commitAnimations]; } // Override to allow orientations other than the default portrait orientation. - (BOOL)shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation:(UIInterfaceOrientation)interfaceOrientation { return YES; } (void)didReceiveMemoryWarning { // Releases the view if it doesn't have a superview. [super didReceiveMemoryWarning]; // Release any cached data, images, etc that aren't in use. } (void)viewDidUnload { // Release any retained subviews of the main view. // e.g. self.myOutlet = nil; } (void)dealloc { [super dealloc]; } @end the problem is that if load the view controller from a tab bar controller the textView doesn't resize when the keyboard appear, but the SAME code works if loaded as a single view based app. I hope I was clear enough. I used the tabBar template provided by xcode no modifications.

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• How do I make a GUI that behaves like this?

  - by Karl Knechtel

  This is difficult to explain without illustration, so - behold, an illustration, cobbled together from screenshots of a few hello-world examples and a lot of Paint work: I have started out using Windows Forms on .NET (via IronPython, but that shouldn't be important), and haven't been able to figure out very much. GUI libraries in general are very intimidating, simply because every class has so many possible attributes. Documentation is good at explaining what everything does, but not so good at helping you figure out what you need. I will be assembling the GUI dynamically, but I'm not expecting that to be the hard part. The sticking points for me right now are: How do I get text labels to size themselves automatically to the width of the contained text (so that the text doesn't clip, and I also don't reserve unnecessary space for them when resizing the window)? How do I make the vertical scrollbar always appear? Setting the VScroll property (why is this protected when AutoScroll is public, BTW?) doesn't seem to do anything. How come the horizontal scrollbar is not added by AutoScroll when contents are laid out vertically (via Dock = DockStyle.Top)? I can use a minimum size for panels to prevent the label and corresponding control from overlapping when the window is shrunk horizontally, but then the scrollbar doesn't appear and the control is inaccessible. How can I put limits on window resizing (e.g. set a minimum width) without disabling it completely? (Just set minimum/maximum sizes for the Form?) Related to that, is there any way to set minimum/maximum widths or heights without setting a minimum/maximum size (i.e. can I constrain the size in only one dimension)? Is there a built-in control suitable for hex editing or am I going to have to build something myself? ... And should I be using something else (perhaps something more capable?) I've heard WPF mentioned, but I understand that this involves XML and I really want to build a GUI from XML - I already have data in an object graph, and doing some kind of weird XML pseudo-serialization (in Python, no less!) in order to create a GUI seems incredibly roundabout.

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• Calling popToRootViewControllerAnimated causing crash. How should I be doing this?

  - by Lewis42

  The app is for taking body measurements. The user can say I want to measure: legs, arms and neck, in the settings tab and in the main tab there is a view which loops round to take each measurement. This is achieved like so: i have tab controller the first tab has a navigation controller the first view controller on the storyboard and has one segue to itself the board loops round until it has all the measurements then it segues to a different controller the problem is: if the user changes which measurements they are taking in the settings tab, the first tab needs to completely reload, as if the app was just starting up, clearing down the whole nav stack etc. at the moment the tab controller calls popToRootViewControllerAnimated on the navigation controller in the measurements tab, but this is causing a crash. Each screen has a slider control and a call to titleForRow:forComponent: is being called on a deleted view causing it to crash. What am I doing wrong?! Here's the tab bar controller code // TabBarController.m // #import "TabBarController.h" #import "TodaysMeasurementObject.h" #import "AppDelegateProtocol.h" #import "AddMeasurementViewController.h" #import "ReadPerson.h" #import "AppDelegate.h" @interface TabBarController () <UITabBarControllerDelegate> @end @implementation TabBarController bool resetWizardView = false; - (id)initWithNibName:(NSString *)nibNameOrNil bundle:(NSBundle *)nibBundleOrNil { self = [super initWithNibName:nibNameOrNil bundle:nibBundleOrNil]; if (self) { } return self; } - (void)viewDidLoad { [super viewDidLoad]; // Do any additional setup after loading the view. self.delegate = self; [[UIDevice currentDevice] beginGeneratingDeviceOrientationNotifications]; [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self selector:@selector(orientationChanged:) name:UIDeviceOrientationDidChangeNotification object:nil]; [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self selector:@selector(measurementsSettingsUpdated:) name:@"MeasurementsSettingsUpdated" object:nil]; } - (void) measurementsSettingsUpdated:(NSNotification *) notification { // UINavigationController *navigationController = [self.viewControllers objectAtIndex:0]; // AddMeasurementViewController *addMeasurement = [[AddMeasurementViewController alloc] init]; // [navigationController setViewControllers: [[NSArray alloc] initWithObjects:addMeasurement, nil]]; resetWizardView = YES; } - (void) viewDidAppear:(BOOL)animated { if (![ReadPerson userHasRecords]) { [self setSelectedIndex:3]; } } - (void)orientationChanged:(NSNotification *)notification { // We must add a delay here, otherwise we'll swap in the new view // too quickly and we'll get an animation glitch [self performSelector:@selector(showGraphs) withObject:nil afterDelay:0]; } - (void)showGraphs { UIDeviceOrientation deviceOrientation = [UIDevice currentDevice].orientation; if (deviceOrientation == UIDeviceOrientationLandscapeLeft && !isShowingLandscapeView) { [self performSegueWithIdentifier: @"toGraph" sender: self]; isShowingLandscapeView = YES; } else if (deviceOrientation != UIDeviceOrientationLandscapeLeft && isShowingLandscapeView) { [self dismissModalViewControllerAnimated:YES]; isShowingLandscapeView = NO; } } - (void)viewDidUnload { [super viewDidUnload]; // Release any retained subviews of the main view. } - (void)dealloc { [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] removeObserver:self]; [[UIDevice currentDevice] endGeneratingDeviceOrientationNotifications]; } - (BOOL)shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation:(UIInterfaceOrientation)interfaceOrientation { if(interfaceOrientation == UIInterfaceOrientationLandscapeRight) { [self performSegueWithIdentifier: @"toGraph" sender: self]; } return false; } - (void)tabBarController:(UITabBarController *)tabBarController didSelectViewController:(UIViewController *)viewController { int tbi = tabBarController.selectedIndex; if (tbi == 0) { [[viewController view] setNeedsDisplay]; if (resetWizardView) { [(UINavigationController*)[self.viewControllers objectAtIndex:0] popToRootViewControllerAnimated: NO]; // ******* POP CALLED HERE ****** resetWizardView = false; } } } - (TodaysMeasurementObject*) theAppDataObject { id<AppDelegateProtocol> theDelegate = (id<AppDelegateProtocol>) [UIApplication sharedApplication].delegate; TodaysMeasurementObject* theDataObject; theDataObject = (TodaysMeasurementObject*) theDelegate.theAppDataObject; return theDataObject; } - (BOOL)shouldAutorotate { return NO; } - (NSUInteger)supportedInterfaceOrientations { return UIInterfaceOrientationMaskPortrait; } @end UPDATED - (void) measurementsSettingsUpdated:(NSNotification *) notification { NSMutableArray *viewControllers = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithArray: self.viewControllers]; UINavigationController *navigationController = [viewControllers objectAtIndex:0]; AddMeasurementViewController *addMeasurement = [[AddMeasurementViewController alloc] init]; [navigationController setViewControllers: [[NSArray alloc] initWithObjects:addMeasurement, nil]]; [viewControllers setObject:navigationController atIndexedSubscript:0]; self.viewControllers = viewControllers; } and removed the code from - tabBarController:didSelectViewController: but still the same error. I think the problem is that it's trying to get a value for the slide control after the view has been deleted. But some part of the view must still be alive...? Anyway to kill that off? Or leave it all alive??

