visual styles - Page 506

adobe flash buider (flex4): Error #2025 or Error: addChild() is not available in this class. Instead

- by user306584

Hi, I'm a complete newbie to Flex, so apologies for my dumbness. I've searched for an answer but haven't found anything that seems to be doing the trick. What I'm trying to do: port this example http://www.adobe.com/devnet/air/flex/articles/flex_air_codebase_print.html to Flash Builder 4. All seems to be fine but for one thing. When I use the original code for the Air application <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <s:WindowedApplication xmlns:fx="http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009" xmlns:s="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/spark" xmlns:mx="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/mx" creationComplete="onApplicationComplete()"> <fx:Script> <![CDATA[ private static const neededForCompilation:AirGeneralImplementation = null; private function onApplicationComplete():void { var can:MainCanvas = new MainCanvas(); this.addChild(can); can.labelMessage = "Loaded in an AIR Application "; } ]]> </fx:Script> <fx:Declarations>  </fx:Declarations> </s:WindowedApplication> I get this run time error Error: addChild() is not available in this class. Instead, use addElement() or modify the skin, if you have one. at spark.components.supportClasses::SkinnableComponent/addChild()[E:\dev\4.0.0\frameworks\projects\spark\src\spark\components\supportClasses\SkinnableComponent.as:1038] If I substitute the code with this.addElement(can); Everything loads well but the first time I try to press any of the buttons on the main canvas I get the following run time error ArgumentError: Error #2025: The supplied DisplayObject must be a child of the caller. at flash.display::DisplayObjectContainer/getChildIndex() at mx.managers::SystemManager/getChildIndex()[E:\dev\4.0.0\frameworks\projects\framework\src\mx\managers\SystemManager.as:1665] at mx.managers.systemClasses::ActiveWindowManager/mouseDownHandler()[E:\dev\4.0.0\frameworks\projects\framework\src\mx\managers\systemClasses\ActiveWindowManager.as:437] here's the super simple code for the main canvas <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <s:Application xmlns:fx="http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009" xmlns:s="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/spark" xmlns:mx="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/mx" minWidth="955" minHeight="600" creationComplete="init();"> <fx:Declarations>  </fx:Declarations> <fx:Script source="main.as" /> <mx:Label id="lblMessage" text="The UI from the shared Flex app BothCode" x="433" y="112"/> <s:Button x="433" y="141" click="saveFile();" label="Save File"/> <s:Button x="601" y="141" click="GeneralFactory.getGeneralInstance().airOnlyFunctionality();" label="Air Only"/> </s:Application> Any help would be immensely appreciated. And any pointers to how to setup a project that can compile in both Air and Flash while sharing the same code, all for Flex 4, would also be immensely appreciated. thank you!

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WPF: Updating visibility of controls not updating the screen

- by Brad McBride

I will preface this by stating that I am new to WPF programming and may be making multiple errors. Any insight that can be provided to help me improve in my skills are greatly appreciated. I am working with a WPF application and am looping through a list of objects that contain properties that describe a document that should be built on the fly and automatically printed. I am attempting to display a small grid in the interface that shows the document being built before it is printed. This serves two purposes: one, it allows the user to see work being done by the application. Two, it renders the items on the screen so that I can then have something to actually print since WPF appears to not be able to load an image for printing dynamicaly without displaying it on the screen. In my code, I am setting the various elements in the grid and setting the visibility to visible. However, the UI is not updating and the printed document doesn't look as intended since the image never shows up on the screen. Here is the XAML that I have set up <Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot" Background="Black"> <Grid Name="previewGrid" Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="1" Background="White" Visibility="Hidden"> <Canvas Name="pageCanvas" HorizontalAlignment="Center" VerticalAlignment="Center"> <Grid Name="pageGrid" Width="163" Height="211"> <Grid.ColumnDefinitions> <ColumnDefinition Width="81.5"></ColumnDefinition> <ColumnDefinition Width="81.5"></ColumnDefinition> </Grid.ColumnDefinitions> <TextBlock Grid.Column="0" Name="copyright" TextAlignment="Center" HorizontalAlignment="Center" VerticalAlignment="Bottom"></TextBlock> <Image Name="pageImage" Grid.Column="1" HorizontalAlignment="Center" VerticalAlignment="Center"></Image> </Grid> </Canvas> .....canvas for pages 2-4 not shown but structure is the same as for pageGrid..... </Grid> </Grid> </Window> Here is the code behind that is supposed to set the elements. previewGrid.Visibility = Windows.Visibility.Visible pageURI = New Uri(pageCollection(i).iamgeURL, UriKind.Absolute) pageGrid.Visibility = Windows.Visibility.Visible bmp.BeginInit() bmp.StreamSource = getCachedURLStream(cardURI) bmp.EndInit() pageImage.Source = bmp copyright.Text = copyrightText cardPreviewGrid.UpdateLayout() ' More code that prints the visual element pageGrid previewGrid.Visibility = Windows.Visibility.Hidden The code in codebehind loops through a number of times depending on how many different documents the user prints. Basically it builds a visual element for a page, prints an XPS version of it and then builds the next page and prints it, etc. Once all pages have been processed, the job is actually sent to the printer. The only purpose of this application is to let the user print these documents so there is not other task that they can do in the application while the documents print. I thought that putting this task in a background thread would help to update the UI but since I am trying to manipulate items directly on the UI thread it would appear that this option won't work for me. What am I doing wrong here and how can I improve the code so that I can get the behavior that I am trying to achieve?

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ObjectContext.SaveChanges() fails with SQL CE

- by David Veeneman

I am creating a model-first Entity Framework 4 app that uses SQL CE as its data store. All is well until I call ObjectContext.SaveChanges() to save changes to the entities in the model. At that point, SaveChanges() throws a System.Data.UpdateException, with an inner exception message that reads as follows: Server-generated keys and server-generated values are not supported by SQL Server Compact. I am completely puzzled by this message. Any idea what is going on and how to fix it? Thanks. Here is the Exception dump: System.Data.UpdateException was unhandled Message=An error occurred while updating the entries. See the inner exception for details. Source=System.Data.Entity StackTrace: at System.Data.Mapping.Update.Internal.UpdateTranslator.Update(IEntityStateManager stateManager, IEntityAdapter adapter) at System.Data.EntityClient.EntityAdapter.Update(IEntityStateManager entityCache) at System.Data.Objects.ObjectContext.SaveChanges(SaveOptions options) at System.Data.Objects.ObjectContext.SaveChanges() at FsDocumentationBuilder.ViewModel.Commands.SaveFileCommand.Execute(Object parameter) in D:\Users\dcveeneman\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\FsDocumentationBuilder\FsDocumentationBuilder\ViewModel\Commands\SaveFileCommand.cs:line 68 at MS.Internal.Commands.CommandHelpers.CriticalExecuteCommandSource(ICommandSource commandSource, Boolean userInitiated) at System.Windows.Controls.Primitives.ButtonBase.OnClick() at System.Windows.Controls.Button.OnClick() at System.Windows.Controls.Primitives.ButtonBase.OnMouseLeftButtonUp(MouseButtonEventArgs e) at System.Windows.UIElement.OnMouseLeftButtonUpThunk(Object sender, MouseButtonEventArgs e) at System.Windows.Input.MouseButtonEventArgs.InvokeEventHandler(Delegate genericHandler, Object genericTarget) at System.Windows.RoutedEventArgs.InvokeHandler(Delegate handler, Object target) at System.Windows.RoutedEventHandlerInfo.InvokeHandler(Object target, RoutedEventArgs routedEventArgs) at System.Windows.EventRoute.InvokeHandlersImpl(Object source, RoutedEventArgs args, Boolean reRaised) at System.Windows.UIElement.ReRaiseEventAs(DependencyObject sender, RoutedEventArgs args, RoutedEvent newEvent) at System.Windows.UIElement.OnMouseUpThunk(Object sender, MouseButtonEventArgs e) at System.Windows.Input.MouseButtonEventArgs.InvokeEventHandler(Delegate genericHandler, Object genericTarget) at System.Windows.RoutedEventArgs.InvokeHandler(Delegate handler, Object target) at System.Windows.RoutedEventHandlerInfo.InvokeHandler(Object target, RoutedEventArgs routedEventArgs) at System.Windows.EventRoute.InvokeHandlersImpl(Object source, RoutedEventArgs args, Boolean reRaised) at System.Windows.UIElement.RaiseEventImpl(DependencyObject sender, RoutedEventArgs args) at System.Windows.UIElement.RaiseTrustedEvent(RoutedEventArgs args) at System.Windows.UIElement.RaiseEvent(RoutedEventArgs args, Boolean trusted) at System.Windows.Input.InputManager.ProcessStagingArea() at System.Windows.Input.InputManager.ProcessInput(InputEventArgs input) at System.Windows.Input.InputProviderSite.ReportInput(InputReport inputReport) at System.Windows.Interop.HwndMouseInputProvider.ReportInput(IntPtr hwnd, InputMode mode, Int32 timestamp, RawMouseActions actions, Int32 x, Int32 y, Int32 wheel) at System.Windows.Interop.HwndMouseInputProvider.FilterMessage(IntPtr hwnd, WindowMessage msg, IntPtr wParam, IntPtr lParam, Boolean& handled) at System.Windows.Interop.HwndSource.InputFilterMessage(IntPtr hwnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wParam, IntPtr lParam, Boolean& handled) at MS.Win32.HwndWrapper.WndProc(IntPtr hwnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wParam, IntPtr lParam, Boolean& handled) at MS.Win32.HwndSubclass.DispatcherCallbackOperation(Object o) at System.Windows.Threading.ExceptionWrapper.InternalRealCall(Delegate callback, Object args, Int32 numArgs) at MS.Internal.Threading.ExceptionFilterHelper.TryCatchWhen(Object source, Delegate method, Object args, Int32 numArgs, Delegate catchHandler) at System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher.InvokeImpl(DispatcherPriority priority, TimeSpan timeout, Delegate method, Object args, Int32 numArgs) at MS.Win32.HwndSubclass.SubclassWndProc(IntPtr hwnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wParam, IntPtr lParam) at MS.Win32.UnsafeNativeMethods.DispatchMessage(MSG& msg) at System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher.PushFrameImpl(DispatcherFrame frame) at System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher.PushFrame(DispatcherFrame frame) at System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher.Run() at System.Windows.Application.RunDispatcher(Object ignore) at System.Windows.Application.RunInternal(Window window) at System.Windows.Application.Run(Window window) at System.Windows.Application.Run() at FsDocumentationBuilder.App.Main() in D:\Users\dcveeneman\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\FsDocumentationBuilder\FsDocumentationBuilder\obj\x86\Debug\App.g.cs:line 50 at System.AppDomain._nExecuteAssembly(RuntimeAssembly assembly, String[] args) at System.AppDomain.ExecuteAssembly(String assemblyFile, Evidence assemblySecurity, String[] args) at Microsoft.VisualStudio.HostingProcess.HostProc.RunUsersAssembly() at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart_Context(Object state) at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state, Boolean ignoreSyncCtx) at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state) at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart() InnerException: System.Data.EntityCommandCompilationException Message=An error occurred while preparing the command definition. See the inner exception for details. Source=System.Data.Entity StackTrace: at System.Data.Mapping.Update.Internal.UpdateTranslator.CreateCommand(DbModificationCommandTree commandTree) at System.Data.Mapping.Update.Internal.DynamicUpdateCommand.CreateCommand(UpdateTranslator translator, Dictionary`2 identifierValues) at System.Data.Mapping.Update.Internal.DynamicUpdateCommand.Execute(UpdateTranslator translator, EntityConnection connection, Dictionary`2 identifierValues, List`1 generatedValues) at System.Data.Mapping.Update.Internal.UpdateTranslator.Update(IEntityStateManager stateManager, IEntityAdapter adapter) InnerException: System.NotSupportedException Message=Server-generated keys and server-generated values are not supported by SQL Server Compact. Source=System.Data.SqlServerCe.Entity StackTrace: at System.Data.SqlServerCe.SqlGen.DmlSqlGenerator.GenerateReturningSql(StringBuilder commandText, DbModificationCommandTree tree, ExpressionTranslator translator, DbExpression returning) at System.Data.SqlServerCe.SqlGen.DmlSqlGenerator.GenerateInsertSql(DbInsertCommandTree tree, List`1& parameters, Boolean isLocalProvider) at System.Data.SqlServerCe.SqlGen.SqlGenerator.GenerateSql(DbCommandTree tree, List`1& parameters, CommandType& commandType, Boolean isLocalProvider) at System.Data.SqlServerCe.SqlCeProviderServices.CreateCommand(DbProviderManifest providerManifest, DbCommandTree commandTree) at System.Data.SqlServerCe.SqlCeProviderServices.CreateDbCommandDefinition(DbProviderManifest providerManifest, DbCommandTree commandTree) at System.Data.Common.DbProviderServices.CreateCommandDefinition(DbCommandTree commandTree) at System.Data.Common.DbProviderServices.CreateCommand(DbCommandTree commandTree) at System.Data.Mapping.Update.Internal.UpdateTranslator.CreateCommand(DbModificationCommandTree commandTree) InnerException:

