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• Logging connection strings

  If you some of the dynamic features of SSIS such as package configurations or property expressions then sometimes trying to work out were your connections are pointing can be a bit confusing. You will work out in the end but it can be useful to explicitly log this information so that when things go wrong you can just review the logs. You may wish to develop this idea further and encapsulate such logging into a custom task, but for now lets keep it simple and use the Script Task. The Script Task code below will raise an Information event showing the name and connection string for a connection. Imports System Imports Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Runtime Public Class ScriptMain Public Sub Main() Dim fireAgain As Boolean ' Get the connection string, we need to know the name of the connection Dim connectionName As String = "My OLE-DB Connection" Dim connectionString As String = Dts.Connections(connectionName).ConnectionString ' Format the message and log it via an information event Dim message As String = String.Format("Connection ""{0}"" has a connection string of ""{1}"".", _ connectionName, connectionString) Dts.Events.FireInformation(0, "Information", message, Nothing, 0, fireAgain) Dts.TaskResult = Dts.Results.Success End Sub End Class Building on that example it is probably more flexible to log all connections in a package as shown in the next example. Imports System Imports Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Runtime Public Class ScriptMain Public Sub Main() Dim fireAgain As Boolean ' Loop through all connections in the package For Each connection As ConnectionManager In Dts.Connections ' Get the connection string and log it via an information event Dim message As String = String.Format("Connection ""{0}"" has a connection string of ""{1}"".", _ connection.Name, connection.ConnectionString) Dts.Events.FireInformation(0, "Information", message, Nothing, 0, fireAgain) Next Dts.TaskResult = Dts.Results.Success End Sub End Class By using the Information event it makes it readily available in the designer, for example the Visual Studio Output window (Ctrl+Alt+O) or the package designer Execution Results tab, and also allows you to readily control the logging by choosing which events to log in the normal way. Now before somebody starts commenting that this is a security risk, I would like to highlight good practice for building connection managers. Firstly the Password property, or any other similar sensitive property is always defined as write-only, and secondly the connection string property only uses the public properties to assemble the connection string value when requested. In other words the connection string will never contain the password. I have seen a couple of cases where this is not true, but that was just bad development by third-parties, you won’t find anything like that in the box from Microsoft.   Whilst writing this code it made me wish that there was a custom log entry that you could just turn on that did this for you, but alas connection managers do not even seem to support custom events. It did however remind me of a very useful event that is often overlooked and fits rather well alongside connection string logging, the Execute SQL Task’s custom ExecuteSQLExecutingQuery event. To quote the help reference Custom Messages for Logging - Provides information about the execution phases of the SQL statement. Log entries are written when the task acquires connection to the database, when the task starts to prepare the SQL statement, and after the execution of the SQL statement is completed. The log entry for the prepare phase includes the SQL statement that the task uses. It is the last part that is so useful, how often have you used an expression to derive a SQL statement and you want to log that to make sure the correct SQL is being returned? You need to turn it one, by default no custom log events are captured, but I’ll refer you to a walkthrough on setting up the logging for ExecuteSQLExecutingQuery by Jamie.

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• The Windows Store... why did I sign up with this mess again?

