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  • retrieve data based on date range using mysql ,php [on hold]

    - by preethi
    I am working on WPF where I have two datepickers when I try to retrieve the information on date range it displays only one record on all dates(same record displaying multiple times eg : date chosen from 01/10/2013 - 3/10/2013) where I have 3 different records on each day but my output is the first record displayed 3 times with same date and time. function cpWhitelistStats() { $startDate = $_POST['startDate']; $startDateTime = "$startDate 00:00:00"; $endDate = $_POST['endDate']; $endDateTime = "$endDate 23:59:59"; $cpId = $_POST['id']; $cpName = etCommonCpNameById($cpId); print "<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">Permitted Vehicle Summary</h2>"; print "<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">for $cpName</h2>"; $tmpDate = explode("/", $startDate); $startYear = $tmpDate[2]; $startMonth= $tmpDate[1]; $startDay = $tmpDate[0]; $tmpDate = explode("/", $endDate); $endYear = $tmpDate[2]; $endMonth= $tmpDate[1]; $endDay = $tmpDate[0]; $startDateTime = "$startYear-$startMonth-$startDay 00:00:00"; $endDateTime = "$endYear-$endMonth-$endDay 23:59:59"; $custId = $_SESSION['customerID']; $realCustomerId = $_SESSION['realCustomerId']; $maxVal = 0; if ($custId != "") { $conn = &newEtConn($custId); // Get the whitelist plates $staticWhitelistArray = etCommonMkWhitelist($conn, $cpId); array_shift($staticWhitelistArray); $startLoopDate = strtotime($startDateTime); $endLoopDate = strtotime($endDateTime); $oneDay = 60 * 60 * 24; // Get the entries $plateList = array_keys($staticWhitelistArray); $plate_lookup = implode('","', $plateList); $sql = "SELECT plate, entry_datetime, exit_datetime FROM stats WHERE plate IN (\"$plate_lookup\") AND entry_datetime > \"$startDateTime\" AND entry_datetime < \"$endDateTime\" AND carpark_id=\"$cpId\" "; $result = $conn->Execute($sql); if (!$result) { print $conn->ErrorMsg(); exit; } $rows = $result->fields; if ($rows != "") { unset($myArray); foreach($result as $values) { $plate = $values['plate']; $new_platelist[] = $plate; $inDateTime = $values['entry_datetime']; $outDateTime = $values['exit_datetime']; $tmp = explode(' ', $inDateTime); $inDate = $tmp[0]; $in_ts = strtotime($inDateTime); $out_ts = strtotime($outDateTime); $duration = $out_ts - $in_ts; $dur_array = intToDateArray($duration); $dur_string = ''; if ($dur_array['days'] > 0) { $dur_string .= $dur_array['days'] . ' days '; } if ($dur_array['hours'] > 0) { $dur_string .= $dur_array['hours'] . ' hours '; } if ($dur_array['mins'] > 0) { $dur_string .= $dur_array['mins'] . ' minutes '; } if ($dur_array['secs'] > 0) { $dur_string .= $dur_array['secs'] . ' secs '; } $myArray[$plate][] = array($inDateTime, $outDateTime, $inDate, $dur_string); } } while ($startLoopDate < $endLoopDate) { $dayString = strftime("%a, %d %B %Y", $startLoopDate); $dayCheck = strftime("%Y-%m-%d", $startLoopDate); print "<h2>$dayString</h2>"; print "<table width=\"100%\">"; print " <tr>"; print " <th>VRM</th>"; print " <th>Permit Group</th>"; print " <th>Entry Time</th>"; print " <th>Exit Time</th>"; print " <th>Duration</th>"; print " </tr>"; foreach($new_platelist as $wlPlate) { if ($myArray[$wlPlate][0][2] == $dayCheck) { print "<tr>"; print "<td>$wlPlate</td>"; if (isset($myArray[$wlPlate])) { print "<td>".$staticWhitelistArray[$wlPlate]['groupname']."</td>"; print "<td>".$myArray[$wlPlate][0][0]."</td>"; print "<td>".$myArray[$wlPlate][0][1]."</td>"; print "<td>".$myArray[$wlPlate][0][3]."</td>"; } else { print "<td>Vehicle Not Seen</td>"; print "<td>Vehicle Not Seen</td>"; print "<td>Vehicle Not Seen</td>"; } print "</tr>"; } } print "</table>"; $startLoopDate = $startLoopDate + $oneDay; } } }

