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• StreamInsight 2.1, meet LINQ

  - by Roman Schindlauer

  Someone recently called LINQ “magic” in my hearing. I leapt to LINQ’s defense immediately. Turns out some people don’t realize “magic” is can be a pejorative term. I thought LINQ needed demystification. Here’s your best demystification resource: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mattwar/archive/2008/11/18/linq-links.aspx. I won’t repeat much of what Matt Warren says in his excellent series, but will talk about some core ideas and how they affect the 2.1 release of StreamInsight. Let’s tell the story of a LINQ query. Compile time It begins with some code: IQueryable<Product> products = ...; var query = from p in products             where p.Name == "Widget"             select p.ProductID; foreach (int id in query) {     ... When the code is compiled, the C# compiler (among other things) de-sugars the query expression (see C# spec section 7.16): ... var query = products.Where(p => p.Name == "Widget").Select(p => p.ProductID); ... Overload resolution subsequently binds the Queryable.Where<Product> and Queryable.Select<Product, int> extension methods (see C# spec sections 7.5 and 7.6.5). After overload resolution, the compiler knows something interesting about the anonymous functions (lambda syntax) in the de-sugared code: they must be converted to expression trees, i.e.,“an object structure that represents the structure of the anonymous function itself” (see C# spec section 6.5). The conversion is equivalent to the following rewrite: ... var prm1 = Expression.Parameter(typeof(Product), "p"); var prm2 = Expression.Parameter(typeof(Product), "p"); var query = Queryable.Select<Product, int>(     Queryable.Where<Product>(         products,         Expression.Lambda<Func<Product, bool>>(Expression.Property(prm1, "Name"), prm1)),         Expression.Lambda<Func<Product, int>>(Expression.Property(prm2, "ProductID"), prm2)); ... If the “products” expression had type IEnumerable<Product>, the compiler would have chosen the Enumerable.Where and Enumerable.Select extension methods instead, in which case the anonymous functions would have been converted to delegates. At this point, we’ve reduced the LINQ query to familiar code that will compile in C# 2.0. (Note that I’m using C# snippets to illustrate transformations that occur in the compiler, not to suggest a viable compiler design!) Runtime When the above program is executed, the Queryable.Where method is invoked. It takes two arguments. The first is an IQueryable<> instance that exposes an Expression property and a Provider property. The second is an expression tree. The Queryable.Where method implementation looks something like this: public static IQueryable<T> Where<T>(this IQueryable<T> source, Expression<Func<T, bool>> predicate) {     return source.Provider.CreateQuery<T>(     Expression.Call(this method, source.Expression, Expression.Quote(predicate))); } Notice that the method is really just composing a new expression tree that calls itself with arguments derived from the source and predicate arguments. Also notice that the query object returned from the method is associated with the same provider as the source query. By invoking operator methods, we’re constructing an expression tree that describes a query. Interestingly, the compiler and operator methods are colluding to construct a query expression tree. The important takeaway is that expression trees are built in one of two ways: (1) by the compiler when it sees an anonymous function that needs to be converted to an expression tree, and; (2) by a query operator method that constructs a new queryable object with an expression tree rooted in a call to the operator method (self-referential). Next we hit the foreach block. At this point, the power of LINQ queries becomes apparent. The provider is able to determine how the query expression tree is evaluated! The code that began our story was intentionally vague about the definition of the “products” collection. Maybe it is a queryable in-memory collection of products: var products = new[]     { new Product { Name = "Widget", ProductID = 1 } }.AsQueryable(); The in-memory LINQ provider works by rewriting Queryable method calls to Enumerable method calls in the query expression tree. It then compiles the expression tree and evaluates it. It should be mentioned that the provider does not blindly rewrite all Queryable calls. It only rewrites a call when its arguments have been rewritten in a way that introduces a type mismatch, e.g. the first argument to Queryable.Where<Product> being rewritten as an expression of type IEnumerable<Product> from IQueryable<Product>. The type mismatch is triggered initially by a “leaf” expression like the one associated with the AsQueryable query: when the provider recognizes one of its own leaf expressions, it replaces the expression with the original IEnumerable<> constant expression. I like to think of this rewrite process as “type irritation” because the rewritten leaf expression is like a foreign body that triggers an immune response (further rewrites) in the tree. The technique ensures that only those portions of the expression tree constructed by a particular provider are rewritten by that provider: no type irritation, no rewrite. Let’s consider the behavior of an alternative LINQ provider. If “products” is a collection created by a LINQ to SQL provider: var products = new NorthwindDataContext().Products; the provider rewrites the expression tree as a SQL query that is then evaluated by your favorite RDBMS. The predicate may ultimately be evaluated using an index! In this example, the expression associated with the Products property is the “leaf” expression. StreamInsight 2.1 For the in-memory LINQ to Objects provider, a leaf is an in-memory collection. For LINQ to SQL, a leaf is a table or view. When defining a “process” in StreamInsight 2.1, what is a leaf? To StreamInsight a leaf is logic: an adapter, a sequence, or even a query targeting an entirely different LINQ provider! How do we represent the logic? Remember that a standing query may outlive the client that provisioned it. A reference to a sequence object in the client application is therefore not terribly useful. But if we instead represent the code constructing the sequence as an expression, we can host the sequence in the server: using (var server = Server.Connect(...)) {     var app = server.Applications["my application"];     var source = app.DefineObservable(() => Observable.Range(0, 10, Scheduler.NewThread));     var query = from i in source where i % 2 == 0 select i; } Example 1: defining a source and composing a query Let’s look in more detail at what’s happening in example 1. We first connect to the remote server and retrieve an existing app. Next, we define a simple Reactive sequence using the Observable.Range method. Notice that the call to the Range method is in the body of an anonymous function. This is important because it means the source sequence definition is in the form of an expression, rather than simply an opaque reference to an IObservable<int> object. The variation in Example 2 fails. Although it looks similar, the sequence is now a reference to an in-memory observable collection: var local = Observable.Range(0, 10, Scheduler.NewThread); var source = app.DefineObservable(() => local); // can’t serialize ‘local’! Example 2: error referencing unserializable local object The Define* methods support definitions of operator tree leaves that target the StreamInsight server. These methods all have the same basic structure. The definition argument is a lambda expression taking between 0 and 16 arguments and returning a source or sink. The method returns a proxy for the source or sink that can then be used for the usual style of LINQ query composition. The “define” methods exploit the compile-time C# feature that converts anonymous functions into translatable expression trees! Query composition exploits the runtime pattern that allows expression trees to be constructed by operators taking queryable and expression (Expression<>) arguments. The practical upshot: once you’ve Defined a source, you can compose LINQ queries in the familiar way using query expressions and operator combinators. Notably, queries can be composed using pull-sequences (LINQ to Objects IQueryable<> inputs), push sequences (Reactive IQbservable<> inputs), and temporal sequences (StreamInsight IQStreamable<> inputs). You can even construct processes that span these three domains using “bridge” method overloads (ToEnumerable, ToObservable and To*Streamable). Finally, the targeted rewrite via type irritation pattern is used to ensure that StreamInsight computations can leverage other LINQ providers as well. Consider the following example (this example depends on Interactive Extensions): var source = app.DefineEnumerable((int id) =>     EnumerableEx.Using(() =>         new NorthwindDataContext(), context =>             from p in context.Products             where p.ProductID == id             select p.ProductName)); Within the definition, StreamInsight has no reason to suspect that it ‘owns’ the Queryable.Where and Queryable.Select calls, and it can therefore defer to LINQ to SQL! Let’s use this source in the context of a StreamInsight process: var sink = app.DefineObserver(() => Observer.Create<string>(Console.WriteLine)); var query = from name in source(1).ToObservable()             where name == "Widget"             select name; using (query.Bind(sink).Run("process")) {     ... } When we run the binding, the source portion which filters on product ID and projects the product name is evaluated by SQL Server. Outside of the definition, responsibility for evaluation shifts to the StreamInsight server where we create a bridge to the Reactive Framework (using ToObservable) and evaluate an additional predicate. It’s incredibly easy to define computations that span multiple domains using these new features in StreamInsight 2.1! Regards, The StreamInsight Team

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• Configuring Team Foundation Server Basic on Home Server.

  - by Enrique Lima

  For the installation I selected only the Team Foundation Server role. Then, I opened the Team Foundation Server Administration Console (which I think is a great addition and improvement over the way TFS was configured in the past) to proceed with the configuration of the pieces. Once I selected the Configure Installed Features, the Configuration Center opened up. Now, the choices … In my implementation here I just want to take advantage of Source Control primarily.  I want to be able to store my code and projects.  So, Basic it is! So, the Basic Configuration Wizard opens up.  Now the options to configure are very limited, but we have to provide details for the SQL Server Instance. And now, to select Install SQL Server express.  If you want to take advantage of another system in your environment to host your database, well you could Use an existing SQL Server Instance. Once it has the details it needs, you get a Summary view to confirm your choices. Once, you click next or verify, it runs readiness checks on your system to make sure the installation will have a successful pass.  And we love GREEN! Now, since got the green flag, our next stop is to let the wizard do its magic, click on Configure.  And once again, we love GREEN! We click Next, and … We like a big Green Success sign … We close the Configuration Center … First results … Web Access …  Nothing to show … but we are there! And all this running from a Microsoft Home Server installation.