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• Which MS technologies would be suited for a data intensive application?

  - by steve.tse

  I'm a junior VB.net developer with little application design knowledge. I've been reading a lot of material online regarding different design patterns, frameworks, and methodologies. It's become a bit confusing for me. Right now I'm trying to decide on what language would be best suited to convert an existing VB6 application (with SQL server backend.) I need to update the UI and add more user functionality and reporting capabilities. Initially I was thinking of using WPF and attempting the MVVM model for this big project. Reports would be generated from SSRS. A peer suggested using ASP.net and I don't have enough experience to determine what would be better. The senior programmers here are stuck on using VB6 and don't have any input on what to use. They are encouraging me to use the latest technologies. This application would be for ~20 users in a central location. Ideally I would stick to a Microsoft .net language. Current interface is similar to a datagrid table where the user would click in to see the detail of each record. They would need to have multiple records open at any given time. I look forward to all the advice I can get. EDIT 2010/04/22 2:47 PM EST What is your audience? Internal clients within an intranet How complex are the interactions you expect to implement? not very... displaying data from SQL server to UI. Allow user updates to said data. Typically just one user modifying a record. Do you require near real-time data updates? no How often do you expect to update the application after the first release? twice/year Do you expect a well-defined set of client platforms? Yes, windows xp environment, potentially upgrading to Win7. Currently in IE.6 moving to IE7 or 8 within a couple of months. Do users need access from anywhere? No, just from their PC.

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• UIScrollView message handler

  - by cs221313

  Hi, all, I want to create a scroll view and put thumbnail view in that scroll view. but I can not get the touchBegan message in my program. My source code is like following. - (void)viewDidLoad { [super viewDidLoad]; NSError* error; NSString *bundleRoot = [[NSBundle mainBundle] bundlePath]; dirContents = [[[NSFileManager defaultManager] contentsOfDirectoryAtPath:bundleRoot error: &error] copy]; scrollView = [[UIScrollView alloc] initWithFrame:[[self view] bounds]]; scrollView.pagingEnabled = YES; scrollView.showsHorizontalScrollIndicator = NO; scrollView.userInteractionEnabled = YES; scrollView.clipsToBounds = YES; // default is NO, we want to restrict drawing within our scrollview scrollView.scrollEnabled = YES; [scrollView setDelegate:self]; [[self view] addSubview:scrollView]; DLog(@"scroll frame top = %d, left = %d, width = %d, height = %d", scrollView.frame.origin.x, scrollView.frame.origin.y, scrollView.frame.size.width, scrollView.frame.size.height); int i, j; UIView* onePageView = [[UIView alloc] init]; int pageNumber = 0; int iconNumber = 0; for (NSString *tString in dirContents) { if ([tString hasSuffix:@"_chess.png"]) { if(iconNumber == 9) { onePageView.tag = pageNumber + 1; [scrollView addSubview: onePageView]; onePageView = [[UIView alloc] init]; pageNumber++; iconNumber = 0; } j = iconNumber % 3; i = iconNumber / 3; const float WIDTH = 150.0; const float HEIGHT = 150.0; CGRect imageRect = CGRectMake(j * 200 + 50.0, i * 200 + 50.0, WIDTH, HEIGHT); //remove the charactors of "_chess.png". NSString* sgfName = [tString substringToIndex: tString.length - 10]; sgfName = [sgfName stringByAppendingString: @".sgf"]; ThumbnailView *thumbnailImage = [[ThumbnailView alloc] initWithFilename: sgfName frame: imageRect]; thumbnailImage.delegate = self; [thumbnailImage setImage:[UIImage imageNamed: tString]]; thumbnailImage.opaque = YES; // explicitly opaque for performance //[self.view addSubview:thumbnailImage]; [onePageView addSubview:thumbnailImage]; [thumbnailImage release]; iconNumber++; } } pageControl.numberOfPages = pageNumber + 1; pageControl.currentPage = 0; onePageView.tag = pageNumber + 1; [scrollView addSubview: onePageView]; [self layoutScrollPages]; } ThumbnailView class is like following. // // ThumbnailView.m // go // // Created by David Li on 2/18/11. // Copyright 2011 __MyCompanyName__. All rights reserved. // #import "common.h" #import "ThumbnailView.h" #import "ipad_goViewController.h" @implementation ThumbnailView @synthesize delegate; @synthesize sgfName; -(id) initWithFilename: (NSString*)filename frame: (CGRect)frame { sgfName = [[NSString alloc] initWithString: filename]; return [self initWithFrame: frame]; } - (id)initWithFrame:(CGRect)frame { self = [super initWithFrame:frame]; if (self) { // Initialization code. self.userInteractionEnabled = YES; } return self; } - (void)viewDidAppear:(BOOL)animated { [super viewDidAppear:animated]; [self becomeFirstResponder]; } /* refer to http://stackoverflow.com/questions/855095/how-can-i-detect-the-touch-event-of-an-uiimageview */ -(BOOL)canBecomeFirstResponder { return YES; } - (void)touchesBegan:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event { DLog(@"touched"); [[self delegate] loadGame: sgfName]; } /* // Only override drawRect: if you perform custom drawing. // An empty implementation adversely affects performance during animation. - (void)drawRect:(CGRect)rect { // Drawing code. } */ - (void)dealloc { [super dealloc]; } @end I can not catch the touchesBegan message in my program. Can anyone help me? I stucked by this problem by couple days. Thanks so much.

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• Dynamic swappable Data Access Layer

  - by Andy

  I'm writing a data driven WPF client. The client will typically pull data from a WCF service, which queries a SQL db, but I'd like the option to pull the data directly from SQL or other arbitrary data sources. I've come up with this design and would like to hear your opinion on whether it is the best design. First, we have some data object we'd like to extract from SQL. // The Data Object with a single property public class Customer { private string m_Name = string.Empty; public string Name { get { return m_Name; } set { m_Name = value;} } } Then I plan on using an interface which all data access layers should implement. Suppose one could also use an abstract class. Thoughts? // The interface with a single method interface ICustomerFacade { List<Customer> GetAll(); } One can create a SQL implementation. // Sql Implementation public class SqlCustomrFacade : ICustomerFacade { public List<Customer> GetAll() { // Query SQL db and return something useful // ... return new List<Customer>(); } } We can also create a WCF implementation. The problem with WCF is is that it doesn't use the same data object. It creates its own local version, so we would have to copy the details over somehow. I suppose one could use reflection to copy the values of similar fields across. Thoughts? // Wcf Implementation public class WcfCustomrFacade : ICustomerFacade { public List<Customer> GetAll() { // Get date from the Wcf Service (not defined here) List<WcfService.Customer> wcfCustomers = wcfService.GetAllCustomers(); // The list we're going to return List<Customer> customers = new List<Customer>(); // This is horrible foreach(WcfService.Customer wcfCustomer in wcfCustomers) { Customer customer = new Customer(); customer.Name = wcfCustomer.Name; customers.Add(customer); } return customers; } } I also plan on using a factory to decide which facade to use. // Factory pattern public class FacadeFactory() { public static ICustomerFacade CreateCustomerFacade() { // Determine the facade to use if (ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["DAL"] == "Sql") return new SqlCustomrFacade(); else return new WcfCustomrFacade(); } } This is how the DAL would typically be used. // Test application public class MyApp { public static void Main() { ICustomerFacade cf = FacadeFactory.CreateCustomerFacade(); cf.GetAll(); } } I appreciate your thoughts and time.