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"interface not found" in WCF Moniker without registration for excel

- by tbischel

I'm trying to connect excel to a WCF service, but I can't seem to get even a trivial case to work... I get an Invalid Syntax error when I try and create the proxy in excel. I've attached the visual studio debugger to excel, and get that the real error is "interface not found". I know the service works because the test client created by visual studio is ok... so the problem is in the VBA moniker string. I'm hoping to find one of two things: 1) a correction to my moniker string that will make this work, or 2) an existing sample project to download that has the source for both the host and client that does work. Here is the code for my VBA client: Dim addr As String addr = "service:mexAddress=net.tcp://localhost:7891/Test/WcfService1/Service1/mex, " addr = addr + "address=net.tcp://localhost:7891/Test/WcfService1/Service1/, " addr = addr + "contract=IService1, contractNamespace=http://tempuri.org, " addr = addr + "binding=NetTcpBinding_IService1, bindingNamespace=""http://tempuri.org""" MsgBox (addr) Dim service1 As Object Set service1 = GetObject(addr) MsgBox service1.Test(12) I have the following service: [ServiceContract] public interface IService1 { [OperationContract] string GetData(int value); } public class Service1 : IService1 { public string GetData(int value) { return string.Format("You entered: {0}", value); } } It has the following config file: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <configuration> <system.web> <compilation debug="true" /> </system.web>  <system.serviceModel> <services> <service behaviorConfiguration="WcfService1.Service1Behavior" name="WcfService1.Service1"> <endpoint address="" binding="netTcpBinding" bindingConfiguration="" contract="WcfService1.IService1"> <identity> <dns value="localhost" /> </identity> </endpoint> <endpoint address="mex" binding="mexTcpBinding" bindingConfiguration="" contract="IMetadataExchange" /> <host> <baseAddresses> <add baseAddress="net.tcp://localhost:7891/Test/WcfService1/Service1/" /> </baseAddresses> </host> </service> </services> <behaviors> <serviceBehaviors> <behavior name="WcfService1.Service1Behavior"> <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="false" /> <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="false" /> </behavior> </serviceBehaviors> </behaviors> </system.serviceModel> </configuration>

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How to access a PHP Web Service from ASP.Net?

- by Steve Johnson

I am trying use a web service in a C# ASP.Net Web Application. The service is built in php and is located on some remote server not under my control so i cant modify it to add meta data or something else into it. When i use the "Add Web Reference" option in Visual Studio 2008, I receive the following error: The HTML document does not contain Web service discovery information. while trying to add the following web service. https://subreg.forpsi.com/robot2/subreg_command.php?wsdl The web service functions are exposed and displayed in Visual Studio 2008. however i could not add the reference to it for use in ASP.Net Application. t3Service" Description Methods __construct ( ) create_contact ( ) get_contact ( ) get_domain_info ( ) get_last_error_code ( ) get_last_error_msg ( ) get_NSSET ( ) get_owner_mail ( ) login ( ) register_domain ( ) register_domain_with_admin_contacts ( ) renew_domain ( ) request_sendmail ( ) send_auth_info ( ) transfer_domain ( ) I also tried the wsdl.exe method by retrieving the xml and copying it to a wsdl file and generating a proxy class. But the wsdl output contains warnings and the proxy class generated skips the exposed fucntions and generates something like this: // CODEGEN: The operation binding 'create_contact' from namespace 'urn:t3' was ignored. Each message part in an use=encoded message must specify a type. // CODEGEN: The operation binding 'get_contact' from namespace 'urn:t3' was ignored. Each message part in an use=encoded message must specify a type. // CODEGEN: The operation binding 'get_domain_info' from namespace 'urn:t3' was ignored. Each message part in an use=encoded message must specify a type. // CODEGEN: The operation binding 'get_last_error_code' from namespace 'urn:t3' was ignored. Each message part in an use=encoded message must specify a type. // CODEGEN: The operation binding 'get_last_error_msg' from namespace 'urn:t3' was ignored. Each message part in an use=encoded message must specify a type. // CODEGEN: The operation binding 'get_NSSET' from namespace 'urn:t3' was ignored. Each message part in an use=encoded message must specify a type. // CODEGEN: The operation binding 'get_owner_mail' from namespace 'urn:t3' was ignored. Each message part in an use=encoded message must specify a type. // CODEGEN: The operation binding 'send_auth_info' from namespace 'urn:t3' was ignored. Each message part in an use=encoded message must specify a type. // CODEGEN: The operation binding 'transfer_domain' from namespace 'urn:t3' was ignored. Each message part in an use=encoded message must specify a type. // CODEGEN: The operation binding 'request_sendmail' from namespace 'urn:t3' was ignored. Each message part in an use=encoded message must specify a type. // CODEGEN: The operation binding 'login' from namespace 'urn:t3' was ignored. Each message part in an use=encoded message must specify a type. // CODEGEN: The operation binding 'register_domain' from namespace 'urn:t3' was ignored. Each message part in an use=encoded message must specify a type. // CODEGEN: The operation binding 'register_domain_with_admin_contacts' from namespace 'urn:t3' was ignored. Each message part in an use=encoded message must specify a type. // CODEGEN: The operation binding 'renew_domain' from namespace 'urn:t3' was ignored. Each message part in an use=encoded message must specify a type. Any help in this regard will be highly appreciated. Regards

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I finished coding my program. What's next? what are the steps I should take that would enable me to

- by Luay

Hi, I finished developing a program and would like to sell it online. However, I am not really sure of what to do next. Here is my current plan (in-order): 1- Add a 'deployment' project (i'm using visual studio) to my project so I can create a setup file for my program. 2- Use visual studio 'testing' add ons to test the program. I have no idea how to do it, but will teach myself. 3- When all is done, install the program on my wife's, parents and in-laws computer to further test it under different environments. 3- Setup a small Ltd. company. ( I might start this earlier as it might take a few weeks to complete). 4- Build / finish building a website (actually I started on this step a few weeks ago but haven't devoted enough time for it to complete yet). 5- Find a software / service to protect my program from piracy. I know it is impossible to protect the program from piracy. I understand that fully. But I still want to implement some sort of solution that wouldn't harm or deter honest customers. 6- Set up a business paypal account. 7- Find a software / service to handle payments on my website 8- Find a software / service to handle issuing license codes 9- Set up all of the above and go 'live'. However, I have zero experience in this sort of thing and would like your guidance on some points. 1- Is it necessary to setup a company? Can I sell as an individual? Will selling as an individual deter persons or companies from buying my software? 2- What is a decent choice for as a software / service to protect my program from my piracy. I have done a quick search and found something called Quick License Manager by Interactive Studios. Is this the sort of thing I am looking for? Is it any good? At which stage do I use or implement their service (or any similar service you might point me too? I guess I am really asking: how does this work? Would they give me a file I just add to my project, rebuild it and that's it? 3- What should I implement to handle payments online and how complicated is it? could you point me to any such services, please? 4- What should I implement to handle issuing license codes and how will that software / service coordinate with the software / service that handles the anti-piracy stuff? could you point me to such services, please? 5- In a different Stack Overflow question (by another user) someone suggested a cms system called Software Droid (http://www.softwaredroid.com). Is this what I am after. Will it help? 6- If the steps i'm following are incorrect in order or logic could you please advise me on what I should actually do? I guess these are question for those of you who have 'been there and done that'. So any guidance will be vary much appreciated. Many thanks in advance for your help.

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Why does windows XP minimize my swing full screen window on my second screen ?

- by Laurent K

Hello dear fellows, In the application I'm developping (in Java/swing), I have to show a full screen window on the second screen of the user. I did this using a code similar to the one you'll find below... Be, as soon as I click in a window opened by windows explorer, or as soon as I open windows explorer (i'm using windows XP), the full screen window is minimized... Do you know any way or workaround to fix this problem, or is there something important I did not understand with full screen windows? Thanks for the help, import javax.swing.JFrame; import javax.swing.JPanel; import javax.swing.JWindow; import java.awt.BorderLayout; import java.awt.Dimension; import java.awt.GraphicsDevice; import java.awt.GraphicsEnvironment; import java.awt.Window; import javax.swing.JButton; import javax.swing.JToggleButton; import java.awt.Rectangle; import java.awt.GridBagLayout; import javax.swing.JLabel; public class FullScreenTest { private JFrame jFrame = null; // @jve:decl-index=0:visual-constraint="94,35" private JPanel jContentPane = null; private JToggleButton jToggleButton = null; private JPanel jFSPanel = null; // @jve:decl-index=0:visual-constraint="392,37" private JLabel jLabel = null; private Window window; /** * This method initializes jFrame * * @return javax.swing.JFrame */ private JFrame getJFrame() { if (jFrame == null) { jFrame = new JFrame(); jFrame.setSize(new Dimension(474, 105)); jFrame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE); jFrame.setContentPane(getJContentPane()); } return jFrame; } /** * This method initializes jContentPane * * @return javax.swing.JPanel */ private JPanel getJContentPane() { if (jContentPane == null) { jContentPane = new JPanel(); jContentPane.setLayout(null); jContentPane.add(getJToggleButton(), null); } return jContentPane; } /** * This method initializes jToggleButton * * @return javax.swing.JToggleButton */ private JToggleButton getJToggleButton() { if (jToggleButton == null) { jToggleButton = new JToggleButton(); jToggleButton.setBounds(new Rectangle(50, 23, 360, 28)); jToggleButton.setText("Show Full Screen Window on 2nd screen"); jToggleButton.addActionListener(new java.awt.event.ActionListener() { public void actionPerformed(java.awt.event.ActionEvent e) { showFullScreenWindow(jToggleButton.isSelected()); } }); } return jToggleButton; } protected void showFullScreenWindow(boolean b) { if(window==null){ window = initFullScreenWindow(); } window.setVisible(b); } private Window initFullScreenWindow() { GraphicsEnvironment ge = GraphicsEnvironment.getLocalGraphicsEnvironment(); GraphicsDevice[] gds = ge.getScreenDevices(); GraphicsDevice gd = gds[1]; JWindow window = new JWindow(gd.getDefaultConfiguration()); window.setContentPane(getJFSPanel()); gd.setFullScreenWindow(window); return window; } /** * This method initializes jFSPanel * * @return javax.swing.JPanel */ private JPanel getJFSPanel() { if (jFSPanel == null) { jLabel = new JLabel(); jLabel.setBounds(new Rectangle(18, 19, 500, 66)); jLabel.setText("Hello ! Now, juste open windows explorer and see what happens..."); jFSPanel = new JPanel(); jFSPanel.setLayout(null); jFSPanel.setSize(new Dimension(500, 107)); jFSPanel.add(jLabel, null); } return jFSPanel; } /** * @param args */ public static void main(String[] args) { FullScreenTest me = new FullScreenTest(); me.getJFrame().setVisible(true); } }