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• SOA Composite Sensors : Good Practice

  - by angelo.santagata

  I was discussing a interesting design problem with a colleague of mine Niall (his blog) on the topic of how to cancel an inflight SOA Composite process.  Obviously one way to do this is to cancel the process from enterprise Manager ( http://hostort/em ) , however we were thinking this isnt a “user friendly” way of doing this.. If you look at Nialls blog you’ll see he’s highlighted a number of different APIs which enable you the ability to manipulate the SCA instance, e.g. Code Snippet to purge (delete) an instance How to determine the instanceId from a composite_sensor_value using the “composite_sensor_value” table How to determine a BPEL Process status using the cube_instance table   Now all of these require that you know the instanceId of your SOA Composite, how does one find this out? Well the easiest way of doing this is to create a composite sensor on the SCA component. A composite sensor is simply a way of publishing a piece of business data as part of your composite. The magic here is that you can later query composites based on this value. So a good best practice is that for any composites you create consider publishing a composite sensor value using a primary key of some sort , e.g. orderId, that way if you need to manipulate/query composites you can easily look up the instanceId using the sensorid.   For information on how to create a composite Sensor id see this documentation link  

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• Remote Access to Owncloud Server

  - by John

  I'm currently trying to setup my own own-cloud server, and I've got it fully installed, configured, and accessible from within my own local network. I cannot figure out how to access it from the outside. So far I've: Successfully setup port-forwarding on my local router. I've done so via 'single port forwarding' and 'port range forwarding' Ports 80, 443, 3306 (Apache-Full and MySQL) Successfully obtained my external IP address. I've also tested this magic number from within the network at #insertIPhere/owncloud and it did work. Successfully setup the server using SQLite Successfully setup the server using MySQL Created the following exceptions in my firewall: Allow In Port 80 (Apache Full) Allow In Port 443 (Apache Full) Allow In Port 3306 (MySQL) Tried connecting from several different remote networks, as to troubleshoot something on their end As far as trying to access it, I'm doing so through Google-Chrome and Mozilla Firefox trying to reach the server through #insertIPhere/owncloud using the above public IP address. So what have I missed, and how do I access my server from outside? Thanks in advance for your help and time, and I apologize in advance for what will probably result in my noobish mistake in networking. I've looked at the official documentation. And also this question here.

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• Do you think Scala will be the dominant JVM langauge, ie be the next Java? [on hold]

  - by user1037729

  From what I've read about Scala do far I think it has some nice features but I do not think it should be "the next Java". It might however end up being the next Java (due to fashion rather than fact) but lets not hope it does not... To me adds a lot of complexity over Java which is a simple and scalable language. Scala Pattern matching allows you to perform some type/value checking in a more concise way, this is possible in Java, Scala's pattern matching has a limit to it, you cannot continuously match deeper and deeper down the object graph, so why not just stick to Java and use decent invariants? Scala provides tuples, easy enough to make in Java, create a static factory method and it all reads nicely too. Scala provides mixins, why not just use composition? I believe Scala implicit's are bad, they can lead to code becoming complex and hard to maintain, explicitness is good. Scala provides closures, well they will be in Java 8 too. Scala has lazy keyword for lazy instantiation, this is easy enough to do in Java by calling a getter which creates the instance when needed, no hidden magic here. Scala can be used with AKKA, well so can Java, there is an Java AKKA implementation. Scala offers addition functional features but these can all be created in Java, there are many frameworks with have implemented functional features in Java. All in all Scala seems to offer is addition complexity and thats it...

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• Using mod_speling with multi-level htaccess and rewriterules

  - by michaelcgorman

  We recently switched formats for managing our 301s. For the most part, everything went well, but it seems to have stopped mod_speling from working properly. Here's what we changed: old /var/www/html/.htaccess: RewriteEngine on RewriteBase / # Change SHTML to HTML RewriteRule ^(.*)\.shtml$ $1.html [R=permanent,L] # Change PCF to HTML ('cause, you know, we probably have CMS users like that...) RewriteRule ^(.*)\.pcf$ $1.html [R=permanent,L] # Force WWW subdomain for all requests RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.example.edu$ [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.edu/$1 [R,L] # User accounts are on sun.example.edu RedirectMatch ^/~(.*)$ http://sun.example.edu/~$1 # Remove index.html at the end of URLs RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^(.*/)index\.html$ [NC] RewriteRule . %1 [R=301,NE,L] Redirect 301 /academics/calendar2012-13.html http://www.example.edu/academics/calendar.html Redirect 301 /academics/departments/ http://www.example.edu/majors/ Redirect 301 /academics/Pre-Medical.pdf http://www.example.edu/academics/Pre-Medicine.pdf Redirect 301 ... new /var/www/html/.htaccess: RewriteEngine on RewriteBase / # Change SHTML to HTML RewriteRule ^(.*)\.shtml$ $1.html [R=permanent,L] # Change PCF to HTML ('cause, you know, we probably have CMS users like that...) RewriteRule ^(.*)\.pcf$ $1.html [R=permanent,L] # Force WWW subdomain for all requests RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.example.edu$ [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.edu/$1 [R,L] # User accounts are on sun.example.edu RedirectMatch ^/~(.*)$ http://sun.example.edu/~$1 # Remove index.html at the end of URLs RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^(.*/)index\.html$ [NC] RewriteRule . %1 [R=301,NE,L] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d RewriteRule ^(.*) 404/$1 And then we added a new file at /var/www/html/404/.htaccess: RewriteEngine on RewriteBase /404 RewriteRule ^academics/calendar2012-13.html$ /academics/calendar.html [R=302,L] RewriteRule ^academics/departments/$ /majors/ [R=301,L] RewriteRule ^academics/Pre-Medical.pdf$ /academics/Pre-Medicine.pdf[R=301,L] RewriteRule ... I do have (Webmin-based) access to the httpd.conf (though we don't want to store all our 301s there, if possible). We're running Apache 2.2.15 on RHEL 6 on a server in our own data center. Like I said, the only problem we're seeing is that mod_speling isn't doing its magic anymore. The new format has so many advantages over the old that we really don't want to go back, but mod_speling is so nice to have that we'd also really like it to work if possible. Any ideas for how we might be able to fix mod_speling?

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• Should I build a multi-threaded system that handles events from a game and sorts them, independently, into different threads based on priority?

  - by JonathonG

  Can I build a multi-threaded system that handles events from a game and sorts them, independently, into different threads based on priority, and is it a good idea? Here's more info: I am about to begin work on porting a mid-sized game from Flash/AS3 to Java so that I can continue development with multi-threading capabilities. Here's a small bit of background about the game: The game contains numerous asynchronous activities, such as "world updating" (the game environment is constantly changing based on a set of natural laws and forces), procedural generation of terrain, NPCs, quests, items, etc., and on top of that, the effects of all of the player's interactions with his environment are programmatically calculated in real time, based on a set of constantly changing "stats" and once again, natural laws and forces. All of these things going on at once, in an asynchronous manner, seem to lend themselves to multi-threading very well. My question is: Can I build some kind of central engine that handles the "stacking" of all of these events as they are triggered, and dynamically sorts them out amongst the available threads, and would it be a good idea? As an example: Essentially, every time something happens (IE, a magic missile being generated by a spell, or a bunch of plants need to grow to their next stage), instead of just processing that task right then and adding the new object(s) to a list of managed objects, send a reference to that event to a core "event handler" that throws it into a stack of all other currently queued events, which then sorts them out and orders them according to urgency, splits them between a number of available threads for as-fast-as-possible multithreaded execution.

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• Dreaded SQLs

  - by lavanyadeepak

  Dreaded SQLs We used to think that a SQL statement without a where clause is only dangerous right since running that on a server TSQL is just going to impact the entire table like waving the magic wand. For that reason we should cultivate the habit first to write the statement as select and then to modify the select portion as update. Within the T-SQL Window, I would normally prefer the following first: select * from employee where empid in (4,5) and then once I am satisfied with the results, I would go ahead with the following change: --select * delete from employee where empid in (4,5) Today I just discovered another coding horror. This would typically be applicable in a stored procedure and with respect to variable nomenclature. It is always desirable to have a suitable nomenclature for parameters distinct from the column names and internal variables. This would help quicker debugging of the stored procedures besides enhancing the readability. Else in a quick bout of enthusiasm a statement like   if (@CustomerID = @CustomerID) [when the latter is intended to denote the column name and there is a superflous @ prepended], zeroing in on the problem would be little tricky. Had there been a still powerful nomenclature rules then debugging would have been more straight-forward and simpler right?

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• Oracle Customer Experience (CX) Solutions Make Retailers Merry

  - by Tuula Fai

  Tis the season to be jolly. If you’re a retailer, your level of jolliness depends on sales. So you watch trends like U.S. store traffic increasing 3.5% to 308 million on Black Friday but sales actually falling 1.8% to $11.2 billion. Fortunately, by the end of November, retail sales were up 3.7% over the previous year, thanks to life recovering after Hurricane Sandy. And online sales topped $1 billion for the first time ever! Who are the companies improving their sales online? They are big names like Walgreen’s Drugstore.com, Nordstrom’s HauteLook, and Intuit. More importantly, how are they doing it? They use cutting-edge business practices enabled by Oracle’s CX Cloud Service & Support solutions to: Increase conversions rates and order sizes (Customer Acquisition) Enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty (Customer Retention) Reduce contact center costs and improve agent productivity (Operational Efficiency). Acquisition + Retention + Operational Efficiency = Sustainable Growth and Profits. That’s the magic formula for retail customer service success. Don’t take our word for it. Look at the results of these Oracle customers: Walgreen’s Drugstore—30% sales conversion rate on chat sessions with 20% increase in shopping cart size Nordstrom’s HauteLook—40,000+ interactions per month—20% growth over last year— efficiently managed by 40 agents, with no increase in IT costs Intuit—50% increase in customer satisfaction and 70% decrease in cost per interaction Using Oracle’s CX Cloud & Service solutions, these retailers deliver consistent, relevant, and personalized experiences across all touchpoints, including social, mobile, and web. Their ability to connect with customers anytime, anywhere—providing the right answer at the right time—helps them create a defensible advantage in the marketplace. Want to learn more? Please visit http://www.oracle.com/goto/cloudlaunchpad for free resources on delivering exceptional customer service in the Cloud. Also, watch our YouTube channel to learn more about seamless multichannel retail and Winston Furnishings’ exceptional customer experience.