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• Javascript/Jquery Super Scrollorama Navigation Issues

  - by Rosencruez

  On a Wordpress site I am currently working on, my client wanted the different sections of the front page to slide up from the bottom and cover up the previous section, like a wipe or slide transition. Using super scrollorama found here: http://johnpolacek.github.com/superscrollorama/, I managed to achieve the desired result. Next, I needed to create a navigation menu on the front page only. I did so, and set anchors at various different points on the pages. I also used the scrollTo library for scolling animations when I click the nav menu links. However, there are a number of problems I have encountered: When at the top and I click "showcase", it brings me down to the showcase section, but the products section (the div right after it) is overlapping it. Other divs seems to have the same problem of the following divs overlapping the current one I can only navigate forwards. When I try to go backwards, it won't (except for "Home") I thought it might have something to do with the CSS "top" property of the divs, so I tried resetting them every time the click function kicked in, but it didn't work. So I removed it for the time being. Currently set the javascript to prevent the default action of scrolling to the anchors and instead setting it to scroll to the actual divs themselves. However, I'm still having the same issues. Here is the site I am currently working on: http://breathe.simalam.ca/ Here is the javascript for the scrolling: $(document).ready(function() { jQuery('.home-link').click(function(e){ e.preventDefault(); jQuery(window).scrollTo(0, 1000, {queue:true}); }); jQuery('.showcase-link').click(function(e){ e.preventDefault(); jQuery(window).scrollTo('#showcase_content', 1000, {queue:true}); }); jQuery('.products-link').click(function(e){ e.preventDefault(); jQuery(window).scrollTo('#products_content', 1000, {queue:true}); }); jQuery('.about-link').click(function(e){ e.preventDefault(); jQuery(window).scrollTo('#about_content', 1000, {queue:true}); }); jQuery('.locator-link').click(function(e){ e.preventDefault(); jQuery(window).scrollTo('#locator_content', 1000, {queue:true}); }); jQuery('.contact-link').click(function(e){ e.preventDefault(); jQuery(window).scrollTo('#contact_content', 1000, {queue:true}); }); }); scrollorama code: $(document).ready(function() { $('#wrapper').css('display','block'); var controller = $.superscrollorama(); var pinDur = 4000; /* set duration of pin scroll in pixels */ // create animation timeline for pinned element var pinAnimations = new TimelineLite(); pinAnimations .append([ TweenMax.to($('#showcase'), .5, {css:{top:0}}) ], .5) .append([ TweenMax.to($('#products'), .5, {css:{top:0}}) ], .5) .append([ TweenMax.to($('#about'), .5, {css:{top:0}}) ], .5) .append([ TweenMax.to($('#locator'), .5, {css:{top:0}}) ], .5) .append([ TweenMax.to($('#contact'), .5, {css:{top:0}}) ], .5) .append(TweenMax.to($('#pin-frame-unpin'), .5, {css:{top:'100px'}})); controller.pin($('#examples-pin'), pinDur, { anim:pinAnimations, onPin: function() { $('#examples-pin').css('height','100%'); }, onUnpin: function() { $('#examples-pin').css('height','2000px'); } }); }); All of the section divs are inside a parent div. The section divs all have a height, width, and top of 100%. The parent div containing all of these section divs are as follows: #examples-pin { position: relative; /* relative positioning for transitions to work? */ width: 101%; /* max width */ height: 2000px; /* height of 2000px for now */ overflow: hidden; /* hide the overflow for transitions to work */ margin-bottom: -200px; /* negative bottom margin */ }

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• C#: System.Collections.Concurrent.ConcurrentQueue vs. Queue

  - by James Michael Hare

  I love new toys, so of course when .NET 4.0 came out I felt like the proverbial kid in the candy store!  Now, some people get all excited about the IDE and it’s new features or about changes to WPF and Silver Light and yes, those are all very fine and grand.  But me, I get all excited about things that tend to affect my life on the backside of development.  That’s why when I heard there were going to be concurrent container implementations in the latest version of .NET I was salivating like Pavlov’s dog at the dinner bell. They seem so simple, really, that one could easily overlook them.  Essentially they are implementations of containers (many that mirror the generic collections, others are new) that have either been optimized with very efficient, limited, or no locking but are still completely thread safe -- and I just had to see what kind of an improvement that would translate into. Since part of my job as a solutions architect here where I work is to help design, develop, and maintain the systems that process tons of requests each second, the thought of extremely efficient thread-safe containers was extremely appealing.  Of course, they also rolled out a whole parallel development framework which I won’t get into in this post but will cover bits and pieces of as time goes by. This time, I was mainly curious as to how well these new concurrent containers would perform compared to areas in our code where we manually synchronize them using lock or some other mechanism.  So I set about to run a processing test with a series of producers and consumers that would be either processing a traditional System.Collections.Generic.Queue or a System.Collection.Concurrent.ConcurrentQueue. Now, I wanted to keep the code as common as possible to make sure that the only variance was the container, so I created a test Producer and a test Consumer.  The test Producer takes an Action<string> delegate which is responsible for taking a string and placing it on whichever queue we’re testing in a thread-safe manner: 1: internal class Producer 2: { 3: public int Iterations { get; set; } 4: public Action<string> ProduceDelegate { get; set; } 5: 6: public void Produce() 7: { 8: for (int i = 0; i < Iterations; i++) 9: { 10: ProduceDelegate(“Hello”); 11: } 12: } 13: } Then likewise, I created a consumer that took a Func<string> that would read from whichever queue we’re testing and return either the string if data exists or null if not.  Then, if the item doesn’t exist, it will do a 10 ms wait before testing again.  Once all the producers are done and join the main thread, a flag will be set in each of the consumers to tell them once the queue is empty they can shut down since no other data is coming: 1: internal class Consumer 2: { 3: public Func<string> ConsumeDelegate { get; set; } 4: public bool HaltWhenEmpty { get; set; } 5: 6: public void Consume() 7: { 8: bool processing = true; 9: 10: while (processing) 11: { 12: string result = ConsumeDelegate(); 13: 14: if(result == null) 15: { 16: if (HaltWhenEmpty) 17: { 18: processing = false; 19: } 20: else 21: { 22: Thread.Sleep(TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(10)); 23: } 24: } 25: else 26: { 27: DoWork(); // do something non-trivial so consumers lag behind a bit 28: } 29: } 30: } 31: } Okay, now that we’ve done that, we can launch threads of varying numbers using lambdas for each different method of production/consumption.  First let's look at the lambdas for a typical System.Collections.Generics.Queue with locking: 1: // lambda for putting to typical Queue with locking... 2: var productionDelegate = s => 3: { 4: lock (_mutex) 5: { 6: _mutexQueue.Enqueue(s); 7: } 8: }; 9:  10: // and lambda for typical getting from Queue with locking... 11: var consumptionDelegate = () => 12: { 13: lock (_mutex) 14: { 15: if (_mutexQueue.Count > 0) 16: { 17: return _mutexQueue.Dequeue(); 18: } 19: } 20: return null; 21: }; Nothing new or interesting here.  Just typical locks on an internal object instance.  Now let's look at using a ConcurrentQueue from the System.Collections.Concurrent library: 1: // lambda for putting to a ConcurrentQueue, notice it needs no locking! 2: var productionDelegate = s => 3: { 4: _concurrentQueue.Enqueue(s); 5: }; 6:  7: // lambda for getting from a ConcurrentQueue, once again, no locking required. 8: var consumptionDelegate = () => 9: { 10: string s; 11: return _concurrentQueue.TryDequeue(out s) ? s : null; 12: }; So I pass each of these lambdas and the number of producer and consumers threads to launch and take a look at the timing results.  Basically I’m timing from the time all threads start and begin producing/consuming to the time that all threads rejoin.  I won't bore you with the test code, basically it just launches code that creates the producers and consumers and launches them in their own threads, then waits for them all to rejoin.  The following are the timings from the start of all threads to the Join() on all threads completing.  The producers create 10,000,000 items evenly between themselves and then when all producers are done they trigger the consumers to stop once the queue is empty. These are the results in milliseconds from the ordinary Queue with locking: 1: Consumers Producers 1 2 3 Time (ms) 2: ---------- ---------- ------ ------ ------ --------- 3: 1 1 4284 5153 4226 4554.33 4: 10 10 4044 3831 5010 4295.00 5: 100 100 5497 5378 5612 5495.67 6: 1000 1000 24234 25409 27160 25601.00 And the following are the results in milliseconds from the ConcurrentQueue with no locking necessary: 1: Consumers Producers 1 2 3 Time (ms) 2: ---------- ---------- ------ ------ ------ --------- 3: 1 1 3647 3643 3718 3669.33 4: 10 10 2311 2136 2142 2196.33 5: 100 100 2480 2416 2190 2362.00 6: 1000 1000 7289 6897 7061 7082.33 Note that even though obviously 2000 threads is quite extreme, the concurrent queue actually scales really well, whereas the traditional queue with simple locking scales much more poorly. I love the new concurrent collections, they look so much simpler without littering your code with the locking logic, and they perform much better.  All in all, a great new toy to add to your arsenal of multi-threaded processing!