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  • How to create StackedBarSeries with custom tooltip without losing standard colors

    - by Simon_Weaver
    I have a StackedBarSeries in Silverlight 4 charting (latest release). I have created a DataPointStyle called MyDataPointStyle for a custom tooltip. By itself this breaks the standard palette used for the different bars. I've applied a custom palette - as described in David Anson's blog to the chart. However when I have the DataPointStyle set for my SeriesDefinition objects it does not use this palette. I'm not sure what I'm missing - but David specifically says : ... it enables the use of DynamicResource (currently only supported by the WPF platform) to let users customize their DataPointStyle without inadvertently losing the default/custom Palette colors. (Note: A very popular request!) Unfortunately I'm inadvertently losing these colors - and I can't see why? <chartingToolkit:Chart.Palette> <dataviz:ResourceDictionaryCollection> <ResourceDictionary> <Style x:Key="DataPointStyle" TargetType="Control"> <Setter Property="Background" Value="Blue"/> </Style> </ResourceDictionary> <ResourceDictionary> <Style x:Key="DataPointStyle" TargetType="Control"> <Setter Property="Background" Value="Green"/> </Style> </ResourceDictionary> <ResourceDictionary> <Style x:Key="DataPointStyle" TargetType="Control"> <Setter Property="Background" Value="Red"/> </Style> </ResourceDictionary> </dataviz:ResourceDictionaryCollection> </chartingToolkit:Chart.Palette> <chartingToolkit:Chart.Series> <chartingToolkit:StackedBarSeries> <chartingToolkit:SeriesDefinition IndependentValueBinding="{Binding SKU}" DependentValueBinding="{Binding Qty}" DataPointStyle="{StaticResource MyDataPointStyle}" Title="Regular"/> <chartingToolkit:SeriesDefinition IndependentValueBinding="{Binding SKU}" DependentValueBinding="{Binding Qty}" DataPointStyle="{StaticResource MyDataPointStyle}" Title="FSP Orders"/> <chartingToolkit:StackedBarSeries.IndependentAxis> <chartingToolkit:CategoryAxis Title="SKU" Orientation="Y" FontStyle="Italic" AxisLabelStyle="{StaticResource LeftAxisStyle}"/> </chartingToolkit:StackedBarSeries.IndependentAxis> <chartingToolkit:StackedBarSeries.DependentAxis> <chartingToolkit:LinearAxis Orientation="X" ExtendRangeToOrigin="True" Minimum="0" ShowGridLines="True" /> </chartingToolkit:StackedBarSeries.DependentAxis> </chartingToolkit:StackedBarSeries > </chartingToolkit:Chart.Series> </chartingToolkit:Chart>

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  • Problem using ‘useLegacyV2RuntimeActivationPolicy’ & supportedRuntime in an application

    - by Notre
    Hello, I've modified a couple of different applications' .config file like this: <startup useLegacyV2RuntimeActivationPolicy="true"> <supportedRuntime version="v4.0"/> </startup> When I did this for devenv.exe.config (VS 2005 - don't ask :) ), things work great - most of the Visual Studio used .NET 2.0 but I was able to make use of an assembly targeting .NET 4.0 framework. I tried to do the same thing for a custom .exe, which happens to be based on MS CAB (slightly modified) and has a hybrid mix of WPF and WinForms content. As soon as I modified this application's app config file, I started getting this exception, sometime during application startup: The Undo operation encountered a context that is different from what was applied in the corresponding Set operation. The possible cause is that a context was Set on the thread and not reverted(undone). System.InvalidOperationException: The Undo operation encountered a context that is different from what was applied in the corresponding Set operation. The possible cause is that a context was Set on the thread and not reverted(undone). There's a big long stack trace that doesn't show anything in my application code directly (just a bunch of MS assemblies). If I modify the application's .config file to this: <startup useLegacyV2RuntimeActivationPolicy="true"> </startup> i.e.I remove the supportedRuntime element, then the application doesn't throw this exception. But when I go to the point in my code where I try to load my .NET 4 assembly, if fails with this: System.BadImageFormatException: Could not load file or assembly '' or one of its dependencies. This assembly is built by a runtime newer than the currently loaded runtime and cannot be loaded. I guess this is expected. I have two questions: 1) Any idea why I'm getting the System.InvalidOperationException exception when I modify this application's configuration file to include the supportedRuntime element, adding .NET 4 support and any suggestions on what I can do about it? 2) If the answer is "no idea why/don't know what you can do about it", then is possible for my .NET 3.5 SP1 code (C#) to provide more fine grain support for conditionally adding .NET 4 runtime support for a certain assembly(ies) without converting my entire application to target .NET 4, or without using the declarative config file approach? At some point I would convert the entire application to target .NET 4, but for the short term this is daunting task and I'm hope for some short term solution/hack. Thank you very much for any advice you can give!

