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• ADO.NET Entity Model and LINQ

  - by Richard

  Hi all I'm using an ADO.NET Entity Model which I'm trying to query using LINQ. The problem I'm having is that I can't specify the where clause as I'd like. For instance, consider the following query: AccountsDM db = new AccountsDM(ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["PrimaryEF"].ConnectionString); var accounts = from a in db.Accounts select a; foreach (var account in accounts) { foreach (var ident in account.Identifiers) { if (ident.Identifier == identifier) { // ident.Identifier is what I'd like to be filtering in the WHERE clause below } } } Ideally, I'd like that to become: var accounts = from a in db.Accounts where a.Identifiers.Identifier == identifier select a; I'm guessing I've probably not set up my Entity Model correctly in VS2010. Any advice you can offer would be gratefully received. Thanks, Richard.

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• Different ways to query this search in SQL?

  - by Bart Terrell

  I am teaching myself MS-SQL and I am trying to find different ways to find the Count of Paid and Unpaid Claims for 2012 grouped by Region from these 3 tables. If there is a returned date, the claim is unpaid if the returned date is null then the claim is paid. I will attach the code I have ran, but I am not sure if there are better ways to do it. Thanks. Here is the code: SET dateformat ymd; CREATE TABLE Claims ( ClaimID INT, SubID INT, [Claim Date] DATETIME ); CREATE TABLE Phoneship ( ClaimID INT, [Shipping Number] INT, [Claim Date] DATETIME, [Ship Date] DATETIME, [Returned Date] DATETIME ); CREATE TABLE Enrollment ( SubID INT, Enrollment_Date DATETIME, Channel NVARCHAR(255), Region NVARCHAR(255), Status FLOAT, Drop_Date DATETIME ); INSERT INTO [Phoneship] ([ClaimID], [Shipping Number], [Claim Date], [Ship Date], [Returned Date]) VALUES (102, 201, '2011-10-13 00:00:00', '2011-10-14 00:00:00', NULL); INSERT INTO [Phoneship] ([ClaimID], [Shipping Number], [Claim Date], [Ship Date], [Returned Date]) VALUES (103, 202, '2011-11-02 00:00:00', '2011-11-03 00:00:00', '2011-11-20 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Phoneship] ([ClaimID], [Shipping Number], [Claim Date], [Ship Date], [Returned Date]) VALUES (103, 203, '2011-11-02 00:00:00', '2011-11-22 00:00:00', NULL); INSERT INTO [Phoneship] ([ClaimID], [Shipping Number], [Claim Date], [Ship Date], [Returned Date]) VALUES (105, 204, '2012-01-16 00:00:00', '2012-01-17 00:00:00', NULL); INSERT INTO [Phoneship] ([ClaimID], [Shipping Number], [Claim Date], [Ship Date], [Returned Date]) VALUES (106, 205, '2012-02-15 00:00:00', '2012-02-16 00:00:00', '2012-02-26 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Phoneship] ([ClaimID], [Shipping Number], [Claim Date], [Ship Date], [Returned Date]) VALUES (106, 206, '2012-02-15 00:00:00', '2012-02-27 00:00:00', '2012-03-06 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Phoneship] ([ClaimID], [Shipping Number], [Claim Date], [Ship Date], [Returned Date]) VALUES (107, 207, '2012-03-12 00:00:00', '2012-03-13 00:00:00', NULL); INSERT INTO [Phoneship] ([ClaimID], [Shipping Number], [Claim Date], [Ship Date], [Returned Date]) VALUES (108, 208, '2012-05-11 00:00:00', '2012-05-12 00:00:00', NULL); INSERT INTO [Phoneship] ([ClaimID], [Shipping Number], [Claim Date], [Ship Date], [Returned Date]) VALUES (109, 209, '2012-05-13 00:00:00', '2012-05-14 00:00:00', '2012-05-28 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Phoneship] ([ClaimID], [Shipping Number], [Claim Date], [Ship Date], [Returned Date]) VALUES (109, 210, '2012-05-13 00:00:00', '2012-05-30 00:00:00', NULL); INSERT INTO [Claims] ([ClaimID], [SubID], [Claim Date]) VALUES (101, 12345678, '2011-03-06 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Claims] ([ClaimID], [SubID], [Claim Date]) VALUES (102, 12347190, '2011-10-13 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Claims] ([ClaimID], [SubID], [Claim Date]) VALUES (103, 12348723, '2011-11-02 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Claims] ([ClaimID], [SubID], [Claim Date]) VALUES (104, 12349745, '2011-11-09 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Claims] ([ClaimID], [SubID], [Claim Date]) VALUES (105, 12347190, '2012-01-16 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Claims] ([ClaimID], [SubID], [Claim Date]) VALUES (106, 12349234, '2012-02-15 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Claims] ([ClaimID], [SubID], [Claim Date]) VALUES (107, 12350767, '2012-03-12 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Claims] ([ClaimID], [SubID], [Claim Date]) VALUES (108, 12350256, '2012-05-11 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Claims] ([ClaimID], [SubID], [Claim Date]) VALUES (109, 12347701, '2012-05-13 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Claims] ([ClaimID], [SubID], [Claim Date]) VALUES (110, 12350256, '2012-05-15 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Claims] ([ClaimID], [SubID], [Claim Date]) VALUES (111, 12350767, '2012-06-30 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Enrollment] ([SubID], [Enrollment_Date], [Channel], [Region], [Status], [Drop_Date]) VALUES (12345678, '2011-01-05 00:00:00', 'Retail', 'Southeast', 1, NULL); INSERT INTO [Enrollment] ([SubID], [Enrollment_Date], [Channel], [Region], [Status], [Drop_Date]) VALUES (12346178, '2011-03-13 00:00:00', 'Indirect Dealers', 'West', 1, NULL); INSERT INTO [Enrollment] ([SubID], [Enrollment_Date], [Channel], [Region], [Status], [Drop_Date]) VALUES (12346679, '2011-05-19 00:00:00', 'Indirect Dealers', 'Southeast', 0, '2012-03-15 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Enrollment] ([SubID], [Enrollment_Date], [Channel], [Region], [Status], [Drop_Date]) VALUES (12347190, '2011-07-25 00:00:00', 'Retail', 'Northeast', 0, '2012-05-21 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Enrollment] ([SubID], [Enrollment_Date], [Channel], [Region], [Status], [Drop_Date]) VALUES (12347701, '2011-08-14 00:00:00', 'Indirect Dealers', 'West', 1, NULL); INSERT INTO [Enrollment] ([SubID], [Enrollment_Date], [Channel], [Region], [Status], [Drop_Date]) VALUES (12348212, '2011-09-30 00:00:00', 'Retail', 'West', 1, NULL); INSERT INTO [Enrollment] ([SubID], [Enrollment_Date], [Channel], [Region], [Status], [Drop_Date]) VALUES (12348723, '2011-10-20 00:00:00', 'Retail', 'Southeast', 1, NULL); INSERT INTO [Enrollment] ([SubID], [Enrollment_Date], [Channel], [Region], [Status], [Drop_Date]) VALUES (12349234, '2012-01-06 00:00:00', 'Indirect Dealers', 'West', 0, '2012-02-14 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Enrollment] ([SubID], [Enrollment_Date], [Channel], [Region], [Status], [Drop_Date]) VALUES (12349745, '2012-01-26 00:00:00', 'Retail', 'Northeast', 0, '2012-04-15 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Enrollment] ([SubID], [Enrollment_Date], [Channel], [Region], [Status], [Drop_Date]) VALUES (12350256, '2012-02-11 00:00:00', 'Retail', 'Southeast', 1, NULL); INSERT INTO [Enrollment] ([SubID], [Enrollment_Date], [Channel], [Region], [Status], [Drop_Date]) VALUES (12350767, '2012-03-02 00:00:00', 'Indirect Dealers', 'West', 1, NULL); INSERT INTO [Enrollment] ([SubID], [Enrollment_Date], [Channel], [Region], [Status], [Drop_Date]) VALUES (12351278, '2012-04-18 00:00:00', 'Retail', 'Midwest', 1, NULL); INSERT INTO [Enrollment] ([SubID], [Enrollment_Date], [Channel], [Region], [Status], [Drop_Date]) VALUES (12351789, '2012-05-08 00:00:00', 'Indirect Dealers', 'West', 0, '2012-07-04 00:00:00'); INSERT INTO [Enrollment] ([SubID], [Enrollment_Date], [Channel], [Region], [Status], [Drop_Date]) VALUES (12352300, '2012-06-24 00:00:00', 'Retail', 'Midwest', 1, NULL); INSERT INTO [Enrollment] ([SubID], [Enrollment_Date], [Channel], [Region], [Status], [Drop_Date]) VALUES (12352811, '2012-06-25 00:00:00', 'Retail', 'Southeast', 1, NULL); And Query1 SELECT Count(ClaimID) AS 'Paid Claim', (SELECT Count(ClaimID) FROM dbo.phoneship WHERE [returned date] IS NOT NULL) AS 'Unpaid Claim' FROM dbo.Phoneship WHERE [Returned Date] IS NULL GROUP BY claimid Query2 SELECT Count(*) AS 'Paid Claims', (SELECT Count(*) FROM dbo.Phoneship WHERE [Returned Date] IS NOT NULL) AS 'Unpaid Claims' FROM dbo.Phoneship WHERE [Returned Date] IS NULL; Query3 Select Distinct(C.[Shipping Number]), Count(C.ClaimID) AS 'COUNT ClaimID', A.Region, A.SubID From dbo.HSEnrollment A Inner Join dbo.Claims B On A.SubId = B.SubId Inner Join dbo.Phoneship C On B.ClaimID = C.ClaimID Where C.[Returned Date] IS NULL Group By A.Region, A.Subid, C.ClaimID, C.[Shipping Number] Order By A.Region