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• Turn Photos and Home Videos into Movies with Windows Live Movie Maker

  - by DigitalGeekery

  Are you looking for an easy way to take your digital photos and videos and turn them into a movie or slideshow? Today we’ll take a detailed look at how to do use Windows Live Movie Maker. Installation Windows Live Movie Maker comes bundled as part of the Windows Live Essentials suite (link below). However, you don’t have to install any of the programs you may not want. Take notice of the You’re almost done screen. Before clicking Continue, be sure to uncheck the boxes to set your search provider and homepage. Adding Pictures and Videos Open Windows Live Movie Maker. You can add videos or photos by simply dragging and dropping them onto the storyboard area. You can also click on the storyboard area or on the Add videos and photos button on the Home tab to browse for videos and photos. Windows Live Movie Maker supports most video, image, and audio file types. Select your files and add click Open to add them to Windows Live Movie Maker. By default WLMM doesn’t allow you to add files from network locations…so check out our article on how to add network support to Windows Live MovieMaker if the files you want to add are on a network drive. Layout All of your added clips will appear in the storyboard area on the right, while the currently selected clip will appear in the preview window on the left. You can adjust the size of the two areas by clicking and dragging the dividing line in the middle.    Make the clips on the storyboard bigger or smaller by clicking on the thumbnail size icon. The slider at the lower right adjusts the zoom time scale.   Previewing your Movie At any time, you can playback your movie and preview how it will look in the Preview window by clicking the space bar, or by pushing the play button under the preview window. You can also manually move the preview bar slider across the storyboard to view the clips as the video progresses. Adjusting Clips on the Storyboard You can click and drag clips on the storyboard to change the order in which the photos and videos appear.   Adding Music Nothing brings a movie to life quite like music. Selecting Add music will add your music to the beginning of the movie. Select Add music at the current point to include it in the movie to the current location of your preview bar slider, then browse for your music clip. WLMM supports many common audio files such as WAV, MP3, M4A, WMA, AIFF, and ASF. The music clip will appear above the video / photos clips on the storyboard.   You can change the location of music clips by clicking and dragging them to a different location on the storyboard. Add Titles, Captions, and Credits To add a Title screen to your movie, click the Title button on the Home tab. Type your title directly into the text box on the preview screen. The title will be placed at the location of the preview slider on the storyboard. However, you can change the location by clicking and dragging title to other areas of the storyboard. On the Format tab, there are a handful of text settings. You can change the font, color, size, alignment,  and transparency. The Adjust group allows you to change the background color, edit the text, and set the length of time the Title will appear in the movie.   The Effects group on the Format tab allows you to select an effect for your title screen. By hovering your cursor over each option, you will get a live preview of how each effect will appear in the preview window. Click to apply any of the effects. For captions, select where you want your caption to appear with the preview slider on the storyboard, then click the captions button on the Home tab. Just like the title, you type your caption directly into the text box on the preview screen, and you can make any adjustments by using the Font and Paragraph, Adjust, and Effects groups above. Credits are done the same as titles and captions, except they are automatically placed at the end of the movie.   Transitions Go to the Animation tab on the ribbon to apply transitions. Select a clip from the storyboard and hover over one of the transition to see it in the preview window. Click on the transition to apply it to the clip. You can apply transitions separately to clips or hold down Ctrl button while clicking to select multiple clips to which to apply the same transition. Pan and zoom effects are also located on the Animations tab, but can be applied to photos only. Like transition, you can apply them individually to a clip or hold down Ctrl button while clicking to select multiple clips to which to apply the same pan and zoom effect. Once applied, you can adjust the duration of the transitions and pan and zoom effects. You can also click the dropdown for additional transitions or effects. Visual Effects Similar to Pan and Zoom and Transitions, you can apply a variety of Visual Effects to individual or multiple clips. Editing Video and Music Note: This does not actually edit the original video you imported into your Windows Live Movie Maker project, only how it appears in your WLMM project. There are some very basic editing tools located on the Home tab. The Rotate left and Rotate right button will adjust any clip that may be oriented incorrectly. The Fit to music button will automatically adjust the duration of the photos (if you have any in your project) to fit the length of the music in your movie. Audio mix allows you to change the volume level   You can also do some slightly more advanced editing from the Edit tab. Select the video clip on the storyboard and click the Trim tool to edit or remove portions of a video clip. Next, click and drag the sliders in the preview windows to select the are you wish to keep. For example, the area outside the sliders is the area trimmed from the movie. The area inside is the section that is kept in the movie. You can also adjust the Start and End points manually on the ribbon.   When you are finished, click Save trim. You can also split your video clips. Move the preview slider to the location in the video clip where you’d like to split it, and select Split. Your video will be split into separate sections. Now you can apply different effects or move them to different locations on the storyboard. Editing Music Clips Select the music clip on the storyboard and then the Options tab on the ribbon. You can adjust the music volume by moving the slider right and left.   You can also choose to have your music clip fade in or out at the beginning and end of your movie. From the Fade in and Fade out dropdowns, select None, Slow, Medium, or Fast. To adjust the sound of your audio clips, click on the Edit tab, select the Video volume button, and adjust the slider. Move it all the way to the left to mute any background noise in your video clips.   AutoMovie As you have seen, Windows Live Movie Maker allows you to add effects, transitions, titles, and more. If you don’t want to do any of that stuff yourself, AutoMovie will automatically add title, credits, cross fade transitions between items, pan and zoom effects to photos, and fit your project to the music. Just select the AutoMovie button on the Home tab. You can go from zero to movie in literally a couple minutes.   Uploading to YouTube You can share your video on YouTube directly from Windows Live Movie Maker. Click on the YouTube icon in the Sharing group on the Home tab. You’ll be prompted for your YouTube username and password. Fill in the details about your movie and click Publish. The movie will be converted to WMV before being uploaded to YouTube. As soon as the YouTube conversion is complete, you’re new movie is live and ready to be viewed. Saving your Movie as a Video File Select the icon at the top left, then select Save movie. As you hover your mouse over each of the options, you will see the output display size, aspect ratio, and estimated file size per minute of video. All of these settings will output your movie as a WMV file. (Unfortunately, the only option is to save a movie as a WMV file.) The only difference is how they are encoded based on preset common settings. The Burn to DVD option also outputs a WMV file, but then opens Windows DVD Maker and walks you through the process of creating and burning a DVD.   If you choose the Burn to DVD option, close this window when the WMV file conversion is complete and the Windows DVD Maker will prompt you to begin. When your movie is finished, it’s time to relax and enjoy.   Conclusion Windows Live Movie Maker makes it easy for the average person to quickly churn out nice looking movies and slideshows from there own pictures and videos. However, long time users of previous editions (formerly called Windows Movie Maker) will likely be disappointed by some features missing in Windows Live Movie Maker that existed in earlier editions. Looking for details on burning your new project to DVD, check out our article on how to create and author DVDs with Windows DVD Maker. Download Windows Live Movie Maker Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Family Fun: Share Photos with Photo Gallery and Windows Live SpacesCreate and Author DVDs in Windows 7Rotate a Video 90 degrees with VLC or Windows Live Movie MakerInstall Windows Live Essentials In Windows 7How to Make/Edit a movie with Windows Movie Maker in Windows Vista TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup Windows Firewall with Advanced Security – How To Guides Sculptris 1.0, 3D Drawing app AceStock, a Tiny Desktop Quote Monitor Gmail Button Addon (Firefox) Hyperwords addon (Firefox) Backup Outlook 2010