  - by FransBouma

  Yesterday, Microsoft revealed that the Windows Store is now open to all developers in a wide range of countries and locations. For the people who think "wtf is the 'Windows Store'?", it's the central place where Windows 8 users will be able to find, download and purchase applications (or as we now have to say to not look like a computer illiterate: <accent style="Kentucky">aaaaappss</accent>) for Windows 8. As this is the store which is integrated into Windows 8, it's an interesting place for ISVs, as potential customers might very well look there first. This of course isn't true for all kinds of software, and developer tools in general aren't the kind of applications most users will download from the Windows store, but a presence there can't hurt. Now, this Windows Store hosts two kinds of applications: 'Metro-style' applications and 'Desktop' applications. The 'Metro-style' applications are applications created for the new 'Metro' UI which is present on Windows 8 desktop and Windows RT (the single color/big font fingerpaint-oriented UI). 'Desktop' applications are the applications we all run and use on Windows today. Our software are desktop applications. The Windows Store hosts all Metro-style applications locally in the store and handles the payment for these applications. This means you upload your application (sorry, 'app') to the store, jump through a lot of hoops, Microsoft verifies that your application is not violating a tremendous long list of rules and after everything is OK, it's published and hopefully you get customers and thus earn money. Money which Microsoft will pay you on a regular basis after customers buy your application. Desktop applications are not following this path however. Desktop applications aren't hosted by the Windows Store. Instead, the Windows Store more or less hosts a page with the application's information and where to get the goods. I.o.w.: it's nothing more than a product's Facebook page. Microsoft will simply redirect a visitor of the Windows Store to your website and the visitor will then use your site's system to purchase and download the application. This last bit of information is very important. So, this morning I started with fresh energy to register our company 'Solutions Design bv' at the Windows Store and our two applications, LLBLGen Pro and ORM Profiler. First I went to the Windows Store dashboard page. If you don't have an account, you have to log in or sign up if you don't have a live account. I signed in with my live account. After that, it greeted me with a page where I had to fill in a code which was mailed to me. My local mail server polls every several minutes for email so I had to kick it to get it immediately. I grabbed the code from the email and I was presented with a multi-step process to register myself as a company or as an individual. In red I was warned that this choice was permanent and not changeable. I chuckled: Microsoft apparently stores its data on paper, not in digital form. I chose 'company' and was presented with a lengthy form to fill out. On the form there were two strange remarks: Per company there can just be 1 (one, uno, not zero, not two or more) registered developer, and only that developer is able to upload stuff to the store. I have no idea how this works with large companies, oh the overhead nightmares... "Sorry, but John, our registered developer with the Windows Store is on holiday for 3 months, backpacking through Australia, no, he's not reachable at this point. M'yeah, sorry bud. Hey, did you fill in those TPS reports yesterday?" A separate Approver has to be specified, which has to be a different person than the registered developer. Apparently to Microsoft a company with just 1 person is not a company. Luckily we're with two people! *pfew*, dodged that one, otherwise I would be stuck forever: the choice I already made was not reversible! After I had filled out the form and it was all well and good and accepted by the Microsoft lackey who had to write it all down in some paper notebook ("Hey, be warned! It's a permanent choice! Written down in ink, can't be changed!"), I was presented with the question how I wanted to pay for all this. "Pay for what?" I wondered. Must be the paper they were scribbling the information on, I concluded. After all, there's a financial crisis going on! How could I forget! Silly me. "Ok fair enough". The price was 75 Euros, not the end of the world. I could only pay by credit card, so it was accepted quickly. Or so I thought. You see, Microsoft has a different idea about CC payments. In the normal world, you type in your CC number, some date, a name and a security code and that's it. But Microsoft wants to verify this even more. They want to make a verification purchase of a very small amount and are doing that with a special code in the description. You then have to type in that code in a special form in the Windows Store dashboard and after that you're verified. Of course they'll refund the small amount they pull from your card. Sounds simple, right? Well... no. The problem starts with the fact that I can't see the CC activity on some website: I have a bank issued CC card. I get the CC activity once a month on a piece of paper sent to me. The bank's online website doesn't show them. So it's possible I have to wait for this code till October 12th. One month. "So what, I'm not going to use it anyway, Desktop applications don't use the payment system", I thought. "Haha, you're so naive, dear developer!" Microsoft won't allow you to publish any applications till this verification is done. So no application publishing for a month. Wouldn't it be nice if things were, you know, digital, so things got done instantly? But of course, that lackey who scribbled everything in the Big Windows Store Registration Book isn't that quick. Can't blame him though. He's just doing his job. Now, after the payment was done, I was presented with a page which tells me Microsoft is going to use a third party company called 'Symantec', which will verify my identity again. The page explains to me that this could be done through email or phone and that they'll contact the Approver to verify my identity. "Phone?", I thought... that's a little drastic for a developer account to publish a single page of information about an external hosted software product, isn't it? On Facebook I just added a page, done. And paying you, Microsoft, took less information: you were happy to take my money before my identity was even 'verified' by this 3rd party's minions! "Double standards!", I roared. No-one cared. But it's the thought of getting it off your chest, you know. Luckily for me, everyone at Symantec was asleep when I was registering so they went for the fallback option in case phone calls were not possible: my Approver received an email. Imagine you have to explain the idiot web of security theater I was caught in to someone else who then has to reply a random person over the internet that I indeed was who I said I was. As she's a true sweetheart, she gave me the benefit of the doubt and assured that for now, I was who I said I was. Remember, this is for a desktop application, which is only a link to a website, some pictures and a piece of text. No file hosting, no payment processing, nothing, just a single page. Yeah, I also thought I was crazy. But we're not at the end of this quest yet. I clicked around in the confusing menus of the Windows Store dashboard and found the 'Desktop' section. I get a helpful screen with a warning in red that it can't find any certified 'apps'. True, I'm just getting started, buddy. I see a link: "Check the Windows apps you submitted for certification". Well, I haven't submitted anything, but let's see where it brings me. Oh the thrill of adventure! I click the link and I end up on this site: the hardware/desktop dashboard account registration. "Erm... but I just registered...", I mumbled to no-one in particular. Apparently for desktop registration / verification I have to register again, it tells me. But not only that, the desktop application has to be signed with a certificate. And not just some random el-cheapo certificate you can get at any mall's discount store. No, this certificate is special. It's precious. This certificate, the 'Microsoft Authenticode' Digital Certificate, is the only certificate that's acceptable, and jolly, it can be purchased from VeriSign for the price of only ... $99.-, but be quick, because this is a limited time offer! After that it's, I kid you not, $499.-. 500 dollars for a certificate to sign an executable. But, I do feel special, I got a special price. Only for me! I'm glowing. Not for long though. Here I started to wonder, what the benefit of it all was. I now again had to pay money for a shiny certificate which will add 'Solutions Design bv' to our installer as the publisher instead of 'unknown', while our customers download the file from our website. Not only that, but this was all about a Desktop application, which wasn't hosted by Microsoft. They only link to it. And make no mistake. These prices aren't single payments. Every year these have to be renewed. Like a membership of an exclusive club: you're special and privileged, but only if you cough up the dough. To give you an example how silly this all is: I added LLBLGen Pro and ORM Profiler to the Visual Studio Gallery some time ago. It's the same thing: it's a central place where one can find software which adds to / extends / works with Visual Studio. I could simply create the pages, add the information and they show up inside Visual Studio. No files are hosted at Microsoft, they're downloaded from our website. Exactly the same system. As I have to wait for the CC transcripts to arrive anyway, I can't proceed with publishing in this new shiny store. After the verification is complete I have to wait for verification of my software by Microsoft. Even Desktop applications need to be verified using a long list of rules which are mainly focused on Metro-style applications. Even while they're not hosted by Microsoft. I wonder what they'll find. "Your application wasn't approved. It violates rule 14 X sub D: it provides more value than our own competing framework". While I was writing this post, I tried to check something in the Windows Store Dashboard, to see whether I remembered it correctly. I was presented again with the question, after logging in with my live account, to enter the code that was just mailed to me. Not the previous code, a brand new one. Again I had to kick my mail server to pull the email to proceed. This was it. This 'experience' is so beyond miserable, I'm afraid I have to say goodbye for now to the 'Windows Store'. It's simply not worth my time. Now, about live accounts. You might know this: live accounts are tied to everything you do with Microsoft. So if you have an MSDN subscription, e.g. the one which costs over $5000.-, it's tied to this same live account. But the fun thing is, you can login with your live account to the MSDN subscriptions with just the account id and password. No additional code is mailed to you. While it gives you access to all Microsoft software available, including your licenses. Why the draconian security theater with this Windows Store, while all I want is to publish some desktop applications while on other Microsoft sites it's OK to simply sign in with your live account: no codes needed, no verification and no certificates? Microsoft, one thing you need with this store and that's: apps. Apps, apps, apps, apps, aaaaaaaaapps. Sorry, my bad, got carried away. I just can't stand the word 'app'. This store's shelves have to be filled to the brim with goods. But instead of being welcomed into the store with open arms, I have to fight an uphill battle with an endless list of rules and bullshit to earn the privilege to publish in this shiny store. As if I have to be thrilled to be one of the exclusive club called 'Windows Store Publishers'. As if Microsoft doesn't want it to succeed. Craig Stuntz sent me a link to an old blog post of his regarding code signing and uploading to Microsoft's old mobile store from back in the WinMo5 days: http://blogs.teamb.com/craigstuntz/2006/10/11/28357/. Good read and good background info about how little things changed over the years. I hope this helps Microsoft make things more clearer and smoother and also helps ISVs with their decision whether to go with the Windows Store scheme or ignore it. For now, I don't see the advantage of publishing there, especially not with the nonsense rules Microsoft cooked up. Perhaps it changes in the future, who knows.

