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Adding RSS to tags in Orchard
- by Bertrand Le Roy
A year ago, I wrote a scary post about RSS in Orchard. RSS was one of the first features we implemented in our CMS, and it has stood the test of time rather well, but the post was explaining things at a level that was probably too abstract whereas my readers were expecting something a little more practical. Well, this post is going to correct this by showing how I built a module that adds RSS feeds for each tag on the site. Hopefully it will show that it's not very complicated in practice, and also that the infrastructure is pretty well thought out. In order to provide RSS, we need to do two things: generate the XML for the feed, and inject the address of that feed into the existing tag listing page, in order to make the feed discoverable. Let's start with the discoverability part. One might be tempted to replace the controller or the view that are responsible for the listing of the items under a tag. Fortunately, there is no need to do any of that, and we can be a lot less obtrusive. Instead, we can implement a filter: public class TagRssFilter : FilterProvider, IResultFilter .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } On this filter, we can implement the OnResultExecuting method and simply check whether the current request is targeting the list of items under a tag. If that is the case, we can just register our new feed: public void OnResultExecuting(ResultExecutingContext filterContext) { var routeValues = filterContext.RouteData.Values; if (routeValues["area"] as string == "Orchard.Tags" && routeValues["controller"] as string == "Home" && routeValues["action"] as string == "Search") { var tag = routeValues["tagName"] as string; if (! string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(tag)) { var workContext = _wca.GetContext(); _feedManager.Register( workContext.CurrentSite + " – " + tag, "rss", new RouteValueDictionary { { "tag", tag } } ); } } } The registration of the new feed is just specifying the title of the feed, its format (RSS) and the parameters that it will need (the tag). _wca and _feedManager are just instances of IWorkContextAccessor and IFeedManager that Orchard injected for us. That is all that's needed to get the following tag to be added to the head of our page, without touching an existing controller or view: <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="VuLu - Science" href="/rss?tag=Science"/> Nifty. Of course, if we navigate to the URL of that feed, we'll get a 404. This is because no implementation of IFeedQueryProvider knows about the tag parameter yet. Let's build one that does: public class TagFeedQuery : IFeedQueryProvider, IFeedQuery IFeedQueryProvider has one method, Match, that we can implement to take over any feed request that has a tag parameter: public FeedQueryMatch Match(FeedContext context) { var tagName = context.ValueProvider.GetValue("tag"); if (tagName == null) return null; return new FeedQueryMatch { FeedQuery = this, Priority = -5 }; } This is just saying that if there is a tag parameter, we will handle it. All that remains to be done is the actual building of the feed now that we have accepted to handle it. This is done by implementing the Execute method of the IFeedQuery interface: public void Execute(FeedContext context) { var tagValue = context.ValueProvider.GetValue("tag"); if (tagValue == null) return; var tagName = (string)tagValue.ConvertTo(typeof (string)); var tag = _tagService.GetTagByName(tagName); if (tag == null) return; var site = _services.WorkContext.CurrentSite; var link = new XElement("link"); context.Response.Element.SetElementValue("title", site.SiteName + " - " + tagName); context.Response.Element.Add(link); context.Response.Element.SetElementValue("description", site.SiteName + " - " + tagName); context.Response.Contextualize(requestContext => link.Add(GetTagUrl(tagName, requestContext))); var items = _tagService.GetTaggedContentItems(tag.Id, 0, 20); foreach (var item in items) { context.Builder.AddItem(context, item.ContentItem); } } This code is resolving the tag content item from its name and then gets content items tagged with it, using the tag services provided by the Orchard.Tags module. Then we add those items to the feed. And that is it. To summarize, we handled the request unobtrusively in order to inject the feed's link, then handled requests for feeds with a tag parameter and generated the list of items for that tag. It remains fairly simple and still it is able to handle arbitrary content types. That makes me quite happy about our little piece of over-engineered code from last year. The full code for this can be found in the Vandelay.TagCloud module: http://orchardproject.net/gallery/List/Modules/ Orchard.Module.Vandelay.TagCloud/1.2Read the article
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SQLAuthority News – SQL Server 2012 Upgrade Technical Guide – A Comprehensive Whitepaper – (454 pages – 9 MB)
- by pinaldave
Microsoft has just released SQL Server 2012 Upgrade Technical Guide. This guide is very comprehensive and covers the subject of upgrade in-depth. This is indeed a helpful detailed white paper. Even writing a summary of this white paper would take over 100 pages. This further proves that SQL Server 2012 is quite an important release from Microsoft. This white paper discusses how to upgrade from SQL Server 2008/R2 to SQL Server 2012. I love how it starts with the most interesting and basic discussion of upgrade strategies: 1) In-place upgrades, 2) Side by side upgrade, 3) One-server, and 4) Two-server. This whitepaper is not just pure theory but is also an excellent source for some tips and tricks. Here is an example of a good tip from the paper: “If you want to upgrade just one database from a legacy instance of SQL Server and not upgrade the other databases on the server, use the side-by-side upgrade method instead of the in-place method.” There are so many trivia, tips and tricks that make creating the list seems humanly impossible given a short period of time. My friend Vinod Kumar, an SQL Server expert, wrote a very interesting article on SQL Server 2012 Upgrade before. In that article, Vinod addressed the most interesting and practical questions related to upgrades. He started with the fundamentals of how to start backup before upgrade and ended with fail-safe strategies after the upgrade is over. He covered end-to-end concepts in his blog posts in simple words in extremely precise statements. A successful upgrade uses a cycle of: planning, document process, testing, refine process, testing, planning upgrade window, execution, verifying of upgrade and opening for business. If you are at Vinod’s blog post, I suggest you go all the way down and collect the gold mine of most important links. I have bookmarked the blog by blogging about it and I suggest that you bookmark it as well with the way you prefer. Vinod Kumar’s blog post on SQL Server 2012 Upgrade Technical Guide SQL Server 2012 Upgrade Technical Guide is a detailed resource that’s also available online for free. Each chapter was carefully crafted and