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• Silverlight 4 Training Kit

  - by ScottGu

  We recently released a new free Silverlight 4 Training Kit that walks you through building business applications with Silverlight 4.  You can browse the training kit online or alternatively download an entire offline version of the training kit.  The training material is structured on teaching how to use the new Silverlight 4 features to build an end to end business application. The training kit includes 8 modules, 25 videos, and several hands on labs. Below is a breakdown and links to all of the content. [In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu] Module 1: Introduction Click here to watch this module. In this video John Papa and Ian Griffiths discuss the key areas that the Building Business Applications with Silverlight 4 course focuses on. This module is the overview of the course and covers many key scenarios that are faced when building business applications, and how Silverlight can help address them. Module 2: WCF RIA Services Click here to explore this module. In this lab, you will create a web site for managing conferences that will be the basis for the other labs in this course. Don’t worry if you don’t complete a particular lab in the series – all lab manual instructions are accompanied by completed solutions, so you can either build your own solution from start to finish, or dive straight in at any point using the solutions provided as a starting point. In this lab you will learn how to set up WCF RIA Services, create bindings to the domain context, filter using the domain data source, and create domain service queries. Online Link Download Source Download Lab Document Videos Module 2.1 - WCF RIA Services Ian Griffiths sets up the Entity Framework and WCF RIA Services for the sample Event Manager application for the course. He covers how to set up the services, how the Domain Services work and the role that the DomainContext plays in the sample application. He also reviews the metadata classes and integrating the navigation framework. Module 2.2 – Using WCF RIA Services to Edit Entities Ian Griffiths discusses how he adds the ability to edit and create individual entities with the features built into WCF RIA Services into the sample Event Manager application. He covers data binding fundamentals, IQueryable, LINQ, the DomainDataSource, navigation to a single entity using the navigation framework, and how to use the Visual Studio designer to do much of the work . Module 2.3 – Showing Master/Details Records Using WCF RIA Services Ian Griffiths reviews how to display master/detail records for the sample Event Manager application using WCF RIA Services. He covers how to use the Include attribute to indicate which elements to serialize back to the client. Ian also demonstrates how to use the Data Sources window in the designer to add and bind controls to specific data elements. He wraps up by showing how to create custom services to the Domain Services. Module 3 – Authentication, Validation, MVVM, Commands, Implicit Styles and RichTextBox Click here to visit this module. This lab demonstrates how to build a login screen, integrate ASP.NET authentication, and perform validation on data elements. Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) is introduced and used in this lab as a pattern to help separate the UI and business logic. You will also learn how to use implicit styling and the new RichTextBox control. Online Link Download Source Download Lab Document Videos Module 3.1 – Authentication Ian Griffiths covers how to integrate a login screen and authentication into the sample Event Manager application. Ian shows how to use the ASP.NET authentication and integrate it into WCF RIA Services and the Silverlight presentation layer. Module 3.2 – MVVM Ian Griffiths covers how to Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) patterns into the sample Event Manager application. He discusses why MVVM exists, what separated presentation means, and why it is important. He shows how to connect the View to the ViewModel, why data binding is important in this symbiosis, and how everything fits together in the overall application. Module 3.3 –Validation Ian Griffiths discusses how validation of user input can be integrated into the sample Event Manager application. He demonstrates how to use the DataAnnotations, the INotifyDataErrorInfo interface, binding markup extensions, and WCF RIA Services in concert to achieve great validation in the sample application. He discusses how this technique allows for property level validation, entity level validation, and asynchronous server side validation. Module 3.4 – Implicit Styles Ian Griffiths discusses how why implicit styles are important and how they can be integrated into the sample Event Manager application. He shows how implicit styles defined in a resource dictionary can be applied to all elements of a particular kind throughout the application. Module 3.5 – RichTextBox Ian Griffiths discusses how the new RichTextBox control and it can be integrated into the sample Event Manager application. He demonstrates how the RichTextBox can provide editing for the event information and how it can display the rich text for selection and copying. Module 4 – User Profiles, Drop Targets, Webcam and Clipboard Click here to visit this module. This lab builds new features into the sample application to take the user's photo. It teaches you how to use the webcam to capture an image, use Silverlight as a drop target, and take advantage of programmatic access to the clipboard. Link Download Source Download Lab Document Videos Module 4.1 – Webcam Ian Griffiths demonstrates how the webcam adds value to the sample Event Manager application by capturing an image of the attendee. He discusses the VideoCaptureDevice, the CaptureDviceConfiguration, and the CaptureSource classes and how they allow audio and video to be captured so you can grab an image from the capture device and save it. Module 4.2 - Drag and Drop in Silverlight Ian Griffiths demonstrates how to capture and handle the Drop in the sample Event Manager application so the user can drag a photo from a file and drop it into the application. Ian reviews the AllowDrop property, the Drop event, how to access the file that can be dropped, and the other drag related events. He also reviews how to make this work across browsers and the challenges for this. Module 5 – Schedule Planner and Right Mouse Click Click here to visit this module. This lab builds on the application to allow grouping in the DataGrid and implement right mouse click features to add context menu support. Link Download Source Download Lab Document Videos Module 5.1 – Grouping and Binding Ian Griffiths demonstrates how to use the grouping features for data binding in the DataGrid and how it applies to the sample Event Manager application. He reviews the role of the CollectionViewSource in grouping, customizing the templates for headers, and how to work with grouping with ItemsControls. Module 5.2 – Layout Visual States Ian Griffiths demonstrates how to use the Fluid UI animation support for visual states in the ListBox control DataGrid and how it applies to the sample Event Manager application. He reviews the 3 visual states of BeforeLoaded, AfterLoaded, and BeforeUnloaded. Module 5.3 – Right Mouse Click Ian Griffiths demonstrates how to add support for handling the right mouse button click event to display a context menu for the Event Manager application. He demonstrates how to handle the event, show a custom context menu control, and integrate it into the scheduling portion of the application. Module 6 – Printing the Schedule Click here to visit this module. This lab teaches how to use the new printing features in Silverlight 4. The lab walks through the PrintDocument class and the ViewBox control, while showing how to print multiple pages of content using them. Link Download Source Download Lab Document Videos Module 6.1 – Printing and the Viewbox Ian Griffiths demonstrates how to add the ability to print the schedule to the sample Event Manager application. He walks through the importance of the PrintDocument class and its members. He also shows how to handle printing the visual tree and how the ViewBox control can help. Module 6.2 – Multi Page Printing Ian Griffiths expands on his printing discussion by showing how to handle printing multiple pages of content for the sample Event Manager application. He shows how to paginate the content and points out various tips to keep in mind when determining the printable area. Module 7 – Running the Event Dashboard Out of Browser Click here to visit this module. This lab builds a dashboard for the sample application while explaining the fundamentals of the out of browser features, how to handle authentication, displaying notifications (toasts), and how to use native integration to use COM Interop with Silverlight. Link Download Source Download Lab Document Videos Module 7.1 – Out of Browser Ian Griffiths discusses the role of an Out of Browser application for administrators to manage the events and users in the sample Event Manager application. He discusses several reasons why out of browser applications may better suit your needs including custom chrome, toasts, window placement, cross domain access, and file access. He demonstrates the basic technique to take your application and make it work out of browser using the tools. Module 7.2 – NotificationWindow (Toasts) for Elevated Trust Out of Browser Applications Ian Griffiths discusses the how toasts can be used in the sample Event Manager application to show information that may require the user's attention. Ian covers how to create a toast using the NotificationWindow, security implications, and how to make the toast appear as needed. Module 7.3 – Out of Browser Window Placement Ian Griffiths discusses the how to manage the window positioning when building an out of browser application, handling the windows state, and controlling and handling activation of the window. Module 7.4 – Out of Browser Elevated Trust Application Overview Ian Griffiths discusses the implications of creating trusted out of browser application for the Event Manager sample application. He reviews why you might want to use elevated trust, what features is opens to you, and how to take advantage of them. Topics Ian covers include the dynamic keyword in C# 4, the AutomationFactory class, the API to check if you are in a trusted application, and communicating with Excel. Module 8 – Advanced Out of Browser and MEF Click here to visit this module. This hands-on lab walks through the creation of a trusted out of browser application and the new functionality that comes with that. You will learn to use COM Automation, handle the window closing event, set custom window chrome, digitally sign your Silverlight out of browser trusted application, create a silent install option, and take advantage of MEF. Link Download Source Download Lab Document Videos Module 8.1 – Custom Window Chrome for Elevated Trust Out of Browser Applications Ian Griffiths discusses how to replace the standard operating system window chrome with customized chrome for an elevated trusted out of browser application. He covers how it is important to handle close, resize, minimize, and maximize events. Ian mentions that the tooling was not ready when he shot this video, but the good news is that the tooling now supports setting the custom chrome directly from the property page for the Silverlight application. Module 8.2 – Window Closing Event for Out of Browser Applications Ian Griffiths discusses the WindowClosing event and how to handle and optionally cancel the event. Module 8.3 – Silent Install of Out of Browser Applications Ian Griffiths discusses how to use the SLLauncher executable to install an out of browser application. He discusses the optional command line switches that can be set including how the emulate switch can help you emulate the install process. Ian also shows how to setup a shortcut for the application and tell the application where it should look for future updates online. Module 8.4 – Digitally Signing Out of Browser Application Ian Griffiths discusses how and why to digitally sign an out of browser application using the signtool program. He covers what trusted certificates are, the implications of signing (or not signing), and the effect on the user experience. Module 8.5 – The Value of MEF with Silverlight Ian Griffiths discusses what MEF is, how your application can benefit from it, and the fundamental features it puts at your disposal. He covers the 3 step import, export and compose process as well as how to dynamically import XAP files using MEF. Summary As you can probably tell from the long list above – this series contains a ton of great content, and hopefully provides a nice end-to-end walkthrough that helps explain how to take advantage of Silverlight 4 (and all its new features).  Hope this helps, Scott