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• sqlite ERROR no such column

  - by Richard

  Hi, Does anyone here have some experience with this error? Only If I use the WHERE clause, I get this error. I use php PDO to get the results. And this is my simple table $sql = "CREATE TABLE samenvatting ( stem_id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT, poll_id TEXT, stem_waarde_id TEXT, totaal INTEGER )"; $crud->rawQuery($sql); $poll_id = "somepoll"; $records = $crud->rawSelect('SELECT * FROM samenvatting WHERE poll_id=´.$poll_id); pdo abstract class public function conn() { isset($this->username); isset($this->password); if (!$this->db instanceof PDO) { $this->db = new PDO($this->dsn, $this->username, $this->password); $this->db->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE, PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION); } } public function rawSelect($sql) { $this->conn(); return $this->db->query($sql); } Thanks, Richard

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• How to share WinForms and code between 2 projects

  - by Richard Bysouth

  Hi I have a working Windows Forms app (split into an EXE and a few DLLs). Now I've been asked to look at creating another app (MyAppLite) that has only a very small subset of the functionality. Think of it as similar to MS Word Viewer vs. MS Word. Everything that I need to build MyAppLite is contained in the main solution - essentially I need to use a couple of the WinForms and whatever bits in the DLLs they call into. What would be the best way to do this? I was thinking of creating another Project in my solution for MyAppLite, then adding the necessary source files as links (using Add Existing Item Add As Link in Solution Explorer). I definitely wouldn't want to maintain 2 copies of the source code. FYI it's a .NET 2.0 VB app, using VS2008. thanks Richard

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• appcelerator titanium cannot parse JSON

  - by Richard

  Hi, I'm new to titanium and get difficulty in parsing JSON from mysql export. the json is valid and I feel frustrated with many unsuccessful trials. To simplify the code, I put it below. The code just stop and said: [ERROR] Script Error = Unable to parse JSON string var win = Titanium.UI.currentWindow; var hotdealjson = "{'hotdeal':[{'place':'bangkok','date':'4D3N','cost':'$4999up'},{'place':'tokyo','date':'3D2N','cost':'$3799up'}]}"; //read json var response = JSON.parse(hotdealjson); alert(response.hotdeal.length); Thanks & regards, Richard

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• C# Expression Tree Simple Arithmetic

  - by Richard Adnams

  Hello, I've been trying to figure out how to achieve some simple maths using the Expression class. What I'm trying to do is this (1 + 10 * 15) When I try to do this via Expression.Add and Expression.Constant but the result I get is this ((1 + 10) * 15) Which is not right as it evaluates the 1 + 10 first instead of 10 * 15. Is there a way to combine Expression.Add/Multiply etc.. without it creating the brackets? I assume there is but I just can't find where or how! The test code I have is this var v1 = Expression.Constant(1, typeof(int)); var v2 = Expression.Constant(10, typeof(int)); var v3 = Expression.Constant(15, typeof(int)); var a1 = Expression.Add(v1, v2); var m2 = Expression.Multiply(a1, v3); Thanks for your time, Richard.

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• Is it possible to alter a marked field´s field function with Word 2007 VBA?

  - by Richard

  Hi, i want do the following: In Word 2007 place the Cursor on a field (or mark that field) and call a macro wich edit the field function of that field. (add some string). I´m even grateful for some tipps what term to google. I used the macro recorder and got following: WordBasic.FormatField Field:="CITATION Gro05 \p 9 \l 1031" Thats obvious creats a new field but where to go from here? To get the selected field i thought about something like this: If Selection.Type = WdFieldType Then ... I hope someone give me some hints :) Bye Richard

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• How to see a branch created in master

  - by richard

  Hi, I create a branch in my master repository (192.168.1.2). And in my other computer, I did '$ git pull --rebase ', I see Unpacking objects: 100% (16/16), done. From git+ssh://[email protected]/media/LINUXDATA/mozilla-1.9.1 62d004e..b291703 master -> origin/master * [new branch] improv -> origin/improv But when I do a 'git branch' in my local repository, I see only 1 branch and I did '$ git checkout improv ' $ git branch * master $ git checkout improv error: pathspec 'improv' did not match any file(s) known to git. Did you forget to 'git add'?