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• Weekend Project: Build a Fireball Launcher

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  What’s more fun than playing with fire? Shooting it from your hands. Put on your robe and wizard hat, make a stop at the hardware store, and spend the weekend trying to convince your friends you’ve acquired supernatural powers. Over at MAKE Magazine, Joel Johnson explains the impetus for his project: A stalwart of close-quarter magicians for years, the electronic flash gun is a simple device: a battery-powered, hand-held ignitor that uses a “glo-plug” to light a bit of flash paper and cotton, shooting a fireball a few feet into the air. You can buy one from most magic shops for around $50, but if you build one on your own, you’ll not only save a few bucks, you’ll also learn how easy it is to add fire effects to almost any electronics project. (And what gadget couldn’t stand a little more spurting flame?) The parts list is minimal but the end effect is pretty fantastic. Hit up the link below for the full build guide, plenty of warnings, and a weekend project that’s sure to impress. How to Own Your Own Website (Even If You Can’t Build One) Pt 3 How to Sync Your Media Across Your Entire House with XBMC How to Own Your Own Website (Even If You Can’t Build One) Pt 2

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• Microsoft is Top Pick for ALM

  - by Arkham

  Investigating the market for a new software product can be a daunting task. Sometimes it’s difficult to even uncover all of the players. There’s no shortage of rhetoric on each vendor’s web site, but how can today’s CTO get objective information about how a software package ranks against it’s peers in a given space? Every year, Gartner releases what they call a Magic Quadrant report evaluating various products in a given space. This past week, Gartner released their analysis of products in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) arena. It is very exciting to see us in the top spot as a thought leader and for our ability to execute. If you are interested in ALM, you can read through an entire reprint of the report here. There’s plenty of new competitors listed and some of the existing competitors have shifted quite a bit. And this comes prior to the release of Team Foundation Server 2012! I suppose with all of the new features in 2012, they could just add another square to the upper-right. It’s beyond awesome! It’s be-awesome!

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• eSTEP Newsletter November 2011 now available

  - by uwes

  Dear Partners,We would like to inform you that the November issue of our Newsletter is now available.The issue contains informations to the following topics:Notes from Corporate: Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Application Servers, Oracle Buys RightNow Technical Corner: Oracle Solaris 11 – The First Cloud OS, Oracle Solaris 10 8/11 now available, New RAC/Containers certifications, DTrace and Container for Oracle Linux, Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center released, News from the Oracle Solaris Cluster, SPARC - New roadmap, T-Series Benchmarks Learning & Events: eSTEP Events Schedule, Recently Delivered TechCasts, Delivered Campaigns in 2011 How to ...: About Oracle Solaris Containers, Detailed feature comparison between the different versions of database 11g, Upgrade Advantage Program + table with examples, Sun Software Name ===> New Oracle Name, Oracle Linux and OVM Certification Search, TO YOUR ATTENTION - Repricing Servers and Xoptions You find the Newsletter on our portal under eSTEP News ---> Latest Newsletter. You will need to provide your email address and the pin below to get access. Link to the portal is shown below.URL: http://launch.oracle.com/PIN: eSTEP_2011Previous published Newsletters can be found under the Archived Newsletters section and more useful information under the Events, Download and Links tab. Feel free to explore and any feedback is appreciated to help us improve the service and information we deliver.Thanks and best regards,Partner HW Enablement EMEA

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• Access Control Service: Walkthrough Videos of Web Application, SOAP, REST and Silverlight Integration

  - by Your DisplayName here!

  Over the weekend I worked a little more on my ACS2 sample. Instead of writing it all down, I decided to quickly record four short videos that cover the relevant features and code. Have fun ;) Part 1 – Overview This video does a quick walkthrough of the solution and shows the web application part. This includes driving the sign in UI via JavaScript (thanks Matias) as well as the registration logic I wrote about here. watch Part 2 – SOAP Service and Client The sample app also exposes a WCF SOAP service. This video shows how to wire up the service to ACS and hows how to create a client that first requests a token from an IdP and then sends this token to ACS. watch Part 3 – REST Service and Client This part shows how to set up a WCF REST service that consumes SWT tokens from ACS. Unfortunately there is currently no standard WIF plumbing for REST. For the service integration I had to combine a lot of code from different sources (kzu, zulfiq) as well as the WIF SDK and OAuth CTPs together. But it is working. watch Part 4 – Silverlight and Web Identity Integration This part took by far the most time to write. The Silverlight Client shows ho to sign in to the application using a registered identity provider (including web identities) and using the resulting SWT token to call our REST service. This is designed to be a desktop (OOB) client application (thanks to Jörg for the UI magic). watch code download

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• Velvet screen after grub selection

  - by Spleen

  After a fresh install of Ubuntu 11.10 64-bit, the boot seems to stop after selecting the ubuntu option (same with the rescue one) in the grub menu. At first I thought this was related to grub-efi, as I've had similar problems after a Ubuntu 11.04 update which replaced grub-efi with grub-pc and got me stuck on a "elf magic" grub console (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/apt/+bug/800910). While the 11.04 problem was resolved with a simple chroot and apt-get install from the live cd, that solution doesn't work this time. The drive with the bootloader is a sata3 ssd with 64 gb gpt (sdb1 20 mb efi boot partition fat16, sdb2 60 gb root ext4 and sdb3 4 gb swap) on a msi e350ia-e45 mainboard with a pair of 2 TB ext4 mbr drives for photos/music/movies. I've tried a few grub-install/update-grub with boot-directory sdb1 from chroot, but I cant seem to go anywhere. Even this guide: http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Grub2#EFI (ofc I replaced grub2 with grub in the grub-install and efibootmgr commands) doesnt seem to get me anywhere. Any help or ideas are appeciated ;) edit: I guess its the combination of gpt/uefi that also seems to haunt f16 edit: same with 12.04 beta btw

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• Are small amounts of functional programming understandable by non-FP people?

  - by kd35a

  Case: I'm working at a company, writing an application in Python that is handling a lot of data in arrays. I'm the only developer of this program at the moment, but it will probably be used/modified/extended in the future (1-3 years) by some other programmer, at this moment unknown to me. I will probably not be there directly to help then, but maybe give some support via email if I have time for it. So, as a developer who has learned functional programming (Haskell), I tend to solve, for example, filtering like this: filtered = filter(lambda item: included(item.time, dur), measures) The rest of the code is OO, it's just some small cases where I want to solve it like this, because it is much simpler and more beautiful according to me. Question: Is it OK today to write code like this? How does a developer that hasn't written/learned FP react to code like this? Is it readable? Modifiable? Should I write documentation like explaining to a child what the line does? # Filter out the items from measures for which included(item.time, dur) != True I have asked my boss, and he just says "FP is black magic, but if it works and is the most efficient solution, then it's OK to use it." What is your opinion on this? As a non-FP programmer, how do you react to the code? Is the code "googable" so you can understand what it does? I would love feedback on this :) Edit: I marked phant0m's post as answer, because he gives good advice on how to write the code in a more readable way, and still keep the advantages. But I would also like to recommend superM's post because of his viewpoint as a non-FP programmer.

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• Influence Maps for Pathfinding?

  - by james

  I'm taking the plunge and am getting into game dev, it's been going well but I've got stuck on a problem. I have a maze that is 100x100 with 0,1 to indicate if its a path or a wall. Within the maze I have 300 or so enemies and a player. The outcome I'm looking for is all the enemies work their way towards the player position. Originally I did this using an A* path finding algorithm but with 300 enemies it was taking forever to path find each one individually. After some research I found that an influence map / collaborative diffusion would be the best way to go. But I'm having a real hard time working out how this is actually done. Firstly.. How do you create a influence map? From what I understand each of my walls with have a scent of 0 so that makes them impassable.. then basically a radial effect from my player position to each other cell (So my player starts at 100 and then going outwards from that each other cell will be reduced value) Is that correct? If so,.. How would you do that (Math magic?) My next problem is if that is correct how would my "enemies" stop from getting stuck if they have gone down the wrong way? As say if my player was standing on the otherside of a wall if the enemy is just looking for larger numbers wont it keep getting stuck? I'm doing this in JavaScript so performance is key. Thanks for any help! EDIT: Or if anyones got a better solution? I've been reading about navmeshs, steering pathing, pre calculating all paths on load etc etc

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• Oracle Transportation Management (Lead) Functional Consultant in Germany

  - by user769227

  My name is Giovanni and I lead the practice of OTM (Oracle Transportation Management) consultants in Western Europe. I currently have a role open for an OTM Lead Consultant to join my international team in Germany. Oracle Transportation Management is the leading TMS application software in the market, as confirmed by Gartner’s classification as LEADER of its TMS Magic Quadrant with the highest rating among vendors. The OTM Consulting practice is a team of OTM functional and technical specialists located across Europe whose broad objective is to assist companies in the implementation of their TMS solution based on OTM. These companies are leading Shippers of various industries and Logistic Service Providers. Key requirements for this role are: relevant experience with Supply Chain or Transportation Management in other consulting organizations or large enterprises, the drive to learn the leading TMS application software in today’s market and the interest to join a truly international team. We offer the opportunity to work for a leader of the IT Industry and assist international clients to realize their business transformation initiatives through innovation. If you have an entrepreneurial spirit, and are you looking for a work culture where innovation is the goal, hard work is expected, and creativity is rewarded then please visit this link for more information.