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• Michael Crump&rsquo;s notes for 70-563 PRO &ndash; Designing and Developing Windows Applications usi

  - by mbcrump

  TIME TO GO PRO! This is my notes for 70-563 PRO – Designing and Developing Windows Applications using .NET Framework 3.5 I created it using several resources (various certification web sites, msdn, official ms 70-548 book). The reason that I created this review is because a) I am taking the exam. b) MS did not create a book for this exam. Use the(MS 70-548)book. c) To make sure I am familiar with each before the exam. I hope that it provides a good start for your own notes. I hope that someone finds this useful. At least, it will give you a starting point of what to expect to know on the PRO exam. Also, for those wondering, the PRO exam does contains very little code. It is basically all theory. 1. Validation Controls – How to prevent users from entering invalid data on forms. (MaskedTextBox control and RegEx) 2. ServiceController – used to start and control the behavior of existing services. 3. User Feedback (know winforms Status Bar, Tool Tips, Color, Error Provider, Context-Sensitive and Accessibility) 4. Specific (derived) exceptions must be handled before general (base class) exceptions. By moving the exception handling for the base type Exception to after exception handling of ArgumentNullException, all ArgumentNullException thrown by the Helper method will be caught and logged correctly. 5. A heartbeat method is a method exposed by a Web service that allows external applications to check on the status of the service. 6. New users must master key tasks quickly. Giving these tasks context and appropriate detail will help. However, advanced users will demand quicker paths. Shortcuts, accelerators, or toolbar buttons will speed things along for the advanced user. 7. MSBuild uses project files to instruct the build engine what to build and how to build it. MSBuild project files are XML files that adhere to the MSBuild XML schema. The MSBuild project files contain complete file, build action, and dependency information for each individual projects. 8. Evaluating whether or not to fix a bug involves a triage process. You must identify the bug's impact, set the priority, categorize it, and assign a developer. Many times the person doing the triage work will assign the bug to a developer for further investigation. In fact, the workflow for the bug work item inside of Team System supports this step. Developers are often asked to assess the impact of a given bug. This assessment helps the person doing the triage make a decision on how to proceed. When assessing the impact of a bug, you should consider time and resources to fix it, bug risk, and impacts of the bug. 9. In large projects it is generally impossible and unfeasible to fix all bugs because of the impact on schedule and budget. 10. Code reviews should be conducted by a technical lead or a technical peer. 11. Testing Applications 12. WCF Services – application state 13. SQL Server 2005 / 2008 Express Edition – reliable storage of data / Microsoft SQL Server 3.5 Compact Database– used for client computers to retrieve and save data from a shared location. 14. SQL Server 2008 Compact Edition – used for minimum possible memory and can synchronize data with a corporate SQL Server 2008 Database. Supports offline user and minimum dependency on external components. 15. MDI and SDI Forms (specifically IsMDIContainer) 16. GUID – in the case of data warehousing, it is important to define unique keys. 17. Encrypting / Security Data 18. Understanding of Isolated Storage/Proper location to store items 19. LINQ to SQL 20. Multithreaded access 21. ADO.NET Entity Framework model 22. Marshal.ReleaseComObject 23. Common User Interface Layout (ComboBox, ListBox, Listview, MaskedTextBox, TextBox, RichTextBox, SplitContainer, TableLayoutPanel, TabControl) 24. DataSets Class - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.data.dataset%28VS.71%29.aspx 25. SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services (SSRS) 26. SystemIcons.Shield (Vista UAC) 27. Leverging stored procedures to perform data manipulation for a database schema that can change. 28. DataContext 29. Microsoft Windows Installer Packages, ClickOnce(bootstrapping features), XCopy. 30. Client Application Services – will authenticate users by using the same data source as a ASP.NET web application. 31. SQL Server 2008 Caching 32. StringBuilder 33. Accessibility Guidelines for Windows Applications http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms228004.aspx 34. Logging erros 35. Testing performance related issues. 36. Role Based Security, GenericIdentity and GenericPrincipal 37. System.Net.CookieContainer will store session data for webapps (see isolated storage for winforms) 38. .NET CLR Profiler tool will identify objects that cause performance issues. 39. ADO.NET Synchronization (SyncGroup) 40. Globalization - CultureInfo 41. IDisposable Interface- reports on several questions relating to this. 42. Adding timestamps to determine whether data has changed or not. 43. Converting applications to .NET Framework 3.5 44. MicrosoftReportViewer 45. Composite Controls 46. Windows Vista KNOWN folders. 47. Microsoft Sync Framework 48. TypeConverter -Provides a unified way of converting types of values to other types, as well as for accessing standard values and sub properties. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.componentmodel.typeconverter.aspx 49. Concurrency control mechanisms The main categories of concurrency control mechanisms are: Optimistic - Delay the checking of whether a transaction meets the isolation rules (e.g., serializability and recoverability) until its end, without blocking any of its (read, write) operations, and then abort a transaction, if the desired rules are violated. Pessimistic - Block operations of a transaction, if they may cause violation of the rules. Semi-optimistic - Block operations in some situations, and do not block in other situations, while delaying rules checking to transaction's end, as done with optimistic. 50. AutoResetEvent 51. Microsoft Messaging Queue (MSMQ) 4.0 52. Bulk imports 53. KeyDown event of controls 54. WPF UI components 55. UI process layer 56. GAC (installing, removing and queuing) 57. Use a local database cache to reduce the network bandwidth used by applications. 58. Sound can easily be annoying and distracting to users, so use it judiciously. Always give users the option to turn sound off. Because a user might have sound off, never convey important information through sound alone.