explained in detail. Here is a quick list of the chapters included in the whitepaper. Before downloading the guide, beware of its size of 9 MB and 454 pages. Here’s the list of chapters: Chapter 1: Upgrade Planning and Deployment Chapter 2: Management Tools Chapter 3: Relational Databases Chapter 4: High Availability Chapter 5: Database Security Chapter 6: Full-Text Search Chapter 7: Service Broker Chapter 8: SQL Server Express Chapter 9: SQL Server Data Tools Chapter 10: Transact-SQL Queries Chapter 11: Spatial Data Chapter 12: XML and XQuery Chapter 13: CLR Chapter 14: SQL Server Management Objects Chapter 15: Business Intelligence Tools Chapter 16: Analysis Services Chapter 17: Integration Services Chapter 18: Reporting Services Chapter 19: Data Mining Chapter 20: Other Microsoft Applications and Platforms Appendix 1: Version and Edition Upgrade Paths Appendix 2: SQL Server 2012: Upgrade Planning Checklist Download SQL Server 2012 Upgrade Technical Guide [454 pages and 9 MB] Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Database, DBA, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Documentation, SQL Download, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL White Papers, SQLAuthority News, SQLServer, T SQL, TechnologyRead the article
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Pure Front end JavaScript with Web API versus MVC views with ajax
- by eyeballpaul
This was more a discussion for what peoples thoughts are these days on how to split a web application. I am used to creating an MVC application with all its views and controllers. I would normally create a full view and pass this back to the browser on a full page request, unless there were specific areas that I did not want to populate straight away and would then use DOM page load events to call the server to load other areas using AJAX. Also, when it came to partial page refreshing, I would call an MVC action method which would return the HTML fragment which I could then use to populate parts of the page. This would be for areas that I did not want to slow down initial page load, or areas that fitted better with AJAX calls. One example would be for table paging. If you want to move on to the next page, I would prefer it if an AJAX call got that info rather than using a full page refresh. But the AJAX call would still return an HTML fragment. My question is. Are my thoughts on this archaic because I come from a .net background rather than a pure front end background? An intelligent front end developer that I work with, prefers to do more or less nothing in the MVC views, and would rather do everything on the front end. Right down to web API calls populating the page. So that rather than calling an MVC action method, which returns HTML, he would prefer to return a standard object and use javascript to create all the elements of the page. The front end developer way means that any benefits that I normally get with MVC model validation, including client side validation, would be gone. It also means that any benefits that I get with creating the views, with strongly typed html templates etc would be gone. I believe this would mean I would need to write the same validation for front end and back end validation. The javascript would also need to have lots of methods for creating all the different parts of the DOM. For example, when adding a new row to a table, I would normally use the MVC partial view for creating the row, and then return this as part of the AJAX call, which then gets injected into the table. By using a pure front end way, the javascript would would take in an object (for, say, a product) for the row from the api call, and then create a row from that object. Creating each individual part of the table row. The website in question will have lots of different areas, from administration, forms, product searching etc. A website that I don't think requires to be architected in a single page application way. What are everyone's thoughts on this? I am interested to hear from front end devs and back end devs.Read the article
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C#/.NET Little Wonders: The Timeout static class
- by James Michael Hare
Once again, in this series of posts I look at the parts of the .NET Framework that may seem trivial, but can help improve your code by making it easier to write and maintain. The index of all my past little wonders posts can be found here. When I started the “Little Wonders” series, I really wanted to pay homage to parts of the .NET Framework that are often small but can help in big ways. The item I have to discuss today really is a very small item in the .NET BCL, but once again I feel it can help make the intention of code much clearer and thus is worthy of note. The Problem - Magic numbers aren’t very readable or maintainable In my first Little Wonders Post (Five Little Wonders That Make Code Better) I mention the TimeSpan factory methods which, I feel, really help the readability of constructed TimeSpan instances. Just to quickly recap that discussion, ask yourself what the TimeSpan specified in each case below is 1: // Five minutes? Five Seconds? 2: var fiveWhat1 = new TimeSpan(0, 0, 5); 3: var fiveWhat2 = new TimeSpan(0, 0, 5, 0); 4: var fiveWhat3 = new TimeSpan(0, 0, 5, 0, 0); You’d think they’d all be the same unit of time, right? After all, most overloads tend to tack additional arguments on the end. But this is not the case with TimeSpan, where the constructor forms are: TimeSpan(int hours, int minutes, int seconds); TimeSpan(int days, int hours, int minutes, int seconds); TimeSpan(int days, int hours, int minutes, int seconds, int milliseconds); Notice how in the 4 and 5 parameter version we suddenly have the parameter days slipping in front of hours? This can make reading constructors like those above much harder. Fortunately, there are TimeSpan factory methods to help make your intention crystal clear: 1: // Ah! Much clearer! 2: var fiveSeconds = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(5); These are great because they remove all ambiguity from the reader! So in short, magic numbers in constructors and methods can be ambiguous, and anything we can do to clean up the intention of the developer will make the code much easier to read and maintain. Timeout – Readable identifiers for infinite timeout values In a similar way to TimeSpan, let’s consider specifying timeouts for some of .NET’s (or our own) many methods that allow you to specify timeout periods. For example, in the TPL Task class, there is a family of Wait() methods that can take TimeSpan or int for timeouts. Typically, if you want to specify an infinite timeout, you’d just call the version that doesn’t take a timeout parameter at all: 1: myTask.Wait(); // infinite wait But there are versions that take the int or TimeSpan for timeout as well: 1: // Wait for 100 ms 2: myTask.Wait(100); 3: 4: // Wait for 5 seconds 5: myTask.Wait(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(5); Now, if we want to specify an infinite timeout to wait on the Task, we could pass –1 (or a TimeSpan set to –1 ms), which what the .NET BCL methods