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Multi-threaded .NET application blocks during file I/O when protected by Themida

- by Erik Jensen

As the title says I have a .NET application that is the GUI which uses multiple threads to perform separate file I/O and notice that the threads occasionally block when the application is protected by Themida. One thread is devoted to reading from serial COM port and another thread is devoted to copying files. What I experience is occasionally when the file copy thread encounters a network delay, it will block the other thread that is reading from the serial port. In addition to slow network (which can be transient), I can cause the problem to happen more frequently by making a PathFileExists call to a bad path e.g. PathFileExists("\\\\BadPath\\file.txt"); The COM port reading function will block during the call to ReadFile. This only happens when the application is protected by Themida. I have tried under WinXP, Win7, and Server 2012. In a streamlined test project, if I replace the .NET application with a MFC unmanaged application and still utilize the same threads I see no issue even when protected with Themida. I have contacted Oreans support and here is their response: The way that a .NET application is protected is very different from a native application. To protect a .NET application, we need to hook most of the file access APIs in order to "cheat" the .NET Framework that the application is protected. I guess that those special hooks (on CreateFile, ReadFile...) are delaying a bit the execution in your application and the problem appears. We did a test making those hooks as light as possible (with minimum code on them) but the problem still appeared in your application. The rest of software protectors that we tried (like Enigma, Molebox...) also use a similar hooking approach as it's the only way to make the .NET packed file to work. If those hooks are not present, the .NET Framework will abort execution as it will see that the original file was tampered (due to all Microsoft checks on .NET files) Those hooks are not present in a native application, that's why it should be working fine on your native application. Oreans support tried other software protectors such as Enigma Protector, Engima VirtualBox, and Molebox and all exhibit the exact same problem. What I have found as a work around is to separate out the file copy logic (where the file exists call is being made) to be performed in a completely separate process. I have experimented with converting the thread functions from unmanaged C++ to VB.NET equivalents (PathFileExists - System.IO.File.Exists and CreateFile/ReadFile - System.IO.Ports.SerialPort.Open/Read) and still see the same serial port read blocked when the file check or copy call is delayed. I have also tried setting the ReadFile to work asynchronously but that had no effect. I believe I am dealing with some low-level windows layer that no matter the language it exhibits a block on a shared resource -- and only when the application is executing under a single .NET process protected by Themida which evidently installs some hooks to allow .NET execution. At this time converting the entire application away from .NET is not an option. Nor is separating out the file copy logic to a separate task. I am wondering if anyone else has more knowledge of how a file operation can block another thread reading from a system port. I have included here example applications that show the problem: https://db.tt/cNMYfEIg - VB.NET https://db.tt/Y2lnTqw7 - MFC They are Visual Studio 2010 solutions. When running the themida protected exe, you can see when the FileThread counter pauses (executing the File.Exists call) while the ReadThread counter also pauses. When running non-protected visual studio output exe, the ReadThread counter does not pause which is how we expect it to function. Thanks!

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What does a WinForm application need to be designed for usability, and be robust, clean, and profess

- by msorens

One of the principal problems impeding productivity in software implementation is the classic conundrum of “reinventing the wheel”. Of late I am a .NET developer and even the wonderful wizardry of .NET and Visual Studio covers only a portion of this challenging issue. Below I present my initial thoughts both on what is available and what should be available from .NET on a WinForm, focusing on good usability. That is, aspects of an application exposed to the user and making the user experience easier and/or better. (I do include a couple items not visible to the user because I feel strongly about them, such as diagnostics.) I invite you to contribute to these lists. LIST A: Components provided by .NET These are substantially complete components provided by .NET, i.e. those requiring at most trivial coding to use. “About” dialog -- add it with a couple clicks then customize. Persist settings across invocations -- .NET has the support; just use a few lines of code to glue them together. Migrate settings with a new version -- a powerful one, available with one line of code. Tooltips (and infotips) -- .NET includes just plain text tooltips; third-party libraries provide richer ones. Diagnostic support -- TraceSources, TraceListeners, and more are built-in. Internationalization -- support for tailoring your app to languages other than your own. LIST B: Components not provided by .NET These are not supplied at all by .NET or supplied only as rudimentary elements requiring substantial work to be realized. Splash screen -- a small window present during program startup with your logo, loading messages, etc. Tip of the day -- a mini-tutorial presented one bit at a time each time the user starts your app. Check for available updates -- facility to query a server to see if the user is running the latest version of your app, then provide a simple way to upgrade if a new version is found. Maximize to multiple monitors -- the canonical window allows you to maximize to a single monitor only; in my apps I allow maximizing across multiple monitors with a click. Taskbar notifier -- flash the taskbar when your backgrounded app has new info for the user. Options dialogs -- multi-page dialogs letting the user customize the app settings to his/her own preferences. Progress indicator -- for long running operations give the user feedback on how far there is left to go. Memory gauge -- an indicator (either absolute or percentage) of how much memory is used by your app. LIST C: Stylistic and/or tiny bits of functionality This list includes bits of functionality that are too tiny to merit being called a component, along with stylistic concerns (that admittedly do overlap with the Windows User Experience Interaction Guidelines). Design a form for resizing -- unless you are restricting your form to be a fixed size, use anchors and docking so that it does what is reasonable when enlarged or shrunk by the user. Set tab order on a form -- repeated tab presses by the user should advance from field to field in a logical order rather than the default order in which you added fields. Adjust controls to be aware of operating modes -- When starting a background operation with, for example, a “Go” button, disable that “Go” button until the operation completes. Provide access keys for all menu items (per UXGuide). Provide shortcut keys for commonly used menu items (per UXGuide). Set up some (global or important or common) shortcut keys without associating to menu items. Allow some menu items to be invoked with or without modifier keys (shift, control, alt) where the modifier key is useful to vary the operation slightly. Hook up Escape and Enter on child forms to do what is reasonable. Decorate any library classes with documentation-comments and attributes -- this allows Visual Studio to leverage them for Intellisense and property descriptions. Spell check your code! What else would you include?

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MediaElement not showing in custom 3D class

- by user3271180

I'm trying to display a videostream in a Viewport3d. When I add the MediaElement via xaml, the video plays without a problem; even when I add the video as ModelVisual3D in the code-behind, the video works. When I abstract the video into a class, however, the video stops appearing. This happens with both web and local video files. I tried compiling with both x86 and 64 bit. Any way to fix this behaviour? Why is this happening? I have the following viewport: <Viewport3D>  <Viewport3D.Camera> <PerspectiveCamera Position="0,0,100" LookDirection="0,0,-1" UpDirection="0,1,0" /> </Viewport3D.Camera>  <ModelVisual3D> <ModelVisual3D.Content> <AmbientLight Color="White" /> </ModelVisual3D.Content> </ModelVisual3D>  <mediaElementTest:VideoControl />   </Viewport3D> VideoControl.xaml <UIElement3D x:Class="MediaElementTest.VideoControl" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"/> VideoControl.xaml.cs public partial class VideoControl { public VideoControl() { InitializeComponent(); Visual3DModel = CreateModel(); } private GeometryModel3D CreateModel() { return new GeometryModel3D { Geometry = new MeshGeometry3D { Positions = new Point3DCollection { new Point3D(-100, -100, 0), new Point3D(100, -100, 0), new Point3D(100, 100, 0), new Point3D(-100, 100, 0) }, TextureCoordinates = new PointCollection { new Point(0, 1), new Point(1, 1), new Point(1, 0), new Point(0, 0) }, TriangleIndices = new Int32Collection { 0, 1, 2, 0, 2, 3 } }, Material = new DiffuseMaterial(new VisualBrush(new MediaElement { Source = new Uri("http://www.quirksmode.org/html5/videos/big_buck_bunny.mp4", UriKind.RelativeOrAbsolute) })) }; } }

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Strange WPF ListBox Behavior