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, April 11, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, April 11, 2010New ProjectsArkzia: This Silverlight game.CodePlex Wiki Editor: CodePlex Wiki Editor makes it easier for CodePlex users to create their wiki documentations. This project offer a rich interface for the edition...Evaluate: Evaluate & Comet DWR like .NET library with powerfull Evaluate and Ajax Comet support. Also, you may use Evaluate library in your own .Net applicat...FamAccountor: 家庭记账薄Horadric: This is common tools freamwork!K8061.Managed: This is a solution to use the Velleman Extended K8061 USB Interface board with .net and to have a nice wrapper handling most of the overhead for us...Latent semantic analysis: all you need is to use!: Baggr is feed aggregator with web interface, user rating and LSA filter. Enjoy it!LIF7 ==> RISK : TOWER DEFENSE: Université Lyon 1, L2 MATH-INFO 2009-2010 Semestre de printemps Projet RISK : TOWER DEFENSE Membres : Jessica El Melhem, Vincent Sébille, et Jonat...Managed ESL Suite: Managed ESL Suite using C# for FreeSWITCH Omni-Tool - A program version concept of the tool used in Mass Effect.: A program version concept of the tool used in Mass Effect. It will support little apps (plugins) that run inside the UI. Its talor mainly at develo...PdxCodeCamp: Web application for Portland Code CampProjeto Vírus: Desenvolvimento do Jogo Virus em XNAsilverlight control - stars with rounded corners: Draw stars and cogs including rounded cornersSilverlight MathParser: Implementation of mathematical expressions parser to compute and functions.turing machine simulator: Project for JCE in course SW engeenering. Turing Machine simulator with GUI.WpD - Wallpapers Downloader: You can easy download wallpapers to your computer without any advertising or registration. On 5 minutes you can download so many wallpapers!New ReleasesAJAX Control Framework: v1.0.0.0: New AJAX project that helps you create AJAX enabled controls. Make use of control level AJAX methods, a Script Manager that works like you'd expect...AutoFixture: Version 1.1: This is version 1.1 of AutoFixture. This release contains no known bugs. Compared to Release Candidate 1 for version 1.1, there are no changes. Ho...AutoPoco: AutoPoco 0.3: Method Invocation in configuration Custom type providers during configuration Method invocation for generationBacicworx (Basic Services Framework): 3.0.10.410 (Beta): Major update, winnowing, and recode of the library. Removed redundant classses and methods which have similar functionality to those available in ...Bluetooth Radar: Version 1.5: Mostly UI and Animation Changes.BUtil: BUtil 4.9: 1. Icons of kneo are almost removed 2. Deployment was moved to codeplex.com 3. Adding of storages was unavailable when any of storages are used FIXEDcrudwork library: crudwork 2.2.0.3: few bug fixes new object viewer - allow the user to view and change an object through the property grid and/or the simple XML editor pivot table ...EnhSim: Release v1.9.8.5: Release v1.9.8.5Removed the debugging output from the Armor Penetration change.EnhSim: Release v1.9.8.6: Release v1.9.8.6Updated release to include the correct version of EnhSimGUIEvaluate: Evaluate Library: This file contains Evaluate library source code under Visual Studio project. Also, there is a sample project to see the use.ExcelDna: ExcelDna Version 0.25: This is an important bugfix release, with the following changes: Fix case where unpacked .config temp file might not be deleted. Fix compiler pro...FamAccountor: 家庭账薄 预览版v0.0.1: 家庭账薄 预览版v0.0.1 该版本提供基本功能，还有待扩展! Feature: 实现基本添加、编辑、删除功能。FamAccountor: 家庭账薄 预览版v0.0.2: 家庭账薄 预览版v0.0.2 该版本提供基本功能，还有待扩展! Feature: 添加账户管理功能。Folder Bookmarks: Folder Bookmarks 1.4.2: This is the latest version of Folder Bookmarks (1.4.2), with general improvements. It has an installer - it will create a directory 'CPascoe' in My...GKO Libraries: GKO Libraries 0.3 Beta: Added Silverlight support for Gko.Utils Added ExtensionsHash Calculator: HashCalculator 1.2: HashCalculator 1.2HD-Trailers.NET Downloader: Version: TrailersOnly if set to 'true' only titles with 'trailer' in the title will be download MinTrailerSize Added a minimum trailer size, this avoids t...Home Access Plus+: v3.2.6.0: v3.2.5.1 Release Change Log: Add lesson naming Fixed a bug in the help desk which was rendering the wrong URL for tickets Planning has started ...HTML Ruby: 6.20.0: All new concept, all new code. Because this release does not support complex ruby annotations, "Furigana Injector" is not supported by this release...HTML Ruby: 6.20.1: Fixed problem where ruby with closed tags but no rb tag will result in empty page Added support for complex ruby annotation (limited single ruby)...K8061.Managed: K8061.Managed: This is a pre-compilled K8061.Managed.DLL file release 1.0.Kooboo CMS: Kooboo CMS 2.1.0.0: Users of Kooboo CMS 2.0, please use the "Check updates" feature under System to upgrade New featuresWebDav support You can now use tools like w...Kooboo forum: Kooboo Forum Module for 2.1.0.0: Compatible with Kooboo cms 2.1.0.0 Upgrade to MVC 2Kooboo GoogleAnalytics: Kooboo GoogleAnalytics Module for 2.1.0.0: Compatible with Kooboo cms 2.1.0.0 Upgrade to MVC 2Kooboo wiki: Kooboo CMS Wiki module for 2.1.0.0: Compatible with Kooboo cms 2.1.0.0 Upgrade to MVC 2Mavention: Mavention Simple SiteMapPath: Mavention Simple SiteMapPath is a custom control that renders breadcrumbs as an unordered list what makes it a perfect solution for breadcrumbs on ...MetaSharp: MetaSharp v0.3: MetaSharp v0.3 Roadmap: Oslo Independence Custom Grammar library Improved build environment dogfooding Project structure simplificationsRoTwee: RoTwee (10.0.0.7): New feature of this version is support for mouse wheel. You can rotate tweets rotating mouse wheel.silverlight control - stars with rounded corners: first step: These are the first examples.Silverlight MathParser: Silverlight MathParser 1.0: Implementation of mathematical expressions parser to compute and functions.SimpleGeo.NET: SimpleGeo.NET example website project: ConfigurationYou must change these three configuration values in AppSettings.config: Google Maps API key: for the maps on the test site. 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Open Source online shop e-commerce solution.AutoPocopatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryShweet: SharePoint 2010 Team Messaging built with PexFarseer Physics EngineNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog ModuleIonics Isapi Rewrite FilterBlogEngine.NETBeanProxy