with timeouts use to represent an infinite timeout: 1: // Also infinite timeouts, but harder to read/maintain 2: myTask.Wait(-1); 3: myTask.Wait(TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(-1)); However, these are not as readable or maintainable. If you were writing this code, you might make the mistake of thinking 0 or int.MaxValue was an infinite timeout, and you’d be incorrect. Also, reading the code above it isn’t as clear that –1 is infinite unless you happen to know that is the specified behavior. To make the code like this easier to read and maintain, there is a static class called Timeout in the System.Threading namespace which contains definition for infinite timeouts specified as both int and TimeSpan forms: Timeout.Infinite An integer constant with a value of –1 Timeout.InfiniteTimeSpan A static readonly TimeSpan which represents –1 ms (only available in .NET 4.5+) This makes our calls to Task.Wait() (or any other calls with timeouts) much more clear: 1: // intention to wait indefinitely is quite clear now 2: myTask.Wait(Timeout.Infinite); 3: myTask.Wait(Timeout.InfiniteTimeSpan); But wait, you may say, why would we care at all? Why not use the version of Wait() that takes no arguments? Good question! When you’re directly calling the method with an infinite timeout that’s what you’d most likely do, but what if you are just passing along a timeout specified by a caller from higher up? Or perhaps storing a timeout value from a configuration file, and want to default it to infinite? For example, perhaps you are designing a communications module and want to be able to shutdown gracefully, but if you can’t gracefully finish in a specified amount of time you want to force the connection closed. You could create a Shutdown() method in your class, and take a TimeSpan or an int for the amount of time to wait for a clean shutdown – perhaps waiting for client to acknowledge – before terminating the connection. So, assume we had a pub/sub system with a class to broadcast messages: 1: // Some class to broadcast messages to connected clients 2: public class Broadcaster 3: { 4: // ... 5: 6: // Shutdown connection to clients, wait for ack back from clients 7: // until all acks received or timeout, whichever happens first 8: public void Shutdown(int timeout) 9: { 10: // Kick off a task here to send shutdown request to clients and wait 11: // for the task to finish below for the specified time... 12: 13: if (!shutdownTask.Wait(timeout)) 14: { 15: // If Wait() returns false, we timed out and task 16: // did not join in time. 17: } 18: } 19: } We could even add an overload to allow us to use TimeSpan instead of int, to give our callers the flexibility to specify timeouts either way: 1: // overload to allow them to specify Timeout in TimeSpan, would 2: // just call the int version passing in the TotalMilliseconds... 3: public void Shutdown(TimeSpan timeout) 4: { 5: Shutdown(timeout.TotalMilliseconds); 6: } Notice in case of this class, we don’t assume the caller wants infinite timeouts, we choose to rely on them to tell us how long to wait. So now, if they choose an infinite timeout, they could use the –1, which is more cryptic, or use Timeout class to make the intention clear: 1: // shutdown the broadcaster, waiting until all clients ack back 2: // without timing out. 3: myBroadcaster.Shutdown(Timeout.Infinite); We could even add a default argument using the int parameter version so that specifying no arguments to Shutdown() assumes an infinite timeout: 1: // Modified original Shutdown() method to add a default of 2: // Timeout.Infinite, works because Timeout.Infinite is a compile 3: // time constant. 4: public void Shutdown(int timeout = Timeout.Infinite) 5: { 6: // same code as before 7: } Note that you can’t default the ShutDown(TimeSpan) overload with Timeout.InfiniteTimeSpan since it is not a compile-time constant. The only acceptable default for a TimeSpan parameter would be default(TimeSpan) which is zero milliseconds, which specified no wait, not infinite wait. Summary While Timeout.Infinite and Timeout.InfiniteTimeSpan are not earth-shattering classes in terms of functionality, they do give you very handy and readable constant values that you can use in your programs to help increase readability and maintainability when specifying infinite timeouts for various timeouts in the BCL and your own applications. Technorati Tags: C#,CSharp,.NET,Little Wonders,Timeout,TaskRead the article
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GDI (2 replies)
Hallo, I have a small (hopefully) problem... I defined an user control that in the Paint overriden method does the following things: protected override void OnPaint( PaintEventArgs e ) { e.Graphics.Clear( BackColor ); e.Graphics.SmoothingMode SmoothingMode; e.Graphics.CompositingQuality CompositingQuality; e.Graphics.InterpolationMode InterpolationMode; e.Graphics.TextRenderingHint TextRenderingHi...Read the article
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C#/.NET Little Wonders: Using ‘default’ to Get Default Values
- by James Michael Hare
Once again, in this series of posts I look at the parts of the .NET Framework that may seem trivial, but can help improve your code by making it easier to write and maintain. The index of all my past little wonders posts can be found here. Today’s little wonder is another of those small items that can help a lot in certain situations, especially when writing generics. In particular, it is useful in determining what the default value of a given type would be. The Problem: what’s the default value for a generic type? There comes a time when you’re writing generic code where you may want to set an item of a given generic type. Seems simple enough, right? We’ll let’s see! Let’s say we want to query a Dictionary<TKey, TValue> for a given key and get back the value, but if the key doesn’t exist, we’d like a default value instead of throwing an exception. So, for example, we might have a the following dictionary defined: 1: var lookup = new Dictionary<int, string> 2: { 3: { 1, "Apple" }, 4: { 2, "Orange" }, 5: { 3, "Banana" }, 6: { 4, "Pear" }, 7: { 9, "Peach" } 8: }; And using those definitions, perhaps we want to do something like this: 1: // assume a default 2: string value = "Unknown"; 3: 4: // if the item exists in dictionary, get its value 5: if (lookup.ContainsKey(5)) 6: { 7: value = lookup[5]; 8: } But that’s inefficient, because then we’re double-hashing (once for ContainsKey() and once for the indexer). Well, to avoid the double-hashing, we could use TryGetValue() instead: 1: string value; 2: 3: // if key exists, value will be put in value, if not default it 4: if (!lookup.TryGetValue(5, out value)) 5: { 6: value = "Unknown"; 7: } But the “flow” of using of TryGetValue() can get clunky at times when you just want to assign either the value or a default to a variable. Essentially it’s 3-ish lines (depending on formatting) for 1 assignment. So perhaps instead we’d like to write an extension method to support a cleaner interface that will return a default if the item isn’t found: 1: public static class DictionaryExtensions 2: { 3: public