- by uncle-harvey

I’m trying to bind a List of items to a listbox in WPF. The items are grouped by one value and each group is to be housed in an expander. Everything works fine when I don’t use any custom styles. However, when I use custom styles (which work properly with non-grouped items and as independent controls) the binding doesn’t display any items. Below is the code I’m executing. Any ideas why the items won’t show up in the Expander? Test.xaml: <Window x:Class="Glossy.Test" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" Title="Test" Height="300" Width="300"> <Window.Resources> <ResourceDictionary> <ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries> <ResourceDictionary Source="..\TestStyles.xaml"/> <ResourceDictionary> <Style x:Key="ContainerStyle" TargetType="{x:Type GroupItem}"> <Setter Property="Template"> <Setter.Value> <ControlTemplate> <Expander Header="{Binding}" IsExpanded="True"> <ItemsPresenter /> </Expander> </ControlTemplate> </Setter.Value> </Setter> </Style> </ResourceDictionary> </ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries> </ResourceDictionary> </Window.Resources> <Grid> <ListBox x:Name="TestList"> <ListBox.GroupStyle> <GroupStyle ContainerStyle="{StaticResource ContainerStyle}"/> </ListBox.GroupStyle> </ListBox> </Grid> Test.xaml.cs: public partial class Test : Window { private List<Contact> _ContactItems; public List<Contact> ContactItems { get { return _ContactItems; } set { _ContactItems = value; } } public Test() { InitializeComponent(); ContactItems = new List<Contact>(); ContactItems.Add(new Contact()); ContactItems.Last().CompanyName = "ABC"; ContactItems.Last().Name = "Contact 1"; ContactItems.Add(new Contact()); ContactItems.Last().CompanyName = "ABC"; ContactItems.Last().Name = "Contact 2"; ContactItems.Add(new Contact()); ContactItems.Last().CompanyName = "ABC"; ContactItems.Last().Name = "Contact 3"; ContactItems.Add(new Contact()); ContactItems.Last().CompanyName = "ABC"; ContactItems.Last().Name = "Contact 10"; ContactItems.Add(new Contact()); ContactItems.Last().CompanyName = "ABC"; ContactItems.Last().Name = "Contact 11"; ContactItems.Add(new Contact()); ContactItems.Last().CompanyName = "ABC"; ContactItems.Last().Name = "Contact 12"; ContactItems.Add(new Contact()); ContactItems.Last().CompanyName = "RST"; ContactItems.Last().Name = "Contact 7"; ContactItems.Add(new Contact()); ContactItems.Last().CompanyName = "RST"; ContactItems.Last().Name = "Contact 8"; ContactItems.Add(new Contact()); ContactItems.Last().CompanyName = "RST"; ContactItems.Last().Name = "Contact 9"; ContactItems.Add(new Contact()); ContactItems.Last().CompanyName = "XYZ"; ContactItems.Last().Name = "Contact 4"; ContactItems.Add(new Contact()); ContactItems.Last().CompanyName = "XYZ"; ContactItems.Last().Name = "Contact 5"; ContactItems.Add(new Contact()); ContactItems.Last().CompanyName = "XYZ"; ContactItems.Last().Name = "Contact 6"; ICollectionView view = CollectionViewSource.GetDefaultView(ContactItems); view.GroupDescriptions.Add(new PropertyGroupDescription("CompanyName")); view.SortDescriptions.Add(new SortDescription("Name", ListSortDirection.Ascending)); TestList.ItemsSource = view; } } public class Contact { public string CompanyName { get; set; } public string Name { get; set; } public override string ToString() { return Name; } } TestStyles.xaml: <Style TargetType="{x:Type ListBox}"> <Setter Property="SnapsToDevicePixels" Value="true"/> <Setter Property="OverridesDefaultStyle" Value="true"/> <Setter Property="ScrollViewer.HorizontalScrollBarVisibility" Value="Auto"/> <Setter Property="ScrollViewer.VerticalScrollBarVisibility" Value="Auto"/> <Setter Property="ScrollViewer.CanContentScroll" Value="true"/> <Setter Property="MinWidth" Value="120"/> <Setter Property="MinHeight" Value="95"/> <Setter Property="Template"> <Setter.Value> <ControlTemplate TargetType="ListBox"> <Grid Background="Black"> <Rectangle VerticalAlignment="Stretch" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" Fill="White"> <Rectangle.OpacityMask> <DrawingBrush> <DrawingBrush.Drawing> <GeometryDrawing Geometry="M65.5,33 L537.5,35 537.5,274.5 C536.5,81 119.5,177 66.5,92" Brush="#11444444"> <GeometryDrawing.Pen> <Pen Brush="Transparent"/> </GeometryDrawing.Pen> </GeometryDrawing> </DrawingBrush.Drawing> </DrawingBrush> </Rectangle.OpacityMask> </Rectangle> <Border Name="Border" Background="Transparent" BorderBrush="Gray" BorderThickness="1" CornerRadius="2"> <ScrollViewer Margin="0" Focusable="false"> <StackPanel Margin="2" IsItemsHost="True" /> </ScrollViewer> </Border> </Grid> <ControlTemplate.Triggers> <Trigger Property="IsEnabled" Value="false"> <Setter TargetName="Border" Property="Background" Value="Gray" /> <Setter TargetName="Border" Property="BorderBrush" Value="DimGray" /> </Trigger> <Trigger Property="IsGrouping" Value="true"> <Setter Property="ScrollViewer.CanContentScroll" Value="false"/> </Trigger> </ControlTemplate.Triggers> </ControlTemplate> </Setter.Value> </Setter> </Style> <Style TargetType="{x:Type ListBoxItem}"> <Setter Property="SnapsToDevicePixels" Value="true"/> <Setter Property="OverridesDefaultStyle" Value="true"/> <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="Gray"/> <Setter Property="Background" Value="Transparent"/> <Setter Property="FontFamily" Value="Verdana"/> <Setter Property="HorizontalAlignment" Value="Stretch"/> <Setter Property="FontSize" Value="11"/> <Setter Property="Margin" Value="3,1,3,1"/> <Setter Property="Padding" Value="0"/> <Setter Property="FontWeight" Value="Normal"/> <Setter Property="VerticalAlignment" Value="Center"/> <Setter Property="Template"> <Setter.Value> <ControlTemplate TargetType="ListBoxItem"> <Border Name="Border" Padding="2" SnapsToDevicePixels="true"> <ContentPresenter /> </Border> <ControlTemplate.Triggers> <Trigger Property="IsSelected" Value="true"> <Setter TargetName="Border" Property="Background" Value="Gray"/> </Trigger> <Trigger Property="IsEnabled" Value="false"> <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="White"/> </Trigger> </ControlTemplate.Triggers> </ControlTemplate> </Setter.Value> </Setter> </Style> <ControlTemplate x:Key="ExpanderToggleButton" TargetType="ToggleButton"> <Border Name="Border" CornerRadius="2,0,0,0" Background="Transparent" BorderBrush="LightGray" BorderThickness="0,0,1,0"> <Path Name="Arrow" Fill="Blue" HorizontalAlignment="Center" VerticalAlignment="Center" Data="M 0 0 L 4 4 L 8 0 Z"/> </Border> <ControlTemplate.Triggers> <Trigger Property="ToggleButton.IsMouseOver" Value="True"> <Setter TargetName="Border" Property="Background" Value="Gray" /> </Trigger> <Trigger Property="IsPressed" Value="True"> <Setter TargetName="Border" Property="Background" Value="Black" /> </Trigger> <Trigger Property="IsChecked" Value="True"> <Setter TargetName="Arrow" Property="Data" Value="M 0 4 L 4 0 L 8 4 Z" /> </Trigger> <Trigger Property="IsEnabled" Value="False"> <Setter TargetName="Border" Property="Background" Value="DimGray" /> <Setter TargetName="Border" Property="BorderBrush" Value="DimGray" /> <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="LightGray"/> <Setter TargetName="Arrow" Property="Fill" Value="LightBlue" /> </Trigger> </ControlTemplate.Triggers> </ControlTemplate> <Style TargetType="{x:Type Expander}"> <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="White"/> <Setter Property="FontFamily" Value="Verdana"/> <Setter Property="FontSize" Value="11"/> <Setter Property="FontWeight" Value="Normal"/> <Setter Property="Template"> <Setter.Value> <ControlTemplate TargetType="Expander"> <Grid> <Grid.RowDefinitions> <RowDefinition Height="Auto"/> <RowDefinition Name="ContentRow" Height="0"/> </Grid.RowDefinitions> <Border Name="Border" Grid.Row="0" Background="Black" BorderBrush="DimGray" BorderThickness="1" Cursor="Hand" CornerRadius="2,2,0,0" > <Grid HorizontalAlignment="Left"> <Grid.RowDefinitions> <RowDefinition Height="23"/> </Grid.RowDefinitions> <Grid.ColumnDefinitions> <ColumnDefinition Width="20" /> <ColumnDefinition Width="*" /> </Grid.ColumnDefinitions> <ToggleButton IsChecked="{Binding Path=IsExpanded,Mode=TwoWay,RelativeSource={RelativeSource TemplatedParent}}" Template="{StaticResource ExpanderToggleButton}" Background="Black" /> <Label Grid.Column="1" FontSize="14" FontWeight="Normal" Margin="0" VerticalAlignment="Top" Foreground="White" FontFamily="Verdana"> <ContentPresenter Grid.Column="1" Margin="4,3,0,0" HorizontalAlignment="Left" ContentSource="Header" RecognizesAccessKey="True" /> </Label> </Grid> </Border> <Border Name="Content" Background="Black" BorderBrush="DimGray" BorderThickness="1,0,1,1" Grid.Row="1" CornerRadius="0,0,2,2" > <Grid Background="Black"> <Rectangle VerticalAlignment="Stretch" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" Fill="White"> <Rectangle.OpacityMask> <DrawingBrush> <DrawingBrush.Drawing> <GeometryDrawing Geometry="M65.5,33 L537.5,35 537.5,274.5 C536.5,81 119.5,177 66.5,92" Brush="#11444444"> <GeometryDrawing.Pen> <Pen Brush="Transparent"/> </GeometryDrawing.Pen> </GeometryDrawing> </DrawingBrush.Drawing> </DrawingBrush> </Rectangle.OpacityMask> </Rectangle> <ContentPresenter Margin="4" /> </Grid> </Border> </Grid> <ControlTemplate.Triggers> <Trigger Property="IsExpanded" Value="True"> <Setter TargetName="ContentRow" Property="Height" Value="{Binding ElementName=Content,Path=DesiredHeight}" /> </Trigger> <Trigger Property="IsEnabled" Value="False"> <Setter TargetName="Border" Property="Background" Value="Gray" /> <Setter TargetName="Border" Property="BorderBrush" Value="DimGray" /> <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="White"/> </Trigger> </ControlTemplate.Triggers> </ControlTemplate> </Setter.Value> </Setter> </Style>

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Professional WordPress Business Themes