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• I don't understand how TDD helps me get a good design if I need a design to start testing it

  - by Michael Stum

  I'm trying to wrap my head around TDD, specifically the development part. I've looked at some books, but the ones I found mainly tackle the testing part - the History of NUnit, why testing is good, Red/Green/Refactor and how to create a String Calculator. Good stuff, but that's "just" Unit Testing, not TDD. Specifically, I don't understand how TDD helps me get a good design if I need a Design to start testing it. To illustrate, imagine these 3 requirements: A catalog needs to have a list of products The catalog should remember which products a user viewed Users should be able to search for a product At this points, many books pull a magic rabbit out of a hat and just dive into "Testing the ProductService", but they don't explain how they came to the conclusion that there is a ProductService in the first place. That is the "Development" part in TDD that I'm trying to understand. There needs to be an existing design, but stuff outside of entity-services (that is: There is a Product, so there should be a ProductService) is nowhere to be found (e.g., the second requirement requires me to have some concept of a User, but where would I put the functionality to remind? And is Search a feature of the ProductService or a separate SearchService? How would I know which I should choose?) According to SOLID, I would need a UserService, but if I design a system without TDD, I might end up with a whole bunch of Single-Method Services. Isn't TDD intended to make me discover my design in the first place? I'm a .net developer, but Java resources would also work. I feel that there doesn't seem to be a real sample application or book that deals with a real line of business application. Can someone provide a clear example that illustrates the process of creating a design using TDD?

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• How to build a good service layer in ASP.NET?

  - by Swippen

  I have looked through some questions, technologies for building a good service layer but I have some questions regarding this that I need help with. First some information of what I have for requirements. We currently have a number of web applications that talk to each other in a spiderweb looking way (all talking to each other in a confusing way via webservices and database data). We want to change this so that all applications go through a service layer where we can work more with cache and encapsulate common functionality and more. We want this layer to also have a Web API so that 3rd party clients can consume information from the service. The problem I see is that if we build the service layer with say MVC4 Web API don't we need to communicate between the application using the webAPI meaning we have to construct URLs and consume JSON/Xml. That does not sound too effective. I assume a better method would be working with entities and WCF to communicate between the application but then we might loose the Web API magic? So the question is if there is a way to consume a service layer as both a Web API (JSON/XML) and as a more backend service layer with entities. If we are forced to use 2 different service layers we might have to duplicate some functionality and other bad things. Hope the question is clear enough and please ask if you need any more information.

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• High-level strategy for distinguishing a regular string from invalid JSON (ie. JSON-like string detection)

  - by Jonline

  Disclaimer On Absence of Code: I have no code to post because I haven't started writing; was looking for more theoretical guidance as I doubt I'll have trouble coding it but am pretty befuddled on what approach(es) would yield best results. I'm not seeking any code, either, though; just direction. Dilemma I'm toying with adding a "magic method"-style feature to a UI I'm building for a client, and it would require intelligently detecting whether or not a string was meant to be JSON as against a simple string. I had considered these general ideas: Look for a sort of arbitrarily-determined acceptable ratio of the frequency of JSON-like syntax (ie. regex to find strings separated by colons; look for colons between curly-braces, etc.) to the number of quote-encapsulated strings + nulls, bools and ints/floats. But the smaller the data set, the more fickle this would get look for key identifiers like opening and closing curly braces... not sure if there even are more easy identifiers, and this doesn't appeal anyway because it's so prescriptive about the kinds of mistakes it could find try incrementally parsing chunks, as those between curly braces, and seeing what proportion of these fractional statements turn out to be valid JSON; this seems like it would suffer less than (1) from smaller datasets, but would probably be much more processing-intensive, and very susceptible to a missing or inverted brace Just curious if the computational folks or algorithm pros out there had any approaches in mind that my semantics-oriented brain might have missed. PS: It occurs to me that natural language processing, about which I am totally ignorant, might be a cool approach; but, if NLP is a good strategy here, it sort of doesn't matter because I have zero experience with it and don't have time to learn & then implement/ this feature isn't worth it to the client.

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• How do I get my Intel HD graphics to work alongside my HD7850, as my second(HDMI out) monitor?

  - by AlexTes

  Title says it all. Further info: Motherboard: http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z77%20Pro3/ Processor: http://ark.intel.com/products/65520/Intel-Core-i5-3570K-Processor-%286M-Cache-up-to-3_80-GHz%29 So currently my main screen is running on my HD7850. Got drivers from the amd website. I have looked through dozens of questions here. I'm about to try booting Ubuntu from a stick and seeing if the xorg-edgers drivers might help. When booting, all action goes down on the very screen I'm trying to get to work.*EDIT never mind this. Seems to be special boot magic. As the screen only displays whiteline errors once the gui of ubuntu has kicked in and everything graphic is happening through my graphics card again. Connected through HDMI(motherboard)-DVI. So unless having multiple displays is a huge deal the solution hopefully isn't that complicated. I just feel I'm missing something simple. If this really is complicated, I should probably just hook up the display to my graphics card. My CPU is usually the one chilling out though so I'd like to try to get that to work. Also just because I don't want to buy an extra cable and this set up makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. Tell me what to try or look up, I'll be most appreciative. Thank you! **UPDATE The x-swat ppa installed some intel stuff. Booting with one monitor plugged into the motherboard gives nothing. Doing it with the pc already on gives the purple "Ubuntu" with 5 dots boot/shutdown screen.

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• An Introduction to jQuery Templates