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• Developing web apps using ASP.NET MVC 3, Razor and EF Code First - Part 2

  - by shiju

  In my previous post Developing web apps using ASP.NET MVC 3, Razor and EF Code First - Part 1, we have discussed on how to work with ASP.NET MVC 3 and EF Code First for developing web apps. We have created generic repository and unit of work with EF Code First for our ASP.NET MVC 3 application and did basic CRUD operations against a simple domain entity. In this post, I will demonstrate on working with domain entity with deep object graph, Service Layer and View Models and will also complete the rest of the demo application. In the previous post, we have done CRUD operations against Category entity and this post will be focus on Expense entity those have an association with Category entity. You can download the source code from http://efmvc.codeplex.com . The following frameworks will be used for this step by step tutorial.    1. ASP.NET MVC 3 RTM    2. EF Code First CTP 5    3. Unity 2.0 Domain Model Category Entity public class Category   {       public int CategoryId { get; set; }       [Required(ErrorMessage = "Name Required")]       [StringLength(25, ErrorMessage = "Must be less than 25 characters")]       public string Name { get; set;}       public string Description { get; set; }       public virtual ICollection<Expense> Expenses { get; set; }   } Expense Entity public class Expense     {                public int ExpenseId { get; set; }                public string  Transaction { get; set; }         public DateTime Date { get; set; }         public double Amount { get; set; }         public int CategoryId { get; set; }         public virtual Category Category { get; set; }     } We have two domain entities - Category and Expense. A single category contains a list of expense transactions and every expense transaction should have a Category. Repository class for Expense Transaction Let’s create repository class for handling CRUD operations for Expense entity public class ExpenseRepository : RepositoryBase<Expense>, IExpenseRepository     {     public ExpenseRepository(IDatabaseFactory databaseFactory)         : base(databaseFactory)         {         }                } public interface IExpenseRepository : IRepository<Expense> { } Service Layer If you are new to Service Layer, checkout Martin Fowler's article Service Layer . According to Martin Fowler, Service Layer defines an application's boundary and its set of available operations from the perspective of interfacing client layers. It encapsulates the application's business logic, controlling transactions and coordinating responses in the implementation of its operations. Controller classes should be lightweight and do not put much of business logic onto it. We can use the service layer as the business logic layer and can encapsulate the rules of the application. Let’s create a Service class for coordinates the transaction for Expense public interface IExpenseService {     IEnumerable<Expense> GetExpenses(DateTime startDate, DateTime ednDate);     Expense GetExpense(int id);             void CreateExpense(Expense expense);     void DeleteExpense(int id);     void SaveExpense(); } public class ExpenseService : IExpenseService {     private readonly IExpenseRepository expenseRepository;            private readonly IUnitOfWork unitOfWork;     public ExpenseService(IExpenseRepository expenseRepository, IUnitOfWork unitOfWork)     {                  this.expenseRepository = expenseRepository;         this.unitOfWork = unitOfWork;     }     public IEnumerable<Expense> GetExpenses(DateTime startDate, DateTime endDate)     {         var expenses = expenseRepository.GetMany(exp => exp.Date >= startDate && exp.Date <= endDate);         return expenses;     }     public void CreateExpense(Expense expense)     {         expenseRepository.Add(expense);         unitOfWork.Commit();     }     public Expense GetExpense(int id)     {         var expense = expenseRepository.GetById(id);         return expense;     }     public void DeleteExpense(int id)     {         var expense = expenseRepository.GetById(id);         expenseRepository.Delete(expense);         unitOfWork.Commit();     }     public void SaveExpense()     {         unitOfWork.Commit();     } }   View Model for Expense Transactions In real world ASP.NET MVC applications, we need to design model objects especially for our views. Our domain objects are mainly designed for the needs for domain model and it is representing the domain of our applications. On the other hand, View Model objects are designed for our needs for views. We have an Expense domain entity that has an association with Category. While we are creating a new Expense, we have to specify that in which Category belongs with the new Expense transaction. The user interface for Expense transaction will have form fields for representing the Expense entity and a CategoryId for representing the Category. So let's create view model for representing the need for Expense transactions. public class ExpenseViewModel {     public int ExpenseId { get; set; }       [Required(ErrorMessage = "Category Required")]     public int CategoryId { get; set; }       [Required(ErrorMessage = "Transaction Required")]     public string Transaction { get; set; }       [Required(ErrorMessage = "Date Required")]     public DateTime Date { get; set; }       [Required(ErrorMessage = "Amount Required")]     public double Amount { get; set; }       public IEnumerable<SelectListItem> Category { get; set; } } The ExpenseViewModel is designed for the purpose of View template and contains the all validation rules. It has properties for mapping values to Expense entity and a property Category for binding values to a drop-down for list values of Category. Create Expense transaction Let’s create action methods in the ExpenseController for creating expense transactions public ActionResult Create() {     var expenseModel = new ExpenseViewModel();     var categories = categoryService.GetCategories();     expenseModel.Category = categories.ToSelectListItems(-1);     expenseModel.Date = DateTime.Today;     return View(expenseModel); } [HttpPost] public ActionResult Create(ExpenseViewModel expenseViewModel) {                      if (!ModelState.IsValid)         {             var categories = categoryService.GetCategories();             expenseViewModel.Category = categories.ToSelectListItems(expenseViewModel.CategoryId);             return View("Save", expenseViewModel);         }         Expense expense=new Expense();         ModelCopier.CopyModel(expenseViewModel,expense);         expenseService.CreateExpense(expense);         return RedirectToAction("Index");              } In the Create action method for HttpGet request, we have created an instance of our View Model ExpenseViewModel with Category information for the drop-down list and passing the Model object to View template. The extension method ToSelectListItems is shown below   public static IEnumerable<SelectListItem> ToSelectListItems(         this IEnumerable<Category> categories, int  selectedId) {     return           categories.OrderBy(category => category.Name)                 .Select(category =>                     new SelectListItem                     {                         Selected = (category.CategoryId == selectedId),                         Text = category.Name,                         Value = category.CategoryId.ToString()                     }); } In the Create action method for HttpPost, our view model object ExpenseViewModel will map with posted form input values. We need to create an instance of Expense for the persistence purpose. So we need to copy values from ExpenseViewModel object to Expense object. ASP.NET MVC futures assembly provides a static class ModelCopier that can use for copying values between Model objects. ModelCopier class has two static methods - CopyCollection and CopyModel.CopyCollection method will copy values between two collection objects and CopyModel will copy values between two model objects. We have used CopyModel method of ModelCopier class for copying values from expenseViewModel object to expense object. Finally we did a call to CreateExpense method of ExpenseService class for persisting new expense transaction. List Expense Transactions We want to list expense transactions based on a date range. So let’s create action method for filtering expense transactions with a specified date range. public ActionResult Index(DateTime? startDate, DateTime? endDate) {     //If date is not passed, take current month's first and last dte     DateTime dtNow;     dtNow = DateTime.Today;     if (!startDate.HasValue)     {         startDate = new DateTime(dtNow.Year, dtNow.Month, 1);         endDate = startDate.Value.AddMonths(1).AddDays(-1);     }     //take last date of start date's month, if end date is not passed     if (startDate.HasValue && !endDate.HasValue)     {         endDate = (new DateTime(startDate.Value.Year, startDate.Value.Month, 1)).AddMonths(1).AddDays(-1);     }     var expenses = expenseService.GetExpenses(startDate.Value ,endDate.Value);     //if request is Ajax will return partial view     if (Request.IsAjaxRequest())     {         return PartialView("ExpenseList", expenses);     }     //set start date and end date to ViewBag dictionary     ViewBag.StartDate = startDate.Value.ToShortDateString();     ViewBag.EndDate = endDate.Value.ToShortDateString();     //if request is not ajax     return View(expenses); } We are using the above Index Action method for both Ajax requests and normal requests. If there is a request for Ajax, we will call the PartialView ExpenseList. Razor Views for listing Expense information Let’s create view templates in Razor for showing list of Expense information ExpenseList.cshtml @model IEnumerable<MyFinance.Domain.Expense>   <table>         <tr>             <th>Actions</th>             <th>Category</th>             <th>                 Transaction             </th>             <th>                 Date             </th>             <th>                 Amount             </th>         </tr>       @foreach (var item in Model) {              <tr>             <td>                 @Html.ActionLink("Edit", "Edit",new { id = item.ExpenseId })                 @Ajax.ActionLink("Delete", "Delete", new { id = item.ExpenseId }, new AjaxOptions { Confirm = "Delete Expense?", HttpMethod = "Post", UpdateTargetId = "divExpenseList" })             </td>              <td>                 @item.Category.Name             </td>             <td>                 @item.Transaction             </td>             <td>                 @String.Format("{0:d}", item.Date)             </td>             <td>                 @String.Format("{0:F}", item.Amount)             </td>         </tr>          }       </table>     <p>         @Html.ActionLink("Create New Expense", "Create") |         @Html.ActionLink("Create New Category", "Create","Category")     </p> Index.cshtml @using MyFinance.Helpers; @model IEnumerable<MyFinance.Domain.Expense> @{     ViewBag.Title = "Index"; }    <h2>Expense List</h2>    <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.unobtrusive-ajax.min.js")" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery-ui.js")" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.ui.datepicker.js")" type="text/javascript"></script> <link href="@Url.Content("~/Content/jquery-ui-1.8.6.custom.css")" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />      @using (Ajax.BeginForm(new AjaxOptions{ UpdateTargetId="divExpenseList", HttpMethod="Get"})) {     <table>         <tr>         <td>         <div>           Start Date: @Html.TextBox("StartDate", Html.Encode(String.Format("{0:mm/dd/yyyy}", ViewData["StartDate"].ToString())), new { @class = "ui-datepicker" })         </div>         </td>         <td><div>            End Date: @Html.TextBox("EndDate", Html.Encode(String.Format("{0:mm/dd/yyyy}", ViewData["EndDate"].ToString())), new { @class = "ui-datepicker" })          </div></td>          <td> <input type="submit" value="Search By TransactionDate" /></td>         </tr>     </table>         }   <div id="divExpenseList">             @Html.Partial("ExpenseList", Model)     </div> <script type="text/javascript">     $().ready(function () {         $('.ui-datepicker').datepicker({             dateFormat: 'mm/dd/yy',             buttonImage: '@Url.Content("~/Content/calendar.gif")',             buttonImageOnly: true,             showOn: "button"         });     }); </script> Ajax search functionality using Ajax.BeginForm The search functionality of Index view is providing Ajax functionality using Ajax.BeginForm. The Ajax.BeginForm() method writes an opening <form> tag to the response. You can use this method in a using block. In that case, the method renders the closing </form> tag at the end of the using block and the form is submitted asynchronously by using JavaScript. The search functionality will call the Index Action method and this will return partial view ExpenseList for updating the search result. We want to update the response UI for the Ajax request onto divExpenseList element. So we have specified the UpdateTargetId as "divExpenseList" in the Ajax.BeginForm method. Add jQuery DatePicker Our search functionality is using a date range so we are providing two date pickers using jQuery datepicker. You need to add reference to the following JavaScript files to working with jQuery datepicker. jquery-ui.js jquery.ui.datepicker.js For theme support for datepicker, we can use a customized CSS class. In our example we have used a CSS file “jquery-ui-1.8.6.custom.css”. For more details about the datepicker component, visit jquery UI website at http://jqueryui.com/demos/datepicker . In the jQuery ready event, we have used following JavaScript function to initialize the UI element to show date picker. <script type="text/javascript">     $().ready(function () {         $('.ui-datepicker').datepicker({             dateFormat: 'mm/dd/yy',             buttonImage: '@Url.Content("~/Content/calendar.gif")',             buttonImageOnly: true,             showOn: "button"         });     }); </script>   Source Code You can download the source code from http://efmvc.codeplex.com/ . Summary In this two-part series, we have created a simple web application using ASP.NET MVC 3 RTM, Razor and EF Code First CTP 5. I have demonstrated patterns and practices  such as Dependency Injection, Repository pattern, Unit of Work, ViewModel and Service Layer. My primary objective was to demonstrate different practices and options for developing web apps using ASP.NET MVC 3 and EF Code First. You can implement these approaches in your own way for building web apps using ASP.NET MVC 3. I will refactor this demo app on later time.