static TValue GetValueOrDefault<TKey, TValue>(this Dictionary<TKey, TValue> dict, 4: TKey key, TValue defaultIfNotFound) 5: { 6: TValue value; 7: 8: // value will be the result or the default for TValue 9: if (!dict.TryGetValue(key, out value)) 10: { 11: value = defaultIfNotFound; 12: } 13: 14: return value; 15: } 16: } 17: So this creates an extension method on Dictionary<TKey, TValue> that will attempt to get a value using the given key, and will return the defaultIfNotFound as a stand-in if the key does not exist. This code compiles, fine, but what if we would like to go one step further and allow them to specify a default if not found, or accept the default for the type? Obviously, we could overload the method to take the default or not, but that would be duplicated code and a bit heavy for just specifying a default. It seems reasonable that we could set the not found value to be either the default for the type, or the specified value. So what if we defaulted the type to null? 1: public static TValue GetValueOrDefault<TKey, TValue>(this Dictionary<TKey, TValue> dict, 2: TKey key, TValue defaultIfNotFound = null) // ... No, this won’t work, because only reference types (and Nullable<T> wrapped types due to syntactical sugar) can be assigned to null. So what about a calling parameterless constructor? 1: public static TValue GetValueOrDefault<TKey, TValue>(this Dictionary<TKey, TValue> dict, 2: TKey key, TValue defaultIfNotFound = new TValue()) // ... No, this won’t work either for several reasons. First, we’d expect a reference type to return null, not an “empty” instance. Secondly, not all reference types have a parameter-less constructor (string for example does not). And finally, a constructor cannot be determined at compile-time, while default values can. The Solution: default(T) – returns the default value for type T Many of us know the default keyword for its uses in switch statements as the default case. But it has another use as well: it can return us the default value for a given type. And since it generates the same defaults that default field initialization uses, it can be determined at compile-time as well. For example: 1: var x = default(int); // x is 0 2: 3: var y = default(bool); // y is false 4: 5: var z = default(string); // z is null 6: 7: var t = default(TimeSpan); // t is a TimeSpan with Ticks == 0 8: 9: var n = default(int?); // n is a Nullable<int> with HasValue == false Notice that for numeric types the default is 0, and for reference types the default is null. In addition, for struct types, the value is a default-constructed struct – which simply means a struct where every field has their default value (hence 0 Ticks for TimeSpan, etc.). So using this, we could modify our code to this: 1: public static class DictionaryExtensions 2: { 3: public static TValue GetValueOrDefault<TKey, TValue>(this Dictionary<TKey, TValue> dict, 4: TKey key, TValue defaultIfNotFound = default(TValue)) 5: { 6: TValue value; 7: 8: // value will be the result or the default for TValue 9: if (!dict.TryGetValue(key, out value)) 10: { 11: value = defaultIfNotFound; 12: } 13: 14: return value; 15: } 16: } Now, if defaultIfNotFound is unspecified, it will use default(TValue) which will be the default value for whatever value type the dictionary holds. So let’s consider how we could use this: 1: lookup.GetValueOrDefault(1); // returns “Apple” 2: 3: lookup.GetValueOrDefault(5); // returns null 4: 5: lookup.GetValueOrDefault(5, “Unknown”); // returns “Unknown” 6: Again, do not confuse a parameter-less constructor with the default value for a type. Remember that the default value for any type is the compile-time default for any instance of that type (0 for numeric, false for bool, null for reference types, and struct will all default fields for struct). Consider the difference: 1: // both zero 2: int i1 = default(int); 3: int i2 = new int(); 4: 5: // both “zeroed” structs 6: var dt1 = default(DateTime); 7: var dt2 = new DateTime(); 8: 9: // sb1 is null, sb2 is an “empty” string builder 10: var sb1 = default(StringBuilder()); 11: var sb2 = new StringBuilder(); So in the above code, notice that the value types all resolve the same whether using default or parameter-less construction. This is because a value type is never null (even Nullable<T> wrapped types are never “null” in a reference sense), they will just by default contain fields with all default values. However, for reference types, the default is null and not a constructed instance. Also it should be noted that not all classes have parameter-less constructors (string, for instance, doesn’t have one – and doesn’t need one). Summary Whenever you need to get the default value for a type, especially a generic type, consider using the default keyword. This handy word will give you the default value for the given type at compile-time, which can then be used for initialization, optional parameters, etc. Technorati Tags: C#,CSharp,.NET,Little Wonders,defaultRead the article
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Separate keyboard shortcuts for switching between keyboard layouts
- by Vitaliy
I have a few language keyboard layouts installed in my Ubuntu 12.04. I am using ctrl-shift keyboard shortcut for switching between language layouts. Such switching method takes a lot of my time. Is there any posibility to set up a different keyboard shortcut for each language keyboard layout? For example: ctrl-shift-1 (english layout), ctrl-shift-2 (polish layout), ctrl-shift-3 (italian layout) etc.Read the article
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ASP.Net MVC - how to post values to the server that are not in an input element
- by David Carter
Problem As was mentioned in a previous blog I am building a web page that allows the user to select dates in a calendar and then shows the dates in an unordered list. The problem now is that those dates need to be sent to the server on page submit so that they can be saved to the database. If I was storing the dates in an input element, say a textbox, that wouldn't be an issue but because they are in an html element whose contents are not posted to the server an alternative strategy needs to be developed. Solution The approach that I took to solve this problem is as follows: 1. Place a hidden input field on the form <input id="hiddenDates" name="hiddenDates" type="hidden" value="" /> ASP.Net MVC has an Html helper with a method called Hidden() that will do this for you @Html.Hidden("hiddenDates"). 2. Copy the values from the html element to the hidden input field before submitting the form The following javascript is added to the page: $(function () { $('#formCreate').submit(function () { PopulateHiddenDates(); }); }); function PopulateHiddenDates() { var dateValues = ''; $($('#dateList').children('li')).each(function(index) { dateValues += $(this).attr("id") + ","; }); $('#hiddenDates').val(dateValues); } I'm using jQuery to bind to the form submit event so that my method to populate the hidden field gets called before the form is submitted. The dateList element is an unordered list and by using the jQuery each function I can itterate through all the <li> items that it contains, get each items id attribute (to which I have assigned the value of the date in millisecs) and write them to the hidden field as a comma delimited string. 