- by Matt

Every now and then JustSkins.com receives quote requests for WordPress design for business websites. Most companies now keep up to date with a blog on their corporate website, that showcases their day to day activities & progresses. Getting such professional wordpress driven website designed from the scratch costs you a lot. If you have decided to make WordPress the CMS for your business website, there are some Professional WordPress themes you can take a look at. We have created this list to help you save some time to do all the trying and the testing. Optimize by WooThemes Last year one of the most popular Business theme by WooThemes was the Coffee Break theme, Optimize is further adaptation of the same. It is simple, sleek design with great functionality. The customizable front page lets you showcase your work or product etc. Demo | Price: $70, Developer Price: $150 | DOWNLOAD WooThemes is also offering their whole Business theme pack for a very very reasonable fee, If you like multiple designs from them you can get this big deal for only $125 Onyx , Impacto by Simple Themes Simple Themes has been making very crisp & beautiful WordPress Themes & are also very reasonably priced. If their themes solve your purpose $39 membership for 3 months is a good deal. If you are looking to create quick website, landing page or micro site their templates are best. Demo | Price: $39 for 3 Months Membership Rejuvenate by Templatic One of the most beautiful Premium WordPress Theme, Available in 4 elegant color schemes. This theme can be used for your Beauty, Spa and Studio Business. Demo | Price: $65 | DOWNLOAD Templatic has created great professional business templates, such as Gourmet, Real Estate, Job Board, Automobile & lots More. You can also get a Best Value Offer in $299 for all of Templatic Themes. TheProfessional by ElegantThemes Elegant Themes is known to provide very beautiful & straightforward designs. The professional wordpress theme is a simple, crisp & concise Theme you can use to create a business website. The 3 short blurbs on the homepage are simple, which can be used to point them to your major offerings and the prominent slider indicates a clear call to action. There are 52 themes to choose from & Elegant Themes is giving a great offer at such a small yearly fee. Demo | Price: $39 Yearly Membership | DOWNLOAD Elegant Themes has a cluster of 52 magnificent themes, and all you have to do is pay $39 to win access to all of them. Join today! Some of the Professional designs that I like for a business website are SimplePress and Corporation. Extatic by Chimera Themes The theme includes plenty of great features including custom feature tour pages, portfolio sections, static feature areas, pricing table page, 20+ shortcodes, multiple page/post options, unlimited custom sidebars which can be assigned to posts/pages, advanced theme style editor and options page and much more. Its a must buy Demo | Price: $37 | DOWNLOAD Corporate by Clover Themes Simple Theme for a small business. Corporate is an clean, powerful and feature-rich corporate theme with dynamic and energy design. Demo | Price: $69.95 | DOWNLOAD Bizco by Themify Bizco is a very professional template for wordpress targeted at corporate and product based businesses. This theme is simple yet highly functional and is suitable for showcasing features of your service or product. With the custom page template you can change the display of your pages and posts easily with our visual custom panel. Demo | Price: $70 |DOWNLOAD Devision by Themetrust Devision is a small business wordpress theme that can be used to make a business website within a few minutes. It makes it very easy to showcase and highlight your services or product on the homepage. Demo | Price: Euro 39 | DOWNLOAD BizPress by WPZoom A professional business WordPress theme from WPZoom suitable for companies, organizations, product showcases or other business websites. The theme comes with 4 colour options, featured products / services slider on the homepage, drop down menus, theme options page etc. Demo | Price: $ 69 | DOWNLOAD Clean Classy Corporate by ThemeFuse A very impressive WordPress business theme, that can be used in multiple ways. It is suitable for many kinds, like web products, services, hosting etc etc. Clean Classy Corporate WordPress Theme has a clean crisp look and is professional in appeal. Demo | Price: $49 | DOWNLOAD Insdustry by ThemeJam A powerful Business WordPress Template along with lots of options, colors, and customizable features. This is one for almost any kind of blogger, corporate, or organization. Lots of features, gives it the kind of scalability you might need to create any kind of website. Demo | Price: $ 59 | DOWNLOAD AppPress by ChimeraThemes This professional business WordPress theme includes 5 different colour schemes, advanced theme options page, multiple homepage sliders, custom widgets and page templates. The theme also includes a range of other unique features such as custom title, live style editor to modify colours, font styles, sizes etc, and 20+ shortcodes for creating pricing tables, content columns, boxes, buttons and others. Demo | Price: $ 37 | DOWNLOAD Why WordPress Professional Template? You can modify them, these usually come with a lot of fancy features that enable you to create the website as per your usability & choice. In some cases the Premium WordPress business themes can be accessed through a subscription service. Premium Vs Free WordPress Themes There are very good Free WordPress themes out there that you can use to modify and code further or create what you want, but this possible when you are technically able. On the contrary Premium WordPress business themes offers great features & can save you a lot of time and money. It varies from business to business, some like to keep their website simple while most want to keep cool nifty features and abilities to scale it differently for various sections, products or categories. All this & more is possible with a Professional Business theme that is suitable/close to your needs.

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How To Replace Notepad in Windows 7

- by Trevor Bekolay

It used to be that Notepad was a necessary evil because it started up quickly and let us catch a quick glimpse of plain text files. Now, there are a bevy of capable Notepad replacements that are just as fast, but also have great feature sets. Before following the rest of this how-to, ensure that you’re logged into an account with Administrator access. Note: The following instructions involve modifying some Windows system folders. Don’t mess anything up while you’re in there! If you follow our instructions closely, you’ll be fine. Choose your replacement There are a ton of great Notepad replacements, including Notepad2, Metapad, and Notepad++. The best one for you will depend on what types of text files you open and what you do with them. We’re going to use Notepad++ in this how-to. The first step is to find the executable file that you’ll replace Notepad with. Usually this will be the only file with the .exe file extension in the folder where you installed your text editor. Copy the executable file to your desktop and try to open it, to make sure that it works when opened from a different folder. In the Notepad++ case, a special little .exe file is available for the explicit purpose of replacing Notepad.If we run it from the desktop, it opens up Notepad++ in all its glory. Back up Notepad You will probably never go back once you switch, but you never know. You can backup Notepad to a special location if you’d like, but we find it’s easiest to just keep a backed up copy of Notepad in the folders it was originally located. In Windows 7, Notepad resides in: C:\Windows C:\Windows\System32 C:\Windows\SysWOW64 in 64-bit versions only Navigate to each of those directories and copy Notepad. Paste it into the same folder. If prompted, choose to Copy, but keep both files. You can keep your backup as “notepad (2).exe”, but we prefer to rename it to “notepad.exe.bak”. Do this for all of the folders that have Notepad (2 total for 32-bit Windows 7, 3 total for 64-bit). Take control of Notepad and delete it Even if you’re on an administrator account, you can’t just delete Notepad – Microsoft has made some security gains in this respect. Fortunately for us, it’s still possible to take control of a file and delete it without resorting to nasty hacks like disabling UAC. Navigate to one of the directories that contain Notepad. Right-click on it and select Properties. Switch to the Security tab, then click on the Advanced button. Note that the owner of the file is a user called “TrustedInstaller”. You can’t do much with files owned by TrustedInstaller, so let’s take control of it. Click the Edit… button. Select the desired owner (you could choose your own account, but we’re going to give any Administrator control) and click OK. You’ll get a message that you need to close and reopen the Properties windows to edit permissions. Before doing that, confirm that the owner has changed to what you selected. Click OK, then OK again to close the Properties window. Right-click on Notepad and click on Properties again. Switch to the Security tab. Click on Edit…. Select the appropriate group or user name in the list at the top, then add a checkmark in the checkbox beside Full control in the Allow column. Click OK, then Yes to the dialog box that pops up. Click OK again to close the Properties window. Now you can delete Notepad, by either selecting it and pressing Delete on the keyboard, or right-click on it and click Delete. You’re now free from Notepad’s foul clutches! Repeat this procedure for the remaining folders (or folder, on 32-bit Windows 7). Drop in your replacement Copy your Notepad replacement’s executable, which should still be on your desktop. Browse to the two or three folders listed above and copy your .exe to those locations. If prompted for Administrator permission, click Continue. If your executable file was named something other than “notepad.exe”, rename it to “notepad.exe”. Don’t be alarmed if the thumbnail still shows the old Notepad icon. Double click on Notepad and your replacement should open. To make doubly sure that it works, press Win+R to bring up the Run dialog box and enter “notepad” into the text field. Press enter or click OK. Now you can allow Windows to open files with Notepad by default with little to no shame! All without restarting or having to disable UAC! Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Search and Replace Specific Formatting (fonts, styles,etc) in Microsoft WordHow to Drag Files to the Taskbar to Open Them in Windows 7Customize the Windows 7 or Vista Send To MenuKill Processes from the Windows Command LineChange Your Windows 7 Library Icons the Easy Way 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 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Use My TextTools to Edit and Organize Text Discovery Channel LIFE Theme (Win7) Increase the size of Taskbar Previews (Win 7) Scan your PC for nasties with Panda ActiveScan CleanMem – Memory Cleaner AceStock – The Personal Stock Monitor

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Use Advanced Font Ligatures in Office 2010

- by Matthew Guay

Fonts can help your documents stand out and be easier to read, and Office 2010 helps you take your fonts even further with support for OpenType ligatures, stylistic sets, and more. Here’s a quick look at these new font features in Office 2010. Introduction Starting with Windows 7, Microsoft has made an effort to support more advanced font features across their products. Windows 7 includes support for advanced OpenType font features and laid the groundwork for advanced font support in programs with the new DirectWrite subsystem. It also includes the new font Gabriola, which includes an incredible number of beautiful stylistic sets and ligatures. Now, with the upcoming release of Office 2010, Microsoft is bringing advanced typographical features to the Office programs we love. This includes support for OpenType ligatures, stylistic sets, number forms, contextual alternative characters, and more. These new features are available in Word, Outlook, and Publisher 2010, and work the same on Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7. Please note that Windows does include several OpenType fonts that include these advanced features. Calibri, Cambria, Constantia, and Corbel all include multiple number forms, while Consolas, Palatino Linotype, and Gabriola (Windows 7 only) include all the OpenType features. And, of course, these new features will work great with any other OpenType fonts you have that contain advanced ligatures, stylistic sets, and number forms. Using advanced typography in Word To use the new font features, open a new document, select an OpenType font, and enter some text. Here we have Word 2010 in Windows 7 with some random text in the Gabriola font. Click the arrow on the bottom of the Font section of the ribbon to open the font properties. Alternately, select the text and click Font. Now, click on the Advanced tab to see the OpenType features. You can change the ligatures setting… Choose Proportional or Tabular number spacing… And even select Lining or Old-style number forms. Here’s a comparison of Lining and Old-style number forms in Word 2010 with the Calibri font. Finally, you can choose various Stylistic sets for your font. The dialog always shows 20 styles, whether or not your font includes that many. Most include only 1 or 2; Gabriola includes 6. Here’s lorem ipsum text, using the Gabriola font with Stylistic set 6. Impressive, huh? The font ligatures change based on context, so they will automatically change as you are typing. Watch the transition as we typed the word Microsoft in Word with Gabriola stylistic set 6. Here’s another example, showing the fi and tt ligatures in Calibri. These effects work great in Word 2010 in XP, too. And, since Outlook uses Word as it’s editing engine, you can use the same options in Outlook 2010. Note that these font effects may not show up the same if the recipient’s email client doesn’t support advanced OpenType typography. It will, of course, display perfectly if the recipient is using Outlook 2010. Using advanced typography in Publisher 2010 Publisher 2010 includes the same advanced font features. This is especially nice for those using Publisher for professional layout and design. Simply insert a text box, enter some text, select it, and click the arrow on the bottom of the font box as in Word to open the font properties. This font options dialog is actually more advanced than Word’s font options. You can preview your font changes on sample text right in the properties box. You can also choose to add or remove a swash from your characters. Conclusion Advanced typographical effects are a welcome addition to Word and Publisher 2010, and they are very impressive when coupled with modern fonts such as Gabriola. From designing elegant headers to using old-style numbers, these features are very useful and fun. Do you have a favorite OpenType font that includes advanced typographical features? Let us know in the comments! More Reading Advances in typography in Windows 7 – Engineering 7 Blog New features in Microsoft Word 2010 Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Change the Default Font in Excel 2007Ask the Readers: Do You Use a Laptop, Desktop, or Both?Keep Websites From Using Tiny Fonts in SafariAdd or Remove Apps from the Microsoft Office 2007 or 2010 SuiteFriday Fun: Desktop Tower Defense Pro 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 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional SpeedyFox Claims to Speed up your Firefox Beware Hover Kitties Test Drive Mobile Phones Online With TryPhone Ben & Jerry’s Free Cone Day, 3/23/10 New Stinger from McAfee Helps Remove ‘FakeAlert’ Threats Google Apps Marketplace: Tools & Services For Google Apps Users

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Testing Mobile Websites with Adobe Shadow