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• C# getting version of unmanaged dll

  - by Richard

  I'm calling an unmanaged dll from my managed c# code and wanted to check I'm calling the right version. The code I'm trying to load the assembly (to then get the resource file and then get the version) is: cur_version = Assembly.LoadFile("X:\Workspace\yreceipts_pos\yRprintProcessor\Debug\yRprintProcessor.dll"); It's failing because of this error: The module was expected to contain an assembly manifest. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80131018) Does anyone know how to get around this or have a better way to check the version of an unmanaged dll from managed c# code? Thanks in advance, Richard

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• regular expression search in python

  - by Richard

  Hello all, I am trying to parse some data and just started reading up on regular Expressions so I am pretty new to it. This is the code I have so far String = "MEASUREMENT 3835 303 Oxygen: 235.78 Saturation: 90.51 Temperature: 24.41 DPhase: 33.07 BPhase: 29.56 RPhase: 0.00 BAmp: 368.57 BPot: 18.00 RAmp: 0.00 RawTem.: 68.21" String = String.strip('\t\x11\x13') String = String.split("Oxygen:") print String[1] String[1].lstrip print String[1] What I am trying to do is to do is remove the oxygen data (235.78) and put it in its own variable using an regular expression search. I realize that there should be an easy solution but I am trying to figure out how regular expressions work and they are making my head hurt. Thanks for any help Richard

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• Error in writting a class.

  - by Richard

  I am running through a tutorial online at http://www.sthurlow.com/python/lesson08/ and I believe I understand how classes work in python, at least to some degree but when I run this code: class Shape: def init(self,x,y): self.x = x self.y = y description = "This shape has not been described yet" author = "Nobody has claimed to make this shape yet" def area(self): return self.x * self.y def perimeter(self): return 2 * self.x + 2 * self.y def describe(self,text): self.description = text def authorName(self,text): self.author = text def scaleSize(self,scale): self.x = self.x * scale self.y = self.y * scale I get this error: Traceback (most recent call last): File "Y:/python/Shape.py", line 1, in -toplevel- class Shape: File "Y:/python/Shape.py", line 17, in Shape self.y = self.y * scale NameError: name 'self' is not defined Any Help would be great Thanks Richard

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• WordPress notifier - replicate built-in function whereby if update is available, an icon appears in

  - by Richard Tape

  Hello! First time here, so please be gentle. Does anyone know how to replicate the built-in functionality of WordPress whereby the admin is informed of when updates for plugins are available - i.e. when one (more more) is available, an icon appears over the plugins menu which contains the number of available updates. The plugin that I am writing could really benefit, from a UI perspective, with having a feature very similar to this. Does anyone know if there are any hooks which I can use, or any function which I can call? Any help on this is greatly appreciated! Thank you very much in advance, Richard

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• Calculating the union of 2 longitudal intervals (that may wrap around 180 degrees)

  - by timpatt

  The story: I have a LatLongBounds class that represents an area on the surface of the earth by a latitudinal interval (bounded by north & south - not important to this question) and a longitudinal interval (bounded by east and west; both normalized to a range [-180, 180] - negative being a westerly direction). In order to be able to represent an area that straddles the 180 degree meridian the value of west may be set to be greater than east (eg. the range west = 170, east = -170 will straddle said meridian). In effect the longitudinal interval may wrap around at 180 degrees (or equivalently -180 degrees). My Question: Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can calculate the union of two longitudinal intervals that may wrap around at 180 degrees. Thanks.

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• jquery :not selector not working in next() method

  - by Richard

  what is the next best thing to use when you want to select the next li item, but not the one that has someClassName. The not selector returns an empty array! or is this a case off using filter? <li class="first">pickle</> <li class="someClassName">tomato</li> <li>chicken</> <li>cocosnut</> var current = $('ul.items li.first'); var next = current.next(':not(li.someClassName)'); thanks, Richard

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• Finding a Relative Path in .NET

  - by Rick Strahl

  Here’s a nice and simple path utility that I’ve needed in a number of applications: I need to find a relative path based on a base path. So if I’m working in a folder called c:\temp\templates\ and I want to find a relative path for c:\temp\templates\subdir\test.txt I want to receive back subdir\test.txt. Or if I pass c:\ I want to get back ..\..\ – in other words always return a non-hardcoded path based on some other known directory. I’ve had a routine in my library that does this via some lengthy string parsing routines, but ran into some Uri processing today that made me realize that this code could be greatly simplified by using the System.Uri class instead. Here’s the simple static method: /// <summary> /// Returns a relative path string from a full path based on a base path /// provided. /// </summary> /// <param name="fullPath">The path to convert. Can be either a file or a directory</param> /// <param name="basePath">The base path on which relative processing is based. Should be a directory.</param> /// <returns> /// String of the relative path. /// /// Examples of returned values: /// test.txt, ..\test.txt, ..\..\..\test.txt, ., .., subdir\test.txt /// </returns> public static string GetRelativePath(string fullPath, string basePath ) { // ForceBasePath to a path if (!basePath.EndsWith("\\")) basePath += "\\"; Uri baseUri = new Uri(basePath); Uri fullUri = new Uri(fullPath); Uri relativeUri = baseUri.MakeRelativeUri(fullUri); // Uri's use forward slashes so convert back to backward slashes return relativeUri.ToString().Replace("/", "\\"); } You can then call it like this: string relPath = FileUtils.GetRelativePath("c:\temp\templates","c:\temp\templates\subdir\test.txt") It’s not exactly rocket science but it’s useful in many scenarios where you’re working with files based on an application base directory. Right now I’m working on a templating solution (using the Razor Engine) where templates live in a base directory and are supplied as relative paths to that base directory. Resolving these relative paths both ways is important in order to properly check for existance of files and their change status in this case. Not the kind of thing you use every day, but useful to remember.© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2010Posted in .NET  CSharp  

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• AspNetCompatibility in WCF Services &ndash; easy to trip up

  - by Rick Strahl

  This isn’t the first time I’ve hit this particular wall: I’m creating a WCF REST service for AJAX callbacks and using the WebScriptServiceHostFactory host factory in the service: <%@ ServiceHost Language="C#" Service="WcfAjax.BasicWcfService" CodeBehind="BasicWcfService.cs" Factory="System.ServiceModel.Activation.WebScriptServiceHostFactory" %>   to avoid all configuration. Because of the Factory that creates the ASP.NET Ajax compatible format via the custom factory implementation I can then remove all of the configuration settings that typically get dumped into the web.config file. However, I do want ASP.NET compatibility so I still leave in: <system.serviceModel> <serviceHostingEnvironment aspNetCompatibilityEnabled="true"/> </system.serviceModel> in the web.config file. This option allows you access to the HttpContext.Current object to effectively give you access to most of the standard ASP.NET request and response features. This is not recommended as a primary practice but it can be useful in some scenarios and in backwards compatibility scenerios with ASP.NET AJAX Web Services. Now, here’s where things get funky. Assuming you have the setting in web.config, If you now declare a service like this: [ServiceContract(Namespace = "DevConnections")] #if DEBUG [ServiceBehavior(IncludeExceptionDetailInFaults = true)] #endif public class BasicWcfService (or by using an interface that defines the service contract) you’ll find that the service will not work when an AJAX call is made against it. You’ll get a 500 error and a System.ServiceModel.ServiceActivationException System error. Worse even with the IncludeExceptionDetailInFaults enabled you get absolutely no indication from WCF what the problem is. So what’s the problem?  The issue is that once you specify aspNetCompatibilityEnabled=”true” in the configuration you *have to* specify the AspNetCompatibilityRequirements attribute and one of the modes that enables or at least allows for it. You need either Required or Allow: [AspNetCompatibilityRequirements(RequirementsMode = AspNetCompatibilityRequirementsMode.Required)] without it the service will simply fail without further warning. It will also fail if you set the attribute value to NotAllowed. The following also causes the service to fail as above: [AspNetCompatibilityRequirements(RequirementsMode = AspNetCompatibilityRequirementsMode.NotAllowed)] This is not totally unreasonable but it’s a difficult issue to debug especially since the configuration setting is global – if you have more than one service and one requires traditional ASP.NET access and one doesn’t then both must have the attribute specified. This is one reason why you’d want to avoid using this functionality unless absolutely necessary. WCF REST provides some basic access to some of the HTTP features after all, although what’s there is severely limited. I also wish that ServiceActivation errors would provide more error information. Getting an Activation error without further info on what actually is wrong is pretty worthless especially when it is a technicality like a mismatched configuration/attribute setting like this.© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2010Posted in ASP.NET  WCF  AJAX  