3. Process the dates on the server [HttpPost] public ActionResult Create(string hiddenDates, string utcOffset) { List<DateTime> dates = GetDates(hiddenDates, utcOffset); } private List<DateTime> GetDates(string hiddenDates, int utcOffset) { List<DateTime> dates = new List<DateTime>(); var values = hiddenDates.Split(",".ToCharArray(),StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries); foreach (var item in values) { DateTime newDate = new DateTime(1970, 1, 1).AddMilliseconds(double.Parse(item)).AddMinutes(utcOffset*-1); dates.Add(newDate); } return dates; } By declaring a parameter with the same name as the hidden field ASP.Net will take care of finding the corresponding entry in the form collection posted back to the server and binding it to the hiddenDates parameter! Excellent! I now have my dates the user selected and I can save them to the database. I have also used the same technique to pass back a utcOffset so that I know what timezone the user is in and I can show the dates correctly to users in other timezones if necessary (this isn't strictly necessary at the moment but I plan to introduce times later), Saving multiple dates from an unordered list - DONE!Read the article
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Bullet physics in python and pygame
- by Pomg
I am programming a 2D sidescroller in python and pygame and am having trouble making a bullet go farther than just farther than the player. The bullet travels straight to the ground after i fire it. How, in python code using pygame do I make the bullet go farther. If you need code, here is the method that handles the bullet firing: self.xv += math.sin(math.radians(self.angle)) * self.attrs['speed'] self.yv += math.cos(math.radians(self.angle)) * self.attrs['speed'] self.rect.left += self.xv self.rect.top += self.yvRead the article
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Silverlight hierarchy gridview with MVVM
- by Suresh Behera
Since few days i have been struggling to bind a gridview from a simple WCF async call. Following article look promising… http://blogs.telerik.com/vladimirenchev/posts/09-10-16/how_to_silverlight_grid_hierarchy_load_on_demand_using_mvvm_and_ria_services.aspx I conclude binding is not simple traditional databind() method call from gridview if you don’t know howto ;) Thanks, Suresh...(read more)Read the article
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Interpolation using a sprite's previous frame and current frame
- by user22241
Overview I'm currently using a method which has been pointed out to me is extrapolation rather than interolation. As a result, I'm also now looking into the possibility of using another method which is based on a sprite's position at it's last (rendered) frame and it's current one. Assuming an interpolation value of 0.5 this is, (visually), how I understand it should affect my sprite's position.... This is how I'm obtaining an inerpolation value: public void onDrawFrame(GL10 gl) { // Set/re-set loop back to 0 to start counting again loops=0; while(System.currentTimeMillis() > nextGameTick && loops < maxFrameskip) { SceneManager.getInstance().getCurrentScene().updateLogic(); nextGameTick += skipTicks; timeCorrection += (1000d / ticksPerSecond) % 1; nextGameTick += timeCorrection; timeCorrection %= 1; loops++; tics++; } interpolation = (float)(System.currentTimeMillis() + skipTicks - nextGameTick) / (float)skipTicks; render(interpolation); } I am then applying it like so (in my rendering call): render(float interpolation) { spriteScreenX = (spriteScreenX - spritePreviousX) * interpolation + spritePreviousX; spritePreviousX = spriteScreenX; // update and store this for next time } Results This unfortunately does nothing to smooth the movement of my sprite. It's pretty much the same as without the interpolation code. I can't get my head around how this is supposed to work and I honestly can't find any decent resources which explain this in any detail. My understanding of extrapolation is that when we arrive at the rendering call, we calculate the time between the last update call and the render call, and then adjust the sprite's position to reflect this time (moving the sprite forward) - And yet, this (Interpolation) is moving the sprite back, so how can this produce smooth results? Any advise on this would be very much appreciated. Edit I've implemented the code from OriginalDaemon's answer like so: @Override public void onDrawFrame(GL10 gl) { newTime = System.currentTimeMillis()*0.001; frameTime = newTime - currentTime; if ( frameTime > (dt*25)) frameTime = (dt*25); currentTime = newTime; accumulator += frameTime; while ( accumulator >= dt ) { SceneManager.getInstance().getCurrentScene().updateLogic(); previousState = currentState; t += dt; accumulator -= dt; } interpolation = (float) (accumulator / dt); render(); } Interpolation values are now being produced between 0 and 1 as expected (similar to how they were in my original loop) - however, the results are the same as my original loop (my original loop allowed frames to skip if they took too long to draw which I think this loop is also doing). I appear to have made a mistake in my previous logging, it is logging as I would expect it to (interpolated position does appear to be inbetween the previous and current positions) - however, the sprites are most definitely choppy when the render() skipping happens.Read the article
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How to pad number with leading zero with C#
- by Jalpesh P. Vadgama
Recently I was working with a project where I was in need to format a number in such a way which can apply leading zero for particular format. So after doing such R and D I have found a great way to apply this leading zero format. I was having need that I need to pad number in 5 digit format. So following is a table in which format I need my leading zero format. 1-> 00001 20->00020 300->00300 4000->04000 50000->5000 So in the above example you can see that 1 will become 00001 and 20 will become 00200 format so on. So to display an integer value in decimal format I have applied interger.Tostring(String) method where I have passed “Dn” as the value of the format parameter, where n represents the minimum length of the string. So if we pass 5 it will have padding up to 5 digits. So let’s create a simple console application and see how its works. Following is a code for that. using System; namespace LeadingZero { class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { int a = 1; int b = 20; int c = 300; int d = 4000; int e = 50000; Console.WriteLine(string.Format("{0}------>{1}",a,a.ToString("D5"))); Console.WriteLine(string.Format("{0}------>{1}", b, b.ToString("D5"))); Console.WriteLine(string.Format("{0}------>{1}", c, c.ToString("D5"))); Console.WriteLine(string.Format("{0}------>{1}", d, d.ToString("D5"))); Console.WriteLine(string.Format("{0}------>{1}", e, e.ToString("D5"))); Console.ReadKey(); } } } As you can see in the above code I have use string.Format function to display value of integer and after using integer value’s ToString method. Now Let’s run the console application and following is the output as expected. Here you can see the integer number are converted into the exact output that we requires. That’s it you can see it’s very easy. We have written code in nice clean way and without writing any extra code or loop. Hope you liked it. Stay tuned for more.. Till than happy programming.Read the article