- by dwahlin

It’s no surprise that mobile development is all the rage these days. With all of the new mobile devices being released nearly every day the ability for developers to deliver mobile solutions is more important than ever. Nearly every developer or company I’ve talked to recently about mobile development in training classes, at conferences, and on consulting projects says that they need to find a solution to get existing websites into the mobile space. Although there are several different frameworks out there that can be used such as jQuery Mobile, Sencha Touch, jQTouch, and others, how do you test how your site renders on iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone, and the variety of mobile form factors out there? Although there are different virtual solutions that can be used including Electric Plum for iOS, emulators, browser plugins for resizing the laptop/desktop browser, and more, at some point you need to test on as many physical devices as possible. This can be extremely challenging and quite time consuming though especially when you consider that you have to manually enter URLs into devices and click links on each one to drill-down into sites. Adobe Labs just released a product called Adobe Shadow (thanks to Kurt Sprinzl for letting me know about it) that significantly simplifies testing sites on physical devices, debugging problems you find, and even making live modifications to HTML and CSS content while viewing a site on the device to see how rendering changes. You can view a page in your laptop/desktop browser and have it automatically pushed to all of your devices without actually touching the device (a huge time saver). See a problem with a device? Locate it using the free Chrome extension, pull up inspection tools (based on the Chrome Developer tools) and make live changes through Chrome that appear on the respective device so that it’s easy to identify how problems can be resolved. I’ve been using Adobe Shadow and am very impressed with the amount of time saved and the different features that it offers. In the rest of the post I’ll walk through how to get it installed, get it started, and use it to view and debug pages. Getting Adobe Shadow Installed The following steps can be used to get Adobe Shadow installed: 1. Download and install Adobe Shadow on your laptop/desktop 2. Install the Adobe Shadow extension for Chrome 3. Install the Adobe Shadow app on all of your devices (you can find it in various app stores) 4. Connect your devices to Wifi. Make sure they’re on the same network that your laptop/desktop machine is on Getting Adobe Shadow Started Once Adobe Shadow is installed, you’ll need to get it running on your laptop/desktop and on all your mobile devices. The following steps walk through that process: 1. Start the Adobe Shadow application on your laptop/desktop 2. Start the Adobe Shadow app on each of your mobile devices 3. Locate the laptop/desktop name in the list that’s shown on each mobile device: 4. Select the laptop/desktop name and a passcode will be shown: 5. Open the Adobe Shadow Chrome extension on the laptop/desktop and enter the passcode for the given device: Using Adobe Shadow to View and Modify Pages Once Adobe Shadow is up and running on your laptop/desktop and on all of your mobile devices you can navigate to a page in Chrome on the laptop/desktop and it will automatically be pushed out to all connected mobile devices. If you have 5 mobile devices setup they’ll all navigate to the page displayed in Chrome (pretty awesome!). This makes it super easy to see how a given page looks on your iPad, Android device, etc. without having to touch the device itself. If you find a problem with a page on a device you can select the device in the Chrome Adobe Shadow extension on your laptop/desktop and select the remote inspector icon (it’s the < > icon): This will pull up the Adobe Shadow remote debugging window which contains the standard Chrome Developer tool tabs such as Elements, Resources, Network, etc. Click on the Elements tab to see the HTML rendered for the target device and then drill into the respective HTML content, CSS styles, etc. As HTML elements are selected in the Adobe Shadow debugging tool they’ll be highlighted on the device itself just like they would if you were debugging a page directly in Chrome with the developer tools. Here’s an example from my Android device that shows how the page looks on the device as I select different HTML elements on the laptop/desktop: Conclusion I’m really impressed with what I’ve to this point from Adobe Shadow. Controlling pages that display on devices directly from my laptop/desktop is a big time saver and the ability to remotely see changes made through the Chrome Developer Tools (on my laptop/desktop) really pushes the tool over the top. If you’re developing mobile applications it’s definitely something to check out. It’s currently free to download and use. For additional details check out the video below:

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Debugging Tips for Skinning

- by Christian David Straub

Another guest post by Jeanne Waldman.If you are developing a skin for your Fusion Application in JDeveloper you should know these tips. 1. Firebug is your friend 2. Uncompress the css style classes 3. CHECK_FILE_MODIFICATION so that you see your skinning changes right away 4. View the generated CSS File 1. Firebug is your friend Install Firebug (http://getfirebug.com/layout) into Firefox and use it to view your rendered jspx page in the browser. You can select the HTML dom nodes on your page and you can see the css styles applied to each dom node. 2. Uncompress the css style classes By default the styleclasses that are rendered are compressed. You may see style classes like class="x10" and class="x2e". But in your skin css file you have styleclasses like: af|inputText::content or af|panelBox::header It is easier for you to develop a skin and debug a skin with Firebug if you see the uncompressed styleclasses. To do this, a. open web.xml b. add <context-param> <param-name>org.apache.myfaces.trinidad.DISABLE_CONTENT_COMPRESSION</param-name> <param-value>true</param-value> </context-param> c. save d. restart the server and re-run your page. 3. CHECK_FILE_MODIFICATION so that you see your skinning changes right away For performance sake the ADF Faces framework does not check if you skin .css file has changed on every render. But this is exactly what you want to happen when you are developing or debugging a skin. You want your changes to get noticed right away, without restarting the server. To do this, a. open web.xml b. add <context-param> <description>If this parameter is true, there will be an automatic check of the modification date of your JSPs, and saved state will be discarded when JSP's change. It will also automatically check if your skinning css files have changed without you having to restart the server. This makes development easier, but adds overhead. For this reason this parameter should be set to false when your application is deployed.</description> <param-name>org.apache.myfaces.trinidad.CHECK_FILE_MODIFICATION</param-name> <param-value>false</param-value> </context-param> c. save d. restart the server and re-run your page. e. from then on, you can change your skin's .css file, save it and refresh your page and you should see the changes right away 4. View the generated CSS File There are different ways to view the generated CSS File which is your skin's css file merged in with all the skins it extends and processed and generated to the filesystem and linked to your generated html page. One way is to view it with Firebug. The problem with this approach is you might see something that is a little different than the actual css file because Firebug may do some extra processing. I like to view the generated css file by: Right click on your page in the browser

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Simple Excel Export with EPPlus

- by Jesse Taber

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/GruffCode/archive/2013/10/30/simple-excel-export-with-epplus.aspxAnyone I’ve ever met who works with an application that sits in front of a lot of data loves it when they can get that data exported to an Excel file for them to mess around with offline. As both developer and end user of a little website project that I’ve been working on, I found myself wanting to be able to get a bunch of the data that the application was collecting into an Excel file. The great thing about being both an end user and a developer on a project is that you can build the features that you really want! While putting this feature together I came across the fantastic EPPlus library. This library is certainly very well known and popular, but I was so impressed with it that I thought it was worth a quick blog post. This library is extremely powerful; it lets you create and manipulate Excel 2007/2010 spreadsheets in .NET code with a high degree of flexibility. My only gripe with the project is that they are not touting how insanely easy it is to build a basic Excel workbook from a simple data source. If I were running this project the approach I’m about to demonstrate in this post would be front and center on the landing page for the project because it shows how easy it really is to get started and serves as a good way to ease yourself in to some of the more advanced features. The website in question uses RavenDB, which means that we’re dealing with POCOs to model the data throughout all layers of the application. I love working like this so when it came time to figure out how to export some of this data to an Excel spreadsheet I wanted to find a way to take an IEnumerable<T> and just have it dumped to Excel with each item in the collection being modeled as a single row in the Excel worksheet. Consider the following class: public class Employee { public int Id { get; set; } public string Name { get; set; } public decimal HourlyRate { get; set; } public DateTime HireDate { get; set; } } Now let’s say we have a collection of these represented as an IEnumerable<Employee> and we want to be able to output it to an Excel file for offline querying/manipulation. As it turns out, this is dead simple to do with EPPlus. Have a look: public void ExportToExcel(IEnumerable<Employee> employees, FileInfo targetFile) { using (var excelFile = new ExcelPackage(targetFile)) { var worksheet = excelFile.Workbook.Worksheets.Add("Sheet1"); worksheet.Cells["A1"].LoadFromCollection(Collection: employees, PrintHeaders: true); excelFile.Save(); } } That’s it. Let’s break down what’s going on here: Create a ExcelPackage to model the workbook (Excel file). Note that the ‘targetFile’ value here is a FileInfo object representing the location on disk where I want the file to be saved. Create a worksheet within the workbook. Get a reference to the top-leftmost cell (addressed as A1) and invoke the ‘LoadFromCollection’ method, passing it our collection of Employee objects. Behind the scenes this is reflecting over the properties of the type provided and pulling out any public members to become columns in the resulting Excel output. The ‘PrintHeaders’ parameter tells EPPlus to grab the name of the property and put it in the first row. Save the Excel file All of the heavy lifting here is being done by the ‘LoadFromCollection’ method, and that’s a good thing. Now, this was really easy to do, but it has some limitations. Using this approach you get a very plain, un-styled Excel worksheet. The column widths are all set to the default. The number format for all cells is ‘General’ (which proves particularly interesting if you have a DateTime property in your data source). I’m a “no frills” guy, so I wasn’t bothered at all by trading off simplicity for style and formatting. That said, EPPlus has tons of samples that you can download that illustrate how to apply styles and formatting to cells and a ton of other advanced features that are way beyond the scope of this post.

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Improve the Quality of ePub eBooks with Sigil

- by Matthew Guay

Would you like to correct errors in your ePub formatted eBooks, or even split them into chapters and create a Table of Contents? Here’s how you can with the free program Sigil. eBooks are increasingly popular with the rise of eBook readers and reading apps on mobile devices. We recently showed you how to convert a PDF eBook to ePub format, but as you may have noticed, sometimes the converted file had some glitches or odd formatting. Additionally, many of the many free ePub books available online from sources like the Project Guttenberg do not include a table of contents. Sigil is a free application for Windows, OS X, and Linux that lets you edit ePub files, so let’s look at how you can use it to improve your eBooks. Note: Sigil took several moments to open files in our tests, and froze momentarily when we maximized the window. Sigil is currently pre-release software in active development, so we would expect the bugs to be worked out in future versions. As usual, only install if you’re comfortable testing pre-release software. Getting Started Download Sigil (link below), making sure to select the correct version for your computer. Run the installer, and select your preferred setup language when prompted. After a moment the installer will appear; setup as normal. Launch Sigil when it’s finished installing. It opens with a default blank ePub file, so you could actually start writing an eBook from scratch right here. Edit Your ePub eBooks Now you’re ready to edit your ePub books. Click Open and browse to the file you want to edit. Now you can double-click any of the HTML or XHTML files on the left sidebar and edit them just like you would in Word. Or you can choose to view it in Code View and edit the actual HTML directly. The sidebar also gives you access to the other parts of the ePub file, such as Images and CSS styles. If your ePub file has a Table of Contents, you can edit it with Sigil as well. Click Tools in the menu bar, and then select TOC Editor. Strangely there is no way to create a new table of contents, but you can remove entries from existing one. Convert TXT Files to ePub Many free eBooks online, especially older, out of copyright titles, are available in plain text format. One problem with these files is that they usually use hard returns at the end of lines, so they don’t reflow to fill your screen efficiently. Sigil can easily convert these files to the more useful ePub format. Open the text file in Sigil, and it will automatically reflow the text and convert it ePub. As you can see in the screenshot below, the text in the eBook does not have hard line-breaks at the end of each line, and will be much more readable on mobile devices. Note that Sigil may take several moments opening the book, and may even become unresponsive while analyzing it. Now you can edit your eBook, split it into chapters, or just save it as is. Either way, make sure to select Save as to save your book as ePub format. Conclusion As mentioned before, Sigil seems to run slow at times, especially when editing large eBooks. But it’s still a nice solution to edit and extend your ePub eBooks, and even convert plain text eBooks to the nicer ePub format. Now you can make your eBooks work just like you want, and read them on your favorite device! If you feel comfortable editing HTML files, check out our article on how to edit ePub eBooks with your favorite HTML editor. Link Download Sigil from Google Code Download free ePub eBooks from Project Guttenberg Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Edit ePub eBooks with Your Favorite HTML EditorConvert a PDF eBook to ePub Format for Your iPad, iPhone, or eReaderRead Mobi eBooks on Kindle for PCFriday Fun: Watch HD Video Content with MeevidPreview and Purchase Ebooks with Kindle for PC 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 HippoRemote Pro 2.2 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Get Your Team’s World Cup Schedule In Google Calendar Backup Drivers With Driver Magician TubeSort: YouTube Playlist Organizer XPS file format & XPS Viewer Explained Microsoft Office Web Apps Guide Know if Someone Accessed Your Facebook Account