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• SnagIt Live Writer Plug-in updated

  - by Rick Strahl

  I've updated my free SnagIt Live Writer plug-in again as there have been a few issues with the new release of SnagIt 11. It appears that TechSmith has trimmed the COM object and removed a bunch of redundant functionality which has broken the older plug-in. I also updated the layout and added SnagIt's latest icons to the form. Finally I've moved the source code to Github for easier browsing and downloading for anybody interested and easier updating for me. This plug-in is not new - I created it a number of years back, but I use the hell out it both for my blogging and for a few internal apps that with MetaWebLogApi to update online content. The plug-in makes it super easy to add captured image content directly into a post and upload it to the server. What does it do? Once installed the plug-in shows up in the list of plug-ins. When you click it launches a SnagIt Capture Dialog: Typically you set the capture settings once, and then save your settings. After that a single click or ENTER press gets you off capturing. If you choose the Show in SnagIt preview window option, the image you capture is is displayed in the preview editor to mark up images, which is one of SnagIt's great strengths IMHO. The image editor has a bunch of really nice effects for framing and marking up and highlighting of images that is really sweet. Here's a capture from a previous image in the SnagIt editor where I applied the saw tooth cutout effect: Images are saved to disk and can optionally be deleted immediately, since Live Writer creates copies of original images in its own folders before uploading the files. No need to keep the originals around typically. The plug-in works with SnagIt Versions 7 and later. It's a simple thing of course - nothing magic here, but incredibly useful at least to me. If you're using Live Writer and you own a copy of SnagIt do yourself a favor and grab this and install it as a plug-in. Resources: SnagIt Windows Live Writer Plug-in Installer Source Code on GitHub Buy SnagIt© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012 Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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• A Small Utility to Delete Files recursively by Date

  - by Rick Strahl

  It's funny, but for me the following seems to be a recurring theme: Every few months or years I end up with a host of files on my server that need pruning selectively and often under program control. Today I realized that my SQL Server logs on my server were really piling up and nearly ran my backup drive out of drive space. So occasionally I need to check on that server drive and clean out files. Now with a bit of work this can be done with PowerShell or even a complicated DOS batch file, but heck, to me it's always easier to just create a small Console application that handles this sort of thing with a full command line parser and a few extra options, plus in the end I end up with code that I can actually modify and add features to as is invariably the case. No more searching for a script each time :-) So for my typical copy needs the requirements are: Need to recursively delete files Need to be able to specify a filespec (ie. *.bak) Be able to specify a cut off date before which to delete files And it'd be nice to have an option to send files to the Recycle bin just in case for operator error :-)(and yes that came in handy as I blew away my entire database backup folder by accident - oops!) The end result is a small Console file copy utility that I popped up on Github: https://github.com/RickStrahl/DeleteFiles The source code is up there along with the binary file you can just run. Creating DeleteFiles It's pretty easy to create a simple utility like DeleteFiles of course, so I'm not going to spend any talking about how it works. You can check it out in the repository or download and compile it. The nice thing about using a full programming language like C over something like PowerShell or batch file is that you can make short work of the recursive tree walking that's required to make this work. There's very little code, but there's also a very small, self-contained command line parser in there that might be useful that can be plugged into any project - I've been using it quite a bit for just about any Console application I've been building. If you're like me and don't have the patience or the persistence (that funky syntax requires some 'sticking with it' that I simply can't get over) to get into Powershell coding, having an executable file that I can just copy around or keep in my Utility directory is the only way I'll ever get to reuse this functionality without going on a wild search each time :-) Anyway, hope some of you might find this useful. © Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in Windows  CSharp   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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• Oracle Customer Reference Forum – Apex IT – Oracle Sales Cloud

  - by Richard Lefebvre

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Apex IT, an Oracle Platinum Partner, wins Nucleus Research's ROI Award with a 724% return. Learn how you can improve your ROI with Oracle Sales and Marketing Cloud. We are pleased to invite you to a discussion with Apex IT on industry trends, why sales automation is important, the decision making process for choosing Oracle Sales Cloud, and benefits achieved since going live. Apex IT works with clients large and small, assisting them at all stages in the process: organizing ideas and developing strategies, selecting the most appropriate package, implementing it for best results, and keeping systems optimized with long-term support. Please plan to register at least three hours prior to the event taking place in order to participate and get the dial-in information associated in due time. Speakers: Bryan Hinz, Vice President of Business Development, Apex IT (Speaker) Chris Haven, Senior Director Product Management, Oracle (Moderator) Organization Profile: Since 1997, Apex IT has helped public sector, corporate and higher education clients use technology to streamline their processes and increase productivity and profitability. Based on products and best practices from Oracle our experts provide a full range of enterprise solutions including CX/CRM and related applications that support marketing, sales, and service; HR and HR Helpdesk; and Business Intelligence. Our project approach is results-driven and our attitude is people-focused. Industry: Professional Services Products/Services: Oracle Sales Cloud Organization Website: http://apexit.com/ Event Description: In this informal reference call, you will have the opportunity to hear Apex IT discuss industry trends, why sales automation is important, the decision making process for choosing Oracle Sales Cloud, and benefits achieved since going live. The call will open with a brief overview, followed by discussion, and an open question and answer session. Please allow one hour for the call. Why Oracle: Apex IT needed a mobile-enabled sales force automation tool that could promote account collaboration and integrate with Microsoft Outlook. Oracle Sales Cloud met these needs and Apex IT’s requirements for: Improved collaborative selling Improved quality of customer engagement and information Improved business development Improved pipeline management Please plan to register at least three hours prior to the event taking place in order to participate and get the dial-in information associated in due time. After you register your information will be forwarded through an Approval Process. Once your registration request has been validated against the invitation database, you will receive an email confirmation with your registration details as long as there is availability. Please be advised that Apex IT will revise the registrants list and may dismiss registrations as they see fit. Note: To access more information at the corporate site you would need an Oracle.com account. If you do not already have an account, getting one is easy and free. Click on the link and you will be prompted to create an account. After you have created your account, you will be automatically returned to the full page description of this event. Register Now! /* 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-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; 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-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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• Oracle Enhances Oracle Social Cloud with Next-Generation User Experience