  - by Stephen Walther

  The goal of this blog entry is to provide you with enough information to start working with jQuery Templates. jQuery Templates enable you to display and manipulate data in the browser. For example, you can use jQuery Templates to format and display a set of database records that you have retrieved with an Ajax call. jQuery Templates supports a number of powerful features such as template tags, template composition, and wrapped templates. I’ll concentrate on the features that I think that you will find most useful. In order to focus on the jQuery Templates feature itself, this blog entry is server technology agnostic. All the samples use HTML pages instead of ASP.NET pages. In a future blog entry, I’ll focus on using jQuery Templates with ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC (You can do some pretty powerful things when jQuery Templates are used on the client and ASP.NET is used on the server). Introduction to jQuery Templates The jQuery Templates plugin was developed by the Microsoft ASP.NET team in collaboration with the open-source jQuery team. While working at Microsoft, I wrote the original proposal for jQuery Templates, Dave Reed wrote the original code, and Boris Moore wrote the final code. The jQuery team – especially John Resig – was very involved in each step of the process. Both the jQuery community and ASP.NET communities were very active in providing feedback. jQuery Templates will be included in the jQuery core library (the jQuery.js library) when jQuery 1.5 is released. Until jQuery 1.5 is released, you can download the jQuery Templates plugin from the jQuery Source Code Repository or you can use jQuery Templates directly from the ASP.NET CDN. The documentation for jQuery Templates is already included with the official jQuery documentation at http://api.jQuery.com. The main entry for jQuery templates is located under the topic plugins/templates. A Basic Sample of jQuery Templates Let’s start with a really simple sample of using jQuery Templates. We’ll use the plugin to display a list of books stored in a JavaScript array. Here’s the complete code: <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html > <head> <title>Intro</title> <link href="0_Site.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> </head> <body> <div id="pageContent"> <h1>ASP.NET Bookstore</h1> <div id="bookContainer"></div> </div> <script id="bookTemplate" type="text/x-jQuery-tmpl"> <div> <img src="BookPictures/${picture}" alt="" /> <h2>${title}</h2> price: ${formatPrice(price)} </div> </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/jQuery/jquery-1.4.4.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/jquery.templates/beta1/jquery.tmpl.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> // Create an array of books var books = [ { title: "ASP.NET 4 Unleashed", price: 37.79, picture: "AspNet4Unleashed.jpg" }, { title: "ASP.NET MVC Unleashed", price: 44.99, picture: "AspNetMvcUnleashed.jpg" }, { title: "ASP.NET Kick Start", price: 4.00, picture: "AspNetKickStart.jpg" }, { title: "ASP.NET MVC Unleashed iPhone", price: 44.99, picture: "AspNetMvcUnleashedIPhone.jpg" }, ]; // Render the books using the template $("#bookTemplate").tmpl(books).appendTo("#bookContainer"); function formatPrice(price) { return "$" + price.toFixed(2); } </script> </body> </html> When you open this page in a browser, a list of books is displayed: There are several things going on in this page which require explanation. First, notice that the page uses both the jQuery 1.4.4 and jQuery Templates libraries. Both libraries are retrieved from the ASP.NET CDN: <script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/jQuery/jquery-1.4.4.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/jquery.templates/beta1/jquery.tmpl.js"></script> You can use the ASP.NET CDN for free (even for production websites). You can learn more about the files included on the ASP.NET CDN by visiting the ASP.NET CDN documentation page. Second, you should notice that the actual template is included in a script tag with a special MIME type: <script id="bookTemplate" type="text/x-jQuery-tmpl"> <div> <img src="BookPictures/${picture}" alt="" /> <h2>${title}</h2> price: ${formatPrice(price)} </div> </script> This template is displayed for each of the books rendered by the template. The template displays a book picture, title, and price. Notice that the SCRIPT tag which wraps the template has a MIME type of text/x-jQuery-tmpl. Why is the template wrapped in a SCRIPT tag and why the strange MIME type? When a browser encounters a SCRIPT tag with an unknown MIME type, it ignores the content of the tag. This is the behavior that you want with a template. You don’t want a browser to attempt to parse the contents of a template because this might cause side effects. For example, the template above includes an <img> tag with a src attribute that points at “BookPictures/${picture}”. You don’t want the browser to attempt to load an image at the URL “BookPictures/${picture}”. Instead, you want to prevent the browser from processing the IMG tag until the ${picture} expression is replaced by with the actual name of an image by the jQuery Templates plugin. If you are not worried about browser side-effects then you can wrap a template inside any HTML tag that you please. For example, the following DIV tag would also work with the jQuery Templates plugin: <div id="bookTemplate" style="display:none"> <div> <h2>${title}</h2> price: ${formatPrice(price)} </div> </div> Notice that the DIV tag includes a style=”display:none” attribute to prevent the template from being displayed until the template is parsed by the jQuery Templates plugin. Third, notice that the expression ${…} is used to display the value of a JavaScript expression within a template. For example, the expression ${title} is used to display the value of the book title property. You can use any JavaScript function that you please within the ${…} expression. For example, in the template above, the book price is formatted with the help of the custom JavaScript formatPrice() function which is defined lower in the page. Fourth, and finally, the template is rendered with the help of the tmpl() method. The following statement selects the bookTemplate and renders an array of books using the bookTemplate. The results are appended to a DIV element named bookContainer by using the standard jQuery appendTo() method. $("#bookTemplate").tmpl(books).appendTo("#bookContainer"); Using Template Tags Within a template, you can use any of the following template tags. {{tmpl}} – Used for template composition. See the section below. {{wrap}} – Used for wrapped templates. See the section below. {{each}} – Used to iterate through a collection. {{if}} – Used to conditionally display template content. {{else}} – Used with {{if}} to conditionally display template content. {{html}} – Used to display the value of an HTML expression without encoding the value. Using ${…} or {{= }} performs HTML encoding automatically. {{= }}-- Used in exactly the same way as ${…}. {{! }} – Used for displaying comments. The contents of a {{!...}} tag are ignored. For example, imagine that you want to display a list of blog entries. Each blog entry could, possibly, have an associated list of categories. The following page illustrates how you can use the { if}} and {{each}} template tags to conditionally display categories for each blog entry:   <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title>each</title> <link href="1_Site.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> </head> <body> <div id="blogPostContainer"></div> <script id="blogPostTemplate" type="text/x-jQuery-tmpl"> <h1>${postTitle}</h1> <p> ${postEntry} </p> {{if categories}} Categories: {{each categories}} <i>${$value}</i> {{/each}} {{else}} Uncategorized {{/if}} </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/jQuery/jquery-1.4.4.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/jquery.templates/beta1/jquery.tmpl.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> var blogPosts = [ { postTitle: "How to fix a sink plunger in 5 minutes", postEntry: "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Maecenas porttitor congue massa. Fusce posuere, magna sed pulvinar ultricies, purus lectus malesuada libero, sit amet commodo magna eros quis urna.", categories: ["HowTo", "Sinks", "Plumbing"] }, { postTitle: "How to remove a broken lightbulb", postEntry: "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Maecenas porttitor congue massa. Fusce posuere, magna sed pulvinar ultricies, purus lectus malesuada libero, sit amet commodo magna eros quis urna.", categories: ["HowTo", "Lightbulbs", "Electricity"] }, { postTitle: "New associate website", postEntry: "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Maecenas porttitor congue massa. Fusce posuere, magna sed pulvinar ultricies, purus lectus malesuada libero, sit amet commodo magna eros quis urna." } ]; // Render the blog posts $("#blogPostTemplate").tmpl(blogPosts).appendTo("#blogPostContainer"); </script> </body> </html> When this page is opened in a web browser, the following list of blog posts and categories is displayed: Notice that the first and second blog entries have associated categories but the third blog entry does not. The third blog entry is “Uncategorized”. The template used to render the blog entries and categories looks like this: <script id="blogPostTemplate" type="text/x-jQuery-tmpl"> <h1>${postTitle}</h1> <p> ${postEntry} </p> {{if categories}} Categories: {{each categories}} <i>${$value}</i> {{/each}} {{else}} Uncategorized {{/if}} </script> Notice the special expression $value used within the {{each}} template tag. You can use $value to display the value of the current template item. In this case, $value is used to display the value of each category in the collection of categories. Template Composition When building a fancy page, you might want to build a template out of multiple templates. In other words, you might want to take advantage of template composition. For example, imagine that you want to display a list of products. Some of the products are being sold at their normal price and some of the products are on sale. In that case, you might want to use two different templates for displaying a product: a productTemplate and a productOnSaleTemplate. The following page illustrates how you can use the {{tmpl}} tag to build a template from multiple 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> <title>Composition</title> <link href="2_Site.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> </head> <body> <div id="pageContainer"> <h1>Products</h1> <div id="productListContainer"></div> <!-- Show list of products using composition --> <script id="productListTemplate" type="text/x-jQuery-tmpl"> <div> {{if onSale}} {{tmpl "#productOnSaleTemplate"}} {{else}} {{tmpl "#productTemplate"}} {{/if}} </div> </script> <!-- Show product --> <script id="productTemplate" type="text/x-jQuery-tmpl"> ${name} </script> <!-- Show product on sale --> <script id="productOnSaleTemplate" type="text/x-jQuery-tmpl"> <b>${name}</b> <img src="images/on_sale.png" alt="On Sale" /> </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/jQuery/jquery-1.4.4.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/jquery.templates/beta1/jquery.tmpl.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> var products = [ { name: "Laptop", onSale: false }, { name: "Apples", onSale: true }, { name: "Comb", onSale: false } ]; $("#productListTemplate").tmpl(products).appendTo("#productListContainer"); </script> </div> </body> </html>   In the page above, the main template used to display the list of products looks like this: <script id="productListTemplate" type="text/x-jQuery-tmpl"> <div> {{if onSale}} {{tmpl "#productOnSaleTemplate"}} {{else}} {{tmpl "#productTemplate"}} {{/if}} </div> </script>   If a product is on sale then the product is displayed with the productOnSaleTemplate (which includes an on sale image): <script id="productOnSaleTemplate" type="text/x-jQuery-tmpl"> <b>${name}</b> <img src="images/on_sale.png" alt="On Sale" /> </script>   Otherwise, the product is displayed with the normal productTemplate (which does not include the on sale image): <script id="productTemplate" type="text/x-jQuery-tmpl"> ${name} </script>   You can pass a parameter to the {{tmpl}} tag. The parameter becomes the data passed to the template rendered by the {{tmpl}} tag. For example, in the previous section, we used the {{each}} template tag to display a list of categories for each blog entry like this: <script id="blogPostTemplate" type="text/x-jQuery-tmpl"> <h1>${postTitle}</h1> <p> ${postEntry} </p> {{if categories}} Categories: {{each categories}} <i>${$value}</i> {{/each}} {{else}} Uncategorized {{/if}} </script>   Another way to create this template is to use template composition like this: <script id="blogPostTemplate" type="text/x-jQuery-tmpl"> <h1>${postTitle}</h1> <p> ${postEntry} </p> {{if categories}} Categories: {{tmpl(categories) "#categoryTemplate"}} {{else}} Uncategorized {{/if}} </script> <script id="categoryTemplate" type="text/x-jQuery-tmpl"> <i>${$data}</i> &nbsp; </script>   Using the {{each}} tag or {{tmpl}} tag is largely a matter of personal preference. Wrapped Templates The {{wrap}} template tag enables you to take a chunk of HTML and transform the HTML into another chunk of HTML (think easy XSLT). When you use the {{wrap}} tag, you work with two templates. The first template contains the HTML being transformed and the second template includes the filter expressions for transforming the HTML. For example, you can use the {{wrap}} template tag to transform a chunk of HTML into an interactive tab strip: When you click any of the tabs, you see the corresponding content. This tab strip was created with the following page: <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title>Wrapped Templates</title> <style type="text/css"> body { font-family: Arial; background-color:black; } .tabs div { display:inline-block; border-bottom: 1px solid black; padding:4px; background-color:gray; cursor:pointer; } .tabs div.tabState_true { background-color:white; border-bottom:1px solid white; } .tabBody { border-top:1px solid white; padding:10px; background-color:white; min-height:400px; width:400px; } </style> </head> <body> <div id="tabsView"></div> <script id="tabsContent" type="text/x-jquery-tmpl"> {{wrap "#tabsWrap"}} <h3>Tab 1</h3> <div> Content of tab 1. Lorem ipsum dolor <b>sit</b> amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Maecenas porttitor congue massa. Fusce posuere, magna sed pulvinar ultricies, purus lectus malesuada libero, sit amet commodo magna eros quis urna. </div> <h3>Tab 2</h3> <div> Content of tab 2. Lorem ipsum dolor <b>sit</b> amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Maecenas porttitor congue massa. Fusce posuere, magna sed pulvinar ultricies, purus lectus malesuada libero, sit amet commodo magna eros quis urna. </div> <h3>Tab 3</h3> <div> Content of tab 3. Lorem ipsum dolor <b>sit</b> amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Maecenas porttitor congue massa. Fusce posuere, magna sed pulvinar ultricies, purus lectus malesuada libero, sit amet commodo magna eros quis urna. </div> {{/wrap}} </script> <script id="tabsWrap" type="text/x-jquery-tmpl"> <div class="tabs"> {{each $item.html("h3", true)}} <div class="tabState_${$index === selectedTabIndex}"> ${$value} </div> {{/each}} </div> <div class="tabBody"> {{html $item.html("div")[selectedTabIndex]}} </div> </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/jQuery/jquery-1.4.4.