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Client side code snipets
- by raghu.yadav
function clientMethodCall(event) { component = event.getSource(); AdfCustomEvent.queue(component, "customEvent",{payload:component.getSubmittedValue()}, true); event.cancel(); } ]]-- <af:document> <f:facet name="metaContainer"> <af:group> <!--[CDATA[ <script> function clientMethodCall(event) { component = event.getSource(); AdfCustomEvent.queue(component, "customEvent",{payload:component.getSubmittedValue()}, true); event.cancel(); } </script> ]]--> </af:group> </f:facet> <af:form> <af:panelformlayout> <f:facet name="footer"> <af:inputtext label="Let me spy on you: Please enter your mail password"> <af:clientlistener method="clientMethodCall" type="keyUp"> <af:serverlistener type="customEvent" method="#{customBean.handleRequest}"> </af:serverlistener>bean code public void handleRequest(ClientEvent event){ System.out.println("---"+event.getParameters().get("payload")); } tree<af:tree id="tree1" value="#{bindings.DepartmentsView11.treeModel}" var="node" selectionlistener="#{bindings.DepartmentsView11.treeModel.makeCurrent}" rowselection="single"> <f:facet name="nodeStamp"> <af:outputtext value="#{node}"> </af:outputtext> <af:clientlistener method="expandNode" type="selection"> </af:clientlistener></f:facet> <f:facet name="metaContainer"> <af:group> <!--[CDATA[ <script> function expandNode(event){ var _tree = event.getSource(); rwKeySet = event.getAddedSet(); var firstRowKey; for(rowKey in rwKeySet){ firstRowKey = rowKey; // we are interested in the first hit, so break out here break; } if (_tree.isPathExpanded(firstRowKey)){ _tree.setDisclosedRowKey(firstRowKey,false); } else{ _tree.setDisclosedRowKey(firstRowKey,true); } } </script> ]]--> </af:group> </f:facet> </af:tree> </af:clientlistener></af:inputtext></f:facet></af:panelformlayout></af:form></af:document> bean code public void handleRequest(ClientEvent event){ System.out.println("---"+event.getParameters().get("payload")); } tree function expandNode(event){ var _tree = event.getSource(); rwKeySet = event.getAddedSet(); var firstRowKey; for(rowKey in rwKeySet){ firstRowKey = rowKey; // we are interested in the first hit, so break out here break; } if (_tree.isPathExpanded(firstRowKey)){ _tree.setDisclosedRowKey(firstRowKey,false); } else{ _tree.setDisclosedRowKey(firstRowKey,true); } } ]]--Read the article
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Shortcomings of using dynamic types in C#
- by Karthik Sreenivasan
I have been recently studying more on the dynamic types in C#. With some examples I understood once the code is compiled, it does not need to be recompiled again but can be executed directly. I feel the flexibility provided by the keyword to actually be able to change data type at will is a great advantage. Question, Are there any specific shortcomings apart from wrong dynamic method calls which throw run time exceptions which developers must know before starting the implementation.Read the article
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Loading SpriteFont through a different class than Game.cs
- by MintyAnt
I am trying to load up a single SpriteFont to print some debug information. In our current game, we load up both Textures and Music through a ResourceManager. They are both loaded with a filestream, and thus do not require Content.Load SoundEffect soundEffect = SoundEffect.FromStream( fs ); Since this ResourceManager does not inherit from Game or is like Game.cs, I cannot use the usual method: SpriteFont spriteFont = Content.Load<SpriteFont>(resource.Key.Item2); Anyone have any idea how I can either: -Load the SpriteFont a different way -Create my own ContentmanagerRead the article
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Creating vCard action result
- by DigiMortal
I added support for vCards to one of my ASP.NET MVC applications. I worked vCard support out as very simple and intelligent solution that fits perfectly to ASP.NET MVC applications. In this posting I will show you how to send vCards out as response to ASP.NET MVC request. We need three things: some vCard class, vCard action result, controller method to test vCard action result. Everything is very simple, let’s get hands on. vCard class As first thing we need vCard class. Last year I introduced vCard class that supports also images. Let’s take this class because it is easy to use and some dirty work is already done for us. NB! Take a look at ASP.NET example in the blog posting referred above. We need it later when we close the topic. Now think about how useful blogging and information sharing with others can be. With this class available at public I saved pretty much time now. :) vCardResult As we have vCard it is now time to write action result that we can use in our controllers. Here’s the code. public class vCardResult : ActionResult { private vCard _card; protected vCardResult() { } public vCardResult(vCard card) { _card = card; } public override void ExecuteResult(ControllerContext context) { var response = context.HttpContext.Response; response.ContentType = "text/vcard"; response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; fileName=" + _card.FirstName + " " + _card.LastName + ".vcf"); var cardString = _card.ToString(); var inputEncoding = Encoding.Default; var outputEncoding = Encoding.GetEncoding("windows-1257"); var cardBytes = inputEncoding.GetBytes(cardString); var outputBytes = Encoding.Convert(inputEncoding, outputEncoding, cardBytes); response.OutputStream.Write(outputBytes, 0, outputBytes.Length); } } And we are done. Some notes: vCard is sent to browser as downloadable file (user can save or open it with Outlook or any other e-mail client that supports vCards), File name is made of first and last name of contact. Encoding is important because Outlook may not understand vCards otherwise (don’t know if this problem is solved in Outlook 2010). Using vCardResult in controller Now let’s tale a look at simple controller method that accepts person ID and returns vCardResult. public class ContactsController : Controller { // ... other controller methods ... public vCardResult vCard(int id) { var person = _partyRepository.GetPersonById(id); var card = new vCard { FirstName=person.FirstName, LastName = person.LastName, StreetAddress = person.StreetAddress, City = person.City, CountryName = person.Country.Name, Mobile = person.Mobile, Phone = person.Phone, Email = person.Email, }; return new vCardResult(card); } } Now you can run Visual Studio and check out how your vCard is moving from your web application to your e-mail client. Conclusion We took old code that worked well with ASP.NET Forms and we divided it into action result and controller method that uses vCard as bridge between our controller and action result. All functionality is located where it should be and we did nothing complex. We wrote only couple of lines of very easy code to achieve our goal. Do you understand now why I love ASP.NET MVC? :)Read the article