  - by Richard Lefebvre

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Today’s enterprise must meet the technology standards of today’s consumer. According to a recent IDG Enterprise report, enterprises that invest in consumerized, easy-to-use technologies experience a 56 percent increase in employee productivity and a 46 percent increase in customer satisfaction. In order to deliver that simple and intuitive experience across even the most advanced social management capabilities, Oracle today introduced Social Station, an innovative new workspace within Oracle Social Cloud’s Social Relationship Management (SRM) platform. With Social Station, users benefit from a personalized and intuitive user experience that helps increase both the productivity and performance of social business practices. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* 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-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* 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-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; 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-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} News Facts Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* 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-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; 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-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Oracle today introduced Social Station, an innovative new workspace within Oracle Social Cloud’s Social Relationship Management (SRM) platform that helps organizations socially enable the way they do business. With an advanced yet intuitive user interface, Social Station delivers a compelling user experience that improves productivity and helps users more easily deliver on social objectives. To help users quickly and easily build out and configure their social workspaces, Social Station provides drag-and-drop capabilities that allow users to personalize their workspace with different social modules. With a new Custom Analytics module that mixes and matches more than 120 metrics with thousands of customizable reporting options, users can customize their view of social data and access constantly refreshed updates that support real-time understanding. One-click sharing capabilities and annotation functionality within the new Custom Analytics module also drives productivity by improving sharing and collaboration across teams, departments, and executives. Multiview layout capabilities further allows visibility into social insights by offering users the flexibility to monitor conversations by network, stream, metric, graph type, date range, and relative time period. Social Station also includes an Enhanced Calendar module that provides a clear visual representation of content, posts, networks, and views, helping users easily and efficiently understand information and toggle between various functions and views. To support different user personas and social business needs, Oracle plans to continue building out Social Station with additional modules, including content curation, influencer engagement, and command center creation. /* 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-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;}

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• Webcast: Attack of the Customers- The rise of the Empowered Consumer

  - by Richard Lefebvre

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Watch Paul Gillin, author of “Attack of the Customers: Why Critics Assault Brands Online and How to Avoid Becoming a Victim,” and Oracle Social Cloud Vice President Erika Brookes, talk about the rise of the empowered consumer. Watch now! /* 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-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";}

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• Whitepaper: The Socially Enabled Enterprise

  - by Richard Lefebvre

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Sharing the results of our new executive study, which explored the opportunities and challenges global organizations are facing in the transition to becoming socially enabled enterprises. Oracle, Leader Networks, and Social Media Today recently conducted an online survey of over 900 Marketing and IT executives to understand how companies are leveraging social technologies and practices throughout their organizations. Read Now! /* 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-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";}

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• Python vs. Perl in ten years time

  - by Richard

  If you were starting learning a new language today, for scripting and doing "various stuff" with it (from making useful programs to it being glue to several command line programs), would you go with Python or Perl (or some third option, although the battle usually comes to these two)? I've never much used dynamic languages at all, having been able to do everything I needed in traditional static ones. Did some scripting in Perl a couple of years ago, but that was more of a momentary fling, than an attempt to learn it well. Now I've some free time, and have decided to go along with one of these two, and play a little with them. I like Perl's syntax, but Python does seem to be taking rather big steps on overtaking that area. What do you think, which one is more worth learning and why? Also, what do you think, what will be Python's future in about 10 years ... will it overtake Perl and other scripting languages's as a dominant tool for that kind of work (I more often than not find it being implemented in various applications I'm using - for internal scripting and automating loading of data and similar operations), or will it find a balance and coexist along others (Perl)? What is its current "momentum" - does it comes by default with Linux distributions, as Perl does, or does it needs to be installed separately every time? Is it a language which can be expected "to just be there"?

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• Are you cashing in on the MVP complimentary subscriptions ?

  - by Tarun Arora

  The two most asked questions in the Microsoft technology communities around the Microsoft MVP program are, 1. How do I become a Microsoft MVP? 2. What benefits do I get as an MVP? The answer to the first question has been well answered here. In this blog post, I’ll try and answer the second question.           Please find a comprehensive list of Not for Resale personal subscriptions of various products that Microsoft MVP’s are eligible for Product Description Details JetBrains Resharper, dotTrace, dotCover & WebStorm  https://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/buy/mvp.html RedGate Sql server development, database administration, .net development, azure development (merged with Cerebrata), mySQL development, Oracle development http://www.red-gate.com/community/mvp-program Pluralsight Pluralsight on demand training http://blog.pluralsight.com/2011/02/28/pluralsight-for-mvp/ Cerebrata Cloud storage studio and Azure Diagnostic Manager (part of redgate now) https://www.cerebrata.com/Offers/mvp.aspx Telerik Telerik Ultimate collection & Telerik TeamPulse http://blogs.telerik.com/blogs/posts/11-03-01/telerik-gift-for-microsoft-mvps.aspx Developer Express DevEx controls http://www.devexpress.com/Home/Community/mvp.xml InnerWorking 600 hours of .net training catalogue http://www.innerworkings.com/mvp Typemock Typemock Isolator, Typemock Isolator for Sharepoint developers, Typemock Isolator for web developers, TestDriven.NET http://www.typemock.com/mvp SpeakFlow A suite of tools for creating, managing, and delivering non-linear presentations http://www.speakflow.com/ TechSmith Camtasia Studio, SnagIt, screen cast http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.html Altova Altova XML spy http://www.altova.com/xml-editor/ Visual SVN VisualSVN Subversion integration plug-in for Visual Studio http://www.visualsvn.com/visualsvn/purchase/mvp/ PreEmptive Solution Professional PreEmptive Analytics, Dotfuscator http://www.preemptive.com/landing/mvp Armadillo Armadillo Adaptive Bug Prevention http://www.armadilloverdrive.com/ IS Decisions NFR license to Userlock, RemoteExec, FileAudit & WinReporter http://www.isdecisions.com/download/mvp-mct-program.htm Idera SQL tools http://www.idera.com/Content/Home.aspx West Wind Help Builder Help builder solution http://www.west-wind.com/weblog/posts/2005/Mar/09/Are-you-a-Microsoft-MVP-Get-a-FREE-copy-of-West-Wind-Html-Help-Builder Bamboo Sharepoint tools http://community.bamboosolutions.com/blogs/partner-advantage-program/archive/2008/08/01/partner-advantage-program-mvp.aspx Nitriq Nitriq code analysis http://blog.nitriq.com/FreeLicensesForMicrosoftMVPs.aspx ByteScout Components, Libraries and Developer Tools http://bytescout.com/buy/purchase_nfr_for_mvp.html YourKit Java and .net Profiler http://yourkit.com/.net/profiler/index.jsp Aspose .NET components http://www.aspose.com/corporate/community/2012_05_08_nfr-licenses-for-community-leaders.aspx Apart from google bing fu; stackoverflow and breathtech were a great help in compiling the above list. If you know of any other benefits, offers or complimentary subscriptions on offer for MVPs not cover in the list above, please add to the comment thread and I’ll have it updated in the list. Enjoy