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/jquery.templates/beta1/jquery.tmpl.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> // Global for tracking selected tab var selectedTabIndex = 0; // Render the tab strip $("#tabsContent").tmpl().appendTo("#tabsView"); // When a tab is clicked, update the tab strip $("#tabsView") .delegate(".tabState_false", "click", function () { var templateItem = $.tmplItem(this); selectedTabIndex = $(this).index(); templateItem.update(); }); </script> </body> </html>   The “source” for the tab strip is contained in the following template: <script id="tabsContent" type="text/x-jquery-tmpl"> {{wrap "#tabsWrap"}} <h3>Tab 1</h3> <div> Content of tab 1. Lorem ipsum dolor <b>sit</b> amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Maecenas porttitor congue massa. Fusce posuere, magna sed pulvinar ultricies, purus lectus malesuada libero, sit amet commodo magna eros quis urna. </div> <h3>Tab 2</h3> <div> Content of tab 2. Lorem ipsum dolor <b>sit</b> amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Maecenas porttitor congue massa. Fusce posuere, magna sed pulvinar ultricies, purus lectus malesuada libero, sit amet commodo magna eros quis urna. </div> <h3>Tab 3</h3> <div> Content of tab 3. Lorem ipsum dolor <b>sit</b> amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Maecenas porttitor congue massa. Fusce posuere, magna sed pulvinar ultricies, purus lectus malesuada libero, sit amet commodo magna eros quis urna. </div> {{/wrap}} </script>   The tab strip is created with a list of H3 elements (which represent each tab) and DIV elements (which represent the body of each tab). Notice that the HTML content is wrapped in the {{wrap}} template tag. This template tag points at the following tabsWrap template: <script id="tabsWrap" type="text/x-jquery-tmpl"> <div class="tabs"> {{each $item.html("h3", true)}} <div class="tabState_${$index === selectedTabIndex}"> ${$value} </div> {{/each}} </div> <div class="tabBody"> {{html $item.html("div")[selectedTabIndex]}} </div> </script> The tabs DIV contains all of the tabs. The {{each}} template tag is used to loop through each of the H3 elements from the source template and render a DIV tag that represents a particular tab. The template item html() method is used to filter content from the “source” HTML template. The html() method accepts a jQuery selector for its first parameter. The tabs are retrieved from the source template by using an h3 filter. The second parameter passed to the html() method – the textOnly parameter -- causes the filter to return the inner text of each h3 element. You can learn more about the html() method at the jQuery website (see the section on $item.html()). The tabBody DIV renders the body of the selected tab. Notice that the {{html}} template tag is used to display the tab body so that HTML content in the body won’t be HTML encoded. The html() method is used, once again, to grab all of the DIV elements from the source HTML template. The selectedTabIndex global variable is used to display the contents of the selected tab. Remote Templates A common feature request for jQuery templates is support for remote templates. Developers want to be able to separate templates into different files. Adding support for remote templates requires only a few lines of extra code (Dave Ward has a nice blog entry on this). For example, the following page uses a remote template from a file named BookTemplate.htm: <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title>Remote Templates</title> <link href="0_Site.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> </head> <body> <div id="pageContent"> <h1>ASP.NET Bookstore</h1> <div id="bookContainer"></div> </div> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/jQuery/jquery-1.4.4.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/jquery.templates/beta1/jquery.tmpl.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> // Create an array of books var books = [ { title: "ASP.NET 4 Unleashed", price: 37.79, picture: "AspNet4Unleashed.jpg" }, { title: "ASP.NET MVC Unleashed", price: 44.99, picture: "AspNetMvcUnleashed.jpg" }, { title: "ASP.NET Kick Start", price: 4.00, picture: "AspNetKickStart.jpg" }, { title: "ASP.NET MVC Unleashed iPhone", price: 44.99, picture: "AspNetMvcUnleashedIPhone.jpg" }, ]; // Get the remote template $.get("BookTemplate.htm", null, function (bookTemplate) { // Render the books using the remote template $.tmpl(bookTemplate, books).appendTo("#bookContainer"); }); function formatPrice(price) { return "$" + price.toFixed(2); } </script> </body> </html>   The remote template is retrieved (and rendered) with the following code: // Get the remote template $.get("BookTemplate.htm", null, function (bookTemplate) { // Render the books using the remote template $.tmpl(bookTemplate, books).appendTo("#bookContainer"); });   This code uses the standard jQuery $.get() method to get the BookTemplate.htm file from the server with an Ajax request. After the BookTemplate.htm file is successfully retrieved, the $.tmpl() method is used to render an array of books with the template. Here’s what the BookTemplate.htm file looks like: <div> <img src="BookPictures/${picture}" alt="" /> <h2>${title}</h2> price: ${formatPrice(price)} </div> Notice that the template in the BooksTemplate.htm file is not wrapped by a SCRIPT element. There is no need to wrap the template in this case because there is no possibility that the template will get interpreted before you want it to be interpreted. If you plan to use the bookTemplate multiple times – for example, you are paging or sorting the books -- then you should compile the template into a function and cache the compiled template function. For example, the following page can be used to page through a list of 100 products (using iPhone style More paging). <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title>Template Caching</title> <link href="6_Site.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> </head> <body> <h1>Products</h1> <div id="productContainer"></div> <button id="more">More</button> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/jQuery/jquery-1.4.4.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/jquery.templates/beta1/jquery.tmpl.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> // Globals var pageIndex = 0; // Create an array of products var products = []; for (var i = 0; i < 100; i++) { products.push({ name: "Product " + (i + 1) }); } // Get the remote template $.get("ProductTemplate.htm", null, function (productTemplate) { // Compile and cache the template $.template("productTemplate", productTemplate); // Render the products renderProducts(0); }); $("#more").click(function () { pageIndex++; renderProducts(); }); function renderProducts() { // Get page of products var pageOfProducts = products.slice(pageIndex * 5, pageIndex * 5 + 5); // Used cached productTemplate to render products $.tmpl("productTemplate", pageOfProducts).appendTo("#productContainer"); } function formatPrice(price) { return "$" + price.toFixed(2); } </script> </body> </html>   The ProductTemplate is retrieved from an external file named ProductTemplate.htm. This template is retrieved only once. Furthermore, it is compiled and cached with the help of the $.template() method: // Get the remote template $.get("ProductTemplate.htm", null, function (productTemplate) { // Compile and cache the template $.template("productTemplate", productTemplate); // Render the products renderProducts(0); });   The $.template() method compiles the HTML representation of the template into a JavaScript function and caches the template function with the name productTemplate. The cached template can be used by calling the $.tmp() method. The productTemplate is used in the renderProducts() method: function renderProducts() { // Get page of products var pageOfProducts = products.slice(pageIndex * 5, pageIndex * 5 + 5); // Used cached productTemplate to render products $.tmpl("productTemplate", pageOfProducts).appendTo("#productContainer"); } In the code above, the first parameter passed to the $.tmpl() method is the name of a cached template. Working with Template Items In this final section, I want to devote some space to discussing Template Items. A new Template Item is created for each rendered instance of a template. For example, if you are displaying a list of 100 products with a template, then 100 Template Items are created. A Template Item has the following properties and methods: data – The data associated with the Template Instance. For example, a product. tmpl – The template associated with the Template Instance. parent – The parent template item if the template is nested. nodes – The HTML content of the template. calls – Used by {{wrap}} template tag. nest – Used by {{tmpl}} template tag. wrap – Used to imperatively enable wrapped templates. html – Used to filter content from a wrapped template. See the above section on wrapped templates. update – Used to re-render a template item. The last method – the update() method -- is especially interesting because it enables you to re-render a template item with new data or even a new template. For example, the following page displays a list of books. When you hover your mouse over any of the books, additional book details are displayed. In the following screenshot, details for ASP.NET Kick Start are displayed. <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title>Template Item</title> <link href="0_Site.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> </head> <body> <div id="pageContent"> <h1>ASP.NET Bookstore</h1> <div id="bookContainer"></div> </div> <script id="bookTemplate" type="text/x-jQuery-tmpl"> <div class="bookItem"> <img src="BookPictures/${picture}" alt="" /> <h2>${title}</h2> price: ${formatPrice(price)} </div> </script> <script id="bookDetailsTemplate" type="text/x-jQuery-tmpl"> <div class="bookItem"> <img src="BookPictures/${picture}" alt="" /> <h2>${title}</h2> price: ${formatPrice(price)} <p> ${description} </p> </div> </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/jQuery/jquery-1.4.4.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/jquery.templates/beta1/jquery.tmpl.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> // Create an array of books var books = [ { title: "ASP.NET 4 Unleashed", price: 37.79, picture: "AspNet4Unleashed.jpg", description: "The most comprehensive book on Microsoft’s new ASP.NET 4.. " }, { title: "ASP.NET MVC Unleashed", price: 44.99, picture: "AspNetMvcUnleashed.jpg", description: "Writing for professional programmers, Walther explains the crucial concepts that make the Model-View-Controller (MVC) development paradigm work…" }, { title: "ASP.NET Kick Start", price: 4.00, picture: "AspNetKickStart.jpg", description: "Visual Studio .NET is the premier development environment for creating .NET applications…." }, { title: "ASP.NET MVC Unleashed iPhone", price: 44.99, picture: "AspNetMvcUnleashedIPhone.jpg", description: "ASP.NET MVC Unleashed for the iPhone…" }, ]; // Render the books using the template $("#bookTemplate").tmpl(books).appendTo("#bookContainer"); // Get compiled details template var bookDetailsTemplate = $("#bookDetailsTemplate").template(); // Add hover handler $(".bookItem").mouseenter(function () { // Get template item associated with DIV var templateItem = $(this).tmplItem(); // Change template to compiled template templateItem.tmpl = bookDetailsTemplate; // Re-render template templateItem.update(); }); function formatPrice(price) { return "$" + price.toFixed(2); } </script> </body> </html>   There are two templates used to display a book: bookTemplate and bookDetailsTemplate. When you hover your mouse over a template item, the standard bookTemplate is swapped out for the bookDetailsTemplate. The bookDetailsTemplate displays a book description. The books are rendered with the bookTemplate with the following line of code: // Render the books using the template $("#bookTemplate").tmpl(books).appendTo("#bookContainer");   The following code is used to swap the bookTemplate and the bookDetailsTemplate to show details for a book: // Get compiled details template var bookDetailsTemplate = $("#bookDetailsTemplate").template(); // Add hover handler $(".bookItem").mouseenter(function () { // Get template item associated with DIV var templateItem = $(this).tmplItem(); // Change template to compiled template templateItem.tmpl = bookDetailsTemplate; // Re-render template templateItem.update(); });   When you hover your mouse over a DIV element rendered by the bookTemplate, the mouseenter handler executes. First, this handler retrieves the Template Item associated with the DIV element by calling the tmplItem() method. The tmplItem() method returns a Template Item. Next, a new template is assigned to the Template Item. Notice that a compiled version of the bookDetailsTemplate is assigned to the Template Item’s tmpl property. The template is compiled earlier in the code by calling the template() method. Finally, the Template Item update() method is called to re-render the Template Item with the bookDetailsTemplate instead of the original bookTemplate. Summary This is a long blog entry and I still have not managed to cover all of the features of jQuery Templates J However, I’ve tried to cover the most important features of jQuery Templates such as template composition, template wrapping, and template items. To learn more about jQuery Templates, I recommend that you look at the documentation for jQuery Templates at the official jQuery website. Another great way to learn more about jQuery Templates is to look at the (unminified) source code.

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• The Windows Browser Ballot Screen Offers Web Browser Choice to European Users

  - by Matthew Guay

  Since March, our friends across the pond in Europe get to decide which browser they want to install with their Windows OS. Today we thought we would take a look at the ballot choices, some are well known, and others you may not have heard of. Windows users in European countries should start seeing the so called “Browser Ballot Screen” after installing the Windows Update KB976002 (link below). The browser ballot offers a dozen different browsers, including some you’ve likely never heard of.  They each have some unique features, and are all free, and here we take a quick look at each of them. Internet Explorer 8 Internet Explorer is the world’s most used web browser, as it’s bundled with Windows. It also includes several unique features, including Accelerators that make it easy to search or find a map of a location, and InPrivate filtering to directly control what sites can get personal information.  Additionally, it offers great integration with Windows Touch and the new taskbar in Windows 7. IE 8 runs on Windows XP and newer, and is bundled with Windows 7. Mozilla Firefox 3.6 Firefox is the most popular browser other than Internet Explorer.  It is the modern descendant of Netscape, and is loved by web developers for its adherence to web standards, openness, and expandability.  It offers thousands of Add-ons and themes to let you customize it to fit your preferences. The most recent version has added Personas, which are quick, lightweight themes to let you personalize the look your browser. It’s open source, and runs on all modern versions of Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Of course thanks to Asian Angel, our resident browser expert, you can check out several articles regarding this popular IE alternative. Google Chrome 4 Google Chrome has gained an impressive amount of market share during its short time in the market. It offers a minimalistic interface and fast speeds with intensive web applications. The address bar is also a search bar, so you can enter a search query or web address and quickly get the information you need. With version 4 you can add a growing number of extensions, personalize it with a variety of stylish themes, and automatically translate foreign websites into your own language. Opera 10.50 Although Opera has been around for over a decade, relatively few users have used it. With the new 10.50 release, Opera has many unique features packed in a sleek UI. It integrates great with Aero and the Windows 7 taskbar, and lets you preview the contents of your websites in the tab bar. It also includes Opera Unite, a small personal web server to make file sharing easy, Opera Turbo to speed up your internet when the connection is slow, and Opera Link to keep all your copies of Opera in sync. It’s a popular browser on many mobile devices, and version 10.50 has a lot of enhancements. Apple Safari 4 Safari is the default browser in Mac OS X, and starting with version 3 it has been available for Windows as well. It’s based on Webkit, the popular new rendering engine that provides great speed and standards compatibility.  Safari 4 lets you browse your browsing history in a unique Coverflow interface, and shows your Top Sites in a fancy, 3D interface.  It’s also great for viewing mobile websites for the iPhone and other mobile devices through Developer Tools. Flock 2.5 Based on the popular Firefox core, Flock brings a multitude of social features to your browsing experience. You can view the latest YouTube videos, Flickr pictures, update your favorite social network, and keep up with your webmail thanks to It’s integration with a wide variety of services. You can even post to your blog through the integrated blog editor. If your time online is mostly spent in social services, this may be a browser you want to check out. Maxthon 2.5 Maxthon is a unique browser that builds on Internet Explorer to bring more features with IE’s rendering. Formerly known as MyIE2, Maxthon was popular for bringing tabbed browsing with IE rendering during the days of IE 6.  Today Maxthon supports a wide range of plugins and skins, so you can customize it however you want. It includes mouse gestures, a web accelerator to speed up pokey internet connections, a content blocker to remove unwanted content from sites, an online account to backup your favorites, and a nice download manager. Avant Browser Another nice browser based on Internet Explorer, Avant brings a wide variety of features in a nice brushed-metal interface. It includes an integrated AutoFill for forms, mouse gestures, customizable skins, and privacy protection features. It also includes a Flash blocker that will only load flash in webpages when you select them. You can also integrate Avant with an online account to store your bookmarks, feeds, settings and passwords online. Sleipnir Sleipnir is a customizable browser meant for advance users that is quite popular in Japan. It’s built on the Trident engine and virtually every aspect of is customizable unlike Internet Explorer.   FlashPeak SlimBrowser SlimBrowser from FlashPeak incorporates a lot of features like Popup Killer, Auto Login, site filtering and more. It’s based on Internet Explorer but offers a lot more customizable options out of the box.   K-meleon This basic browser is light on system resources and based on the Gecko engine. It’s been in development for years on SourceForge, and if you like to tweak virtually any aspect of your browser, this might be a good choice for you.   GreenBrowser GreenBrowser is based on Internet Explorer and is available in several languages. It has a large amount of features out of the box and is light on system resources.   Conclusion The European Union asked for more choices in the web browser they could choose from when installing Windows, and with the Browser Ballot Screen, they certainly get a variety to choose from.  If you’ve tried out some of the lesser known browsers, or think some important ones have been left out, leave a comment and tell us about it. Learn More About the Browser Ballot Screen and Download Alternatives to IE Windows Update KB976002 Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Set the Default Browser on Ubuntu From the Command LineQuick Tip: Empty Internet Explorer 7 Cache when Browser is ClosedView Hidden Files and Folders in Ubuntu File BrowserSet the Default Browser and Email Client in UbuntuAccess Multiple Browsers from Firefox with Browser View Plus 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 Play Music in Chrome by Simply Dragging a File 15 Great Illustrations by Chow Hon Lam Easily Sync Files & Folders with Friends & Family Amazon Free Kindle for PC Download Stretch popurls.com with a Stylish Script (Firefox) OldTvShows.org – Find episodes of Hitchcock, Soaps, Game Shows and more

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• 17 new features in Visual Studio 2010

  - by vik20000in

  Visual studio 2010 has been released to RTM a few days back. This release of Visual studio 2010 comes with a big number of improvements on many fronts. In this post I will try and point out some of the major improvements in Visual Studio 2010. 1)      Visual studio IDE Improvement. Visual studio IDE has been rewritten in WPF. The look and feel of the studio has been improved for improved readability. Start page has been redesigned and template so that anyone can change the start page as they wish. 2)      Multiple Monitor - Support for Multiple Monitor was already there in Visual studio. But in this edition it has been improved as much that we can now place the document, design and code window outside the IDE in another monitor. 3)      ZOOM in Code Editor – Making the editors in WPF has made significant improvement for them. The best one that I like is the ZOOM feature. We can now zoom in the code editor with the help of the ctrl + Mouse scroll. The zoom feature does not work on the Design surface or windows with icon like solution view and toolbox. 4)      Box Selection - Another Important improvement in the Visual studio 2010 is the box selection. We can select a rectangular by holding down the Alt Key and selecting with mouse.  Now in the rectangular selection we can insert text, Paste same code in different line etc. This is helpful if you want to convert a number of variables from public to private etc… 5)      New Improved Search – One of the best productivity improvements in Visual studio 2010 is its new search as you type support. This has been done in the Navigate To window which can be brought up by pressing (Ctrl + ,). The navigate To windows also take help of the Camel casing and will be able to search with the help of camel casing when character is entered in upper case. For example we can search AOH for AddOrederHeader. 6)      Call Hierarchy – This feature is only available to the Visual C# and Visual C++ editor. The call hierarchy windows displays the calls made to and from (yes both to and from) a selected method property or a constructor. The call hierarchy also shows the implementation of interface and the overrides of virtual or abstract methods. This window is very helpful in understanding the code flow, and evaluating the effect of making changes. The best part is it is available at design time and not at runtime only like a debugger. 7)      Highlighting references – One of the very cool stuff in Visual Studio 2010 is the fact if you select a variable then all the use of that variable will be highlighted alongside. This should work for all the result of symbols returned by Find all reference. This also works for Name of class, objects variable, properties and methods. We can also use the Ctrl + Shift + Down Arrow or Up Arror to move through them. 8)      Generate from usage - The Generate from usage feature lets you use classes and members before you define them. You can generate a stub for any undefined class, constructor, method, property, field, or enum that you want to use but have not yet defined. You can generate new types and members without leaving your current location in code, This minimizes interruption to your workflow.9)      IntelliSense Suggestion Mode - IntelliSense now provides two alternatives for IntelliSense statement completion, completion mode and suggestion mode. Use suggestion mode for situations where classes and members are used before they are defined. In suggestion mode, when you type in the editor and then commit the entry, the text you typed is inserted into the code. When you commit an entry in completion mode, the editor shows the entry that is highlighted on the members list. When an IntelliSense window is open, you can press CTRL+ALT+SPACEBAR to toggle between completion mode and suggestion mode. 10)   Application Lifecycle Management – A client application for management of application lifecycle like version control, work item tracking, build automation, team portal etc is available for free (this is not available for express edition.). 11)   Start Page – The start page has been redesigned with WPF for new functionality and look. Tabbed areas are provided for content from different source including MSDN. Once you open some project the start page closes automatically. The list of recent project also lets you remove project from the list. And above all the start page is customizable enough to be changed as per individual requirement. 12)   Extension Manager – Visual Studio 2010 has provided good ways to be extended. We can also use MEF to extend most of the features of Visual Studio. The new extension manager now can go the visual studio gallery and install the extension without even opening any explorer. 13)   Code snippets – Visual studio 2010 for HTML, Jscript and Asp.net also. 14)   Improved Intelligence for JavaScript has been improved vastly (around 2-5 times). Intelligence now also shows the XML documentation comment on the go. 15)   Web Deployment – Web Deployment has been vastly improved. We can package and publish the web application in one click. Three major supported deployment scenarios are Web packages, one click deployment and Web configuration Transformation. 16)   SharePoint - Visual Studio 2010 also brings vastly improved development experience for SharePoint. We can create, edit, debug, package, deploy and activate SharePoint project from within Visual Studio. Deployment of Site is as easy as hitting F5. 17)   Azure – Visual Studio 2010 also comes with handy improvement for developing on windows Azure environment. Vikram

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• Blend for Visual Studio 2013 Prototyping Applications with SketchFlow

  - by T

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tburger/archive/2014/08/10/blend-for-visual-studio-2013-prototyping-applications-with-sketchflow.aspxSketchFlow enables rapid creating of dynamic interface mockups very quickly. The SketchFlow workspace is the same as the standard Blend workspace with the inclusion of three panels: the SketchFlow Feedback panel, the SketchFlow Animation panel and the SketchFlow Map panel. By using SketchFlow to prototype, you can get feedback early in the process. It helps to surface possible issues, lower development iterations, and increase stakeholder buy in. SketchFlow prototypes not only provide an initial look but also provide a way to add additional ideas and input and make sure the team is on track prior to investing in complete development. When you have completed the prototyping, you can discard the prototype and just use the lessons learned to design the application from or extract individual elements from your prototype and include them in the application. I don’t recommend trying to transition the entire project into a development project. Objects that you add with the SketchFlow style have a hand-sketched look. The sketch style is used to remind stakeholders that this is a prototype. This encourages them to focus on the flow and functionality without getting distracted by design details. The sketchflow assets are under sketchflow in the asset panel and are identifiable by the postfix “–Sketch”. For example “Button-Sketch”. You can mix sketch and standard controls in your interface, if required. Be creative, if there is a missing control or your interface has a different look and feel than the out of the box one, reuse other sketch controls to mimic the functionality or look and feel. Only use standard controls if it doesn’t distract from the idea that this is a prototype and not a standard application. The SketchFlow Map panel provides information about the structure of your application. To create a new screen in your prototype: Right-click the map surface and choose “Create a Connected Screen”. Name the screens with names that are meaningful to the stakeholders. The start screen is the one that has the green arrow. To change the start screen, right click on any other screen and set to start screen. Only one screen can be the start screen at a time. Rounded screen are component screens to mimic reusable custom controls that will be built into the final application. You can change the colors of all of the boxes and should use colors to create functional groupings. The groupings can be identified in the SketchFlow Project Settings. To add connections between screens in the SketchFlow Map panel. Move the mouse over a screen in the SketchFlow and a menu will appear at the bottom of the screen node. In the menu, click Connect to an existing screen. Drag the arrow to another screen on the Map. You add navigation to your prototype by adding connections on the SketchFlow map or by adding navigation directly to items on your interface. To add navigation from objects on the artboard, right click the item then from the menu, choose “Navigate to”. This will expose a sub-menu with available screens, backward, or forward. When the map has connected screens, the SketchFlow Player displays the connected screens on the Navigate sidebar. All screens show in the SketchFlow Player Map. To see the SketchFlow Player, run your SketchFlow prototype. The Navigation sidebar is meant to show the desired user work flow. The map can be used to view the different screens regardless of suggested navigation in the navigation bar. The map is able to be hidden and shown. As mentioned, a component screen is a shared screen that is used in more than one screen and generally represents what will be a custom object in the application. To create a component screen, you can create a screen, right click on it in the SketchFlow Map and choose “Make into component screen”. You can mouse over a screen and from the menu that appears underneath, choose create and insert component screen. To use an existing screen, select if from the Asset panel under SketchFlow, Components. You can use Storyboards and Visual State animations in your SketchFlow project. However, SketchFlow also offers its own animation technique that is simpler and better suited for prototyping. The SketchFlow Animation panel is above your artboard by default. In SketchFlow animation, you create frames and then position the elements on your interface for each frame. You then specify elapsed time and any effects you want to apply to the transition. The + at the top is what creates new frames. Once you have a new Frame, select it and change the property you want to animate. In the example above, I changed the Text of the result box. You can adjust the time between frames in the lower area between the frames. The easing and effects functions are changed in the center between each frame. You edit the hold time for frames by clicking the clock icon in the lower left and the hold time will appear on each frame and can be edited. The FluidLayout icon (also located in the lower left) will create smooth transitions. Next to the FluidLayout icon is the name of that Animation. You can rename the animation by clicking on it and editing the name. The down arrow chevrons next to the name allow you to view the list of all animations in this prototype and select them for editing. To add the animation to the interface object (such as a button to start the animation), select the PlaySketchFlowAnimationAction from the SketchFlow behaviors in the Assets menu and drag it to an object on your interface. With the PlaySketchFlowAnimationAction that you just added selected in the Objects and Timeline, edit the properties to change the EventName to the event you want and choose the SketchFlowAnimation you want from the drop down list. You may want to add additional information to your screens that isn’t really part of the prototype but is relevant information or a request for clarification or feedback from the reviewer. You do this with annotations or notes. Both appear on the user interface, however, annotations can be switched on or off at design and review time. Notes cannot be switched off. To add an Annotation, chose the Create Annotation from the Tools menu. The annotation appears on the UI where you will add the notes. To display or Hide annotations, click the annotation toggle at the bottom right on the artboard . After to toggle annotations on, the identifier of the person who created them appears on the artboard and you must click that to expand the notes. To add a note to the artboard, simply select the Note-Sketch from Assets ->SketchFlow ->Styles ->Sketch Styles. Drag and drop it to the artboard and place where you want it. When you are ready for users to review the prototype, you have a few options available. Click File -> Export and choose one of the options from the list: Publish to Sharepoint, Package SketchFlowProject, Export to Microsoft Word, or Export as Images. I suggest you play with as many of the options as you can to see what they do. Both the Sharepoint and Packaged SketchFlowProject allow you to collect feedback from one or more users that you can import into the project. The user can make notes on the UI and in the Feedback area in the bottom left corner of the player. When the user is done adding feedback, it is exported from the right most folder icon in the My Feedback panel. Feeback is imported on a panel named SketchFlow Feedback. To get that panel to show up, select Window -> SketchFlow Feedback. Once you have the panel showing, click the + in the upper right of the panel and find the notes you exported. When imported, they will show up in a list and on the artboard. To document your prototype, use the Export to Microsoft Word option from the File menu. That should get you started with prototyping.

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