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Find odd and even rows using $.inArray() function when using jQuery Templates

- by hajan

In the past period I made series of blogs on ‘jQuery Templates in ASP.NET’ topic. In one of these blogs dealing with jQuery Templates supported tags, I’ve got a question how to create alternating row background. When rendering the template, there is no direct access to the item index. One way is if there is an incremental index in the JSON string, we can use it to solve this. If there is not, then one of the ways to do this is by using the jQuery’s $.inArray() function. - $.inArray(value, array) – similar to JavaScript indexOf() Here is an complete example how to use this in context of jQuery Templates: <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" > <head runat="server"> <style type="text/css"> #myList { cursor:pointer; } .speakerOdd { background-color:Gray; color:White;} .speaker { background-color:#443344; color:White;} .speaker:hover { background-color:White; color:Black;} .speakerOdd:hover { background-color:White; color:Black;} </style> <title>jQuery ASP.NET</title> <script src="http://ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/jQuery/jquery-1.4.4.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="http://ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/jquery.templates/beta1/jquery.tmpl.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript"> var speakers = [ { Name: "Hajan1" }, { Name: "Hajan2" }, { Name: "Hajan3" }, { Name: "Hajan4" }, { Name: "Hajan5" } ]; $(function () { $("#myTemplate").tmpl(speakers).appendTo("#myList"); }); function oddOrEven() { return ($.inArray(this.data, speakers) % 2) ? "speaker" : "speakerOdd"; } </script> <script id="myTemplate" type="text/x-jquery-tmpl"> <tr class="${oddOrEven()}"> <td> ${Name}</td> </tr> </script> </head> <body> <table id="myList"></table> </body> </html> So, I have defined stylesheet classes speakerOdd and speaker as well as corresponding :hover styles. Then, you have speakers JSON string containing five items. And what is most important in our case is the oddOrEven function where $.inArray(value, data) is implemented. function oddOrEven() { return ($.inArray(this.data, speakers) % 2) ? "speaker" : "speakerOdd"; } Remark: The $.inArray() method is similar to JavaScript's native .indexOf() method in that it returns -1 when it doesn't find a match. If the first element within the array matches value, $.inArray() returns 0. From http://api.jquery.com/jQuery.inArray/ So, now we can call oddOrEven function from inside our jQuery Template in the following way: <script id="myTemplate" type="text/x-jquery-tmpl"> <tr class="${oddOrEven()}"> <td> ${Name}</td> </tr> </script> And the result is I hope you like it. Regards, Hajan

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How to build a great relationship with your colleagues

- by Maria Sandu

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii- mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi- mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} When you start new job, you worry about your performance, about being able to do what the manager asks you to do, but you also worry about the relations with your colleagues. How will you get along with them? What if they don’t like you? Have you ever felt you’re „the new guy” and your colleagues have already their own way of talking one to each other, their own jokes? It’s a common feeling and can actually become stressful. I am Norbert, Middleware Presales Intern in Hungary and I’ve been working within Oracle for only 1 month. Joining such a big company has been a challenge from many perspectives. One of them was adapting with the environment and getting to know all my colleagues. You know it’s quite difficult to introduce yourself, to try to liaise with them and find some common topics, so I felt very lucky and comfortable when my manager introduced me to all of my colleagues. It was easier to accommodate and we basically we had a starting point for our discussions. We started to talk about what my position means, for how many years they’ve been within Oracle, other Oracle related topics, but also more personal stuff like what they do after work. Having this opportunity of talking with all of them helped me introduce myself in a proper way and actually I told them many things about myself. Networking wasn’t my best skill, but these first days were really helpful from a network point of view. What else can you do to get along with your colleagues? One second thing I consider as being really helpful in networking is asking work-related questions. For instance, when you don’t know how to do something or don’t understand it, asking one of your colleagues will also help you to make a connection with him and you could easily continue the discussion with some other topics which are more personal. It’s a very effective strategy and in a company like Oracle people are very willing to help you with your tasks and perform at a high level. If you see your colleagues going to lunch, you should join them. It will help you become part of their community, finding out what’s new in their lives, you’ll, step-by-step, take part in their conversations and be up to date with the hot topics they talk about. One other opportunity of becoming part of your colleagues’ community are the internal events. Subscribing to the local free time activities mailing list is very useful for finding out information about when they’re going out and have a drink or attending all sorts of events. For instance, this is how I’ve found out about a party within Oracle that most of the employees here attend. It’s a wonderful opportunity for chatting and make a stronger connection to some of them. How important is attending these events? Think about how much time you spend at work. You’d like to enjoy your work and the environment, so getting along with your colleagues is a nice thing to have. I recently attended a corporate party whose purpose was to facilitate the interaction and communication between employees. It was a real success and we had a lot of fun, especially because it was a costume party. All the fancy dresses and funny clothes we wore made the atmosphere really enjoyable. It was easy to liaise with colleague with whom I had never interacted with before. There was a friendly spirit among us, chatting about personal stuff and about various pleasant things. Working in an international company is not an easy thing because you interact with many people and they have different styles, but all these opportunities of informal interaction are a good way to adapt to the new working environment.

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Is this how dynamic language copes with dynamic requirement?

- by Amumu

The question is in the title. I want to have my thinking verified by experienced people. You can add more or disregard my opinion, but give me a reason. Here is an example requirement: Suppose you are required to implement a fighting game. Initially, the game only includes fighters, who can attack each other. Each fighter can punch, kick or block incoming attacks. Fighters can have various fighting styles: Karate, Judo, Kung Fu... That's it for the simple universe of the game. In an OO like Java, it can be implemented similar to this way: abstract class Fighter { int hp, attack; void punch(Fighter otherFighter); void kick(Fighter otherFighter); void block(Figther otherFighter); }; class KarateFighter extends Fighter { //...implementation...}; class JudoFighter extends Fighter { //...implementation... }; class KungFuFighter extends Fighter { //...implementation ... }; This is fine if the game stays like this forever. But, somehow the game designers decide to change the theme of the game: instead of a simple fighting game, the game evolves to become a RPG, in which characters can not only fight but perform other activities, i.e. the character can be a priest, an accountant, a scientist etc... At this point, to make it more generic, we have to change the structure of our original design: Fighter is not used to refer to a person anymore; it refers to a profession. The specialized classes of Fighter (KaraterFighter, JudoFighter, KungFuFighter) . Now we have to create a generic class named Person. However, to adapt this change, I have to change the method signatures of the original operations: class Person { int hp, attack; List<Profession> skillSet; }; abstract class Profession {}; class Fighter extends Profession { void punch(Person otherFighter); void kick(Person otherFighter); void block(Person otherFighter); }; class KarateFighter extends Fighter { //...implementation...}; class JudoFighter extends Fighter { //...implementation... }; class KungFuFighter extends Fighter { //...implementation ... }; class Accountant extends Profession { void calculateTax(Person p) { //...implementation...}; void calculateTax(Company c) { //...implementation...}; }; //... more professions... Here are the problems: To adapt to the method changes, I have to fix the places where the changed methods are called (refactoring). Every time a new requirement is introduced, the current structural design has to be broken to adapt the changes. This leads to the first problem. Rigid structure makes it hard for code reuse. A function can only accept the predefined types, but it cannot accept future unknown types. A written function is bound to its current universe and has no way to accommodate to the new types, without modifications or rewrite from scratch. I see Java has a lot of deprecated methods. OO is an extreme case because it has inheritance to add up the complexity, but in general for statically typed language, types are very strict. In contrast, a dynamic language can handle the above case as follow: ;;fighter1 punch fighter2 (defun perform-punch (fighter1 fighter2) ...implementation... ) ;;fighter1 kick fighter2 (defun perform-kick (fighter1 fighter2) ...implementation... ) ;;fighter1 blocks attacks from fighter2 (defun perform-block (fighter1 fighter2) ...implementation... ) fighter1 and fighter2 can be anything as long as it has the required data for calculation; or methods (duck typing). You don't have to change from the type Fighter to Person. In the case of Lisp, because Lisp only has a single data structure: list, it's even easier to adapt to changes. However, other dynamic languages can have similar behaviors as well. I work primarily with static languages (mainly C and Java, but working with Java was a long time ago). I started learning Lisp and some other dynamic languages this year. I can see how it helps improving my productivity.

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[Windows 8] An application bar toggle button

- by Benjamin Roux

To stay in the application bar stuff, here’s another useful control which enable to create an application bar button that can be toggled between two different contents/styles/commands (used to create a favorite/unfavorite or a play/pause button for example). namespace Indeed.Controls { public class AppBarToggleButton : Button { public bool IsChecked { get { return (bool)GetValue(IsCheckedProperty); } set { SetValue(IsCheckedProperty, value); } } public static readonly DependencyProperty IsCheckedProperty = DependencyProperty.Register("IsChecked", typeof(bool), typeof(AppBarToggleButton), new PropertyMetadata(false, (o, e) => (o as AppBarToggleButton).IsCheckedChanged())); public string CheckedContent { get { return (string)GetValue(CheckedContentProperty); } set { SetValue(CheckedContentProperty, value); } } public static readonly DependencyProperty CheckedContentProperty = DependencyProperty.Register("CheckedContent", typeof(string), typeof(AppBarToggleButton), null); public ICommand CheckedCommand { get { return (ICommand)GetValue(CheckedCommandProperty); } set { SetValue(CheckedCommandProperty, value); } } public static readonly DependencyProperty CheckedCommandProperty = DependencyProperty.Register("CheckedCommand", typeof(ICommand), typeof(AppBarToggleButton), null); public Style CheckedStyle { get { return (Style)GetValue(CheckedStyleProperty); } set { SetValue(CheckedStyleProperty, value); } } public static readonly DependencyProperty CheckedStyleProperty = DependencyProperty.Register("CheckedStyle", typeof(Style), typeof(AppBarToggleButton), null); public bool AutoToggle { get { return (bool)GetValue(AutoToggleProperty); } set { SetValue(AutoToggleProperty, value); } } public static readonly DependencyProperty AutoToggleProperty = DependencyProperty.Register("AutoToggle", typeof(bool), typeof(AppBarToggleButton), null); private object content; private ICommand command; private Style style; private void IsCheckedChanged() { if (IsChecked) { // backup the current content and command content = Content; command = Command; style = Style; if (CheckedStyle == null) Content = CheckedContent; else Style = CheckedStyle; Command = CheckedCommand; } else { if (CheckedStyle == null) Content = content; else Style = style; Command = command; } } protected override void OnTapped(Windows.UI.Xaml.Input.TappedRoutedEventArgs e) { base.OnTapped(e); if (AutoToggle) IsChecked = !IsChecked; } } } .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; } To use it, it’s very simple. <ic:AppBarToggleButton Style="{StaticResource PlayAppBarButtonStyle}" CheckedStyle="{StaticResource PauseAppBarButtonStyle}" Command="{Binding Path=PlayCommand}" CheckedCommand="{Binding Path=PauseCommand}" IsChecked="{Binding Path=IsPlaying}" /> .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; } When the IsPlaying property (in my ViewModel) is true the button becomes a Pause button, when it’s false it becomes a Play button. Warning: Just make sure that the IsChecked property is set in last in your control !! If you don’t use style you can alternatively use Content and CheckedContent. Furthermore you can set the AutoToggle to true if you don’t want to control is IsChecked property through binding. With this control and the AppBarPopupButton, you can now create awesome application bar for your apps ! Stay tuned for more awesome Windows 8 tricks !