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• Unobtrusive Client Side Validation with Dynamic Contents in ASP.NET MVC 3

  - by imran_ku07

      Introduction:          A while ago, I blogged about how to perform client side validation for dynamic contents in ASP.NET MVC 2 at here. Using the approach given in that blog, you can easily validate your dynamic ajax contents at client side. ASP.NET MVC 3 also supports unobtrusive client side validation in addition to ASP.NET MVC 2 client side validation for backward compatibility. I feel it is worth to rewrite that blog post for ASP.NET MVC 3 unobtrusive client side validation. In this article I will show you how to do this.       Description:           I am going to use the same example presented at here. Create a new ASP.NET MVC 3 application. Then just open HomeController.cs and add the following code,   public ActionResult CreateUser() { return View(); } [HttpPost] public ActionResult CreateUserPrevious(UserInformation u) { return View("CreateUserInformation", u); } [HttpPost] public ActionResult CreateUserInformation(UserInformation u) { if(ModelState.IsValid) return View("CreateUserCompanyInformation"); return View("CreateUserInformation"); } [HttpPost] public ActionResult CreateUserCompanyInformation(UserCompanyInformation uc, UserInformation ui) { if (ModelState.IsValid) return Content("Thank you for submitting your information"); return View("CreateUserCompanyInformation"); }             Next create a CreateUser view and add the following lines,   <%@ Page Title="" Language="C#" MasterPageFile="~/Views/Shared/Site.Master" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage<UnobtrusiveValidationWithDynamicContents.Models.UserInformation>" %> <asp:Content ID="Content1" ContentPlaceHolderID="TitleContent" runat="server"> CreateUser </asp:Content> <asp:Content ID="Content2" ContentPlaceHolderID="MainContent" runat="server"> <div id="dynamicData"> <%Html.RenderPartial("CreateUserInformation"); %> </div> </asp:Content>             Next create a CreateUserInformation partial view and add the following lines,   <%@ Control Language="C#" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewUserControl<UnobtrusiveValidationWithDynamicContents.Models.UserInformation>" %> <% Html.EnableClientValidation(); %> <%using (Html.BeginForm("CreateUserInformation", "Home")) { %> <table id="table1"> <tr style="background-color:#E8EEF4;font-weight:bold"> <td colspan="3" align="center"> User Information </td> </tr> <tr> <td> First Name </td> <td> <%=Html.TextBoxFor(a => a.FirstName)%> </td> <td> <%=Html.ValidationMessageFor(a => a.FirstName)%> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> Last Name </td> <td> <%=Html.TextBoxFor(a => a.LastName)%> </td> <td> <%=Html.ValidationMessageFor(a => a.LastName)%> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> Email </td> <td> <%=Html.TextBoxFor(a => a.Email)%> </td> <td> <%=Html.ValidationMessageFor(a => a.Email)%> </td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="3" align="center"> <input type="submit" name="userInformation" value="Next"/> </td> </tr> </table> <%} %> <script type="text/javascript"> $("form").submit(function (e) { if ($(this).valid()) { $.post('<%= Url.Action("CreateUserInformation")%>', $(this).serialize(), function (data) { $("#dynamicData").html(data); $.validator.unobtrusive.parse($("#dynamicData")); }); } e.preventDefault(); }); </script>             Next create a CreateUserCompanyInformation partial view and add the following lines,   <%@ Control Language="C#" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewUserControl<UnobtrusiveValidationWithDynamicContents.Models.UserCompanyInformation>" %> <% Html.EnableClientValidation(); %> <%using (Html.BeginForm("CreateUserCompanyInformation", "Home")) { %> <table id="table1"> <tr style="background-color:#E8EEF4;font-weight:bold"> <td colspan="3" align="center"> User Company Information </td> </tr> <tr> <td> Company Name </td> <td> <%=Html.TextBoxFor(a => a.CompanyName)%> </td> <td> <%=Html.ValidationMessageFor(a => a.CompanyName)%> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> Company Address </td> <td> <%=Html.TextBoxFor(a => a.CompanyAddress)%> </td> <td> <%=Html.ValidationMessageFor(a => a.CompanyAddress)%> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> Designation </td> <td> <%=Html.TextBoxFor(a => a.Designation)%> </td> <td> <%=Html.ValidationMessageFor(a => a.Designation)%> </td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="3" align="center"> <input type="button" id="prevButton" value="Previous"/>   <input type="submit" name="userCompanyInformation" value="Next"/> <%=Html.Hidden("FirstName")%> <%=Html.Hidden("LastName")%> <%=Html.Hidden("Email")%> </td> </tr> </table> <%} %> <script type="text/javascript"> $("#prevButton").click(function () { $.post('<%= Url.Action("CreateUserPrevious")%>', $($("form")[0]).serialize(), function (data) { $("#dynamicData").html(data); $.validator.unobtrusive.parse($("#dynamicData")); }); }); $("form").submit(function (e) { if ($(this).valid()) { $.post('<%= Url.Action("CreateUserCompanyInformation")%>', $(this).serialize(), function (data) { $("#dynamicData").html(data); $.validator.unobtrusive.parse($("#dynamicData")); }); } e.preventDefault(); }); </script>             Next create a new class file UserInformation.cs inside Model folder and add the following code,   public class UserInformation { public int Id { get; set; } [Required(ErrorMessage = "First Name is required")] [StringLength(10, ErrorMessage = "First Name max length is 10")] public string FirstName { get; set; } [Required(ErrorMessage = "Last Name is required")] [StringLength(10, ErrorMessage = "Last Name max length is 10")] public string LastName { get; set; } [Required(ErrorMessage = "Email is required")] [RegularExpression(@"^\w+([-+.']\w+)*@\w+([-.]\w+)*\.\w+([-.]\w+)*$", ErrorMessage = "Email Format is wrong")] public string Email { get; set; } }             Next create a new class file UserCompanyInformation.cs inside Model folder and add the following code,    public class UserCompanyInformation { public int UserId { get; set; } [Required(ErrorMessage = "Company Name is required")] [StringLength(10, ErrorMessage = "Company Name max length is 10")] public string CompanyName { get; set; } [Required(ErrorMessage = "CompanyAddress is required")] [StringLength(50, ErrorMessage = "Company Address max length is 50")] public string CompanyAddress { get; set; } [Required(ErrorMessage = "Designation is required")] [StringLength(50, ErrorMessage = "Designation max length is 10")] public string Designation { get; set; } }            Next add the necessary script files in Site.Master,   <script src="<%= Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery-1.4.4.min.js")%>" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="<%= Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.validate.min.js")%>" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="<%= Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.validate.unobtrusive.min.js")%>" type="text/javascript"></script>            Now run this application. You will get the same behavior as described in this article. The key important feature to note here is the $.validator.unobtrusive.parse method, which is used by ASP.NET MVC 3 unobtrusive client side validation to initialize jQuery validation plug-in to start the client side validation process. Another important method to note here is the jQuery.valid method which return true if the form is valid and return false if the form is not valid .       Summary:          There may be several occasions when you need to load your HTML contents dynamically. These dynamic HTML contents may also include some input elements and you need to perform some client side validation for these input elements before posting thier values to server. In this article I shows you how you can enable client side validation for dynamic input elements in ASP.NET MVC 3. I am also attaching a sample application. Hopefully you will enjoy this article too.   SyntaxHighlighter.all()

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• How to install SharePoint Server 2013 Preview

  - by ybbest

  The Office 2013 and SharePoint Server 2013 Preview is announced yesterday and as a SharePoint Developer, I am really excited to learn all the new features and capabilities. Today I will show you how to install the preview. 1. Create a service account called SP2013Install and give this account Dbcreator and SecurityAdmin in SQL Server 2012 2. You need to run the following script to set the ‘maxdegree of parellism’ setting to the required value of 1 in SQL Server 2012(using sysadmin privilege) before configure the SharePoint Farm. Otherwise , you might get the error ‘This SQL Server Instance does not have the required maxdegree of parellism setting of 1’ sp_configure 'show advanced options', 1; GO RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE; GO sp_configure 'max degree of parallelism', 1; GO RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE; GO 3. Download the SharePoint preview from here and I am going to install it on Windows Server 2008R2 with SQL2012. 4. Click the Install software prerequisites, this works fine with the internet connection. (However, if you do not have internet connection, it is a bit tricky to install window azure AppFabric as it has to be installed using the prerequisite installer. Your computer might reboot a few times in the process.) 5.After the prerequisites are installed `completely, you can then install the Preview. Click the Install SharePoint Server and Enter the Product key you get from the Preview download page. 6. Accept the License terms and Click Next. 7. Leave the default path for the file location. 8. You can now start the installation process 9. After binary files are installed, you then can configure your farm using the farm configuration wizard. 10.Specify the Database server and the install account 11. Specify SharePoint farm passphrase. 12 Specify the port number , you should choose your own favorite port number. 13. Choose Create a New Server Farm and click next. 14. Double-check with the settings and click Next to Configure the farm install. 15. Finally, your farm is configured successfully and you now are able to go to your Central Admin site http://sp2010:6666/ 16. You should configure the services manually or automate using PowerShell (If you like to understand why,you can read the blog post here) ,however I will use the wizard to configure automatically here  as  this is a test machine. After the configuration is complete, you now be able to see your SharePoint Site. 17.To start the evaluate the Preview , you need to install Visual Studio 2012 RC , Microsoft Office Developer Tools for Visual Studio 2012,SharePoint 2013 Designer Preview , Office 2013 Preview. References: Download SharePoint2013 Server 2013 Download Microsoft Visio Professional 2013 Preview Install SharePoint 2013 Preview Hardware and software requirements for SharePoint 2013 Preview SharePoint 2013 IT Pro and Developer training materials released Plan for SharePoint 2013 Preview Microsoft Office Developer Tools for Visual Studio 2012 SharePoint 2013 Preview Office365 for the SharePoint 2013 preview SharePoint Designer 2013 Download: Microsoft Office 2013 Preview Language Pack Try Office