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• The Incremental Architect&acute;s Napkin - #1 - It&acute;s about the money, stupid

  - by Ralf Westphal

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/theArchitectsNapkin/archive/2014/05/24/the-incremental-architectacutes-napkin---1---itacutes-about-the.aspx Software development is an economic endeavor. A customer is only willing to pay for value. What makes a software valuable is required to become a trait of the software. We as software developers thus need to understand and then find a way to implement requirements. Whether or in how far a customer really can know beforehand what´s going to be valuable for him/her in the end is a topic of constant debate. Some aspects of the requirements might be less foggy than others. Sometimes the customer does not know what he/she wants. Sometimes he/she´s certain to want something - but then is not happy when that´s delivered. Nevertheless requirements exist. And developers will only be paid if they deliver value. So we better focus on doing that. Although is might sound trivial I think it´s important to state the corollary: We need to be able to trace anything we do as developers back to some requirement. You decide to use Go as the implementation language? Well, what´s the customer´s requirement this decision is linked to? You decide to use WPF as the GUI technology? What´s the customer´s requirement? You decide in favor of a layered architecture? What´s the customer´s requirement? You decide to put code in three classes instead of just one? What´s the customer´s requirement behind that? You decide to use MongoDB over MySql? What´s the customer´s requirement behind that? etc. I´m not saying any of these decisions are wrong. I´m just saying whatever you decide be clear about the requirement that´s driving your decision. You have to be able to answer the question: Why do you think will X deliver more value to the customer than the alternatives? Customers are not interested in romantic ideals of hard working, good willing, quality focused craftsmen. They don´t care how and why you work - as long as what you deliver fulfills their needs. They want to trust you to recognize this as your top priority - and then deliver. That´s all. Fundamental aspects of requirements If you´re like me you´re probably not used to such scrutinization. You want to be trusted as a professional developer - and decide quite a few things following your gut feeling. Or by relying on “established practices”. That´s ok in general and most of the time - but still… I think we should be more conscious about our decisions. Which would make us more responsible, even more professional. But without further guidance it´s hard to reason about many of the myriad decisions we´ve to make over the course of a software project. What I found helpful in this situation is structuring requirements into fundamental aspects. Instead of one large heap of requirements then there are smaller blobs. With them it´s easier to check if a decisions falls in their scope. Sure, every project has it´s very own requirements. But all of them belong to just three different major categories, I think. Any requirement either pertains to functionality, non-functional aspects or sustainability. For short I call those aspects: Functionality, because such requirements describe which transformations a software should offer. For example: A calculator software should be able to add and multiply real numbers. An auction website should enable you to set up an auction anytime or to find auctions to bid for. Quality, because such requirements describe how functionality is supposed to work, e.g. fast or secure. For example: A calculator should be able to calculate the sinus of a value much faster than you could in your head. An auction website should accept bids from millions of users. Security of Investment, because functionality and quality need not just be delivered in any way. It´s important to the customer to get them quickly - and not only today but over the course of several years. This aspect introduces time into the “requrements equation”. Security of Investments (SoI) sure is a non-functional requirement. But I think it´s important to not subsume it under the Quality (Q) aspect. That´s because SoI has quite special properties. For one, SoI for software means something completely different from what it means for hardware. If you buy hardware (a car, a hair blower) you find that a worthwhile investment, if the hardware does not change it´s functionality or quality over time. A car still running smoothly with hardly any rust spots after 10 years of daily usage would be a very secure investment. So for hardware (or material products, if you like) “unchangeability” (in the face of usage) is desirable. With software you want the contrary. Software that cannot be changed is a waste. SoI for software means “changeability”. You want to be sure that the software you buy/order today can be changed, adapted, improved over an unforseeable number of years so as fit changes in its usage environment. But that´s not the only reason why the SoI aspect is special. On top of changeability[1] (or evolvability) comes immeasurability. Evolvability cannot readily be measured by counting something. Whether the changeability is as high as the customer wants it, cannot be determined by looking at metrics like Lines of Code or Cyclomatic Complexity or Afferent Coupling. They may give a hint… but they are far, far from precise. That´s because of the nature of changeability. It´s different from performance or scalability. Also it´s because a customer cannot tell upfront, “how much” evolvability he/she wants. Whether requirements regarding Functionality (F) and Q have been met, a customer can tell you very quickly and very precisely. A calculation is missing, the calculation takes too long, the calculation time degrades with increased load, the calculation is accessible to the wrong users etc. That´s all very or at least comparatively easy to determine. But changeability… That´s a whole different thing. Nevertheless over time the customer will develop a feedling if changeability is good enough or degrading. He/she just has to check the development of the frequency of “WTF”s from developers ;-) F and Q are “timeless” requirement categories. Customers want us to deliver on them now. Just focusing on the now, though, is rarely beneficial in the long run. So SoI adds a counterweight to the requirements picture. Customers want SoI - whether they know it or not, whether they state if explicitly or not. In closing A customer´s requirements are not monolithic. They are not all made the same. Rather they fall into different categories. We as developers need to recognize these categories when confronted with some requirement - and take them into account. Only then can we make true professional decisions, i.e. conscious and responsible ones. I call this fundamental trait of software “changeability” and not “flexibility” to distinguish to whom it´s a concern. “Flexibility” to me means, software as is can easily be adapted to a change in its environment, e.g. by tweaking some config data or adding a library which gets picked up by a plug-in engine. “Flexibiltiy” thus is a matter of some user. “Changeability”, on the other hand, to me means, software can easily be changed in its structure to adapt it to new requirements. That´s a matter of the software developer. ?

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