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Separating physics and game logic from UI code
- by futlib
I'm working on a simple block-based puzzle game. The game play consists pretty much of moving blocks around in the game area, so it's a trivial physics simulation. My implementation, however, is in my opinion far from ideal and I'm wondering if you can give me any pointers on how to do it better. I've split the code up into two areas: Game logic and UI, as I did with a lot of puzzle games: The game logic is responsible for the general rules of the game (e.g. the formal rule system in chess) The UI displays the game area and pieces (e.g. chess board and pieces) and is responsible for animations (e.g. animated movement of chess pieces) The game logic represents the game state as a logical grid, where each unit is one cell's width/height on the grid. So for a grid of width 6, you can move a block of width 2 four times until it collides with the boundary. The UI takes this grid, and draws it by converting logical sizes into pixel sizes (that is, multiplies it by a constant). However, since the game has hardly any game logic, my game logic layer [1] doesn't have much to do except collision detection. Here's how it works: Player starts to drag a piece UI asks game logic for the legal movement area of that piece and lets the player drag it within that area Player lets go of a piece UI snaps the piece to the grid (so that it is at a valid logical position) UI tells game logic the new logical position (via mutator methods, which I'd rather avoid) I'm not quite happy with that: I'm writing unit tests for my game logic layer, but not the UI, and it turned out all the tricky code is in the UI: Stopping the piece from colliding with others or the boundary and snapping it to the grid. I don't like the fact that the UI tells the game logic about the new state, I would rather have it call a movePieceLeft() method or something like that, as in my other games, but I didn't get far with that approach, because the game logic knows nothing about the dragging and snapping that's possible in the UI. I think the best thing to do would be to get rid of my game logic layer and implement a physics layer instead. I've got a few questions regarding that: Is such a physics layer common, or is it more typical to have the game logic layer do this? Would the snapping to grid and piece dragging code belong to the UI or the physics layer? Would such a physics layer typically work with pixel sizes or with some kind of logical unit, like my game logic layer? I've seen event-based collision detection in a game's code base once, that is, the player would just drag the piece, the UI would render that obediently and notify the physics system, and the physics system would call a onCollision() method on the piece once a collision is detected. What is more common? This approach or asking for the legal movement area first? [1] layer is probably not the right word for what I mean, but subsystem sounds overblown and class is misguiding, because each layer can consist of several classes.Read the article
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This Task Is Currently Locked by a Running Workflow and Cannot Be Edited
- by Jayant Sharma
Problem: In SharePoint Workflow, "This task is currently locked by a running workflow and cannot be edited" is the common exception, that we face. Solution: Generally this exception occurs 1. when the number of items in the Task List gets highThis exception says that the workflow is not able to deliver the all the events at a given time and so the tasks get locked. Out Of Box, the default event delivery throttle value is 15. Event delivery throttle value Specifies the number of workflows that can be processed at the same time across all front-end Web serverslook at following link.(http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vincent_runge/archive/2008/09/16/about-the-workflow-eventdelivery-throttle-parameter.aspx)If the value returned by query is superior to the throttle (15 by default), any new workflow event will not be processed immediately. so we need to change it by stsadm command like...stsadm -o setproperty -pn workflow-eventdelivery-throttle -pv "20"(http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc287939(office.12).aspx) 2. When we modify a Workflow Task from Custom TaskEdit Page. when we try to modify the workflow task from outside workflow default Page, like custom workflow taskedit page. then is exception occurs.suppose we have custom task edit page with dropdown and values are submitted/ Progress/ completed etc and we want to complete task from here. it will throw exception on SPWorkflowTask.AlterTask method, which changes the TaskStatus.When I debug, to find the root cause I actully found that the workflow is not locked. The InternalState flag of the workflow does not include the Locked flag bits(http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd928318(v=office.12).aspx) When I found this link http://geek.hubkey.com/2007/09/locked-workflow.htmlIt is exactly what I wanted. It says that "when the WorkflowVersion of the task list item is not equal to 1" then the error occurs. The solution that is propsed here works fantastically if ((int)task[SPBuiltInFieldId.WorkflowVersion] != 1){ SPList parentList = task.ParentList.ParentWeb.Lists[new Guid(task[SPBuiltInFieldId.WorkflowListId].ToString())]; SPListItem parentItem = parentList.Items.GetItemById((int)task[SPBuiltInFieldId.WorkflowItemId]); SPWorkflow workflow = parentItem.Workflows[new Guid(task[SPBuiltInFieldId.WorkflowInstanceID].ToString())]; if (!workflow.IsLocked) { task[SPBuiltInFieldId.WorkflowVersion] = 1; task.SystemUpdate(); break; }} It will reset the workflow version to 1 again.Conclusion: This Exception is completely confusing. So, we need to find at first whether our workflow is really locked or not. If it is really locked then use 1st method. If not, then check the workflow version and set it to 1 again.Jayant SharmaRead the article
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How to use Ajax : CollapsiblePanelExtender in ASP.NET
- by SAMIR BHOGAYTA
//It is simple method, Other properties will be set which you want Step 1: Take one panel and all the content you want to collapse put into this panel. Step 2: Set the Collapsed Property true. Step 3: ExpandControlID/CollapseControlID : The Controls that will expand or collapse the panel on a click, respectively. If these values are the same, the panel will automatically toggle its state on each click. Step 4: TargetControlID is PanelID Step 5: Select Panel and Set the Property SuppressPostBack="True"Read the article
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Performance problems loading XML with SSIS, an alternative way!