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• Linq To SQL: Behaviour for table field which is NotNull and having Default value or binding

  - by kaushalparik27

  I found this something interesting while wandering over community which I would like to share. The post is whole about: DBML is not considering the table field's "Default value or Binding" setting which is a NotNull. I mean the field which can not be null but having default value set needs to be set IsDbGenerated = true in DBML file explicitly.Consider this situation: There is a simple tblEmployee table with below structure: The fields are simple. EmployeeID is a Primary Key with Identity Specification = True with Identity Seed = 1 to autogenerate numeric value for this field. EmployeeName and their EmailAddress to store in rest of 2 fields. And the last one is "DateAdded" with DateTime datatype which doesn't allow NULL but having Default Value/Binding with "GetDate()". That means if we don't pass any value to this field then SQL will insert current date in "DateAdded" field.So, I start with a new website, add a DBML file and dropped the said table to generate LINQ To SQL context class. Finally, I write a simple code snippet to insert data into the tblEmployee table; BUT, I am not passing any value to "DateAdded" field. Because I am considering SQL Server's "Default Value or Binding (GetDate())" setting to this field and understand that SQL will insert current date to this field.        using (TestDatabaseDataContext context = new TestDatabaseDataContext())        {            tblEmployee tblEmpObjet = new tblEmployee();            tblEmpObjet.EmployeeName = "KaushaL";            tblEmpObjet.EmployeeEmailAddress = "[email protected]";            context.tblEmployees.InsertOnSubmit(tblEmpObjet);            context.SubmitChanges();        }Here comes the twist when application give me below error:  This is something not expecting! From the error it clearly depicts that LINQ is passing NULL value to "DateAdded" Field while according to my understanding it should respect Sql Server's "Default value or Binding" setting for this field. A bit googling and I found very interesting related to this problem.When we set Primary Key to any field with "Identity Specification" Property set to true; DBML set one important property "IsDbGenerated=true" for this field. BUT, when we set "Default Value or Biding" property for some field; we need to explicitly tell the DBML/LINQ to let it know that this field is having default binding at DB side that needs to be respected if I don't pass any value. So, the solution is: You need to explicitly set "IsDbGenerated=true" for such field to tell the LINQ that the field is having default value or binding at Sql Server side so, please don't worry if i don't pass any value for it.You can select the field and set this property from property window in DBML Designer file or write the property in DBML.Designer.cs file directly. I have attached a working example with required table script with this post here. I hope this would be helpful for someone hunting for the same. Happy Discovery!

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• Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) and things I were more intuitive

  - by pjohnson

  I've started using Windows Workflow Foundation, and so far ran into a few things that aren't incredibly obvious. Microsoft did a good job of providing a ton of samples, which is handy because you need them to get anywhere with WF. The docs are thin, so I've been bouncing between samples and downloadable labs to figure out how to implement various activities in a workflow. Code separation or not? You can create a workflow and activity in Visual Studio with or without code separation, i.e. just a .cs "Component" style object with a Designer.cs file, or a .xoml XML markup file with code behind (beside?) it. Absence any obvious advantage to one or the other, I used code separation for workflows and any complex custom activities, and without code separation for custom activities that just inherit from the Activity class and thus don't have anything special in the designer. So far, so good. Service - In the WF world, this is simply a class that talks to the workflow about things outside the workflow, not to be confused with how the term "service" is used in every other context I've seen in the Windows and .NET world, i.e. an executable that waits for events or requests from a client and services them (Windows service, web service, WCF service, etc.). ListenActivity - Such a great concept, yet so unintuitive. It seems you need at least two branches (EventDrivenActivity instances), one for your positive condition and one for a timeout. The positive condition has a HandleExternalEventActivity, and the timeout has a DelayActivity followed by however you want to handle the delay, e.g. a ThrowActivity. The timeout is simple enough; wiring up the HandleExternalEventActivity is where things get fun. You need to create a service (see above), and an interface for that service (this seems more complex than should be necessary--why not have activities just wire to a service directly?). And you need to create a custom EventArgs class that inherits from ExternalDataEventArgs--you can't create an ExternalDataEventArgs event handler directly, even if you don't need to add any more information to the event args, despite ExternalDataEventArgs not being marked as an abstract class, nor a compiler error nor warning nor any other indication that you're doing something wrong, until you run it and find that it always times out and get to check every place mentioned here to see why. Your interface and service need an event that consumes your custom EventArgs class, and a method to fire that event. You need to call that method from somewhere. Then you get to hope that you did everything just right, or that you can step through code in the debugger before your Delay timeout expires. Yes, it's as much fun as it sounds. TransactionScopeActivity - I had the bright idea of putting one in as a placeholder, then filling in the database updates later. That caused this error: The workflow hosting environment does not have a persistence service as required by an operation on the workflow instance "[GUID]". ...which is about as helpful as "Object reference not set to an instance of an object" and even more fun to debug. Google led me to this Microsoft Forums hit, and from there I figured out it didn't like that the activity had no children. Again, a Validator on TransactionScopeActivity would have pointed this out to me at design time, rather than handing me a nearly useless error at runtime. Easily enough, I disabled the activity and that fixed it. I still see huge potential in my work where WF could make things easier and more flexible, but there are some seriously rough edges at the moment. Maybe I'm just spoiled by how much easier and more intuitive development elsewhere in the .NET Framework is.