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• What&rsquo;s New in ASP.NET 4.0 Part Two: WebForms and Visual Studio Enhancements

  - by Rick Strahl

  In the last installment I talked about the core changes in the ASP.NET runtime that I’ve been taking advantage of. In this column, I’ll cover the changes to the Web Forms engine and some of the cool improvements in Visual Studio that make Web and general development easier. WebForms The WebForms engine is the area that has received most significant changes in ASP.NET 4.0. Probably the most widely anticipated features are related to managing page client ids and of ViewState on WebForm pages. Take Control of Your ClientIDs Unique ClientID generation in ASP.NET has been one of the most complained about “features” in ASP.NET. Although there’s a very good technical reason for these unique generated ids - they guarantee unique ids for each and every server control on a page - these unique and generated ids often get in the way of client-side JavaScript development and CSS styling as it’s often inconvenient and fragile to work with the long, generated ClientIDs. In ASP.NET 4.0 you can now specify an explicit client id mode on each control or each naming container parent control to control how client ids are generated. By default, ASP.NET generates mangled client ids for any control contained in a naming container (like a Master Page, or a User Control for example). The key to ClientID management in ASP.NET 4.0 are the new ClientIDMode and ClientIDRowSuffix properties. ClientIDMode supports four different ClientID generation settings shown below. For the following examples, imagine that you have a Textbox control named txtName inside of a master page control container on a WebForms page. <%@Page Language="C#"      MasterPageFile="~/Site.Master"     CodeBehind="WebForm2.aspx.cs"     Inherits="WebApplication1.WebForm2"  %> <asp:Content ID="content"  ContentPlaceHolderID="content"               runat="server"               ClientIDMode="Static" >       <asp:TextBox runat="server" ID="txtName" /> </asp:Content> The four available ClientIDMode values are: AutoID This is the existing behavior in ASP.NET 1.x-3.x where full naming container munging takes place. <input name="ctl00$content$txtName" type="text"        id="ctl00_content_txtName" /> This should be familiar to any ASP.NET developer and results in fairly unpredictable client ids that can easily change if the containership hierarchy changes. For example, removing the master page changes the name in this case, so if you were to move a block of script code that works against the control to a non-Master page, the script code immediately breaks. Static This option is the most deterministic setting that forces the control’s ClientID to use its ID value directly. No naming container naming at all is applied and you end up with clean client ids: <input name="ctl00$content$txtName"         type="text" id="txtName" /> Note that the name property which is used for postback variables to the server still is munged, but the ClientID property is displayed simply as the ID value that you have assigned to the control. This option is what most of us want to use, but you have to be clear on that because it can potentially cause conflicts with other controls on the page. If there are several instances of the same naming container (several instances of the same user control for example) there can easily be a client id naming conflict. Note that if you assign Static to a data-bound control, like a list child control in templates, you do not get unique ids either, so for list controls where you rely on unique id for child controls, you’ll probably want to use Predictable rather than Static. I’ll write more on this a little later when I discuss ClientIDRowSuffix. Predictable The previous two values are pretty self-explanatory. Predictable however, requires some explanation. To me at least it’s not in the least bit predictable. MSDN defines this value as follows: This algorithm is used for controls that are in data-bound controls. The ClientID value is generated by concatenating the ClientID value of the parent naming container with the ID value of the control. If the control is a data-bound control that generates multiple rows, the value of the data field specified in the ClientIDRowSuffix property is added at the end. For the GridView control, multiple data fields can be specified. If the ClientIDRowSuffix property is blank, a sequential number is added at the end instead of a data-field value. Each segment is separated by an underscore character (_). The key that makes this value a bit confusing is that it relies on the parent NamingContainer’s ClientID to build its own ClientID value. This effectively means that the value is not predictable at all but rather very tightly coupled to the parent naming container’s ClientIDMode setting. For my simple textbox example, if the ClientIDMode property of the parent naming container (Page in this case) is set to “Predictable” you’ll get this: <input name="ctl00$content$txtName" type="text"         id="content_txtName" /> which gives an id that based on walking up to the currently active naming container (the MasterPage content container) and starting the id formatting from there downward. Think of this as a semi unique name that’s guaranteed unique only for the naming container. If, on the other hand, the Page is set to “AutoID” you get the following with Predictable on txtName: <input name="ctl00$content$txtName" type="text"         id="ctl00_content_txtName" /> The latter is effectively the same as if you specified AutoID because it inherits the AutoID naming from the Page and Content Master Page control of the page. But again - predictable behavior always depends on the parent naming container and how it generates its id, so the id may not always be exactly the same as the AutoID generated value because somewhere in the NamingContainer chain the ClientIDMode setting may be set to a different value. For example, if you had another naming container in the middle that was set to Static you’d end up effectively with an id that starts with the NamingContainers id rather than the whole ctl000_content munging. The most common use for Predictable is likely to be for data-bound controls, which results in each data bound item getting a unique ClientID. Unfortunately, even here the behavior can be very unpredictable depending on which data-bound control you use - I found significant differences in how template controls in a GridView behave from those that are used in a ListView control. For example, GridView creates clean child ClientIDs, while ListView still has a naming container in the ClientID, presumably because of the template container on which you can’t set ClientIDMode. Predictable is useful, but only if all naming containers down the chain use this setting. Otherwise you’re right back to the munged ids that are pretty unpredictable. Another property, ClientIDRowSuffix, can be used in combination with ClientIDMode of Predictable to force a suffix onto list client controls. For example: <asp:GridView runat="server" ID="gvItems"              AutoGenerateColumns="false"             ClientIDMode="Static"              ClientIDRowSuffix="Id">     <Columns>     <asp:TemplateField>         <ItemTemplate>             <asp:Label runat="server" id="txtName"                        Text='<%# Eval("Name") %>'                   ClientIDMode="Predictable"/>         </ItemTemplate>     </asp:TemplateField>     <asp:TemplateField>         <ItemTemplate>         <asp:Label runat="server" id="txtId"                     Text='<%# Eval("Id") %>'                     ClientIDMode="Predictable" />         </ItemTemplate>     </asp:TemplateField>     </Columns>  </asp:GridView> generates client Ids inside of a column in the master page described earlier: <td>     <span id="txtName_0">Rick</span> </td> where the value after the underscore is the ClientIDRowSuffix field - in this case “Id” of the item data bound to the control. Note that all of the child controls require ClientIDMode=”Predictable” in order for the ClientIDRowSuffix to be applied, and the parent GridView controls need to be set to Static either explicitly or via Naming Container inheritance to give these simple names. It’s a bummer that ClientIDRowSuffix doesn’t work with Static to produce this automatically. Another real problem is that other controls process the ClientIDMode differently. For example, a ListView control processes the Predictable ClientIDMode differently and produces the following with the Static ListView and Predictable child controls: <span id="ctrl0_txtName_0">Rick</span> I couldn’t even figure out a way using ClientIDMode to get a simple ID that also uses a suffix short of