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Agile Executives

- by Robert May

Over the years, I have experienced many different styles of software development. In the early days, most of the development was Waterfall development. In the last few years, I’ve become an advocate of Scrum. As I talked about last month, many people have misconceptions about what Scrum really is. The reason why we do Scrum at Veracity is because of the difference it makes in the life of the team doing Scrum. Software is for people, and happy motivated people will build better software. However, not all executives understand Scrum and how to get the information from development teams that use Scrum. I think that these executives need a support system for managing Agile teams. Historical Software Management When Henry Ford pioneered the assembly line, I doubt he realized the impact he’d have on Management through the ages. Historically, management was about managing the process of building things. The people were just cogs in that process. Like all cogs, they were replaceable. Unfortunately, most of the software industry followed this same style of management. Many of today’s senior managers learned how to manage companies before software was a significant influence on how the company did business. Software development is a very creative process, but too many managers have treated it like an assembly line. Idea’s go in, working software comes out, and we just have to figure out how to make sure that the ideas going in are perfect, then the software will be perfect. Lean Manufacturing In the manufacturing industry, Lean manufacturing has revolutionized Henry Ford’s assembly line. Derived from the Toyota process, Lean places emphasis on always providing value for the customer. Anything the customer wouldn’t be willing to pay for is wasteful. Agile is based on similar principles. We’re building software for people, and anything that isn’t useful to them doesn’t add value. Waterfall development would have teams build reams and reams of documentation about how the software should work. Agile development dispenses with this work because excessive documentation doesn’t add value. Instead, teams focus on building documentation only when it truly adds value to the customer. Many other Agile principals are similar. Playing Catch-up Just like in the manufacturing industry, many managers in the software industry have yet to understand the value of the principles of Lean and Agile. They think they can wrap the uncertainties of software development up in a nice little package and then just execute, usually followed by failure. They spend a great deal of time and money trying to exactly predict the future. That expenditure of time and money doesn’t add value to the customer. Managers that understand that Agile know that there is a better way. They will instead focus on the priorities of the near term in detail, and leave the future to take care of itself. They have very detailed two week plans with less detailed quarterly plans. These plans are guided by a general corporate strategy that doesn’t focus on the exact implementation details. These managers also think in smaller features rather than large functionality. This adds a great deal of value to customers, since the features that matter most are the ones that the team focuses on in the near term and then are able to deliver to the customers that are paying for them. Agile managers also realize that stale software is very costly. They know that keeping the technology in their software current is much less expensive and risky than large rewrites that occur infrequently and schedule time in each release for refactoring of the existing software. Agile Executives Even though Agile is a better way, I’ve still seen failures using the Agile process. While some of these failures can be attributed to the team, most of them are caused by managers, not the team. Managers fail to understand what Agile is, how it works, and how to get the information that they need to make good business decisions. I think this is a shame. I’m very pleased that Veracity understands this problem and is trying to do something about it. Veracity is a key sponsor of Agile Executives. In fact, Galen is this year’s acting president for Agile Executives. The purpose of Agile Executives is to help managers better manage Agile teams and see better success. Agile Executives is trying to build a community of executives that range from managers interested in Agile to managers that have successfully adopted Agile. Together, these managers can form a community of support and ideas that will help make Agile teams more successful. Helping Your Team You can help too! Talk with your manager and get them involved in Agile Executives. Help Veracity build the community. If your manager understands Agile better, he’ll understand how to help his teams, which will result in software that adds more value for customers. If you have any questions about how you can be involved, please let me know. Technorati Tags: Agile,Agile Executives

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How many developers before continuous integration becomes effective for us?

- by Carnotaurus

There is an overhead associated with continuous integration, e.g., set up, re-training, awareness activities, stoppage to fix "bugs" that turn out to be data issues, enforced separation of concerns programming styles, etc. At what point does continuous integration pay for itself? EDIT: These were my findings The set-up was CruiseControl.Net with Nant, reading from VSS or TFS. Here are a few reasons for failure, which have nothing to do with the setup: Cost of investigation: The time spent investigating whether a red light is due a genuine logical inconsistency in the code, data quality, or another source such as an infrastructure problem (e.g., a network issue, a timeout reading from source control, third party server is down, etc., etc.) Political costs over infrastructure: I considered performing an "infrastructure" check for each method in the test run. I had no solution to the timeout except to replace the build server. Red tape got in the way and there was no server replacement. Cost of fixing unit tests: A red light due to a data quality issue could be an indicator of a badly written unit test. So, data dependent unit tests were re-written to reduce the likelihood of a red light due to bad data. In many cases, necessary data was inserted into the test environment to be able to accurately run its unit tests. It makes sense to say that by making the data more robust then the test becomes more robust if it is dependent on this data. Of course, this worked well! Cost of coverage, i.e., writing unit tests for already existing code: There was the problem of unit test coverage. There were thousands of methods that had no unit tests. So, a sizeable amount of man days would be needed to create those. As this would be too difficult to provide a business case, it was decided that unit tests would be used for any new public method going forward. Those that did not have a unit test were termed 'potentially infra red'. An intestesting point here is that static methods were a moot point in how it would be possible to uniquely determine how a specific static method had failed. Cost of bespoke releases: Nant scripts only go so far. They are not that useful for, say, CMS dependent builds for EPiServer, CMS, or any UI oriented database deployment. These are the types of issues that occured on the build server for hourly test runs and overnight QA builds. I entertain that these to be unnecessary as a build master can perform these tasks manually at the time of release, esp., with a one man band and a small build. So, single step builds have not justified use of CI in my experience. What about the more complex, multistep builds? These can be a pain to build, especially without a Nant script. So, even having created one, these were no more successful. The costs of fixing the red light issues outweighed the benefits. Eventually, developers lost interest and questioned the validity of the red light. Having given it a fair try, I believe that CI is expensive and there is a lot of working around the edges instead of just getting the job done. It's more cost effective to employ experienced developers who do not make a mess of large projects than introduce and maintain an alarm system. This is the case even if those developers leave. It doesn't matter if a good developer leaves because processes that he follows would ensure that he writes requirement specs, design specs, sticks to the coding guidelines, and comments his code so that it is readable. All this is reviewed. If this is not happening then his team leader is not doing his job, which should be picked up by his manager and so on. For CI to work, it is not enough to just write unit tests, attempt to maintain full coverage, and ensure a working infrastructure for sizable systems. The bottom line: One might question whether fixing as many bugs before release is even desirable from a business prespective. CI involves a lot of work to capture a handful of bugs that the customer could identify in UAT or the company could get paid for fixing as part of a client service agreement when the warranty period expires anyway.

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Right-Time Retail Part 2

- by David Dorf

This is part two of the three-part series. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Right-Time Integration Of course these real-time enabling technologies are only as good as the systems that utilize them, and it only takes one bottleneck to slow everyone else down. What good is an immediate stock-out notification if the supply chain can’t react until tomorrow? Since being formed in 2006, Oracle Retail has been not only adding more integrations between systems, but also modernizing integrations for appropriate speed. Notice I tossed in the word “appropriate.” Not everything needs to be real-time – again, we’re talking about Right-Time Retail. The speed of data capture, analysis, and execution must be synchronized or you’re wasting effort. Unfortunately, there isn’t an enterprise-wide dial that you can crank-up for your estate. You’ll need to improve things piecemeal, with people and processes as limiting factors while choosing the appropriate types of integrations. There are three integration styles we see in the retail industry. First is batch. I know, the word “batch” just sounds slow, but this pattern is less about velocity and more about volume. When there are large amounts of data to be moved, you’ll want to use batch processes. Our technology of choice here is Oracle Data Integrator (ODI), which provides a fast version of Extract-Transform-Load (ETL). Instead of the three-step process, the load and transform steps are combined to save time. ODI is a key technology for moving data into Retail Analytics where we can apply science. Performing analytics on each sale as it occurs doesn’t make any sense, so we batch up a statistically significant amount and submit all at once. The second style is fire-and-forget. For some types of data, we want the data to arrive ASAP but immediacy is not necessary. Speed is less important than guaranteed delivery, so we use message-oriented middleware available in both Weblogic and the Oracle database. For example, Point-of-Service transactions are queued for delivery to Central Office at corporate. If the network is offline, those transactions remain in the queue and will be delivered when the network returns. Transactions cannot be lost and they must be delivered in order. (Ever tried processing a return before the sale?) To enhance the standard queues, we offer the Retail Integration Bus (RIB) to help the management and monitoring of fire-and-forget messaging in the enterprise. The third style is request-response and is most commonly implemented as Web services. This is a synchronous message where the sender waits for a response. In this situation, the volume of data is small, guaranteed delivery is not necessary, but speed is very important. Examples include the website checking inventory, a price lookup, or processing a credit card authorization. The Oracle Service Bus (OSB) typically handles the routing of such messages, and we’ve enhanced its abilities with the Retail Service Backbone (RSB). To better understand these integration patterns and where they apply within the retail enterprise, we’re providing the Retail Reference Library (RRL) at no charge to Oracle Retail customers. The library is composed of a large number of industry business processes, including those necessary to support Commerce Anywhere, as well as detailed architectural diagrams. These diagrams allow implementers to understand the systems involved in integrations and the specific data payloads. Furthermore, with our upcoming release we’ll be providing a new tool called the Retail Integration Console (RIC) that allows IT to monitor and manage integrations from a single point. Using RIC, retailers can quickly discern where integration activity is occurring, volume statistics, average response times, and errors. The dashboards provide the ability to dive down into the architecture documentation to gather information all the way down to the specific payload. Retailers that want real-time integrations will also need real-time monitoring of those integrations to ensure service-level agreements are maintained. Part 3 looks at marketing.

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