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• Logging connection strings

  If you some of the dynamic features of SSIS such as package configurations or property expressions then sometimes trying to work out were your connections are pointing can be a bit confusing. You will work out in the end but it can be useful to explicitly log this information so that when things go wrong you can just review the logs. You may wish to develop this idea further and encapsulate such logging into a custom task, but for now lets keep it simple and use the Script Task. The Script Task code below will raise an Information event showing the name and connection string for a connection. Imports System Imports Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Runtime Public Class ScriptMain Public Sub Main() Dim fireAgain As Boolean ' Get the connection string, we need to know the name of the connection Dim connectionName As String = "My OLE-DB Connection" Dim connectionString As String = Dts.Connections(connectionName).ConnectionString ' Format the message and log it via an information event Dim message As String = String.Format("Connection ""{0}"" has a connection string of ""{1}"".", _ connectionName, connectionString) Dts.Events.FireInformation(0, "Information", message, Nothing, 0, fireAgain) Dts.TaskResult = Dts.Results.Success End Sub End Class Building on that example it is probably more flexible to log all connections in a package as shown in the next example. Imports System Imports Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Runtime Public Class ScriptMain Public Sub Main() Dim fireAgain As Boolean ' Loop through all connections in the package For Each connection As ConnectionManager In Dts.Connections ' Get the connection string and log it via an information event Dim message As String = String.Format("Connection ""{0}"" has a connection string of ""{1}"".", _ connection.Name, connection.ConnectionString) Dts.Events.FireInformation(0, "Information", message, Nothing, 0, fireAgain) Next Dts.TaskResult = Dts.Results.Success End Sub End Class By using the Information event it makes it readily available in the designer, for example the Visual Studio Output window (Ctrl+Alt+O) or the package designer Execution Results tab, and also allows you to readily control the logging by choosing which events to log in the normal way. Now before somebody starts commenting that this is a security risk, I would like to highlight good practice for building connection managers. Firstly the Password property, or any other similar sensitive property is always defined as write-only, and secondly the connection string property only uses the public properties to assemble the connection string value when requested. In other words the connection string will never contain the password. I have seen a couple of cases where this is not true, but that was just bad development by third-parties, you won’t find anything like that in the box from Microsoft.   Whilst writing this code it made me wish that there was a custom log entry that you could just turn on that did this for you, but alas connection managers do not even seem to support custom events. It did however remind me of a very useful event that is often overlooked and fits rather well alongside connection string logging, the Execute SQL Task’s custom ExecuteSQLExecutingQuery event. To quote the help reference Custom Messages for Logging - Provides information about the execution phases of the SQL statement. Log entries are written when the task acquires connection to the database, when the task starts to prepare the SQL statement, and after the execution of the SQL statement is completed. The log entry for the prepare phase includes the SQL statement that the task uses. It is the last part that is so useful, how often have you used an expression to derive a SQL statement and you want to log that to make sure the correct SQL is being returned? You need to turn it one, by default no custom log events are captured, but I’ll refer you to a walkthrough on setting up the logging for ExecuteSQLExecutingQuery by Jamie.

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• How to save POST&GET headers of a web page with "Wireshark"?

  - by brilliant

  Hello everybody, I've been trying to find a python code that would log in to my mail box on yahoo.com from "Google App Engine". I was given this code: import urllib, urllib2, cookielib url = "https://login.yahoo.com/config/login?" form_data = {'login' : 'my-login-here', 'passwd' : 'my-password-here'} jar = cookielib.CookieJar() opener = urllib2.build_opener(urllib2.HTTPCookieProcessor(jar)) form_data = urllib.urlencode(form_data) # data returned from this pages contains redirection resp = opener.open(url, form_data) # yahoo redirects to http://my.yahoo.com, so lets go there instead resp = opener.open('http://mail.yahoo.com') print resp.read() The author of this script looked into HTML script of yahoo log-in form and came up with this script. That log-in form contains two fields, one for users' Yahoo! ID and another one is for users' password. However, when I tried this code out (substituting mu real Yahoo login for 'my-login-here' and my real password for 'my-password-here'), it just return the log-in form back to me, which means that something didn't work right. Another supporter suggested that I should send an MD5 hash of my password, rather than a plain password. He also noted that in that log-in form there are a lot other hidden fields besides login and password fields (he called them "CSRF protections") that I would also have to deal with: <input type="hidden" name=".tries" value="1"> <input type="hidden" name=".src" value="ym"> <input type="hidden" name=".md5" value=""> <input type="hidden" name=".hash" value=""> <input type="hidden" name=".js" value=""> <input type="hidden" name=".last" value=""> <input type="hidden" name="promo" value=""> <input type="hidden" name=".intl" value="us"> <input type="hidden" name=".bypass" value=""> <input type="hidden" name=".partner" value=""> <input type="hidden" name=".u" value="bd5tdpd5rf2pg"> <input type="hidden" name=".v" value="0"> <input type="hidden" name=".challenge" value="5qUiIPGVFzRZ2BHhvtdGXoehfiOj"> <input type="hidden" name=".yplus" value=""> <input type="hidden" name=".emailCode" value=""> <input type="hidden" name="pkg" value=""> <input type="hidden" name="stepid" value=""> <input type="hidden" name=".ev" value=""> <input type="hidden" name="hasMsgr" value="0"> <input type="hidden" name=".chkP" value="Y"> <input type="hidden" name=".done" value="http://mail.yahoo.com"> He said that I should do the following: Simulate normal login and save login page that I get; Save POST&GET headers with "Wireshark"; Compare login page with those headers and see what fields I need to include with my request; I really don't know how to carry out the first two of these three steps. I have just downloaded "Wireshark" and have tried capturing some packets there. However, I don't know how to "simulate normal login and save the login page". Also, I don't how to save POST$GET headers with "Wireshark". Can anyone, please, guide me through these two steps in "Wireshark"? Or at least tell me what I should start with. Thank You.

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• Creating Item Templates as Visual Studio 2010 Extensions