- by AtulThakor
I recently needed to load several thousand XML files into a SQL database, I created an SSIS package which was created as followed: Using a foreach container to loop through a directory and load each file path into a variable, the “Import XML” dataflow would then load each XML file into a SQL table. Running this, it took approximately 1 second to load each file which seemed a massive amount of time to parse the XML and load the data, speaking to my colleague Martin Croft, he suggested the use of T-SQL Bulk Insert and OpenRowset, so we adjusted the package as followed: The same foreach container was used but instead the following SQL command was executed (this is an expression): "INSERT INTO MyTable(FileDate) SELECT CAST(bulkcolumn AS XML) FROM OPENROWSET( BULK '" + @[User::CurrentFile] + "', SINGLE_BLOB ) AS x" Using this method we managed to load approximately 20 records per second, much faster…for data loading! For what we wanted to achieve this was perfect but I’ll leave you with the following points when making your own decision on which solution you decide to choose! Openrowset Method Much faster to get the data into SQL You’ll need to parse or create a view over the XML data to allow the data to be more usable(another post on this!) Not able to apply validation/transformation against the data when loading it The SQL Server service account will need permission to the file No schema validation when loading files SSIS Slower (in our case) Schema validation Allows you to apply transformations/joins to the data Permissions should be less of a problem Data can be loaded into the final form through the package When using a schema validation errors can fail the package (I’ll do another post on this)Read the article
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how to send trackback and pingback using c# script
- by anirudha
This is a very interesting topic because if you want to search about them. you find much useless stuff even you use c# as prefix. 1. how trackback works ? Every blog who have support to trackback that in their every post they have some text comment like <rdf:/rdf></rdf:rdf> inside this tag the attribute “trackback:ping” have a url where we can send trackback. 2. you need some information about your blog to post where you want to trackback like 1. URL where you want to send the trackback 2. your post title [may be page title] 3. your post URL [may be page url] 4. Excerpt : information you want to send. 5. you blogname [may be sitename if you use site not blog] make the information like querystring just we use in asp.net ex: title=”pingpost&url=pingurl&excerpt=it’s me&blog=myblog” ; the information look like asp.net Querystring if you unsure that you can HTMLencode the information who you use in parameters. you need to be sure that your post have URL of post where you want to send trackback. make a request to pingurl set the following property request.Method = “POST”; //because they support only POST request.ContentLength = param.length // choose the length of parameters we create for sending ping. request.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"; // required to set. now when you send the request then server respond you something about your request check that the request.statuscode is verify that’s work or not if (response.StatusCode < HttpStatusCode.OK && response.StatusCode >= HttpStatusCode.Ambiguous) throw new Exception(string.Format(response.StatusCode.ToString())); because you have the response in XML format you can parse the response that’s have Error tag inside them or not. i put here information not code the reason is that “i see some other blog from a week on the topic but i found that they[blogger] post code not the method and all their code are useless and not worked”. because i thing to be more declarative i post here the definition not code.Read the article
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Share wireless Internet connection between Ubuntu 10.04 to Windows Vista through ethernet
- by Artyom2033
I am connected to the internet using a wireless connection on my laptop running ubuntu 10.04 and I want to share it to a desktop running windows Vista trough a Ethernet cable. How do I do that? I've try the "GUI Method via Network Manager (Ubuntu 9.10 and up)" on this page : https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Internet/ConnectionSharing but how to I access to it from Windows Vista? I didn't even know if it is shared. Thanks for the helpRead the article
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In rails, what defines unit testing as opposed to other kinds of testing
- by junky
Initially I thought this was simple: unit testing for models with other testing such as integration for controller and browser testing for views. But more recently I've seen a lot of references to unit testing that doesn't seem to exactly follow this format. Is it possible to have a unit test of a controller? Does that mean that just one method is called? What's the distinction? What does unit testing really means in my rails world?Read the article
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Can frequent state changes decrease rendering performance?
- by Miro
Can frequent texture and shader binding decrease rendering performance? "Frequent" binding example: for object for material in object render part of object using that material "Low count" binding example: for material for object in material render part of object using that material I'm planning to use an octree later and with this "low count" method of rendering it can drastically increase memory consumption. So is it good idea?Read the article