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  • Application Architecture using WCF and System.AddIn

    - by Silverhalide
    A little background -- we're designing an application that uses a client/server architecture consisting of: A server which loads server-side modules, potentially developed by other teams. A client which loads corresponding client-side modules (also potentially developed by those other teams; each client module corresponds with a server module). The client side communicates with the server side for general coordination, and as well as module specific tasks. (At this point, I think that means client talks to server, client modules talk to server modules.) Environment is .NET 3.5, and client side is WPF. The deployment scenario introduces the potential to upgrade the server, any server-side module, the client, and any client-side module independently. However, being able to "work" using mismatched versions is required. I'm therefore concerned about versioning issues. My thinking so far: A Windows Service for the server. Using System.AddIn for the server to load and communicate with the server modules will give us the greatest flexibility in terms of version compatability between server and server modules. The server and each server module vend WCF services for communication to the client side; communication between the server and a server module, or between two server modules use the AddIn contracts. (One advantage of this is that a module can expose a different interface within the server and outside it.) Similarly, the client uses System.AddIn to find, load, and communicate with the client modules. Client communications with client modules is via the AddIn interface; communications from the client and from client modules to the server side are via WCF. For maximum resilience, each module will run in a separate app-domain. In general, the system has modest performance requirements, so marshalling and crossing process boundaries is not expected to be a performance concern. (Performance requirement is basically summed up by: don't get in the way of the other parts of the system not described here.) My questions are around the idea of having two different communication and versioning models to work with which will be an added burden on our developers. System.AddIn seems quite powerful, but also a little unwieldly. (I'm also unsure of Microsoft's commitment to it in the future.) On the other hand, I'm not thrilled with WCF's versioning capabilities. I have a feeling that it would be possible to implement the System.AddIn view/adapter/contract system within WCF, but being fairly new to both technologies, I would have no idea of where to start. So... Am I on the right track here? Am I doing this the hard way? Are there gotchas I need to be aware of on this road? Thanks.

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  • realtime logging

    - by Ion Todirel
    I have an application which has a loop, part of a "Scheduler", which runs at all time and is the heart of the application. Pretty much like a game loop, just that my application is a WPF application and it's not a game. Naturally the application does logging at many points, but the Scheduler does some sensitive monitoring, and sometimes it's impossible just from the logs to tell what may have gotten wrong (and by wrong I don't mean exceptions) or the current status. Because Scheduler's inner loop runs at short intervals, you can't do file I/O-based logging (or using the Event Viewer) in there. First, you need to watch it in real-time, and secondly the log file would grow in size very fast. So I was thinking of ways to show this data to the user in the realtime, some things I considered: Display the data in realtime in the UI Use AllocConsole/WriteConsole to display this information in a console Use a different console application which would display this information, communicate between the Scheduler and the console app using pipes or other IPC techniques Use Windows' Performance Monitor and somehow feed it with this information ETW Displaying in the UI would have its issues. First it doesn't integrate with the UI I had in mind for my application, and I don't want to complicate the UI just for this. This diagnostics would only happen rarely. Secondly, there is going to be some non-trivial data protection, as the Scheduler has it's own thread. A separate console window would work probably, but I'm still worried if it's not too much threshold. Allocating my own console, as this is a windows app, would probably be better than a different console application (3), as I don't need to worry about IPC communication, and non-blocking communication. However a user could close the console I allocated, and it would be problematic in that case. With a separate process you don't have to worry about it. Assuming there is an API for Performance Monitor, it wouldn't be integrated too well with my app or apparent to the users. Using ETW also doesn't solve anything, just a random idea, I still need to display this information somehow. What others think, would there be other ways I missed?

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  • Synchronized Enumerator in C#

    - by Dan Bryant
    I'm putting together a custom SynchronizedCollection<T> class so that I can have a synchronized Observable collection for my WPF application. The synchronization is provided via a ReaderWriterLockSlim, which, for the most part, has been easy to apply. The case I'm having trouble with is how to provide thread-safe enumeration of the collection. I've created a custom IEnumerator<T> nested class that looks like this: private class SynchronizedEnumerator : IEnumerator<T> { private SynchronizedCollection<T> _collection; private int _currentIndex; internal SynchronizedEnumerator(SynchronizedCollection<T> collection) { _collection = collection; _collection._lock.EnterReadLock(); _currentIndex = -1; } #region IEnumerator<T> Members public T Current { get; private set;} #endregion #region IDisposable Members public void Dispose() { var collection = _collection; if (collection != null) collection._lock.ExitReadLock(); _collection = null; } #endregion #region IEnumerator Members object System.Collections.IEnumerator.Current { get { return Current; } } public bool MoveNext() { var collection = _collection; if (collection == null) throw new ObjectDisposedException("SynchronizedEnumerator"); _currentIndex++; if (_currentIndex >= collection.Count) { Current = default(T); return false; } Current = collection[_currentIndex]; return true; } public void Reset() { if (_collection == null) throw new ObjectDisposedException("SynchronizedEnumerator"); _currentIndex = -1; Current = default(T); } #endregion } My concern, however, is that if the Enumerator is not Disposed, the lock will never be released. In most use cases, this is not a problem, as foreach should properly call Dispose. It could be a problem, however, if a consumer retrieves an explicit Enumerator instance. Is my only option to document the class with a caveat implementer reminding the consumer to call Dispose if using the Enumerator explicitly or is there a way to safely release the lock during finalization? I'm thinking not, since the finalizer doesn't even run on the same thread, but I was curious if there other ways to improve this.

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  • Using FluentNHibernate + SQLite with .Net4?

    - by stiank81
    I have a WPF application running with .Net3.5 using FluentNHibernate, and all works fine. When I upgraded to VS2010 I ran into some odd problems, but after changing to use x64 variant of SQLite it worked fine again. Now I want to change to use .Net4, but this has turned into a more painful experience then I expected.. When calling FluentConfiguration.BuildConfiguration I get an exception thrown: FluentConfigurationException unhandled An invalid or incomplete configuration was used while creating a SessionFactory. Check PotentialReasons collection, and InnerException for more detail The inner exception gives us more information: Message = "Could not create the driver from NHibernate.Driver.SQLite20Driver, NHibernate, Version=2.1.2.4000, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=aa95f207798dfdb4." It has an InnerException again: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation. Which again has an InnerException: The IDbCommand and IDbConnection implementation in the assembly System.Data.SQLite could not be found. Ensure that the assembly System.Data.SQLite is located in the application directory or in the Global Assembly Cache. If the assembly is in the GAC, use element in the application configuration file to specify the full name of the assembly. Now - to me it sounds like it doesn't find System.Data.SQLite.dll, but I can't understand this. Everywhere this is referenced I have "Copy Local", and I have verified that it is in every build folder for projects using SQLite. I have also copied it manually to every Debug folder of the solution - without luck. Notes: This exact same code worked just fine before I upgraded to .Net4. I did see some x64 x86 mismatch problems earlier, but I have switched to use x86 as the target platform and for all referenced dlls. I have verified that all files in the Debug-folder are x86. I have tried the precompiled Fluent dlls, I have tried compiling myself, and I have compiled my own version of Fluent using .Net4. I see that there are also others that have seen this problem, but I haven't really seen any solution yet. After @devio's answer I tried adding a reference to the SQLite dll. This didn't change anything, but I hope I made it right though.. This is what I added to the root node of the app.config file: <runtime> <assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1"> <qualifyAssembly partialName="System.Data.SQLite" fullName="System.Data.SQLite, Version=1.0.60.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=db937bc2d44ff139" /> </assemblyBinding> </runtime> Anyone out there using Fluent with .Net4 and SQLite successfully? Help! I'm lost...

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  • SilverLight 3 Beginner question: Scroll with mousewheel and zoom image with panning

    - by JP Hellemons
    Hello, I would like to make a small silverlight app which displays one fairly large image which can be zoomed in by scrolling the mouse and then panned with the mouse. it's similar to the function in google maps and i do not want to use deepzoom. here is what i have at the moment. please keep in mind that this is my first silverlight app: this app is just for me to see it's a good way to build in a website. so it's a demo app and therefor has bad variable names. the initial image is 1800px width. private void sc_MouseWheel(object sender, MouseWheelEventArgs e) { var st = (ScaleTransform)plaatje.RenderTransform; double zoom = e.Delta > 0 ? .1 : -.1; st.ScaleX += zoom; st.ScaleY += zoom; } this works, but could use some smoothing and it's positioned top left and not centered. the panning is like this: found it @ http://stackoverflow.com/questions/741956/wpf-pan-zoom-image and converted it to this below to work in silverlight Point start; Point origin; bool captured = false; private void plaatje_MouseLeftButtonDown(object sender, MouseButtonEventArgs e) { plaatje.CaptureMouse(); captured = true; var tt = (TranslateTransform)((TransformGroup)plaatje.RenderTransform) .Children.First(tr => tr is TranslateTransform); start = e.GetPosition(canvasje); origin = new Point(tt.X, tt.Y); } private void plaatje_MouseLeftButtonUp(object sender, MouseButtonEventArgs e) { plaatje.ReleaseMouseCapture(); captured = false; } private void plaatje_MouseMove(object sender, MouseEventArgs e) { if (!captured) return; var tt = (TranslateTransform)((TransformGroup)plaatje.RenderTransform).Children.First(tr => tr is TranslateTransform); double xVerschuiving = start.X - e.GetPosition(canvasje).X; double yVerschuiving = start.Y - e.GetPosition(canvasje).Y; tt.X = origin.X - xVerschuiving; tt.Y = origin.Y - yVerschuiving; } so the scaling isn't smooth and the panning isn't working, because when i click it, the image disappears. thanks in advanced!

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  • Modelling a checkable treeview in the MVVM model

    - by Stephen Stranded
    Hi, I am trying to create a checkable treeview control to list hierarchical data but it does not seem to work. I used the MVVM model example used by in codeplex simplified Treeview using ViewModel but it shows nothing. Here is my code. Please help. I am a newbie to WPF and the MVVM model but i very much want to use it in an urgent application. </UserControl.Resources> <Grid> <StackPanel Height="166"> <TextBlock Text="Please Display this" /> <TreeView ItemsSource="{Binding Classifications}" Height="141"> <TreeView.ItemContainerStyle> <!-- This Style binds a TreeViewItem to a TreeViewItemViewModel. --> <Style TargetType="{x:Type TreeViewItem}"> <Setter Property="IsExpanded" Value="{Binding IsExpanded, Mode=TwoWay}" /> <Setter Property="IsSelected" Value="{Binding IsSelected, Mode=TwoWay}" /> <Setter Property="FontWeight" Value="Normal" /> <Style.Triggers> <Trigger Property="IsSelected" Value="True"> <Setter Property="FontWeight" Value="Bold" /> </Trigger> </Style.Triggers> </Style> </TreeView.ItemContainerStyle> <TreeView.Resources> <HierarchicalDataTemplate DataType="{x:Type local:PropertyTypeViewModel}" ItemsSource="{Binding Children}"> <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal"> <CheckBox Focusable="false" IsChecked="{Binding isSelected}"></CheckBox> <TextBlock Text="{Binding Classification}" /> </StackPanel> </HierarchicalDataTemplate> <HierarchicalDataTemplate DataType="{x:Type local:PropertyViewModel}" ItemsSource="{Binding Children}" > <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal"> <CheckBox Focusable="false" IsChecked="{Binding isSelected}"></CheckBox> <TextBlock Text="{Binding PropertyName}" /> </StackPanel> </HierarchicalDataTemplate> <DataTemplate DataType="{x:Type local:LeaseViewModel}"> <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal"> <CheckBox Focusable="false" IsChecked="{Binding isSelected}"></CheckBox> <TextBlock Text="{Binding TenantName}" /> </StackPanel> </DataTemplate> </TreeView.Resources> </TreeView> </StackPanel> </Grid>

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  • Synchronized IEnumerator<T>

    - by Dan Bryant
    I'm putting together a custom SynchronizedCollection<T> class so that I can have a synchronized Observable collection for my WPF application. The synchronization is provided via a ReaderWriterLockSlim, which, for the most part, has been easy to apply. The case I'm having trouble with is how to provide thread-safe enumeration of the collection. I've created a custom IEnumerator<T> nested class that looks like this: private class SynchronizedEnumerator : IEnumerator<T> { private SynchronizedCollection<T> _collection; private int _currentIndex; internal SynchronizedEnumerator(SynchronizedCollection<T> collection) { _collection = collection; _collection._lock.EnterReadLock(); _currentIndex = -1; } #region IEnumerator<T> Members public T Current { get; private set;} #endregion #region IDisposable Members public void Dispose() { var collection = _collection; if (collection != null) collection._lock.ExitReadLock(); _collection = null; } #endregion #region IEnumerator Members object System.Collections.IEnumerator.Current { get { return Current; } } public bool MoveNext() { var collection = _collection; if (collection == null) throw new ObjectDisposedException("SynchronizedEnumerator"); _currentIndex++; if (_currentIndex >= collection.Count) { Current = default(T); return false; } Current = collection[_currentIndex]; return true; } public void Reset() { if (_collection == null) throw new ObjectDisposedException("SynchronizedEnumerator"); _currentIndex = -1; Current = default(T); } #endregion } My concern, however, is that if the Enumerator is not Disposed, the lock will never be released. In most use cases, this is not a problem, as foreach should properly call Dispose. It could be a problem, however, if a consumer retrieves an explicit Enumerator instance. Is my only option to document the class with a caveat implementer reminding the consumer to call Dispose if using the Enumerator explicitly or is there a way to safely release the lock during finalization? I'm thinking not, since the finalizer doesn't even run on the same thread, but I was curious if there other ways to improve this. EDIT After thinking about this a bit and reading the responses (particular thanks to Hans), I've decided this is definitely a bad idea. The biggest issue actually isn't forgetting to Dispose, but rather a leisurely consumer creating deadlock while enumerating. I now only read-lock long enough to get a copy and return the enumerator for the copy.

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  • realtime diagnostics

    - by Ion Todirel
    I have an application which has a loop, part of a "Scheduler", which runs at all time and is the heart of the application. Pretty much like a game loop, just that my application is a WPF application and it's not a game. Naturally the application does logging at many points, but the Scheduler does some sensitive monitoring, and sometimes it's impossible just from the logs to tell what may have gotten wrong (and by wrong I don't mean exceptions) or the current status. Because Scheduler's inner loop runs at short intervals, you can't do file I/O-based logging (or using the Event Viewer) in there. First, you need to watch it in real-time, and secondly the log file would grow in size very fast. So I was thinking of ways to show this data to the user in the realtime, some things I considered: Display the data in realtime in the UI Use AllocConsole/WriteConsole to display this information in a console Use a different console application which would display this information, communicate between the Scheduler and the console app using pipes or other IPC techniques Use Windows' Performance Monitor and somehow feed it with this information ETW Displaying in the UI would have its issues. First it doesn't integrate with the UI I had in mind for my application, and I don't want to complicate the UI just for this. This diagnostics would only happen rarely. Secondly, there is going to be some non-trivial data protection, as the Scheduler has it's own thread. A separate console window would work probably, but I'm still worried if it's not too much threshold. Allocating my own console, as this is a windows app, would probably be better than a different console application (3), as I don't need to worry about IPC communication, and non-blocking communication. However a user could close the console I allocated, and it would be problematic in that case. With a separate process you don't have to worry about it. Assuming there is an API for Performance Monitor, it wouldn't be integrated too well with my app or apparent to the users. Using ETW also doesn't solve anything, just a random idea, I still need to display this information somehow. What others think, would there be other ways I missed?

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  • Learning to create beautiful /next-generation GUI

    - by ShaChris23
    I really want to create a stunning-looking GUI desktop application that looks like, for example: Mac OS X interface Picasa desktop client on windows IPhone apps Office 2007 I've mostly been programming GUI using Qt/Swing/WinForm and I'm tired of creating so plain looking GUI, lol. So I was thinking about diving into stuff like: jQuery WPF/C# iPhone SDK Silverlight Adobe Air/Flex Just to get some ideas on how to create really cool looking UI. Does that sound like a good list? Any developers here that could share what platform they use to create very cool looking desktop app? On a sidenote, I really wonder what developers at Apple / Microsoft use to develop their own cool-looking software. EDIT A lot of responses talk about the importance of usability over "cool-looking".. I totally agree that usability and simplicity are the most important aspects of user interface design. I've been doing GUI development for a while now ( 3 years), so that I understand. But using cool-looking UI also improves user experience + it could make big difference on whether or not your software sells. I mean, otherwise why would Microsoft/Apple try to make their OS UI look "cooler" everytime there's a new version? Why would websites like pragprog.com, or versionsapp.com. make their websites look like that? Basically you kill 2 birds with one stone: stunnning-looking UI + super usability (because it looks simple and intuitive). That is what I'm striving for. And as far as I know, I cannot achieve that using Qt/Winform. Most of the books I have read just show you how to make average-looking (read: 1990's) UI. I want to learn how to create cool-looking UI. And the only place I see cool-looking UIs these days are the technology I list above. I'm not enamored with any technology; but I just want to know how things are done in other technology to see if I could apply them to the technology I'm using, or see if I could use those technology in my line of work. An example: if I were to pick between this UI and this UI, I probably would pick the latter, if just based on looks alone. Functionally, they are just the same UI; they both allow you to keep track of your time. They both contain buttons and textboxes, etc. But the fact that they look different, also differentiate them in terms of attractiveness. So in all, I think the "ice on the cake" is very important. I would say it's the thing you strive for after you are certain you have a totally intuitive, usable UI.

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  • Problems using FluentNHibernate + SQLite with .NET4?

    - by stiank81
    I have a WPF application running with VS2010 .Net3.5 using Nhibernate with FluentNHibernate + SQLite, and all works fine. Now I want to change to use .Net4, but this has turned into a more painful experience then I expected.. When setting up the connection a FluentConfigurationException is thrown from FluentConfiguration.BuildConfiguration saying: An invalid or incomplete configuration was used while creating a SessionFactory. Check PotentialReasons collection, and InnerException for more details. The inner exception gives us more information: Could not create the driver from NHibernate.Driver.SQLite20Driver, NHibernate, Version=2.1.2.4000, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=aa95f207798dfdb4. It has an InnerException again: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation. Which again has an InnerException: The IDbCommand and IDbConnection implementation in the assembly System.Data.SQLite could not be found. Ensure that the assembly System.Data.SQLite is located in the application directory or in the Global Assembly Cache. If the assembly is in the GAC, use element in the application configuration file to specify the full name of the assembly. Now - to me it sounds like it doesn't find System.Data.SQLite.dll, but I can't understand this. Everywhere this is referenced I have "Copy Local", and I have verified that it is in every build folder for projects using SQLite. I have also copied it manually to every Debug folder of the solution - without luck. Notes: This is exactly the same code that worked just fine before I upgraded to .Net4. I did see some x64 x86 mismatch problems earlier, but I have switched to use x86 as the target platform and for all referenced dlls. I have verified that all files in the Debug-folder are x86. I have tried the precompiled Fluent dlls, I have tried compiling myself, and I have compiled my own version of Fluent using .Net4. I see that there are also others that have seen this problem, but I haven't really seen any solution yet. After @devio's answer I tried adding a reference to the SQLite dll. This didn't change anything, but I hope I made it right though.. This is what I added to the root node of the app.config file: <runtime> <assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1"> <qualifyAssembly partialName="System.Data.SQLite" fullName="System.Data.SQLite, Version=1.0.60.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=db937bc2d44ff139" /> </assemblyBinding> </runtime> Anyone out there using Fluent with .Net4 and SQLite successfully? Help! I'm lost...

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  • SharePoint 2010 Custom WCF Service - Windows and FBA Authentication

    - by e-rock
    I have SharePoint 2010 configured for Claims Based Authentication with both Windows and Forms Based Authentication (FBA) for external users. I also need to develop custom WCF Services. The issue is that I want Windows credentials passed into the WCF Service(s); however, I cannot seem to get the Windows credentials passed into the services. My custom WCF service appears to be using Anonymous authentication (which has to be enabled in IIS in order to display the FBA login screen). The example I have tried to follow is found at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff521581.aspx. The WCF service gets deployed to _vti_bin (ISAPI folder). Here is the code for the .svc file <%@ ServiceHost Language="C#" Debug="true" Service="MyCompany.CustomerPortal.SharePoint.UI.ISAPI.MyCompany.Services.LibraryManagers.LibraryUploader, $SharePoint.Project.AssemblyFullName$" Factory="Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Services.MultipleBaseAddressBasicHttpBindingServiceHostFactory, Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ServerRuntime, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" CodeBehind="LibraryUploader.svc.cs" %> Here is the code behind for the .svc file [ServiceContract] public interface ILibraryUploader { [OperationContract] string SiteName(); } [BasicHttpBindingServiceMetadataExchangeEndpoint] [AspNetCompatibilityRequirements(RequirementsMode = AspNetCompatibilityRequirementsMode.Required)] public class LibraryUploader : ILibraryUploader { //just try to return site title right now… public string SiteName() { WindowsIdentity identity = ServiceSecurityContext.Current.WindowsIdentity; ClaimsIdentity claimsIdentity = new ClaimsIdentity(identity); return SPContext.Current.Web.Title; } } The WCF test client I have just to test it out (WPF app) uses the following code to call the WCF service... private void Button1Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) { BasicHttpBinding binding = new BasicHttpBinding(); binding.Security.Mode = BasicHttpSecurityMode.TransportCredentialOnly; binding.Security.Transport.ClientCredentialType = HttpClientCredentialType.Ntlm; EndpointAddress endpoint = new EndpointAddress( "http://dev.portal.data-image.local/_vti_bin/MyCompany.Services/LibraryManagers/LibraryUploader.svc"); LibraryUploaderClient libraryUploader = new LibraryUploaderClient(binding, endpoint); libraryUploader.ClientCredentials.Windows.AllowedImpersonationLevel = System.Security.Principal.TokenImpersonationLevel.Impersonation; MessageBox.Show(libraryUploader.SiteName()); } I am somewhat inexperienced with IIS security settings/configurations when it comes to Claims and trying to use both Windows and FBA. I am also inexperienced when it comes to WCF configurations for security. I usually develop internal biz apps and let Visual Studio decide what to use because security is rarely a concern.

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  • Asynchronous Silverlight 4 call to the World of Warcraft armoury streaming XML in C#

    - by user348446
    Hello - I have been stuck on this all weekend and failed miserably! Please help me to claw back my sanity!! Your challenge For my first Silverlight application I thought it would be fun to use the World of Warcraft armoury to list the characters in my guild. This involves making an asyncronous from Silverlight (duh!) to the WoW armoury which is XML based. SIMPLE EH? Take a look at this link and open the source. You'll see what I mean: http://eu.wowarmory.com/guild-info.xml?r=Eonar&n=Gifted and Talented Below is code for getting the XML (the call to ShowGuildies will cope with the returned XML - I have tested this locally and I know it works). I have not managed to get the expected returned XML at all. Notes: If the browser is capable of transforming the XML it will do so, otherwise HTML will be provided. I think it examines the UserAgent I am a seasoned asp.net web developer C# so go easy if you start talking about native to Windows Forms / WPF I can't seem to set the UserAgent setting in .net 4.0 - doesn't seem to be a property off the HttpWebRequest object for some reason - i think it used to be available. Silverlight 4.0 (created as 3.0 originally before I updated my installation of Silverlight to 4.0) Created using C# 4.0 Please explain as if you talking to a web developer and not a proper programming lol! Below is the code - it should return the XML from the wow armoury. private void button7_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) { // URL for armoury lookup string url = @"http://eu.wowarmory.com/guild-info.xml?r=Eonar&n=Gifted and Talented"; // Create the web request HttpWebRequest httpWebRequest = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(url); // Set the user agent so we are returned XML and not HTML //httpWebRequest.Headers["User-Agent"] = "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0)"; // Not sure about this dispatcher thing - it's late so i have started to guess. Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(delegate() { // Call asyncronously IAsyncResult asyncResult = httpWebRequest.BeginGetResponse(ReqCallback, httpWebRequest); // End the response and use the result using (HttpWebResponse httpWebResponse = (HttpWebResponse)httpWebRequest.EndGetResponse(asyncResult)) { // Load an XML document from a stream XDocument x = XDocument.Load(httpWebResponse.GetResponseStream()); // Basic function that will use LINQ to XML to get the list of characters. ShowGuildies(x); } }); } private void ReqCallback(IAsyncResult asynchronousResult) { // Not sure what to do here - maybe update the interface? } Really hope someone out there can help me! Thanks mucho! Dan. PS Yes, I have noticed the irony in the name of the guild :)

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  • Web-Frameworks for Education Management Systems?

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

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

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

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

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

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  • How to combine designable components with dependency injection

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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  • Dynamic swappable Data Access Layer

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

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

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

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

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

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