  - by maziar

  Technorati Tags: Visual Studio 2010 Extension,T4 Template,VSIX,Item Template Wizard This blog post briefly introduces creation of an item template as a Visual studio 2010 extension. Problem specification Assume you are writing a Framework for data-oriented applications and you decide to include all your application messages in a SQL server database table. After creating the table, your create a class in your framework for getting messages with a string key specified.   var message = FrameworkMessages.Get("ChangesSavedSuccess");   Everyone would say this code is so error prone, because message keys are not strong-typed, and might create errors in application that are not caught in tests. So we think of a way to make it strong-typed, i.e. create a class to use it like this:   var message = Messages.ChangesSavedSuccess; in Messages class the code looks like this: public string ChangesSavedSuccess {     get { return FrameworkMessages.Get("ChangesSavedSuccess"); } }   And clearly, we are not going to create the Messages class manually; we need a class generator for it.   Again assume that the application(s) that intend to use our framework, contain multiple sub-systems. So each sub-system need to have it’s own strong-typed message class that call FrameworkMessages.Get method. So we would like to make our code generator an Item Template so that each developer would easily add the item to his project and no other works would be necessary.   Solution We create a T4 Text Template to generate our strong typed class from database. Then create a Visual Studio Item Template with this generator and publish it.   What Are T4 Templates You might be already familiar with T4 templates. If it’s so, you can skip this section. T4 Text Template is a fine Visual Studio file type (.tt) that generates output text. This file is a mixture of text blocks and code logic (in C# or VB). For example, you can generate HTML files, C# classes, Resource files and etc with use of a T4 template.   Syntax highlighting In Visual Studio 2010 a T4 Template by default will no be syntax highlighted and no auto-complete is supported for it. But there is a fine visual studio extension named ‘Visual T4’ which can be downloaded free from VisualStudioGallery. This tool offers IntelliSense, syntax coloring, validation, transformation preview and more for T4 templates.     How Item Templates work in Visual Studio Visual studio extensions allow us to add some functionalities to visual studio. In our case we need to create a .vsix file that adds a template to visual studio item templates. Item templates are zip files containing the template file and a meta-data file with .vstemplate extension. This .vstemplate file is an XML file that provides some information about the template. A .vsix file also is a zip file (renamed to .vsix) that are open with visual studio extension installer. (Re-installing a vsix file requires that old one to be uninstalled from VS: Tools > Extension Manager.) Installing a vsix will need Visual Studio to be closed and re-opened to take effect. Visual studio extension installer will easily find the item template’s zip file and copy it to visual studio’s template items folder. You can find other visual studio templates in [<VS Install Path>\Common7\IDE\ItemTemplates] and you can edit them; but be very careful with VS default templates.   How Can I Create a VSIX file 1. Visual Studio SDK depending on your Visual Studio’s version, you need to download Microsoft Visual Studio SDK. Note that if you have VS 2010 SP1, you will need to download and install VS 2010 SP1 SDK; VS 2010 SDK will not be installed (unless you change registry value that indicated your service pack number). Here is the link for VS 2010 SP1 SDK. After downloading, Run it and follow the wizard to complete the installation.   2. Create the file you want to make it an Item Template Create a project (or use an existing one) and add you file, edit it to make it work fine.   Back to our own problem, we need to create a T4 (.tt) template. VS-Prok: Add > New Item > General > Text Template Type a file name, ex. Message.tt, and press Add. Create the T4 template file (in this blog I do not intend to include T4 syntaxes so I just write down the code which is clear enough for you to understand)   <#@ template debug="false" hostspecific="true" language="C#" #> <#@ output extension=".cs" #> <#@ Assembly Name="System.Data" #> <#@ Import Namespace="System.Data.SqlClient" #> <#@ Import Namespace="System.Text" #> <#@ Import Namespace="System.IO" #> <#     var connectionString = "server=Maziar-PC; Database=MyDatabase; Integrated Security=True";     var systemName = "Sys1";     var builder = new StringBuilder();     using (var connection = new SqlConnection(connectionString))     {         connection.Open();         var command = connection.CreateCommand();         command.CommandText = string.Format("SELECT [Key] FROM [Message] WHERE System = '{0}'", systemName);         var reader = command.ExecuteReader();         while (reader.Read())         {             builder.AppendFormat("        public static string {0} {{ get {{ return FrameworkMessages.Get(\"{0}\"); }} }}\r\n", reader[0]);         }     } #> namespace <#= System.Runtime.Remoting.Messaging.CallContext.LogicalGetData("NamespaceHint") #> {     public static class <#= Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(Host.TemplateFile) #>     { <#= builder.ToString() #>     } } As you can see the T4 template connects to a database, reads message keys and generates a class. Here is the output: namespace MyProject.MyFolder {     public static class Messages     {         public static string ChangesSavedSuccess { get { return FrameworkMessages.Get("ChangesSavedSuccess"); } }         public static string ErrorSavingChanges { get { return FrameworkMessages.Get("ErrorSavingChanges"); } }     } }   The output looks fine but there is one problem. The connectionString and systemName are hard coded. so how can I create an flexible item template? One of features of item templates in visual studio is that you can create a designer wizard for your item template, so I can get connection information and system name there. now lets go on creating the vsix file.   3. Create Template In visual studio click on File > Export Template a wizard will show up. if first step click on Item Template on in the combo box select the project that contains Messages.tt. click next. Select Messages.tt from list in second step. click next. In the third step, you should choose References. For this template, System and System.Data are needed so choose them. click next. write down template name, description, if you like add a .ico file as the icon file and also preview image. Uncheck automatically add the templare … . Copy the output location in clip board. click finish.     4. Create VSIX Project In VS, Click File > New > Project > Extensibility > VSIX Project Type a name, ex. FrameworkMessages, Location, etc. The project will include a .vsixmanifest file. Fill in fields like Author, Product Name, Description, etc.   In Content section, click on Add Content. choose content type as Item Template. choose source as file. remember you have the template file address in clipboard? now paste it in front of file. click OK.     5. Build VSIX Project That’s it, build the project and go to output directory. You see a .vsix file. you can run it now. After restarting VS, if you click on a project > Add > New Item, you will see your item in list and you can add it. When you add this item to a project, if it has not references to System and System.Data they will be added. but the problem mentioned in step 2 is seen now.     6. Create Design Wizard for your Item Template Create a project i.e. Windows Application named ‘Framework.Messages.Design’, but better change its output type to Class Library. Add References to Microsoft.VisualStudio.TemplateWizardInterface and envdte Add a class Named MessagesDesigner in your project and Implement IWizard interface in it. This is what you should write: using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using Microsoft.VisualStudio.TemplateWizard; using EnvDTE; namespace Framework.Messages.Design {     class MessageDesigner : IWizard     {         private bool CanAddProjectItem;         public void RunStarted(object automationObject, Dictionary<string, string> replacementsDictionary, WizardRunKind runKind, object[] customParams)         {             // Prompt user for Connection String and System Name in a Windows form (ShowDialog) here             // (try to provide good interface)             // if user clicks on cancel of your windows form return;             string connectionString = "connection;string"; // Set value from the form             string systemName = "system;name"; // Set value from the form             CanAddProjectItem = true;             replacementsDictionary.Add("$connectionString$", connectionString);             replacementsDictionary.Add("$systemName$", systemName);         }         public bool ShouldAddProjectItem(string filePath)         {             return CanAddProjectItem;         }         public void BeforeOpeningFile(ProjectItem projectItem)         {         }         public void ProjectFinishedGenerating(Project project)         {         }         public void ProjectItemFinishedGenerating(ProjectItem projectItem)         {         }         public void RunFinished()         {         }     } }   before your code runs  replacementsDictionary contains list of default template parameters. After that, two other parameters are added. Now build this project and copy the output assembly to [<VS Install Path>\Common7\IDE] folder.   your designer is ready.     The template that you had created is now added to your VSIX project. In windows explorer open your template zip file (extract it somewhere). open the .vstemplate file. first of all remove <ProjectItem SubType="Code" TargetFileName="$fileinputname$.cs" ReplaceParameters="true">Messages.cs</ProjectItem> because the .cs file is not to be intended to be a part of template and it will be generated. change value of ReplaceParameters for your .tt file to true to enable parameter replacement in this file. now right after </TemplateContent> end element, write this: <WizardExtension>   <Assembly>Framework.Messages.Design</Assembly>   <FullClassName>Framework.Messages.Design.MessageDesigner</FullClassName> </WizardExtension>   one other thing that you should do is to edit your .tt file and remove your .cs file. Lines 8 and 9 of your .tt file should be:     var connectionString = "$connectionString$";     var systemName = "$systemName$"; this parameters will be replaced when the item is added to a project. