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  • How to close a JFrame in the middle of a program

    - by Nick Gibson
    public class JFrameWithPanel extends JFrame implements ActionListener, ItemListener { int packageIndex; double price; double[] prices = {49.99, 39.99, 34.99, 99.99}; DecimalFormat money = new DecimalFormat("$0.00"); JLabel priceLabel = new JLabel("Total Price: "+price); JButton button = new JButton("Check Price"); JComboBox packageChoice = new JComboBox(); JPanel pane = new JPanel(); TextField text = new TextField(5); JButton accept = new JButton("Accept"); JButton decline = new JButton("Decline"); JCheckBox serviceTerms = new JCheckBox("I Agree to the Terms of Service.", false); JTextArea termsOfService = new JTextArea("This is a text area", 5, 10); public JFrameWithPanel() { super("JFrame with Panel"); setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE); pane.add(packageChoice); setContentPane(pane); setSize(250,250); setVisible(true); packageChoice.addItem("A+ Certification"); packageChoice.addItem("Network+ Certification "); packageChoice.addItem("Security+ Certifictation"); packageChoice.addItem("CIT Full Test Package"); pane.add(button); button.addActionListener(this); pane.add(text); text.setEditable(false); text.setBackground(Color.WHITE); text.addActionListener(this); pane.add(termsOfService); termsOfService.setEditable(false); termsOfService.setBackground(Color.lightGray); pane.add(serviceTerms); serviceTerms.addItemListener(this); pane.add(accept); accept.addActionListener(this); pane.add(decline); decline.addActionListener(this); } public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) { packageIndex = packageChoice.getSelectedIndex(); price = prices[packageIndex]; text.setText("$"+price); Object source = e.getSource(); if(source == accept) { if(serviceTerms.isSelected() == false) { JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null,"Please accept the terms of service.", "Terms of Service", JOptionPane.ERROR_MESSAGE); } else { JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null,"Thank you. We will now move on to registering your product."); pane.dispose(); } } else if(source == decline) { System.exit(0); } } public void itemStateChanged(ItemEvent e) { int select = e.getStateChange(); } public static void main(String[] args) { String value1; int constant = 1, invalidNum = 0, answerParse, packNum, packPrice; JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null,"Hello!"+"\nWelcome to the CIT Test Program."); JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null,"IT WORKS!"); } }//class How do I get this frame to close so that my JOptionPane Message Dialogs can continue in the program without me exiting the program completely. EDIT: I tried .dispose() but I get this: cannot find symbol symbol : method dispose() location: class javax.swing.JPanel pane.dispose(); ^

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  • Form values appear blank when submitting to the database - Drupal FormAPI

    - by GaxZE
    Hello, I have been working on this drupal form API script for past week and half. to give an insight into my problem.. the form below merely lists a host of database records which contain 5 individual scoring ranks. (mind, action, relationship, language and IT). this code is apart of my own custom module where all values are listed from the database. the idea behind this module is to be able to edit these values on a large scale. I am having trouble getting the values entered in the form to be passed to the variables inside of the marli_admin_submit function. the second problem is the assigning those values to their specific ID. for this purpose id like to add im merely trying to get just one score updated rather than all of them. below is my code. any advice appreciated. function marli_scores(){ $result = pager_query(db_rewrite_sql('SELECT * FROM marli WHERE value != " "')); while ($node = db_fetch_object($result)) { $attribute = $node->attribute; $field = $node->field_name; $item = $node->value; $mind = $node->mind; $action = $node->action; $relationship = $node->relationship; $language = $node->language; $it = $node->it; $form['field'][$node->marli_id] = array('#type' => 'markup', '#value' => $field, '#prefix' => '<b>', '#suffix' => '</b>'); $form['title'][$node->marli_id] = array('#type' => 'markup', '#value' => $item, '#prefix' => '<b>', '#suffix' => '</b>'); $form['mind'][$node->marli_id] = array('#type' => 'textfield', '#maxlength' => '1', '#size' => '1', '#value' => $mind); $form['action'][$node->marli_id] = array('#type' => 'textfield', '#maxlength' => '1', '#size' => '1', '#value' => $action); $form['relationship'][$node->marli_id] = array('#type' => 'textfield', '#maxlength' => '1', '#size' => '1', '#value' => $relationship); $form['language'][$node->marli_id] = array('#type' => 'textfield', '#maxlength' => '1', '#size' => '1', '#value' => $language); $form['it'][$node->marli_id] = array('#type' => 'textfield', '#maxlength' => '1', '#size' => '1', '#value' => $it); } $form['pager'] = array('#value' => theme('pager', NULL, 50, 0)); $form['save'] = array('#type' => 'submit', '#value' => t('Save')); $form['#theme'] = 'marli_scores'; return $form; } function marli_admin_submit($form, &$form_state) { $marli_id = 4; $submit_mind = $form_state['values']['mind'][$marli_id]; $submit_action = $form_state['values']['action'][$marli_id]; $submit_relationship = $form_state['values']['relationship'][$marli_id]; $submit_language = $form_state['values']['language'][$marli_id]; $submit_it = $form_state['values']['it'][$marli_id]; $sql_query = "UPDATE {marli} SET mind = %d, action = %d, relationship = %d, language = %d, it = %d WHERE marli_id = %d"; if ($success = db_query($sql_query, $submit_mind, $submit_action, $submit_relationship, $submit_language, $submit_it)) { drupal_set_message(t(' Values have been saved.')); } else { drupal_set_message(t('There was an error saving your data. Please try again.')); } }

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  • Canceling in Sqlite

    - by Yusuf
    I am trying to use handle database with insert, update, and delete such as notepad. I'm having problems in canceling data .In normal case which presses the confirm button, it will be saved into sqlite and will be displayed on listview. How can I make cancel event through back key or more button event? I want my Button and back key to cancel data but its keep on saving... public static int numTitle = 1; public static String curDate = ""; private EditText mTitleText; private EditText mBodyText; private Long mRowId; private NotesDbAdapter mDbHelper; private TextView mDateText; private boolean isOnBackeyPressed; public SQLiteDatabase db; @Override protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); mDbHelper = new NotesDbAdapter(this); mDbHelper.open(); setContentView(R.layout.note_edit); setTitle(R.string.edit_note); mTitleText = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.etTitle_NE); mBodyText = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.etBody_NE); mDateText = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.tvDate_NE); long msTime = System.currentTimeMillis(); Date curDateTime = new Date(msTime); SimpleDateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("d'/'M'/'y"); curDate = formatter.format(curDateTime); mDateText.setText("" + curDate); Button confirmButton = (Button) findViewById(R.id.bSave_NE); Button cancelButton = (Button) findViewById(R.id.bCancel_NE); Button deleteButton = (Button) findViewById(R.id.bDelete_NE); mRowId = (savedInstanceState == null) ? null : (Long) savedInstanceState .getSerializable(NotesDbAdapter.KEY_ROWID); if (mRowId == null) { Bundle extras = getIntent().getExtras(); mRowId = extras != null ? extras.getLong(NotesDbAdapter.KEY_ROWID) : null; } populateFields(); confirmButton.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() { public void onClick(View view) { setResult(RESULT_OK); Toast.makeText(NoteEdit.this, "Saved", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT) .show(); finish(); } }); deleteButton.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() { @Override public void onClick(View v) { // TODO Auto-generated method stub mDbHelper.deleteNote(mRowId); Toast.makeText(NoteEdit.this, "Deleted", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT) .show(); finish(); } }); cancelButton.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() { @Override public void onClick(View v) { // TODO Auto-generated method stub boolean diditwork = true; try { db.beginTransaction(); populateFields(); db.setTransactionSuccessful(); } catch (SQLException e) { diditwork = false; } finally { db.endTransaction(); if (diditwork) { Toast.makeText(NoteEdit.this, "Canceled", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show(); } } } }); } private void populateFields() { if (mRowId != null) { Cursor note = mDbHelper.fetchNote(mRowId); startManagingCursor(note); mTitleText.setText(note.getString(note .getColumnIndexOrThrow(NotesDbAdapter.KEY_TITLE))); mBodyText.setText(note.getString(note .getColumnIndexOrThrow(NotesDbAdapter.KEY_BODY))); } } @Override protected void onSaveInstanceState(Bundle outState) { super.onSaveInstanceState(outState); saveState(); outState.putSerializable(NotesDbAdapter.KEY_ROWID, mRowId); } public void onBackPressed() { super.onBackPressed(); isOnBackeyPressed = true; finish(); } @Override protected void onPause() { super.onPause(); if (!isOnBackeyPressed) saveState(); } @Override protected void onResume() { super.onResume(); populateFields(); } private void saveState() { String title = mTitleText.getText().toString(); String body = mBodyText.getText().toString(); if (mRowId == null) { long id = mDbHelper.createNote(title, body, curDate); if (id > 0) { mRowId = id; } } else { mDbHelper.updateNote(mRowId, title, body, curDate); } }`enter code here`

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  • Is it possible to create the following XML using Xdocument and append the relevant protion in subseq

    - by Newbie
    <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?> <StockMarket> <StockDate Day = "02" Month="06" Year="2010"> <Stock> <Symbol>ABC</Symbol> <Amount>110.45</Amount> </Stock> <Stock> <Symbol>XYZ</Symbol> <Amount>366.25</Amount> </Stock> </StockDate> <StockDate Day = "03" Month="06" Year="2010"> <Stock> <Symbol>ABC</Symbol> <Amount>110.35</Amount> </Stock> <Stock> <Symbol>XYZ</Symbol> <Amount>369.70</Amount> </Stock> </StockDate> </StockMarket> My approach so far is XDocument doc = new XDocument( new XElement("StockMarket", new XElement("StockDate", new XAttribute("Day", "02"),new XAttribute("Month","06"),new XAttribute("Year","2010")), new XElement("Stock", new XElement("Symbol", "ABC"), new XElement("Amount", "110.45")) ) ); Since I am new to Linq to XML, I am presently struggling a lot and henceforth seeking for help. What I need is to generate the above XML programatically(I mean to say that some kind of looping...) The values will be passed from textbox and hence will be filled at runtime. At present the one which I have done is a kind of static one. This entire stuff has to be done at runtime. One more problem that I am facing is at the time of saving the record for the second time. Suppose first time I executed the code and saved it(Using the program I have done). Next time when I will try to save then only <StockDate Day = "xx" Month="xx" Year="xxxx"> <Stock> <Symbol>ABC</Symbol> <Amount>110.45</Amount> </Stock> <Stock> <Symbol>XYZ</Symbol> <Amount>366.25</Amount> </Stock> </StockDate> should get save(or better appended) and not <StockMarket> .... </StockMarket>.. Because that will be created only at the first time when the XML will be generated or created. I hope I am able to convey my problem properly. If you people is having difficulty in understanding my situation, kindly let me know. Using C#3.0 . Thanks

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  • Nhibernate Migration from 1.0.2.0 to 2.1.2 and many-to-one save problems

    - by Meska
    Hi, we have an old, big asp.net application with nhibernate, which we are extending and upgrading some parts of it. NHibernate that was used was pretty old ( 1.0.2.0), so we decided to upgrade to ( 2.1.2) for the new features. HBM files are generated through custom template with MyGeneration. Everything went quite smoothly, except for one thing. Lets say we have to objects Blog and Post. Blog can have many posts, so Post will have many-to-one relationship. Due to the way that this application operates, relationship is done not through primary keys, but through Blog.Reference column. Sample mapings and .cs files: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <id name="Id" column="Id" type="Guid"> <generator class="assigned"/> </id> <property column="Reference" type="Int32" name="Reference" not-null="true" /> <property column="Name" type="String" name="Name" length="250" /> </class> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <id name="Id" column="Id" type="Guid"> <generator class="assigned"/> </id> <property column="Reference" type="Int32" name="Reference" not-null="true" /> <property column="Name" type="String" name="Name" length="250" /> <many-to-one name="Blog" column="BlogId" class="SampleNamespace.BlogEntity,SampleNamespace" property-ref="Reference" /> </class> And class files class BlogEntity { public Guid Id { get; set; } public int Reference { get; set; } public string Name { get; set; } } class PostEntity { public Guid Id { get; set; } public int Reference { get; set; } public string Name { get; set; } public BlogEntity Blog { get; set; } } Now lets say that i have a Blog with Id 1D270C7B-090D-47E2-8CC5-A3D145838D9C and with Reference 1 In old nhibernate such thing was possible: //this Blog already exists in database BlogEntity blog = new BlogEntity(); blog.Id = Guid.Empty; blog.Reference = 1; //Reference is unique, so we can distinguish Blog by this field blog.Name = "My blog"; //this is new Post, that we are trying to insert PostEntity post = new PostEntity(); post.Id = Guid.NewGuid(); post.Name = "New post"; post.Reference = 1234; post.Blog = blog; session.Save(post); However, in new version, i get an exception that cannot insert NULL into Post.BlogId. As i understand, in old version, for nhibernate it was enough to have Blog.Reference field, and it could retrieve entity by that field, and attach it to PostEntity, and when saving PostEntity, everything would work correctly. And as i understand, new NHibernate tries only to retrieve by Blog.Id. How to solve this? I cannot change DB design, nor can i assign an Id to BlogEntity, as objects are out of my control (they come prefilled as generic "ojbects" like this from external source)

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  • Help to argue why to develop software on a physical computer rather than via a remote desktop

    - by s5804
    Remote desktops are great and many times a blessing and cost effective (instead of leasing expensive cables). I am not arguing against remote desktops, just if one have the alternative to use either remote desktop or physical computer, I would choose the later. Also note that I am not arguing for or against remote work practices. But in my case I am required to be physically present in the office when developing software. Background, I work in a company which main business is not to develop software. Therefore the company IT policies are mainly focused on security and to efficiently deploying/maintaing thousands of computer to users. Further, the typical employee runs typical Office applications, like a word processors. Because safety/stability is such a big priority, every non production system/application, shall be deployed into a physical different network, called the test network. Software development of course also belongs in the test network. To access the test network the company has created a standard policy, which dictates that access to the test network shall go only via a remote desktop client. Practically from ones production computer one would open up a remote desktop client to a virtual computer located in the test network. On the virtual computer's remote desktop one would be able to access/run/install all development tools, like Eclipse IDE. Another solution would be to have a dedicated physical computer, which is physically only connected to the test network. Both solutions are available in the company. I have tested both approaches and found running Eclipse IDE, SQL developer, in the remote desktop client to be sluggish (keyboard strokes are delayed), commands like alt-tab takes me out of the remote client, enjoying... Further, screen resolution and colors are different, just to mention a few. Therefore there is nothing technical wrong with the remote client, just not optimal and frankly de-motivating. Now with the new policies put in place, plans are to remove the physical computers connected to the test network. I am looking for help to argue for why software developers shall have a dedicated physical software development computer, to be productive and cost effective. Remember that we are physically in office. Further one can notice that we are talking about approx. 50 computers out of 2000 employees. Therefore the extra budget is relatively small. This is more about policy than cost. Please note that there are lots of similar setups in other companies that work great due to a perfectly tuned systems. However, in my case it is sluggish and it would cost more money to trouble shoot the performance and fine tune it rather than to have a few physical computers. As a business case we have argued that productivity will go down by 25%, however it's my feeling that the reality is probably closer to 50%. This business case isn't really accepted and I find it very difficult to defend it to managers that has never ever used a rich IDE in their life, never mind developed software. Further the test network and remote client has no guaranteed service level, therefore it is down for a few hours per month with the lowest priority on the fix list. Help is appreciated.

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  • How to post back selected checkboxes to Controller

    - by TonyP
    I have following view <asp:Content ID="Content2" ContentPlaceHolderID="MainContent" runat="server"> <h2>Tables <%=ViewData["RetriverName"] %></h2> <%using (Html.BeginForm("ResfreshSelectedTables", "Home")) { // begin form%> <table id="MyTable"> <thread> <tr> <th style="width: 150px; text-align:center"><input type="checkbox" id="SelectAll" />Select All..</th> </tr> <tr> <th style="width:20px; text-align:right">ID</th> <th style="width:40px">Base Table</th> <th style="width:50px">Table</th> <th style="width:280px">Description</th> </tr> </thread> <tbody> <% int i = 0; foreach (var item in Model) { %> <tr id="row<%= i.ToString() %>"> <td align="center" style="padding: 0 0 0 0"> <%= Html.CheckBox("selections[" + i.ToString() + "].IsSelected", item.IsSelected)%> <%= Html.Hidden("selections[" + i.ToString() + "].ID", item.id)%> <%= Html.Hidden("selections[" + i.ToString() + "].BaseTable", item.baseTable)%> <%= Html.Hidden("selections[" + i.ToString() + "].Name", item.NAME)%> </td> <td style="text-align:right"><%=Html.Encode(item.id)%></td> <td><%= Html.Encode(item.baseTable)%></td> <td><%=Html.Encode(item.NAME)%></td> <td><%=Html.Encode(item.Description) %></td> </tr> <% i++; } %> </tbody> </table> <p> <input type="submit" value="saving" /> </p> <% }//end form %> <script src="../../Scripts/jquery-1.4.1.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> // Select All Checkboxes $(document).ready(function() { $('#SelectAll').click(function() { var newValue = this.checked; $('input:checkbox').not('input:hidden').each(function() { // alert(this.id+newValue ); this.checked = newValue; }); }); }); </script> </asp:Content> How do I postback selected checkboxes to the controller ?

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  • Why can i not upload images to my folder anymore?

    - by Hannah_B
    This was something I had working a few weeks back but after I made some changes to my view file images are now no longer being saved into my assets/uploads folder. I keep getting back the error - You did not select a file to upload. This is despite having made sure the path is definitely correct. What am i doing wrong here? Here is my controller: <?php class HomeProfile extends CI_Controller { function HomeProfile() { parent::__construct(); $this->load->model("profiles"); $this->load->model("profileimages"); $this->load->helper(array('form', 'url')); } function upload() { $config['path'] = './web-project-jb/assets/uploads/'; $config['allowed_types'] = 'gif|jpg|jpeg|png'; $config['max_size'] = '10000'; $config['max_width'] = '1024'; $config['max_height'] = '768'; $this->load->library('upload', $config); $img = $this->session->userdata('img'); $username = $this->session->userdata('username'); $this->profileimages->putProfileImage($username, $this->input->post("profileimage")); //fail show upload form if (! $this->upload->do_upload()) { $error = array('error'=>$this->upload->display_errors()); $username = $this->session->userdata('username'); $viewData['username'] = $username; $viewData['profileText'] = $this->profiles->getProfileText($username); $this->load->view('shared/header'); $this->load->view('homeprofile/homeprofiletitle', $viewData); $this->load->view('shared/nav'); $this->load->view('homeprofile/upload_fail', $error); $this->load->view('homeprofile/homeprofileview', $viewData, array('error' => ' ' )); $this->load->view('shared/footer'); //redirect('homeprofile/index'); } else { //successful upload so save to database $file_data = $this->upload->data(); $data['img'] = base_url().'./web-project-jb/assets/uploads/'.$file_data['file_name']; // you may want to delete the image from the server after saving it to db // check to make sure $data['full_path'] is a valid path // get upload_sucess.php from link above //$image = chunk_split( base64_encode( file_get_contents( $data['file_name'] ) ) ); $this->username = $this->session->userdata('username'); $data['profileimages'] = $this->profileimages->getProfileImage($username); $viewData['username'] = $username; $viewData['profileText'] = $this->profiles->getProfileText($username); $username = $this->session->userdata('username'); } } function index() { $username = $this->session->userdata('username'); $data['profileimages'] = $this->profileimages->getProfileImage($username); $viewData['username'] = $username; $viewData['profileText'] = $this->profiles->getProfileText($username); $this->load->view('shared/header'); $this->load->view('homeprofile/homeprofiletitle', $viewData); $this->load->view('shared/nav'); //$this->load->view('homeprofile/upload_form', $data); $this->load->view('homeprofile/homeprofileview', $data, $viewData, array('error' => ' ' ) ); $this->load->view('shared/footer'); } } Here is my view: <div id="maincontent"> <div id="primary"> <?//=$error;?> <?//=$img;?> <h3><?="Profile Image"?></h3> <img src="<?php echo'$img'?>" width='300' height='300'/> <?=form_open_multipart('homeprofile/upload');?> <input type="file" name="img" value=""/> <?=form_submit('submit', 'upload')?> <?=form_close();?> <?php if (isset($error)) echo $error;?> </div> </div> Your help is much appreciated

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  • Problem converting MsSql to MySql Stored procedure

    - by karthik
    Original source of MsSql SP is here.. http://www.codeproject.com/KB/database/InsertGeneratorPack.aspx I am using the below MySql stored procedure, created by SQLWAYS [Tool to convert MsSql to MySql]. The purpose of this is to take backup of selected tables to a script file. when the SP returns a value {Insert statements}. When i Execute the Below SP, i am getting a weird Result Set : SQLWAYS_EVAL# ll(cast(UidSQLWAYS_EVAL# 0)),'0')+''','+SQLWAYS_EVAL# ll(UserNameSQLWAYS_EVAL# '+SQLWAYS_EVAL# ll(PasswordSQLWAYS_EVAL# '+ I see a lot of "SQLWAYS_EVAL#" in the code, which is produced in the result too. What values need to be passed instead of "SQLWAYS_EVAL#". So that i get the proper Insert statements for each record in the table. I am new to MySql. Please help me. Its Urgent. Thanks. DELIMITER $$ DROP PROCEDURE IF EXISTS `InsertGenerator` $$ CREATE DEFINER=`root`@`localhost` PROCEDURE `InsertGenerator`() SWL_return: BEGIN -- SQLWAYS_EVAL# to retrieve column specific information -- SQLWAYS_EVAL# table DECLARE v_string VARCHAR(3000); -- SQLWAYS_EVAL# first half -- SQLWAYS_EVAL# tement DECLARE v_stringData VARCHAR(3000); -- SQLWAYS_EVAL# data -- SQLWAYS_EVAL# statement DECLARE v_dataType VARCHAR(1000); -- SQLWAYS_EVAL# -- SQLWAYS_EVAL# columns DECLARE v_colName VARCHAR(50); DECLARE NO_DATA INT DEFAULT 0; DECLARE cursCol CURSOR FOR SELECT column_name,data_type FROM information_schema.`columns` -- WHERE table_name = v_tableName; WHERE table_name = 'tbl_users'; DECLARE CONTINUE HANDLER FOR SQLEXCEPTION BEGIN SET NO_DATA = -2; END; DECLARE CONTINUE HANDLER FOR NOT FOUND SET NO_DATA = -1; OPEN cursCol; SET v_string = CONCAT('INSERT ',v_tableName,'('); SET v_stringData = ''; SET NO_DATA = 0; FETCH cursCol INTO v_colName,v_dataType; IF NO_DATA <> 0 then -- NOT SUPPORTED print CONCAT('Table ',@tableName, ' not found, processing skipped.') close cursCol; LEAVE SWL_return; end if; WHILE NO_DATA = 0 DO IF v_dataType in('varchar','char','nchar','nvarchar') then SET v_stringData = CONCAT(v_stringData,'SQLWAYS_EVAL# ll(',v_colName,'SQLWAYS_EVAL# ''+'); ELSE if v_dataType in('text','ntext') then -- SQLWAYS_EVAL# -- SQLWAYS_EVAL# else SET v_stringData = CONCAT(v_stringData,'SQLWAYS_EVAL# ll(cast(',v_colName,'SQLWAYS_EVAL# 00)),'''')+'''''',''+'); ELSE IF v_dataType = 'money' then -- SQLWAYS_EVAL# doesn't get converted -- SQLWAYS_EVAL# implicitly SET v_stringData = CONCAT(v_stringData,'SQLWAYS_EVAL# y,''''''+ isnull(cast(',v_colName,'SQLWAYS_EVAL# 0)),''0.0000'')+''''''),''+'); ELSE IF v_dataType = 'datetime' then SET v_stringData = CONCAT(v_stringData,'SQLWAYS_EVAL# time,''''''+ isnull(cast(',v_colName, 'SQLWAYS_EVAL# 0)),''0'')+''''''),''+'); ELSE IF v_dataType = 'image' then SET v_stringData = CONCAT(v_stringData,'SQLWAYS_EVAL# ll(cast(convert(varbinary,',v_colName, 'SQLWAYS_EVAL# 6)),''0'')+'''''',''+'); ELSE SET v_stringData = CONCAT(v_stringData,'SQLWAYS_EVAL# ll(cast(',v_colName,'SQLWAYS_EVAL# 0)),''0'')+'''''',''+'); end if; end if; end if; end if; end if; SET v_string = CONCAT(v_string,v_colName,','); SET NO_DATA = 0; FETCH cursCol INTO v_colName,v_dataType; END WHILE; select v_stringData; END $$ DELIMITER ;

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  • jquery drag and drop script and problem in reading json array

    - by Mac Taylor
    i made a script , exactly like wordpress widgets page and u can drag and drop objects this is my jquery script : <script type="text/javascript" >$(function(){ $('.widget') .each(function(){ $(this).hover(function(){ $(this).find('h4').addClass('collapse'); }, function(){ $(this).find('h4').removeClass('collapse'); }) .find('h4').hover(function(){ $(this).find('.in-widget-title').css('visibility', 'visible'); }, function(){ $(this).find('.in-widget-title').css('visibility', 'hidden'); }) .click(function(){ $(this).siblings('.widget-inside').toggle(); //Save state on change of collapse state of panel updateWidgetData(); }) .end() .find('.in-widget-title').css('visibility', 'hidden'); }); $('.column').sortable({ connectWith: '.column', handle: 'h4', cursor: 'move', placeholder: 'placeholder', forcePlaceholderSize: true, opacity: 0.4, start: function(event, ui){ //Firefox, Safari/Chrome fire click event after drag is complete, fix for that if($.browser.mozilla || $.browser.safari) $(ui.item).find('.widget-inside').toggle(); }, stop: function(event, ui){ ui.item.css({'top':'0','left':'0'}); //Opera fix if(!$.browser.mozilla && !$.browser.safari) updateWidgetData(); } }) .disableSelection(); }); function updateWidgetData(){ var items=[]; $('.column').each(function(){ var columnId=$(this).attr('id'); $('.widget', this).each(function(i){ var collapsed=0; if($(this).find('.widget-inside').css('display')=="none") collapsed=1; //Create Item object for current panel var item={ id: $(this).attr('id'), collapsed: collapsed, order : i, column: columnId }; //Push item object into items array items.push(item); }); }); //Assign items array to sortorder JSON variable var sortorder={ items: items }; //Pass sortorder variable to server using ajax to save state $.post("blocks.php"+"&order="+$.toJSON(sortorder), function(data){ $('#console').html(data).fadeIn("slow"); }); } </script> main part is saving object orders in table and this is my php part : function stripslashes_deep($value) { $value = is_array($value) ? array_map('stripslashes_deep', $value) : stripslashes($value); return $value; } $order = $_GET['order']; $order = sql_quote($order); if(empty($order)){ echo "Invalid data"; exit; } global $db,$prefix; if (get_magic_quotes_gpc()) { $_POST = array_map('stripslashes_deep', $_POST); $_GET = array_map('stripslashes_deep', $_GET); $_COOKIE = array_map('stripslashes_deep', $_COOKIE); $_REQUEST = array_map('stripslashes_deep', $_REQUEST); } $data=json_decode($order); foreach($newdata->items as $item) { //Extract column number for panel $col_id=preg_replace('/[^\d\s]/', '', $item->column); //Extract id of the panel $widget_id=preg_replace('/[^\d\s]/', '', $item->id); $sql="UPDATE blocks_tbl SET bposition='$col_id', weight='".$item->order."' WHERE id='".$widget_id."'"; mysql_query($sql) or die('Error updating widget DB'); } print_r($order); now forexample the output is this : items\":[{\"id\":\"item26\",\"collapsed\":1,\"order\":0,\"column\":\"c\"},{\"id\":\"item0\",\"collapsed\":1,\"order\":0,\"column\":\"i\"},{\"id\":\"item0\",\"collapsed\":1,\"order\":1,\"column\":\"i\"},{\"id\":\"item1\",\"collapsed\":1,\"order\":2,\"column\":\"i\"},{\"id\":\"item3\",\"collapsed\":1,\"order\":3,\"column\":\"i\"},{\"id\":\"item16\",\"collapsed\":1,\"order\":4,\"column\":\"i\"},{\"id\":\"item0\",\"collapsed\":1,\"order\":5,\"column\":\"i\"},{\"id\":\"item6\",\"collapsed\":1,\"order\":6,\"column\":\"i\"},{\"id\":\"item17\",\"collapsed\":1,\"order\":7,\"column\":\"i\"},{\"id\":\"item19\",\"collapsed\":1,\"order\":8,\"column\":\"i\"},{\"id\":\"item10\",\"collapsed\":1,\"order\":9,\"column\":\"i\"},{\"id\":\"item11\",\"collapsed\":1,\"order\":10,\"column\":\"i\"},{\"id\":\"item0\",\"collapsed\":1,\"order\":0,\"column\":\"l\"},{\"id\":\"item5\",\"collapsed\":1,\"order\":1,\"column\":\"l\"},{\"id\":\"item8\",\"collapsed\":1,\"order\":2,\"column\":\"l\"},{\"id\":\"item13\",\"collapsed\":1,\"order\":3,\"column\":\"l\"},{\"id\":\"item21\",\"collapsed\":1,\"order\":4,\"column\":\"l\"},{\"id\":\"item28\",\"collapsed\":1,\"order\":5,\"column\":\"l\"},{\"id\":\"item7\",\"collapsed\":1,\"order\":0,\"column\":\"r\"},{\"id\":\"item20\",\"collapsed\":1,\"order\":1,\"column\":\"r\"},{\"id\":\"item15\",\"collapsed\":1,\"order\":2,\"column\":\"r\"},{\"id\":\"item18\",\"collapsed\":1,\"order\":3,\"column\":\"r\"},{\"id\":\"item14\",\"collapsed\":1,\"order\":4,\"column\":\"r\"}]} question is how can i find out column_id or order im a little bit confused

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  • How to get the selected index of a dropdowlist with javascript

    - by rui martins
    I have a table with several @Html.dropdowlistfor in it. I was trying to read the selected value of using javascript, but all read is the html generated. How can I read it?? for (var i = 0; i < oTable.length; i++) { **userModel.Id = oTable[i][0];** regionModel.Users.push(userModel); processModel.Regions.push(regionModel); userModel = { "Id": "", "Name": ""}; regionModel = { "Id": "", "Name": "", "Users": []}; } TABLE <table class="tbl" id="tbl"> <thead> <tr> <th> Region </th> <th> Owner </th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> @if (Model != null) { foreach (var item in Model.Regions) { <tr> <td> @Html.DisplayTextFor(i => item.Name) </td> <td> @Html.DropDownListFor(i => item.Users, new SelectList(item.Users, "Id", "Name")) </td> </tr> } } </tbody> CODE function ProcessSave() { // Step 1: Read View Data and Create JSON Object var userModel = { "User": "", "Name": ""}; var regionModel = {"Region" : "","Name": "", "Users": []}; var processModel = { "User": "", "Description": "", "Code": "", "Regions": []}; processModel.Name = $("#Name").val(); processModel.Code = $("#Code").val(); processModel.Description = $("#Description").val(); var oTable = $('.tbl').dataTable().fnGetData(); for (var i = 0; i < oTable.length; i++) { regionModel.Name = oTable[i][0]; userModel.User = oTable[i][1]; userModel.Name = oTable[i][1]; regionModel.Users.push(userModel); processModel.Regions.push(regionModel); userModel = { "Id": "", "Name": ""}; regionModel = { "Name": "", "Users": []}; } // Step 1: Ends Here // Set 2: Ajax Post // Here i have used ajax post for saving/updating information $.ajax({ url: '/Process/Create', data: JSON.stringify(processModel), type: 'POST', contentType: 'application/json;', dataType: 'json', success: function (result) { if (result.Success == "1") { window.location.href = "/Process/Index"; } else { alert(result.ex); } } }); } MODELS namespace TestingTool.ViewModels { public partial class ProcessModel { public string Name { get; set; } public string Description { get; set; } public string Code { get; set; } public virtual ICollection<RegionModel> Regions { get; set; } } } namespace TestingTool.ViewModels { public class RegionModel { public int Region { get; set; } public string Name { get; set; } public virtual ICollection<UserModel> Users { get; set; } } } namespace TestingTool.ViewModels { public class UserModel { public int User{ get; set; } public string Name { get; set; } } }

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  • Fastest way to pad a number in Java to a certain number of digits

    - by Martin
    Am trying to create a well-optimised bit of code to create number of X-digits in length (where X is read from a runtime properties file), based on a DB-generated sequence number (Y), which is then used a folder-name when saving a file. I've come up with three ideas so far, the fastest of which is the last one, but I'd appreciate any advice people may have on this... 1) Instantiate a StringBuilder with initial capacity X. Append Y. While length < X, insert a zero at pos zero. 2) Instantiate a StringBuilder with initial capacity X. While length < X, append a zero. Create a DecimalFormat based on StringBuilder value, and then format the number when it's needed. 3) Create a new int of Math.pow( 10, X ) and add Y. Use String.valueOf() on the new number and then substring(1) it. The second one can obviously be split into outside-loop and inside-loop sections. So, any tips? Using a for-loop of 10,000 iterations, I'm getting similar timings from the first two, and the third method is approximately ten-times faster. Does this seem correct? Full test-method code below... // Setup test variables int numDigits = 9; int testNumber = 724; int numIterations = 10000; String folderHolder = null; DecimalFormat outputFormat = new DecimalFormat( "#,##0" ); // StringBuilder test long before = System.nanoTime(); for ( int i = 0; i < numIterations; i++ ) { StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder( numDigits ); sb.append( testNumber ); while ( sb.length() < numDigits ) { sb.insert( 0, 0 ); } folderHolder = sb.toString(); } long after = System.nanoTime(); System.out.println( "01: " + outputFormat.format( after - before ) + " nanoseconds" ); System.out.println( "Sanity check: Folder = \"" + folderHolder + "\"" ); // DecimalFormat test before = System.nanoTime(); StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder( numDigits ); while ( sb.length() < numDigits ) { sb.append( 0 ); } DecimalFormat formatter = new DecimalFormat( sb.toString() ); for ( int i = 0; i < numIterations; i++ ) { folderHolder = formatter.format( testNumber ); } after = System.nanoTime(); System.out.println( "02: " + outputFormat.format( after - before ) + " nanoseconds" ); System.out.println( "Sanity check: Folder = \"" + folderHolder + "\"" ); // Substring test before = System.nanoTime(); int baseNum = (int)Math.pow( 10, numDigits ); for ( int i = 0; i < numIterations; i++ ) { int newNum = baseNum + testNumber; folderHolder = String.valueOf( newNum ).substring( 1 ); } after = System.nanoTime(); System.out.println( "03: " + outputFormat.format( after - before ) + " nanoseconds" ); System.out.println( "Sanity check: Folder = \"" + folderHolder + "\"" );

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  • Edit of self referencing HABTM in cakephp works, sometimes

    - by Odegard
    I'm using a self referencing HABTM model with Participants. You sign up for an event and when you log in to your reservation/profile you see a list of other participants and you can choose to add yourself and others into various groups; share hotel room, share transportation from airport etc. What I've managed so far: 1) In my profile I see the list of all other participants with checkboxes. Great so far. 2) Adding another participant works fine. Next time I edit, the participant I added is shown as checked. 3) Removing another participant works fine too as long as you still have checked participants before you submit! Again, with words: There are 3 participants. I'm logged in as one of them, and I see the 2 other people on the participants list. I choose to check both of them. This works fine (always). Later I choose to remove one of them (by unchecking the checkbox and hitting submit). This also works fine (always). If I want to remove the last checkbox... nothing is updated (always!). What's curious is that I can add and remove any odd combination of participants and it will always work UNLESS I choose to remove every participants in one go (removing a one and only participant is a special case of "remove all checked participants"). As far as I know, HABTMs work by first deleting all relations, then re-saving them. I can see that in my tables when I remove, add, remove, add the same participant over and over again - the id on the HABTM table is always increasing. When I deselect all participants at once, however, the relations are not updated. The ids stay the same, so it's like the save never happened. This behaviour is so specific and peculiar, I have a feeling I'm missing something obvious here. Anyway, here's the relevant code: Model class Participant extends AppModel { var $hasAndBelongsToMany = array( 'buddy' = array( 'className' = 'Participant', 'joinTable' = 'participants_participants', 'foreignKey' = 'participant_id', 'associationForeignKey' = 'buddy_id', 'unique' = true, ) ); Controller function edit($id = null) { if (!$id && empty($this-data)) { $this-Session-setFlash(__('Invalid Participant', true)); $this-redirect(array('action'='index')); } if (!empty($this-data)) { if ($this-Participant-saveAll($this-data)) { $this-Session-setFlash(__('The Participant has been saved', true)); $this-redirect(array('action'='index')); } else { $this-Session-setFlash(__('The Participant could not be saved. Please, try again.', true)); } } if (empty($this-data)) { $this-data = $this-Participant-read(null, $id); } // Fetching all participants except yourself $allParticipants = $this-Participant-find('list', array('conditions' = array('participant.id ' = $id))); // Fetching every participant that has added you to their list $allBuddies = $this-Participant-ParticipantsParticipant-find('list', array( 'conditions' = array('buddy_id' = $id), 'fields' = 'ParticipantsParticipant.participant_id', 'order' = 'ParticipantsParticipant.participant_id ASC' )); $this-set(compact('allParticipants','allBuddies')); } View echo $form-create('Participant'); echo $associations-habtmCheckBoxes($allParticipants, $this-data['buddy'], 'buddy', 'div', '\'border: 1px solid #000;\'', '\'border: 1px solid #000;\''); echo $form-end('Submit'); I'm using a slightly modified helper, habtmCheckBoxes, found here: http://cakeforge.org/snippet/detail.php?type=snippet&id=190 It works like this: function habtmCheckBoxes($rows=array(), $selectedArr=array(), $modelName, $wrapTag='p', $checkedDiv, $uncheckedDiv) {}

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  • Make wix installation set upgrade to same folder

    - by Magnus Akselvoll
    How can I make a major upgrade to an installation set (MSI) built with Wix install into the same folder as the original installation? The installation is correctly detected as an upgrade, but the directory selection screen is still shown and with the default value (not necessarily the current installation folder). Do I have to do manual work like saving the installation folder in a registry key upon first installing and then read this key upon upgrade? If so, is there any example? Or is there some easier way to achieve this in MSI / Wix? As reference I paste in my current Wix file below: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <!-- Package information --> <Package Keywords="Installer" Id="e85e6190-1cd4-49f5-8924-9da5fcb8aee8" Description="Installs MyCompany Integration Framework 1.0.0" Comments="Installs MyCompany Integration Framework 1.0.0" InstallerVersion="100" Compressed="yes" /> <Upgrade Id='9071eacc-9b5a-48e3-bb90-8064d2b2c45d'> <UpgradeVersion Property="PATCHFOUND" OnlyDetect="no" Minimum="0.0.1" IncludeMinimum="yes" Maximum="1.0.0" IncludeMaximum="yes"/> </Upgrade> <!-- Useless but necessary... --> <Media Id="1" Cabinet="MyCompany.cab" EmbedCab="yes" /> <!-- Precondition: .Net 2 must be installed --> <Condition Message='This setup requires the .NET Framework 2 or higher.'> <![CDATA[MsiNetAssemblySupport >= "2.0.50727"]]> </Condition> <Directory Id="TARGETDIR" Name="SourceDir"> <Directory Id="MyCompany" Name="MyCompany"> <Directory Id="INSTALLDIR" Name="Integrat" LongName="MyCompany Integration Framework"> <Component Id="MyCompanyDllComponent" Guid="4f362043-03a0-472d-a84f-896522ce7d2b" DiskId="1"> <File Id="MyCompanyIntegrationDll" Name="IbIntegr.dll" src="..\Build\MyCompany.Integration.dll" Vital="yes" LongName="MyCompany.Integration.dll" /> <File Id="MyCompanyServiceModelDll" Name="IbSerMod.dll" src="..\Build\MyCompany.ServiceModel.dll" Vital="yes" LongName="MyCompany.ServiceModel.dll" /> </Component> <!-- More components --> </Directory> </Directory> </Directory> <Feature Id="MyCompanyProductFeature" Title='MyCompany Integration Framework' Description='The complete package' Display='expand' Level="1" InstallDefault='local' ConfigurableDirectory="INSTALLDIR"> <ComponentRef Id="MyCompanyDllComponent" /> </Feature> <!-- Task scheduler application. It has to be used as a property --> <Property Id="finaltaskexe" Value="MyCompany.Integration.Host.exe" /> <Property Id="WIXUI_INSTALLDIR" Value="INSTALLDIR" /> <InstallExecuteSequence> <!-- command must be executed: MyCompany.Integration.Host.exe /INITIALCONFIG parameters.xml --> <Custom Action='PropertyAssign' After='InstallFinalize'>NOT Installed AND NOT PATCHFOUND</Custom> <Custom Action='LaunchFile' After='InstallFinalize'>NOT Installed AND NOT PATCHFOUND</Custom> <RemoveExistingProducts Before='CostInitialize' /> </InstallExecuteSequence> <!-- execute comand --> <CustomAction Id='PropertyAssign' Property='PathProperty' Value='[INSTALLDIR][finaltaskexe]' /> <CustomAction Id='LaunchFile' Property='PathProperty' ExeCommand='/INITIALCONFIG "[INSTALLDIR]parameters.xml"' Return='asyncNoWait' /> <!-- User interface information --> <UIRef Id="WixUI_InstallDir" /> <UIRef Id="WixUI_ErrorProgressText" />

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  • Faulty to use memcache together with a php web-browser-game in this way?

    - by Crowye
    Background We are currently working on a strategy web-browser game based on php, html and javascript. The plan is to have 10,000+ users playing within the same world. Currently we are using memcached to: store json static data, language files store changeable serialized php class objects (such as armies, inventorys, unit-containers, buildings, etc) In the back we have a mysql server running and holding all the game data aswell. When a object is loaded through our ObjectLoader it loads in this order: checks a static hashmap in the script for the object checks memcache if it has already been loaded into it otherwise loads from database, and saves it into memcache and the static temp hashmap We have built the whole game using a class-object-oriented approach where functionality is always made between objects. Beause of this we think we have managed to get a nice structure, and with the help of memcached we have received good request times from client-server when interacting with the game. I'm aware that memcache is not synchronized, and also is not commonly used for holding a full game in memory. In the beginning after a server's startup the load times when loading objects into memcache for the first time will be high, but after the server's been online for a while and most loads are from memcache, the loads will be well reduced. Currently we are saving changed objects into memcache and database at the same time. Earlier we had an idea to save objects into db only after a certain time or at intervals, but due to risk inconsistency if the memcache/server went down, we skipped it for now. Client requests to server often return object's status simple json-format without changing the object, which in turn is represented in the browser visually with images and javascript. But from time to time depending on when an object was last updated, it updates them with new information (e.g. a build-queue holding planned buildings time-progress is increased, and/or planned-queue-items-array has changed). Questions: Do you see how this could work or are we walking in blindness here? Do you expect us to have a lot of inconsistency issues if someone loads and updates the a memcache objects while someone else does the same? Is it even doable to do it in the way he have done it? Seems to be working fine atm, but so far we have only been 4 people online at the same time.. Is some other cache program more fit for this class-object approach than memcached? Is there any other tips you have for this situation? UPDATE Since it is simply a "normal webpage" (no applet, flash, etc), we are implementing the game so that the server is the only one holding a "real game-state".. the state of the different javascript-objects on the client is more like a approximative version of the server's game state. From time to time and before you do certain things important things, the client's visual state is updated to the server's state (e.g. the client things he can afford a barracks, asks the server to build a barracks, server updates current resources according to income-data on server and then tries to build a barracks or casts an error-message, and then sends the current server-state on resources, buildings back to the client).. It is not a fast-paced game lika real strategy game. More like a quite slow 3-4 months playtime game, where buildings can take +1 minute up to several days to complete.

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  • Android - Resuming application state - SL4A

    - by toyotajon93
    please dont harpoon me for a noob-ish question. I am working on an android application using SL4A, when my application starts it runs in the background while the script is being executed. I'm not sure where to start but each time I click my icon, it re-starts my application. I have tried using different launchmodes with nothing different happening. I'm thinking it has to do with the OnCreate code, and the setting of the notification. I need help saving my application state and then resuming on either re-click of icon or click from notification bar. I've tried everything had to turn here for help. I am not a pro at android programming by any means. Thanks guys, be gentle ;) Public void onCreate() { super.onCreate(); mInterpreterConfiguration = ((BaseApplication) getApplication()) .getInterpreterConfiguration(); } @Override public void onStart(Intent intent, final int startId) { super.onStart(intent, startId); String fileName = Script.getFileName(this); Interpreter interpreter = mInterpreterConfiguration .getInterpreterForScript(fileName); if (interpreter == null || !interpreter.isInstalled()) { mLatch.countDown(); if (FeaturedInterpreters.isSupported(fileName)) { Intent i = new Intent(this, DialogActivity.class); i.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK); i.putExtra(Constants.EXTRA_SCRIPT_PATH, fileName); startActivity(i); } else { Log .e(this, "Cannot find an interpreter for script " + fileName); } stopSelf(startId); return; } // Copies script to internal memory. fileName = InterpreterUtils.getInterpreterRoot(this).getAbsolutePath() + "/" + fileName; File script = new File(fileName); // TODO(raaar): Check size here! if (!script.exists()) { script = FileUtils.copyFromStream(fileName, getResources() .openRawResource(Script.ID)); } copyResourcesToLocal(); // Copy all resources if (Script.getFileExtension(this) .equals(HtmlInterpreter.HTML_EXTENSION)) { HtmlActivityTask htmlTask = ScriptLauncher.launchHtmlScript(script, this, intent, mInterpreterConfiguration); mFacadeManager = htmlTask.getRpcReceiverManager(); mLatch.countDown(); stopSelf(startId); } else { mProxy = new AndroidProxy(this, null, true); mProxy.startLocal(); mLatch.countDown(); ScriptLauncher.launchScript(script, mInterpreterConfiguration, mProxy, new Runnable() { @Override public void run() { mProxy.shutdown(); stopSelf(startId); } }); } } RpcReceiverManager getRpcReceiverManager() throws InterruptedException { mLatch.await(); if (mFacadeManager==null) { // Facade manage may not be available on startup. mFacadeManager = mProxy.getRpcReceiverManagerFactory() .getRpcReceiverManagers().get(0); } return mFacadeManager; } @Override protected Notification createNotification() { Notification notification = new Notification(R.drawable.script_logo_48, this.getString(R.string.loading), System.currentTimeMillis()); // This contentIntent is a noop. PendingIntent contentIntent = PendingIntent.getService(this, 0, new Intent(), 0); notification.setLatestEventInfo(this, this.getString(R.string.app_name), this.getString(R.string.loading), contentIntent); notification.flags = Notification.FLAG_ONGOING_EVENT; return notification; }

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  • C/PHP: How do I convert the following PHP JSON API script into a C plugin for apache?

    - by TeddyB
    I have a JSON API that I need to provide super fast access to my data through. The JSON API makes a simply query against the database based on the GET parameters provided. I've already optimized my database, so please don't recommend that as an answer. I'm using PHP-APC, which helps PHP by saving the bytecode, BUT - for a JSON API that is being called literally dozens of times per second (as indicated by my logs), I need to reduce the massive RAM consumption PHP is consuming ... as well as rewrite my JSON API in a language that execute much faster than PHP. My code is below. As you can see, is fairly straight forward. <?php define(ALLOWED_HTTP_REFERER, 'example.com'); if ( stristr($_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'], ALLOWED_HTTP_REFERER) ) { try { $conn_str = DB . ':host=' . DB_HOST . ';dbname=' . DB_NAME; $dbh = new PDO($conn_str, DB_USERNAME, DB_PASSWORD); $params = array(); $sql = 'SELECT homes.home_id, address, city, state, zip FROM homes WHERE homes.display_status = true AND homes.geolat BETWEEN :geolatLowBound AND :geolatHighBound AND homes.geolng BETWEEN :geolngLowBound AND :geolngHighBound'; $params[':geolatLowBound'] = $_GET['geolatLowBound']; $params[':geolatHighBound'] = $_GET['geolatHighBound']; $params[':geolngLowBound'] =$_GET['geolngLowBound']; $params[':geolngHighBound'] = $_GET['geolngHighBound']; if ( isset($_GET['min_price']) && isset($_GET['max_price']) ) { $sql = $sql . ' AND homes.price BETWEEN :min_price AND :max_price '; $params[':min_price'] = $_GET['min_price']; $params[':max_price'] = $_GET['max_price']; } if ( isset($_GET['min_beds']) && isset($_GET['max_beds']) ) { $sql = $sql . ' AND homes.num_of_beds BETWEEN :min_beds AND :max_beds '; $params['min_beds'] = $_GET['min_beds']; $params['max_beds'] = $_GET['max_beds']; } if ( isset($_GET['min_sqft']) && isset($_GET['max_sqft']) ) { $sql = $sql . ' AND homes.sqft BETWEEN :min_sqft AND :max_sqft '; $params['min_sqft'] = $_GET['min_sqft']; $params['max_sqft'] = $_GET['max_sqft']; } $stmt = $dbh->prepare($sql); $stmt->execute($params); $result_set = $stmt->fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC); /* output a JSON representation of the home listing data retrieved */ ob_start("ob_gzhandler"); // compress the output header('Content-type: text/javascript'); print "{'homes' : "; array_walk_recursive($result_set, "cleanOutputFromXSS"); print json_encode( $result_set ); print '}'; $dbh = null; } catch (PDOException $e) { die('Unable to retreive home listing information'); } } function cleanOutputFromXSS(&$value) { $value = htmlspecialchars($value, ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8'); } ?> How would I begin converting this PHP code over to C, since C is both better on memory management (since you do it yourself) and much, much faster to execute?

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  • Associating an Object with other Objects and Properties of those Objects

    - by alzoid
    I am looking for some help with designing some functionality in my application. I already have something similar designed but this problem is a little different. Background: In my application we have different Modules. Data in each module can be associated to other modules. Each Module is represented by an Object in our application. Module 1 can be associated with Module 2 and Module 3. Currently I use a factory to provide the proper DAO for getting and saving this data. It looks something like this: class Module1Factory { public static Module1BridgeDAO createModule1BridgeDAO(int moduleid) { switch (moduleId) { case Module.Module2Id: return new Module1_Module2DAO(); case Module.Module3Id: return new Module1_Module3DAO(); default: return null; } } } Module1_Module2 and Module1_Module3 implement the same BridgeModule interface. In the database I have a Table for every module (Module1, Module2, Module3). I also have a bridge table for each module (they are many to many) Module1_Module2, Module1_Module3 etc. The DAO basically handles all code needed to manage the association and retrieve its own instance data for the calling module. Now when we add new modules that associate with Module1 we simply implement the ModuleBridge interface and provide the common functionality. New Development We are adding a new module that will have the ability to be associated with other Modules as well as specific properties of that module. The module is basically providing the user the ability to add their custom forms to our other modules. That way they can collect additional information along with what we provide. I want to start associating my Form module with other modules and their properties. Ie if Module1 has a property Category, I want to associate an instance From data with that property. There are many Forms. If a users creates an instance of Module2, they may always want to also have certain form(s) attached to that Module2 instance. If they create an instance of Module2 and select Category 1, then I may want additional Form(s) created. I prototyped something like this: Form FormLayout (contains the labels and gui controls) FormModule (associates a form with all instances of a module) Form Instance (create an instance of a form to be filled out) As I thought about it I was thinking about making a new FormModule table/class/dao for each Module and Property that I add. So I might have: FormModule1 FormModule1Property1 FormModule1Property2 FormModule1Property3 FormModule1Property4 FormModule2 FormModule3 FormModule3Property1 Then as I did previously, I would use a factory to get the proper DAO for dealing with all of these. I would hand it an array of ids representing different modules and properties and it would return all of the DAOs that I need to call getForms(). Which in turn would return all of the forms for that particular bridge. Some points This will be for a new module so I dont need to expand on the factory code I provided. I just wanted to show an example of what I have done in the past. The new module can be associated with: Other Modules (ie globally for any instance of that module data), Other module properties (ie only if the Module instance has a certian value in one of its properties) I want to make it easy for developers to add associations with other modules and properties easily Can any one suggest any design patterns or strategy's for achieving this? If anything is unclear please let me know. Thank you, Al

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  • What language/framework (technology) to use for website (flash games portal)

    - by cripox
    Hello, I know there are a lot of similar questions on the net, but because I am a newbie in web development I didn't find the solution for my specific problem. I am planing on creating a flash games portal from scratch. It is a big chance that there will be big traffic from the beginning (millions of pageviews). I want to reduce the server costs as much as possible but in the same time to not be tide to an expensive contract as there is a chance that the project will not be as successfully as I want and in that case the money would be very little. The question is : what technology to use? I don't know any web dev technology yet so it doesn't matter what I will learn. My web dev experience is a little php 8 years ago, and from then I programmed in C++ / Java- game and mobile development. I like Java and C syntax and language very much and I tend to dislike dynamic typing or non robust scripting (like php)- but I can get along if these are the best choices. The candidates are now: - Grails (my best for now) Ruby on Rails Cake PHP Other technologies (Google App Engine, Python/Django etc...) I was considering at first using pure C and compiling the web app in the server- just to squeeze more from the servers, but soon I understand that this is overkill. Next my eyes came on Ruby - as there is a lot of buzz for it's easiness of use. Next I discovered Grails and looked at Java because it is said that it is "faster". But I don't know what this "Faster" really means on my needs, so here comes the first question: 1) What will be my biggest consumption on the server, other than bandwidth, for a lot of flash content requests? Is it memory? I heard that Java needs a lot of memory, but is faster. Is it CPU? I am planning to take some daily VPS.NET nodes at first, to see if there is a demand, and if the "spike" is permanent to move to a dedicated server (serverloft.com has some good offers), else to remain with less nodes. I was also considering developing in Google App Engine- cheap or free hosting to use at first - so I can test my assumption- and also very easy to use (no need for sys administration) but the costs became high if used more ( 3 million games played / month .. x mb/ each). And the issue with Google is that it looks me in this technology. My other concern is scalability (not only for traffic/users, but as adding functionality) My plans are to release a functional site in just 4 weeks (just the basics frontend and some quick basic backend - so I can be able to modify some things and add games manually) - but then to raise it and add more things to it. I am planning to take a little different approach than other portals so I need to write it from scratch (a script will not do). 2) Will Grails take much more resources than RoR or Php server wise? I heard that making it on Java stack will be hardware expensive and is overkill if you don't make a bank application. My application will not be very complex (I hope and i will try to) but will have a lot of traffic. I also took in account using CDN for files, but the cheapest CDN found was 5c/GB (vps.net) and the cost per gb on serverloft (http://www.serverloft.com/dedizierte-server/server-details.php?products=4) is only 1.79 cents/GB and comes with the other resources either. I am new to this domain (web). I am learning the ropes and searching on the web for ~half of year but don't have any really practical experience, so I know that I must have some naive thinking and other issues that i don't know from now, so please give me any advice you want regarding anything, not just the specific questions asked. And thank you so much for such great community!

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  • Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community

    There we go! I finally managed to push myself forward and pick up an old, actually too old, idea since I ever arrived here in Mauritius more than six years ago. I'm talking about a community for all kind of ICT connected people. In the past (back in Germany), I used to be involved in various community activities. For example, I was part of the Microsoft Community Leader/Influencer Program (CLIP) in Germany due to an FAQ on Visual FoxPro, actually Active FoxPro Pages (AFP) to be more precise. Then in 2003/2004 I addressed the responsible person of the dFPUG user group in Speyer in order to assist him in organising monthly user group meetings. Well, he handed over management completely, and attended our meetings regularly. Why did it take you so long? Well, I don't want to bother you with the details but short version is that I was too busy on either job (building up new companies) or private life (got married and we have two lovely children, eh 'monsters') or even both. But now is the time where I was starting to look for new fields given the fact that I gained some spare time. My businesses are up and running, the kids are in school, and I am finally in a position where I can commit myself again to community activities. And I love to do that! Why a new user group? Good question... And 'easy' to answer. Since back in 2007 I did my usual research, eh Google searches, to see whether there existing user groups in Mauritius and in which field of interest. And yes, there are! If I recall this correctly, then there are communities for PHP, Drupal, Python (just recently), Oracle, and Linux (which used to be even two). But... either they do not exist anymore, they are dormant, or there is only a low heart-beat, frankly speaking. And yes, I went to meetings of the Linux User Group Meta (Mauritius) back in 2010/2011 and just recently. I really like the setup and the way the LUGM is organised. It's just that I have a slightly different point of view on how a user group or community should organise itself and how to approach future members. Don't get me wrong, I'm not criticizing others doing a very good job, I'm only saying that I'd like to do it differently. The last meeting of the LUGM was awesome; read my feedback about it. Ok, so what's up with 'Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community' or short: MSCC? As I've already written in my article on 'Communities - The importance of exchange and discussion' I think it is essential in a world of IT to stay 'connected' with a good number of other people in the same field. There is so much dynamic and every day's news that it is almost impossible to keep on track with all of them. The MSCC is going to provide a common platform to exchange experience and share knowledge between each other. You might be a newbie and want to know what to expect working as a software developer, or as a database administrator, or maybe as an IT systems administrator, or you're an experienced geek that loves to share your ideas or solutions that you implemented to solve a specific problem, or you're the business (or HR) guy that is looking for 'fresh' blood to enforce your existing team. Or... you're just interested and you'd like to communicate with like-minded people. Meetup of 26.06.2013 @ L'arabica: Of course there are laptops around. Free WiFi, power outlet, coffee, code and Linux in one go. The MSCC is technology-agnostic and spans an umbrella over any kind of technology. Simply because you can't ignore other technologies anymore in a connected IT world as we have. A front-end developer for iOS applications should have the chance to connect with a Python back-end coder and eventually with a DBA for MySQL or PostgreSQL and exchange their experience. Furthermore, I'm a huge fan of cross-platform development, and it is very pleasant to have pure Web developers - with all that HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript and JS libraries stuff - and passionate C# or Java coders at the same table. This diversity of knowledge can assist and boost your personal situation. And last but not least, there are projects and open positions 'flying' around... People might like to hear others opinion about an employer or get new impulses on how to tackle down an issue at their workspace, etc. This is about community. And that's how I see the MSCC in general - free of any limitations be it by programming language or technology. Having the chance to exchange experience and to discuss certain aspects of technology saves you time and money, and it's a pleasure to enjoy. Compared to dusty books and remote online resources. It's human! Organising meetups (meetings, get-together, gatherings - you name it!) As of writing this article, the MSCC is currently meeting every Wednesday for the weekly 'Code & Coffee' session at various locations (suggestions are welcome!) in Mauritius. This might change in the future eventually but especially at the beginning I think it is very important to create awareness in the Mauritian IT world. Yes, we are here! Come and join us! ;-) The MSCC's main online presence is located at Meetup.com because it allows me to handle the organisation of events and meeting appointments very easily, and any member can have a look who else is involved so that an exchange of contacts is given at any time. In combination with the other entities (G+ Communities, FB Pages or in Groups) I advertise and manage all future activities here: Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community This is a community for those who care and are proud of what they do. For those developers, regardless how experienced they are, who want to improve and master their craft. This is a community for those who believe that being average is just not good enough. I know, there are not many 'craftsmen' yet but it's a start... Let's see how it looks like by the end of the year. There are free smartphone apps for Android and iOS from Meetup.com that allow you to keep track of meetings and to stay informed on latest updates. And last but not least, there is a Trello workspace to collect and share ideas and provide downloads of slides, etc. Trello is also available as free smartphone app. Sharing is caring! As mentioned, the #MSCC is present in various social media networks in order to cover as many people as possible here in Mauritius. Following is an overview of the current networks: Twitter - Latest updates and quickies Google+ - Community channel Facebook - Community Page LinkedIn - Community Group Trello - Collaboration workspace to share and develop ideas Hopefully, this covers the majority of computer-related people in Mauritius. Please spread the word about the #MSCC between your colleagues, your friends and other interested 'geeks'. Your future looks bright Running and participating in a user group or any kind of community usually provides quite a number of advantages for anyone. On the one side it is very joyful for me to organise appointments and get in touch with people that might be interested to present a little demo of their projects or their recent problems they had to tackle down, and on the other side there are lots of companies that have various support programs or sponsorships especially tailored for user groups. At the moment, I already have a couple of gimmicks that I would like to hand out in small contests or raffles during one of the upcoming meetings, and as said, companies provide all kind of goodies, books free of charge, or sometimes even licenses for communities. Meeting other software developers or IT guys also opens up your point of view on the local market and there might be interesting projects or job offers available, too. A community like the Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community is great for freelancers, self-employed, students and of course employees. Meetings will be organised on a regular basis, and I'm open to all kind of suggestions from you. Please leave a comment here in blog or join the conversations in the above mentioned social networks. Let's get this community up and running, my fellow Mauritians! Recent updates The MSCC is now officially participating in the O'Reilly UK User Group programm and we are allowed to request review or recension copies of recent titles. Additionally, we have a discount code for any books or ebooks that you might like to order on shop.oreilly.com. More applications for user group sponsorship programms are pending and I'm looking forward to a couple of announcement very soon. And... we need some kind of 'corporate identity' - Over at the MSCC website there is a call for action (or better said a contest with prizes) to create a unique design for the MSCC. This would include a decent colour palette, a logo, graphical banners for Meetup, Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. and of course badges for our craftsmen to add to their personal blogs and websites. Please spread the word and contribute. Thanks!

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  • Parallelism in .NET – Part 9, Configuration in PLINQ and TPL

    - by Reed
    Parallel LINQ and the Task Parallel Library contain many options for configuration.  Although the default configuration options are often ideal, there are times when customizing the behavior is desirable.  Both frameworks provide full configuration support. When working with Data Parallelism, there is one primary configuration option we often need to control – the number of threads we want the system to use when parallelizing our routine.  By default, PLINQ and the TPL both use the ThreadPool to schedule tasks.  Given the major improvements in the ThreadPool in CLR 4, this default behavior is often ideal.  However, there are times that the default behavior is not appropriate.  For example, if you are working on multiple threads simultaneously, and want to schedule parallel operations from within both threads, you might want to consider restricting each parallel operation to using a subset of the processing cores of the system.  Not doing this might over-parallelize your routine, which leads to inefficiencies from having too many context switches. In the Task Parallel Library, configuration is handled via the ParallelOptions class.  All of the methods of the Parallel class have an overload which accepts a ParallelOptions argument. We configure the Parallel class by setting the ParallelOptions.MaxDegreeOfParallelism property.  For example, let’s revisit one of the simple data parallel examples from Part 2: Parallel.For(0, pixelData.GetUpperBound(0), row => { for (int col=0; col < pixelData.GetUpperBound(1); ++col) { pixelData[row, col] = AdjustContrast(pixelData[row, col], minPixel, maxPixel); } }); .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } Here, we’re looping through an image, and calling a method on each pixel in the image.  If this was being done on a separate thread, and we knew another thread within our system was going to be doing a similar operation, we likely would want to restrict this to using half of the cores on the system.  This could be accomplished easily by doing: var options = new ParallelOptions(); options.MaxDegreeOfParallelism = Math.Max(Environment.ProcessorCount / 2, 1); Parallel.For(0, pixelData.GetUpperBound(0), options, row => { for (int col=0; col < pixelData.GetUpperBound(1); ++col) { pixelData[row, col] = AdjustContrast(pixelData[row, col], minPixel, maxPixel); } }); Now, we’re restricting this routine to using no more than half the cores in our system.  Note that I included a check to prevent a single core system from supplying zero; without this check, we’d potentially cause an exception.  I also did not hard code a specific value for the MaxDegreeOfParallelism property.  One of our goals when parallelizing a routine is allowing it to scale on better hardware.  Specifying a hard-coded value would contradict that goal. Parallel LINQ also supports configuration, and in fact, has quite a few more options for configuring the system.  The main configuration option we most often need is the same as our TPL option: we need to supply the maximum number of processing threads.  In PLINQ, this is done via a new extension method on ParallelQuery<T>: ParallelEnumerable.WithDegreeOfParallelism. Let’s revisit our declarative data parallelism sample from Part 6: double min = collection.AsParallel().Min(item => item.PerformComputation()); Here, we’re performing a computation on each element in the collection, and saving the minimum value of this operation.  If we wanted to restrict this to a limited number of threads, we would add our new extension method: int maxThreads = Math.Max(Environment.ProcessorCount / 2, 1); double min = collection .AsParallel() .WithDegreeOfParallelism(maxThreads) .Min(item => item.PerformComputation()); This automatically restricts the PLINQ query to half of the threads on the system. PLINQ provides some additional configuration options.  By default, PLINQ will occasionally revert to processing a query in parallel.  This occurs because many queries, if parallelized, typically actually cause an overall slowdown compared to a serial processing equivalent.  By analyzing the “shape” of the query, PLINQ often decides to run a query serially instead of in parallel.  This can occur for (taken from MSDN): Queries that contain a Select, indexed Where, indexed SelectMany, or ElementAt clause after an ordering or filtering operator that has removed or rearranged original indices. Queries that contain a Take, TakeWhile, Skip, SkipWhile operator and where indices in the source sequence are not in the original order. Queries that contain Zip or SequenceEquals, unless one of the data sources has an originally ordered index and the other data source is indexable (i.e. an array or IList(T)). Queries that contain Concat, unless it is applied to indexable data sources. Queries that contain Reverse, unless applied to an indexable data source. If the specific query follows these rules, PLINQ will run the query on a single thread.  However, none of these rules look at the specific work being done in the delegates, only at the “shape” of the query.  There are cases where running in parallel may still be beneficial, even if the shape is one where it typically parallelizes poorly.  In these cases, you can override the default behavior by using the WithExecutionMode extension method.  This would be done like so: var reversed = collection .AsParallel() .WithExecutionMode(ParallelExecutionMode.ForceParallelism) .Select(i => i.PerformComputation()) .Reverse(); Here, the default behavior would be to not parallelize the query unless collection implemented IList<T>.  We can force this to run in parallel by adding the WithExecutionMode extension method in the method chain. Finally, PLINQ has the ability to configure how results are returned.  When a query is filtering or selecting an input collection, the results will need to be streamed back into a single IEnumerable<T> result.  For example, the method above returns a new, reversed collection.  In this case, the processing of the collection will be done in parallel, but the results need to be streamed back to the caller serially, so they can be enumerated on a single thread. This streaming introduces overhead.  IEnumerable<T> isn’t designed with thread safety in mind, so the system needs to handle merging the parallel processes back into a single stream, which introduces synchronization issues.  There are two extremes of how this could be accomplished, but both extremes have disadvantages. The system could watch each thread, and whenever a thread produces a result, take that result and send it back to the caller.  This would mean that the calling thread would have access to the data as soon as data is available, which is the benefit of this approach.  However, it also means that every item is introducing synchronization overhead, since each item needs to be merged individually. On the other extreme, the system could wait until all of the results from all of the threads were ready, then push all of the results back to the calling thread in one shot.  The advantage here is that the least amount of synchronization is added to the system, which means the query will, on a whole, run the fastest.  However, the calling thread will have to wait for all elements to be processed, so this could introduce a long delay between when a parallel query begins and when results are returned. The default behavior in PLINQ is actually between these two extremes.  By default, PLINQ maintains an internal buffer, and chooses an optimal buffer size to maintain.  Query results are accumulated into the buffer, then returned in the IEnumerable<T> result in chunks.  This provides reasonably fast access to the results, as well as good overall throughput, in most scenarios. However, if we know the nature of our algorithm, we may decide we would prefer one of the other extremes.  This can be done by using the WithMergeOptions extension method.  For example, if we know that our PerformComputation() routine is very slow, but also variable in runtime, we may want to retrieve results as they are available, with no bufferring.  This can be done by changing our above routine to: var reversed = collection .AsParallel() .WithExecutionMode(ParallelExecutionMode.ForceParallelism) .WithMergeOptions(ParallelMergeOptions.NotBuffered) .Select(i => i.PerformComputation()) .Reverse(); On the other hand, if are already on a background thread, and we want to allow the system to maximize its speed, we might want to allow the system to fully buffer the results: var reversed = collection .AsParallel() .WithExecutionMode(ParallelExecutionMode.ForceParallelism) .WithMergeOptions(ParallelMergeOptions.FullyBuffered) .Select(i => i.PerformComputation()) .Reverse(); Notice, also, that you can specify multiple configuration options in a parallel query.  By chaining these extension methods together, we generate a query that will always run in parallel, and will always complete before making the results available in our IEnumerable<T>.

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  • What You Need to Know About Windows 8.1

    - by Chris Hoffman
    Windows 8.1 is available to everyone starting today, October 19. The latest version of Windows improves on Windows 8 in every way. It’s a big upgrade, whether you use the desktop or new touch-optimized interface. The latest version of Windows has been dubbed “an apology” by some — it’s definitely more at home on a desktop PC than Windows 8 was. However, it also offers a more fleshed out and mature tablet experience. How to Get Windows 8.1 For Windows 8 users, Windows 8.1 is completely free. It will be available as a download from the Windows Store — that’s the “Store” app in the Modern, tiled interface. Assuming upgrading to the final version will be just like upgrading to the preview version, you’ll likely see a “Get Windows 8.1″ pop-up that will take you to the Windows Store and guide you through the download process. You’ll also be able to download ISO images of Windows 8.1, so can perform a clean install to upgrade. On any new computer, you can just install Windows 8.1 without going through Windows 8. New computers will start to ship with Windows 8.1 and boxed copies of Windows 8 will be replaced by boxed copies of Windows 8.1. If you’re using Windows 7 or a previous version of Windows, the update won’t be free. Getting Windows 8.1 will cost you the same amount as a full copy of Windows 8 — $120 for the standard version. If you’re an average Windows 7 user, you’re likely better off waiting until you buy a new PC with Windows 8.1 included rather than spend this amount of money to upgrade. Improvements for Desktop Users Some have dubbed Windows 8.1 “an apology” from Microsoft, although you certainly won’t see Microsoft referring to it this way. Either way, Steven Sinofsky, who presided over Windows 8′s development, left the company shortly after Windows 8 was released. Coincidentally, Windows 8.1 contains many features that Steven Sinofsky and Microsoft refused to implement. Windows 8.1 offers the following big improvements for desktop users: Boot to Desktop: You can now log in directly to the desktop, skipping the tiled interface entirely. Disable Top-Left and Top-Right Hot Corners: The app switcher and charms bar won’t appear when you move your mouse to the top-left or top-right corners of the screen if you enable this option. No more intrusions into the desktop. The Start Button Returns: Windows 8.1 brings back an always-present Start button on the desktop taskbar, dramatically improving discoverability for new Windows 8 users and providing a bigger mouse target for remote desktops and virtual machines. Crucially, the Start menu isn’t back — clicking this button will open the full-screen Modern interface. Start menu replacements will continue to function on Windows 8.1, offering more traditional Start menus. Show All Apps By Default: Luckily, you can hide the Start screen and its tiles almost entirely. Windows 8.1 can be configured to show a full-screen list of all your installed apps when you click the Start button, with desktop apps prioritized. The only real difference is that the Start menu is now a full-screen interface. Shut Down or Restart From Start Button: You can now right-click the Start button to access Shut down, Restart, and other power options in just as many clicks as you could on Windows 7. Shared Start Screen and Desktop Backgrounds; Windows 8 limited you to just a few Steven Sinofsky-approved background images for your Start screen, but Windows 8.1 allows you to use your desktop background on the Start screen. This can make the transition between the Start screen and desktop much less jarring. The tiles or shortcuts appear to be floating above the desktop rather than off in their own separate universe. Unified Search: Unified search is back, so you can start typing and search your programs, settings, and files all at once — no more awkwardly clicking between different categories when trying to open a Control Panel screen or search for a file. These all add up to a big improvement when using Windows 8.1 on the desktop. Microsoft is being much more flexible — the Start menu is full screen, but Microsoft has relented on so many other things and you’d never have to see a tile if you didn’t want to. For more information, read our guide to optimizing Windows 8.1 for a desktop PC. These are just the improvements specifically for desktop users. Windows 8.1 includes other useful features for everyone, such as deep SkyDrive integration that allows you to store your files in the cloud without installing any additional sync programs. Improvements for Touch Users If you have a Windows 8 or Windows RT tablet or another touch-based device you use the interface formerly known as Metro on, you’ll see many other noticeable improvements. Windows 8′s new interface was half-baked when it launched, but it’s now much more capable and mature. App Updates: Windows 8′s included apps were extremely limited in many cases. For example, Internet Explorer 10 could only display ten tabs at a time and the Mail app was a barren experience devoid of features. In Windows 8.1, some apps — like Xbox Music — have been redesigned from scratch, Internet Explorer allows you to display a tab bar on-screen all the time, while apps like Mail have accumulated quite a few useful features. The Windows Store app has been entirely redesigned and is less awkward to browse. Snap Improvements: Windows 8′s Snap feature was a toy, allowing you to snap one app to a small sidebar at one side of your screen while another app consumed most of your screen. Windows 8.1 allows you to snap two apps side-by-side, seeing each app’s full interface at once. On larger displays, you can even snap three or four apps at once. Windows 8′s ability to use multiple apps at once on a tablet is compelling and unmatched by iPads and Android tablets. You can also snap two of the same apps side-by-side — to view two web pages at once, for example. More Comprehensive PC Settings: Windows 8.1 offers a more comprehensive PC settings app, allowing you to change most system settings in a touch-optimized interface. You shouldn’t have to use the desktop Control Panel on a tablet anymore — or at least not as often. Touch-Optimized File Browsing: Microsoft’s SkyDrive app allows you to browse files on your local PC, finally offering a built-in, touch-optimized way to manage files without using the desktop. Help & Tips: Windows 8.1 includes a Help+Tips app that will help guide new users through its new interface, something Microsoft stubbornly refused to add during development. There’s still no “Modern” version of Microsoft Office apps (aside from OneNote), so you’ll still have to head to use desktop Office apps on tablets. It’s not perfect, but the Modern interface doesn’t feel anywhere near as immature anymore. Read our in-depth look at the ways Microsoft’s Modern interface, formerly known as Metro, is improved in Windows 8.1 for more information. In summary, Windows 8.1 is what Windows 8 should have been. All of these improvements are on top of the many great desktop features, security improvements, and all-around battery life and performance optimizations that appeared in Windows 8. If you’re still using Windows 7 and are happy with it, there’s probably no reason to race out and buy a copy of Windows 8.1 at the rather high price of $120. But, if you’re using Windows 8, it’s a big upgrade no matter what you’re doing. If you buy a new PC and it comes with Windows 8.1, you’re getting a much more flexible and comfortable experience. If you’re holding off on buying a new computer because you don’t want Windows 8, give Windows 8.1 a try — yes, it’s different, but Microsoft has compromised on the desktop while making a lot of improvements to the new interface. You just might find that Windows 8.1 is now a worthwhile upgrade, even if you only want to use the desktop.     

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  • Turn Photos and Home Videos into Movies with Windows Live Movie Maker

    - by DigitalGeekery
    Are you looking for an easy way to take your digital photos and videos and turn them into a movie or slideshow? Today we’ll take a detailed look at how to do use Windows Live Movie Maker. Installation Windows Live Movie Maker comes bundled as part of the Windows Live Essentials suite (link below). However, you don’t have to install any of the programs you may not want. Take notice of the You’re almost done screen. Before clicking Continue, be sure to uncheck the boxes to set your search provider and homepage. Adding Pictures and Videos Open Windows Live Movie Maker. You can add videos or photos by simply dragging and dropping them onto the storyboard area. You can also click on the storyboard area or on the Add videos and photos button on the Home tab to browse for videos and photos. Windows Live Movie Maker supports most video, image, and audio file types. Select your files and add click Open to add them to Windows Live Movie Maker. By default WLMM doesn’t allow you to add files from network locations…so check out our article on how to add network support to Windows Live MovieMaker if the files you want to add are on a network drive. Layout All of your added clips will appear in the storyboard area on the right, while the currently selected clip will appear in the preview window on the left. You can adjust the size of the two areas by clicking and dragging the dividing line in the middle.    Make the clips on the storyboard bigger or smaller by clicking on the thumbnail size icon. The slider at the lower right adjusts the zoom time scale.   Previewing your Movie At any time, you can playback your movie and preview how it will look in the Preview window by clicking the space bar, or by pushing the play button under the preview window. You can also manually move the preview bar slider across the storyboard to view the clips as the video progresses. Adjusting Clips on the Storyboard You can click and drag clips on the storyboard to change the order in which the photos and videos appear.   Adding Music Nothing brings a movie to life quite like music. Selecting Add music will add your music to the beginning of the movie. Select Add music at the current point to include it in the movie to the current location of your preview bar slider, then browse for your music clip. WLMM supports many common audio files such as WAV, MP3, M4A, WMA, AIFF, and ASF. The music clip will appear above the video / photos clips on the storyboard.   You can change the location of music clips by clicking and dragging them to a different location on the storyboard. Add Titles, Captions, and Credits To add a Title screen to your movie, click the Title button on the Home tab. Type your title directly into the text box on the preview screen. The title will be placed at the location of the preview slider on the storyboard. However, you can change the location by clicking and dragging title to other areas of the storyboard. On the Format tab, there are a handful of text settings. You can change the font, color, size, alignment,  and transparency. The Adjust group allows you to change the background color, edit the text, and set the length of time the Title will appear in the movie.   The Effects group on the Format tab allows you to select an effect for your title screen. By hovering your cursor over each option, you will get a live preview of how each effect will appear in the preview window. Click to apply any of the effects. For captions, select where you want your caption to appear with the preview slider on the storyboard, then click the captions button on the Home tab. Just like the title, you type your caption directly into the text box on the preview screen, and you can make any adjustments by using the Font and Paragraph, Adjust, and Effects groups above. Credits are done the same as titles and captions, except they are automatically placed at the end of the movie.   Transitions Go to the Animation tab on the ribbon to apply transitions. Select a clip from the storyboard and hover over one of the transition to see it in the preview window. Click on the transition to apply it to the clip. You can apply transitions separately to clips or hold down Ctrl button while clicking to select multiple clips to which to apply the same transition. Pan and zoom effects are also located on the Animations tab, but can be applied to photos only. Like transition, you can apply them individually to a clip or hold down Ctrl button while clicking to select multiple clips to which to apply the same pan and zoom effect. Once applied, you can adjust the duration of the transitions and pan and zoom effects. You can also click the dropdown for additional transitions or effects. Visual Effects Similar to Pan and Zoom and Transitions, you can apply a variety of Visual Effects to individual or multiple clips. Editing Video and Music Note: This does not actually edit the original video you imported into your Windows Live Movie Maker project, only how it appears in your WLMM project. There are some very basic editing tools located on the Home tab. The Rotate left and Rotate right button will adjust any clip that may be oriented incorrectly. The Fit to music button will automatically adjust the duration of the photos (if you have any in your project) to fit the length of the music in your movie. Audio mix allows you to change the volume level   You can also do some slightly more advanced editing from the Edit tab. Select the video clip on the storyboard and click the Trim tool to edit or remove portions of a video clip. Next, click and drag the sliders in the preview windows to select the are you wish to keep. For example, the area outside the sliders is the area trimmed from the movie. The area inside is the section that is kept in the movie. You can also adjust the Start and End points manually on the ribbon.   When you are finished, click Save trim. You can also split your video clips. Move the preview slider to the location in the video clip where you’d like to split it, and select Split. Your video will be split into separate sections. Now you can apply different effects or move them to different locations on the storyboard. Editing Music Clips Select the music clip on the storyboard and then the Options tab on the ribbon. You can adjust the music volume by moving the slider right and left.   You can also choose to have your music clip fade in or out at the beginning and end of your movie. From the Fade in and Fade out dropdowns, select None, Slow, Medium, or Fast. To adjust the sound of your audio clips, click on the Edit tab, select the Video volume button, and adjust the slider. Move it all the way to the left to mute any background noise in your video clips.   AutoMovie As you have seen, Windows Live Movie Maker allows you to add effects, transitions, titles, and more. If you don’t want to do any of that stuff yourself, AutoMovie will automatically add title, credits, cross fade transitions between items, pan and zoom effects to photos, and fit your project to the music. Just select the AutoMovie button on the Home tab. You can go from zero to movie in literally a couple minutes.   Uploading to YouTube You can share your video on YouTube directly from Windows Live Movie Maker. Click on the YouTube icon in the Sharing group on the Home tab. You’ll be prompted for your YouTube username and password. Fill in the details about your movie and click Publish. The movie will be converted to WMV before being uploaded to YouTube. As soon as the YouTube conversion is complete, you’re new movie is live and ready to be viewed. Saving your Movie as a Video File Select the icon at the top left, then select Save movie. As you hover your mouse over each of the options, you will see the output display size, aspect ratio, and estimated file size per minute of video. All of these settings will output your movie as a WMV file. (Unfortunately, the only option is to save a movie as a WMV file.) The only difference is how they are encoded based on preset common settings. The Burn to DVD option also outputs a WMV file, but then opens Windows DVD Maker and walks you through the process of creating and burning a DVD.   If you choose the Burn to DVD option, close this window when the WMV file conversion is complete and the Windows DVD Maker will prompt you to begin. When your movie is finished, it’s time to relax and enjoy.   Conclusion Windows Live Movie Maker makes it easy for the average person to quickly churn out nice looking movies and slideshows from there own pictures and videos. However, long time users of previous editions (formerly called Windows Movie Maker) will likely be disappointed by some features missing in Windows Live Movie Maker that existed in earlier editions. Looking for details on burning your new project to DVD, check out our article on how to create and author DVDs with Windows DVD Maker. Download Windows Live Movie Maker Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Family Fun: Share Photos with Photo Gallery and Windows Live SpacesCreate and Author DVDs in Windows 7Rotate a Video 90 degrees with VLC or Windows Live Movie MakerInstall Windows Live Essentials In Windows 7How to Make/Edit a movie with Windows Movie Maker in Windows Vista 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 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup Windows Firewall with Advanced Security – How To Guides Sculptris 1.0, 3D Drawing app AceStock, a Tiny Desktop Quote Monitor Gmail Button Addon (Firefox) Hyperwords addon (Firefox) Backup Outlook 2010

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  • CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, March 09, 2010

    CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, March 09, 2010New Projects.NET Excel Wrapper - Read, Write, Edit & Automate Excel Files in .NET with ease: .NET Excel Wrapper encapsulates the complexity of working with multiple Excel objects giving you one central point to do all your processing. It h...Advancement Voyage: Advancement Voyage is a high quality RPG experience that provides all the advancement and voyaging that a player could hope for.ASP.Net Routing configuration: ASP.NET routing configuration enables you to configure the routes in the web.config bbinjest: bbinjestBuildUp: BuildUp is a build number increment tool for C# .net projects. It is run as a post build step in Visual Studio.Controlled Vocabulary: This project is devoted to creating tools to assist with Controlling Vocabulary in communication. The initial delivery is an Outlook 2010 Add-in w...CycleList: A replacement for the WPF ListBox Control. Displays only a single item and allows the user to change the selected item by clicking on it once. Very...Forensic Suite: A suite of security softwareFREE DNN Chat Module for 123 Flash Chat -- Embed FREE Chat Room!: 123 Flash Chat is a live chat solution and its DotNetNuke Chat Module helps to embed a live chat room into website with DotNetNuke(DNN) integrated ...HouseFly experimental controls: Experimental controls for use in HouseFly.ICatalogAll: junkMidiStylus: MidiStylus allows you to control MIDI-enabled hardware or software using your pressure-sensitive pen tablet. The program maps the X position, Y po...myTunes: Search for your favorite artistsNColony - Pluggable Socialism?: NColony will maximize the use of MEF to create flexible application architectures through a suite of plug-in solutions. If MEF is an outlet for plu...Network Monitor Decryption Expert: NmDecrypt is a Network Monitor Expert which when given a trace with encrypted frames, a security certificate, and a passkey will create a new trace...occulo: occulo is a free steganography program, meant to embed files within images with optional encrytion. Open Ant: A implementation of a Open Source Ant which is created to show what is possible in the serious game AntMe! The First implementation of that ProjectProgramming Patterns by example: Design patterns provide solutions to common software design problems. This project will contain samples, written in c# and ruby, of each design pat...project4k: Developing bulk mail system storing email informationQuail - Selenium Remote Control Made Easy: Quail makes it easy for Quality Assurance departments write automated tests against web applications. Both HTML and Silverlight applications can b...RedBulb for XNA Framework: RedBulb is a collection of utility functions and classes that make writing games with XNA a lot easier. Key features: Console,GUI (Labels, Buttons,...RegExpress: RegExpress is a WPF application that combines interactive demos of regular expressions with slide content. This was designed for a user group prese...RemoveFolder: Small utility program to remove empty foldersScrumTFS: ScrumTFSSharePoint - Open internal link in new window list definition: A simple SharePoint list definition to render SharePoint internal links with the option to open them in a new window.SqlSiteMap4MVC: SqlSiteMapProvider for ASP.Net MVC.T Sina .NET Client: t.sina.com.cn api 新浪微博APITest-Lint-Extensions: Test Lint is a free Typemock VS 2010 Extension that finds common problems in your unit tests as you type them. this project will host extensions ...ThinkGearNET: ThinkGearNET is a library for easy usage of the Neurosky Mindset headset from .NET .Wiki to Maml: This project enables you to write wiki syntax and have it converted into MAML syntax for Sandcastle documentation projects.WPF Undo/Redo Framework: This project attempts to solve the age-old programmer problem of supporting unlimited undo/redo in an application, in an easily reusable manner. Th...WPFValidators: WPF Validators Validações de campos para WPFWSP Listener: The WSP listener is a windows service application which waits for new WSC and WSP files in a specific folder. If a new WSC and WSP file are added, ...New Releases.NET Excel Wrapper - Read, Write, Edit & Automate Excel Files in .NET with ease: First Release: This is the first release which includes the main library release..NET Excel Wrapper - Read, Write, Edit & Automate Excel Files in .NET with ease: Updated Version: New Features:SetRangeValue using multidimensional array Print current worksheet Print all worksheets Format ranges background, color, alig...ArkSwitch: ArkSwitch v1.1.2: This release removes all memory reporting information, and is focused on stability.BattLineSvc: V2.1: - Fixed a bug where on system start-up, it would pop up a notification box to let you know the service started. Annoying! And fixed! - Fixed the ...BuildUp: BuildUp 1.0 Alpha 1: Use at your own risk!Not yet feature complete. Basic build incrementing and attribute overriding works. Still working on cascading build incremen...Controlled Vocabulary: 1.0.0.1: Initial Alpha Release. System Requirements Outlook 2010 .Net Framework 3.5 Installation 1. Close Outlook (Use Task Manager to ensure no running i...CycleList: CycleList: The binaries contain the .NET 3.5 DLL ONLY. Please download source for usage examples.FluentNHibernate.Search: 0.3 Beta: 0.3 Beta take the following changes : Mappings : - Field Mapping without specifying "Name" - Id Mapping without specifiying "Field" - Builtin Anal...FREE DNN Chat Module for 123 Flash Chat -- Embed FREE Chat Room!: 123 Flash Chat DNN Chat Module: With FREE DotNetNuke Chat Module of 123 Flash Chat, webmaster will be assist to add a chat room into DotNetNuke instantly and help to attract more ...GameStore League Manager: League Manager 1.0 release 3: This release includes a full installer so that you can get your league running faster and generate interest quicker.iExporter - iTunes playlist exporting: iExporter gui v2.3.1.0 - console v1.2.1.0: Paypal donate! Solved a big bug for iExporter ( Gui & Console ) When a track isn't located under the main iTunes library, iExporter would crash! ...jQuery.cssLess: jQuery.cssLess 0.3: New - Removed the dependency from XRegExp - Added comment support (both CSS style and C style) - Optimised it for speed - Added speed test TOD...jQuery.cssLess: jQuery.cssLess 0.4: NEW - @import directive - preserving of comments in the resulting CSS - code refactoring - more class oriented approach TODO - implement operation...MapWindow GIS: MapWindow 6.0 msi (March 8): Rewrote the shapefile saving code in the indexed case so that it uses the shape indices rather than trying to create features. This should allow s...MidiStylus: MidiStylus 0.5.1: MidiStylus Beta 0.5.1 This release contains basic functionality for transmitting MIDI data based on X position, Y position, and pressure value rea...MiniTwitter: 1.09.1: MiniTwitter 1.09.1 更新内容 修正 URL に & が含まれている時に短縮 URL がおかしくなるバグを修正Mosaictor: first executable: .exe file of the app in its current state. Mind you that this will likely be highly unstable due to heaps of uncaught errors.MvcContrib a Codeplex Foundation project: T4MVC: T4MVC is a T4 template that generates strongly typed helpers for ASP.NET MVC. You can download it below, and check out the documention here.N2 CMS: 2.0 beta: Major Changes ASP.NET MVC 2 templates Refreshed management UI LINQ support Performance improvements Auto image resize Upgrade Make a comp...NotesForGallery: ASP.NET AJAX Photo Gallery Control: NotesForGallery 2.0: PresentationNotesForGallery is an open source control on top of the Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX framework for easy displaying image galleries in the as...occulo: occulo 0.1 binaries: Windows binaries. Tested on Windows XP SP2.occulo: occulo 0.1 source: Initial source release.Open NFe: DANFE 1.9.5: Ajuste de layout e correção dos campos de ISS.patterns & practices Web Client Developer Guidance: Web Application Guidance -- March 8th Drop: This iteration we focused on documentation and bug fixes.PoshConsole: PoshConsole 2.0 Beta: With this release, I am refocusing PoshConsole... It will be a PowerShell 2 host, without support for PowerShell 1.0 I have used some of the new P...Quick Performance Monitor: QPerfmon 1.1: Now you can specify different updating frequencies.RedBulb for XNA Framework: Cipher Puzzle (Sample) Creators Club Package: RedBulb Sample Game: Cipher Puzzle http://bayimg.com/image/galgfaacb.jpgRedBulb for XNA Framework: RedBulbStarter (Base Code): This is the code you need to start with. Quick Start Guide: Download the latest version of RedBulb: http://redbulb.codeplex.com/releases/view/415...RoTwee: RoTwee 7.0.0.0 (Alpha): Now this version is under improvement of code structure and may be buggy. However movement of rotation is quite good in this version thanks to clea...SCSI Interface for Multimedia and Block Devices: Release 9 - Improvements and Bug Fixes: Changes I have made in this version: Fixed INQUIRY command timeout problem Lowered ISOBurn's memory usage significantly by not explicitly setting...SharePoint - Open internal link in new window list definition: Open link in new window list definition: First release, with english and italian localization supportSharePoint Outlook Connector: Version 1.2.3.2: Few bug fixing and some ui enhancementsSysI: sysi, release build: Better than ever -- now allows for escalation to adminThe Silverlight Hyper Video Player [http://slhvp.com]: Beta 1: Beta (1.1) The code is ready for intensive testing. I will update the code at least every second day until we are ready to freeze for V1, which wi...Truecrafting: Truecrafting 0.52: fixed several trinkets that broke just before i released 0.51, sorry fixed water elemental not doing anything while summoned if not using glyph o...Truecrafting: Truecrafting 0.53: fixed mp5 calculations when gear contained mp5 and made the formulas more efficient no need to rebuild profiles with this release if placed in th...umbracoSamplePackageCreator (beta): Working Beta: For Visual Studio 2008 creating packages for Umbraco 4.0.3.VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30307.0: Automatic drop of latest buildVCC: Latest build, v2.1.30308.0: Automatic drop of latest buildVOB2MKV: vob2mkv-1.0.3: This is a maintenance update of the VOB2MKV utility. The MKVMUX filter now describes the cluster locations using a separate SeekHead element at th...WPFValidators: WPFValidators 1.0 Beta: Primeira versão do componente ainda em Beta, pode ser utilizada em produção pois esta funcionando bem e as futuras alterações não sofreram muito im...WSDLGenerator: WSDLGenerator 0.0.06: - Added option to generate SharePoint compatible *disco.aspx file. - Changed commandline optionsWSP Listener: WSP Listener version 1.0.0.0: First version of the WSP Listener includes: Easy cop[y paste installation of WSP solutions Extended logging E-mail when installation is finish...Yet another pali text reader: Pali Text Reader App v1.1: new features/updates + search history is now a tab + format codes in dictionary + add/edit terms in the dictionary + pali keyboard inserts symbols...Most Popular ProjectsMetaSharpi4o - Indexed LINQResExBraintree Client LibraryGeek's LibrarySharepoint Feature ManagerConfiguration ManagementOragon Architecture SqlBuilderTerrain Independant Navigating Automaton v2.0WBFS ManagerMost Active ProjectsUmbraco CMSRawrSDS: Scientific DataSet library and toolsBlogEngine.NETjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesFasterflect - A Fast and Simple Reflection APIFarseer Physics Enginepatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryTeam FTW - Software ProjectIonics Isapi Rewrite Filter

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  • How about a new platform for your next API&hellip; a CMS?

    - by Elton Stoneman
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/EltonStoneman/archive/2014/05/22/how-about-a-new-platform-for-your-next-apihellip-a.aspxSay what? I’m seeing a type of API emerge which serves static or long-lived resources, which are mostly read-only and have a controlled process to update the data that gets served. Think of something like an app configuration API, where you want a central location for changeable settings. You could use this server side to store database connection strings and keep all your instances in sync, or it could be used client side to push changes out to all users (and potentially driving A/B or MVT testing). That’s a good candidate for a RESTful API which makes proper use of HTTP expiration and validation caching to minimise traffic, but really you want a front end UI where you can edit the current config that the API returns and publish your changes. Sound like a Content Mangement System would be a good fit? I’ve been looking at that and it’s a great fit for this scenario. You get a lot of what you need out of the box, the amount of custom code you need to write is minimal, and you get a whole lot of extra stuff from using CMS which is very useful, but probably not something you’d build if you had to put together a quick UI over your API content (like a publish workflow, fine-grained security and an audit trail). You typically use a CMS for HTML resources, but it’s simple to expose JSON instead – or to do content negotiation to support both, so you can open a resource in a browser and see a nice visual representation, or request it with: Accept=application/json and get the same content rendered as JSON for the app to use. Enter Umbraco Umbraco is an open source .NET CMS that’s been around for a while. It has very good adoption, a lively community and a good release cycle. It’s easy to use, has all the functionality you need for a CMS-driven API, and it’s scalable (although you won’t necessarily put much scale on the CMS layer). In the rest of this post, I’ll build out a simple app config API using Umbraco. We’ll define the structure of the configuration resource by creating a new Document Type and setting custom properties; then we’ll build a very simple Razor template to return configuration documents as JSON; then create a resource and see how it looks. And we’ll look at how you could build this into a wider solution. If you want to try this for yourself, it’s ultra easy – there’s an Umbraco image in the Azure Website gallery, so all you need to to is create a new Website, select Umbraco from the image and complete the installation. It will create a SQL Azure website to store all the content, as well as a Website instance for editing and accessing content. They’re standard Azure resources, so you can scale them as you need. The default install creates a starter site for some HTML content, which you can use to learn your way around (or just delete). 1. Create Configuration Document Type In Umbraco you manage content by creating and modifying documents, and every document has a known type, defining what properties it holds. We’ll create a new Document Type to describe some basic config settings. In the Settings section from the left navigation (spanner icon), expand Document Types and Master, hit the ellipsis and select to create a new Document Type: This will base your new type off the Master type, which gives you some existing properties that we’ll use – like the Page Title which will be the resource URL. In the Generic Properties tab for the new Document Type, you set the properties you’ll be able to edit and return for the resource: Here I’ve added a text string where I’ll set a default cache lifespan, an image which I can use for a banner display, and a date which could show the user when the next release is due. This is the sort of thing that sits nicely in an app config API. It’s likely to change during the life of the product, but not very often, so it’s good to have a centralised place where you can make and publish changes easily and safely. It also enables A/B and MVT testing, as you can change the response each client gets based on your set logic, and their apps will behave differently without needing a release. 2. Define the response template Now we’ve defined the structure of the resource (as a document), in Umbraco we can define a C# Razor template to say how that resource gets rendered to the client. If you only want to provide JSON, it’s easy to render the content of the document by building each property in the response (Umbraco uses dynamic objects so you can specify document properties as object properties), or you can support content negotiation with very little effort. Here’s a template to render the document as HTML or JSON depending on the Accept header, using JSON.NET for the API rendering: @inherits Umbraco.Web.Mvc.UmbracoTemplatePage @using Newtonsoft.Json @{ Layout = null; } @if(UmbracoContext.HttpContext.Request.Headers["accept"] != null &amp;&amp; UmbracoContext.HttpContext.Request.Headers["accept"] == "application/json") { Response.ContentType = "application/json"; @Html.Raw(JsonConvert.SerializeObject(new { cacheLifespan = CurrentPage.cacheLifespan, bannerImageUrl = CurrentPage.bannerImage, nextReleaseDate = CurrentPage.nextReleaseDate })) } else { <h1>App configuration</h1> <p>Cache lifespan: <b>@CurrentPage.cacheLifespan</b></p> <p>Banner Image: </p> <img src="@CurrentPage.bannerImage"> <p>Next Release Date: <b>@CurrentPage.nextReleaseDate</b></p> } That’s a rough-and ready example of what you can do. You could make it completely generic and just render all the document’s properties as JSON, but having a specific template for each resource gives you control over what gets sent out. And the templates are evaluated at run-time, so if you need to change the output – or extend it, say to add caching response headers – you just edit the template and save, and the next client request gets rendered from the new template. No code to build and ship. 3. Create the content With your document type created, in  the Content pane you can create a new instance of that document, where Umbraco gives you a nice UI to input values for the properties we set up on the Document Type: Here I’ve set the cache lifespan to an xs:duration value, uploaded an image for the banner and specified a release date. Each property gets the appropriate input control – text box, file upload and date picker. At the top of the page is the name of the resource – myapp in this example. That specifies the URL for the resource, so if I had a DNS entry pointing to my Umbraco instance, I could access the config with a URL like http://static.x.y.z.com/config/myapp. The setup is all done now, so when we publish this resource it’ll be available to access.  4. Access the resource Now if you open  that URL in the browser, you’ll see the HTML version rendered: - complete with the  image and formatted date. Umbraco lets you save changes and preview them before publishing, so the HTML view could be a good way of showing editors their changes in a usable view, before they confirm them. If you browse the same URL from a REST client, specifying the Accept=application/json request header, you get this response:   That’s the exact same resource, with a managed UI to publish it, being accessed as HTML or JSON with a tiny amount of effort. 5. The wider landscape If you have fairy stable content to expose as an API, I think  this approach is really worth considering. Umbraco scales very nicely, but in a typical solution you probably wouldn’t need it to. When you have additional requirements, like logging API access requests - but doing it out-of-band so clients aren’t impacted, you can put a very thin API layer on top of Umbraco, and cache the CMS responses in your API layer:   Here the API does a passthrough to CMS, so the CMS still controls the content, but it caches the response. If the response is cached for 1 minute, then Umbraco only needs to handle 1 request per minute (multiplied by the number of API instances), so if you need to support 1000s of request per second, you’re scaling a thin, simple API layer rather than having to scale the more complex CMS infrastructure (including the database). This diagram also shows an approach to logging, by asynchronously publishing a message to a queue (Redis in this case), which can be picked up later and persisted by a different process. Does it work? Beautifully. Using Azure, I spiked the solution above (including the Redis logging framework which I’ll blog about later) in half a day. That included setting up different roles in Umbraco to demonstrate a managed workflow for publishing changes, and a couple of document types representing different resources. Is it maintainable? We have three moving parts, which are all managed resources in Azure –  an Azure Website for Umbraco which may need a couple of instances for HA (or may not, depending on how long the content can be cached), a message queue (Redis is in preview in Azure, but you can easily use Service Bus Queues if performance is less of a concern), and the Web Role for the API. Two of the components are off-the-shelf, from open source projects, and the only custom code is the API which is very simple. Does it scale? Pretty nicely. With a single Umbraco instance running as an Azure Website, and with 4x instances for my API layer (Standard sized Web Roles), I got just under 4,000 requests per second served reliably, with a Worker Role in the background saving the access logs. So we had a nice UI to publish app config changes, with a friendly Web preview and a publishing workflow, capable of supporting 14 million requests in an hour, with less than a day’s effort. Worth considering if you’re publishing long-lived resources through your API.

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