falling back to manually generated ids using <%= %> expressions instead. Given the inconsistencies inside of list controls using <%= %>, ids for the ListView might not be a bad idea anyway. Inherit The final setting is Inherit, which is the default for all controls except Page. This means that controls by default inherit the parent naming container’s ClientIDMode setting. For more detailed information on ClientID behavior and different scenarios you can check out a blog post of mine on this subject: http://www.west-wind.com/weblog/posts/54760.aspx. ClientID Enhancements Summary The ClientIDMode property is a welcome addition to ASP.NET 4.0. To me this is probably the most useful WebForms feature as it allows me to generate clean IDs simply by setting ClientIDMode="Static" on either the page or inside of Web.config (in the Pages section) which applies the setting down to the entire page which is my 95% scenario. For the few cases when it matters - for list controls and inside of multi-use user controls or custom server controls) - I can use Predictable or even AutoID to force controls to unique names. For application-level page development, this is easy to accomplish and provides maximum usability for working with client script code against page controls. ViewStateMode Another area of large criticism for WebForms is ViewState. ViewState is used internally by ASP.NET to persist page-level changes to non-postback properties on controls as pages post back to the server. It’s a useful mechanism that works great for the overall mechanics of WebForms, but it can also cause all sorts of overhead for page operation as ViewState can very quickly get out of control and consume huge amounts of bandwidth in your page content. ViewState can also wreak havoc with client-side scripting applications that modify control properties that are tracked by ViewState, which can produce very unpredictable results on a Postback after client-side updates. Over the years in my own development, I’ve often turned off ViewState on pages to reduce overhead. Yes, you lose some functionality, but you can easily implement most of the common functionality in non-ViewState workarounds. Relying less on heavy ViewState controls and sticking with simpler controls or raw HTML constructs avoids getting around ViewState problems. In ASP.NET 3.x and prior, it wasn’t easy to control ViewState - you could turn it on or off and if you turned it off at the page or web.config level, you couldn’t turn it back on for specific controls. In short, it was an all or nothing approach. With ASP.NET 4.0, the new ViewStateMode property gives you more control. It allows you to disable ViewState globally either on the page or web.config level and then turn it back on for specific controls that might need it. ViewStateMode only works when EnableViewState="true" on the page or web.config level (which is the default). You can then use ViewStateMode of Disabled, Enabled or Inherit to control the ViewState settings on the page. If you’re shooting for minimal ViewState usage, the ideal situation is to set ViewStateMode to disabled on the Page or web.config level and only turn it back on particular controls: <%@Page Language="C#"      CodeBehind="WebForm2.aspx.cs"     Inherits="Westwind.WebStore.WebForm2"        ClientIDMode="Static"                ViewStateMode="Disabled"     EnableViewState="true"  %> <!-- this control has viewstate  --> <asp:TextBox runat="server" ID="txtName"  ViewStateMode="Enabled" />       <!-- this control has no viewstate - it inherits  from parent container --> <asp:TextBox runat="server" ID="txtAddress" /> Note that the EnableViewState="true" at the Page level isn’t required since it’s the default, but it’s important that the value is true. ViewStateMode has no effect if EnableViewState="false" at the page level. The main benefit of ViewStateMode is that it allows you to more easily turn off ViewState for most of the page and enable only a few key controls that might need it. For me personally, this is a perfect combination as most of my WebForm apps can get away without any ViewState at all. But some controls - especially third party controls - often don’t work well without ViewState enabled, and now it’s much easier to selectively enable controls rather than the old way, which required you to pretty much turn off ViewState for all controls that you didn’t want ViewState on. Inline HTML Encoding HTML encoding is an important feature to prevent cross-site scripting attacks in data entered by users on your site. In order to make it easier to create HTML encoded content, ASP.NET 4.0 introduces a new Expression syntax using <%: %> to encode string values. The encoding expression syntax looks like this: <%: "<script type='text/javascript'>" +     "alert('Really?');</script>" %> which produces properly encoded HTML: &lt;script type=&#39;text/javascript&#39; &gt;alert(&#39;Really?&#39;);&lt;/script&gt; Effectively this is a shortcut to: <%= HttpUtility.HtmlEncode( "<script type='text/javascript'>" + "alert('Really?');</script>") %> Of course the <%: %> syntax can also evaluate expressions just like <%= %> so the more common scenario applies this expression syntax against data your application is displaying. Here’s an example displaying some data model values: <%: Model.Address.Street %> This snippet shows displaying data from your application’s data store or more importantly, from data entered by users. Anything that makes it easier and less verbose to HtmlEncode text is a welcome addition to avoid potential cross-site scripting attacks. Although I listed Inline HTML Encoding here under WebForms, anything that uses the WebForms rendering engine including ASP.NET MVC, benefits from this feature. ScriptManager Enhancements The ASP.NET ScriptManager control in the past has introduced some nice ways to take programmatic and markup control over script loading, but there were a number of shortcomings in this control. The ASP.NET 4.0 ScriptManager has a number of improvements that make it easier to control script loading and addresses a few of the shortcomings that have often kept me from using the control in favor of manual script loading. The first is the AjaxFrameworkMode property which finally lets you suppress loading the ASP.NET AJAX runtime. Disabled doesn’t load any ASP.NET AJAX libraries, but there’s also an Explicit mode that lets you pick and choose the library pieces individually and reduce the footprint of ASP.NET AJAX script included if you are using the library. There’s also a new EnableCdn property that forces any script that has a new WebResource attribute CdnPath property set to a CDN supplied URL. If the script has this Attribute property set to a non-null/empty value and EnableCdn is enabled on the ScriptManager, that script will be served from the specified CdnPath. [assembly: WebResource(    "Westwind.Web.Resources.ww.jquery.js",    "application/x-javascript",    CdnPath =  "http://mysite.com/scripts/ww.jquery.min.js")] Cool, but a little too static for my taste since this value can’t be changed at runtime to point at a debug script as needed, for example. Assembly names for loading scripts from resources can now be simple names rather than fully qualified assembly names, which make it less verbose to reference scripts from assemblies loaded from your bin folder or the assembly reference area in web.config: <asp:ScriptManager runat="server" id="Id"          EnableCdn="true"         AjaxFrameworkMode="disabled">     <Scripts>         <asp:ScriptReference          Name="Westwind.Web.Resources.ww.jquery.js"         Assembly="Westwind.Web" />     </Scripts>        </asp:ScriptManager> The ScriptManager in 4.0 also supports script combining via the CompositeScript tag, which allows you to very easily combine scripts into a single script resource served via ASP.NET. Even nicer: You can specify the URL that the combined script is served with. Check out the following script manager markup that combines several static file scripts and a script resource into a single ASP.NET served resource from a static URL (allscripts.js): <asp:ScriptManager runat="server" id="Id"          EnableCdn="true"         AjaxFrameworkMode="disabled">     <CompositeScript          Path="~/scripts/allscripts.js">         <Scripts>             <asp:ScriptReference                    Path="~/scripts/jquery.js" />             <asp:ScriptReference                    Path="~/scripts/ww.jquery.js" />             <asp:ScriptReference            Name="Westwind.Web.Resources.editors.js"                 Assembly="Westwind.Web" />         </Scripts>     </CompositeScript> </asp:ScriptManager> When you render this into HTML, you’ll see a single script reference in the page: <script src="scripts/allscripts.debug.js"          type="text/javascript"></script> All you need to do to make this work is ensure that allscripts.js and allscripts.debug.js exist in the scripts folder of your application - they can be empty but the file has to be there. This is pretty cool, but you want to be real careful that you use unique URLs for each combination of scripts you combine or else browser and server caching will easily screw you up royally. The script manager also allows you to override native ASP.NET AJAX scripts now as any script references defined in the Scripts section of the ScriptManager trump internal references. So if you want custom behavior or you want to fix a possible bug in the core libraries that normally are loaded from resources, you can now do this simply by referencing the script resource name in the Name property and pointing at System.Web for the assembly. Not a common scenario, but when you need it, it can come in real handy. Still, there are a number of shortcomings in this control. For one, the ScriptManager and ClientScript APIs still have no common entry point so control developers are still faced with having to check and support both APIs to load scripts so that controls can work on pages that do or don’t have a ScriptManager on the page. The CdnUrl is static and compiled in, which is very restrictive. And finally, there’s still no control over where scripts get loaded on the page - ScriptManager still injects scripts into the middle of the HTML markup rather than in the header or optionally the footer. This, in turn, means there is little control over script loading order, which can be problematic for control developers. MetaDescription, MetaKeywords Page Properties There are also a number of additional Page properties that correspond to some of the other features discussed in this column: ClientIDMode, ClientTarget and ViewStateMode. Another minor but useful feature is that you can now directly access the MetaDescription and MetaKeywords properties on the Page object to set the corresponding meta tags programmatically. Updating these values programmatically previously required either <%= %> expressions in the page markup or dynamic insertion of literal controls into the page. You can now just set these properties programmatically on the Page object in any Control derived class on the page or the Page itself: Page.MetaKeywords = "ASP.NET,4.0,New Features"; Page.MetaDescription = "This article discusses the new features in ASP.NET 4.0"; Note, that there’s no corresponding ASP.NET tag for the HTML Meta element, so the only way to specify these values in markup and access them is via the @Page tag: <%@Page Language="C#"      CodeBehind="WebForm2.aspx.cs"     Inherits="Westwind.WebStore.WebForm2"      ClientIDMode="Static"                MetaDescription="Article that discusses what's                      new in ASP.NET 4.0"     MetaKeywords="ASP.NET,4.0,New Features" %> Nothing earth shattering but quite convenient. Visual Studio 2010 Enhancements for Web Development For Web development there are also a host of editor enhancements in Visual Studio 2010. Some of these are not Web specific but they are useful for Web developers in general. Text Editors Throughout Visual Studio 2010, the text editors have all been updated to a new core engine based on WPF which provides some interesting new features for various code editors including the nice ability to zoom in and out with Ctrl-MouseWheel to quickly change the size of text. There are many more API options to control the editor and although Visual Studio 2010 doesn’t yet use many of these features, we can look forward to enhancements in add-ins and future editor updates from the various language teams that take advantage of the visual richness that WPF provides to editing. On the negative side, I’ve noticed that occasionally the code editor and especially the HTML and JavaScript editors will lose the ability to use various navigation keys like arrows, back and delete keys, which requires closing and reopening the documents at times. This issue seems to be well documented so I suspect this will be addressed soon with a hotfix or within the first service pack. Overall though, the code editors work very well, especially given that they were re-written completely using WPF, which was one of my big worries when I first heard about the complete redesign of the editors. Multi-Targeting Visual Studio now targets all versions of the .NET framework from 2.0 forward. You can use Visual Studio 2010 to work on your ASP.NET 2, 3.0 and 3.5 applications which is a nice way to get your feet wet with the new development environment without having to make changes to existing applications. It’s nice to have one tool to work in for all the different versions. Multi-Monitor Support One cool feature of Visual Studio 2010 is the ability to drag windows out of the Visual Studio environment and out onto the desktop including onto another monitor easily. Since Web development often involves working with a host of designers at the same time - visual designer, HTML markup window, code behind and JavaScript editor - it’s really nice to be able to have a little more screen real estate to work on each of these editors. Microsoft made a welcome change in the environment. IntelliSense Snippets for HTML and JavaScript Editors The HTML and JavaScript editors now finally support IntelliSense scripts to create macro-based template expansions that have been in the core C# and Visual Basic code editors since Visual Studio 2005. Snippets allow you to create short XML-based template definitions that can act as static macros or real templates that can have replaceable values that can be embedded into the expanded text. The XML syntax for these snippets is straight forward and it’s pretty easy to create custom snippets manually. You can easily create snippets using XML and store them in your custom snippets folder (C:\Users\rstrahl\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Code Snippets\Visual Web Developer\My HTML Snippets and My JScript Snippets), but it helps to use one of the third-party tools that exist to simplify the process for you. I use SnippetEditor, by Bill McCarthy, which makes short work of creating snippets interactively (http://snippeteditor.codeplex.com/). Note: You may have to manually add the Visual Studio 2010 User specific Snippet folders to this tool to see existing ones you’ve created. Code snippets are some of the biggest time savers and HTML editing more than anything deals with lots of repetitive tasks that lend themselves to text expansion. Visual Studio 2010 includes a slew of built-in snippets (that you can also customize!) and you can create your own very easily. If you haven’t done so already, I encourage you to spend a little time examining your coding patterns and find the repetitive code that you write and convert it into snippets. I’ve been using CodeRush for this for years, but now you can do much of the basic expansion natively for HTML and JavaScript snippets. jQuery Integration Is Now Native jQuery is a popular JavaScript library and recently Microsoft has recently stated that it will become the primary client-side scripting technology to drive higher level script functionality in various ASP.NET Web projects that Microsoft provides. In Visual Studio 2010, the default full project template includes jQuery as part of a new project including the support files that provide IntelliSense (-vsdoc files). IntelliSense support for jQuery is now also baked into Visual Studio 2010, so unlike Visual Studio 2008 which required a separate download, no further installs are required for a rich IntelliSense experience with jQuery. Summary ASP.NET 4.0 brings many useful improvements to the platform, but thankfully most of the changes are incremental changes that don’t compromise backwards compatibility and they allow developers to ease into the new features one feature at a time. None of the changes in ASP.NET 4.0 or Visual Studio 2010 are monumental or game changers. The bigger features are language and .NET Framework changes that are also optional. This ASP.NET and tools release feels more like fine tuning and getting some long-standing kinks worked out of the platform. It shows that the ASP.NET team is dedicated to paying attention to community feedback and responding with changes to the platform and development environment based on this feedback. If you haven’t gotten your feet wet with ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010, there’s no reason not to give it a shot now - the ASP.NET 4.0 platform is solid and Visual Studio 2010 works very well for a brand new release. Check it out. © Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2010Posted in ASP.NET  

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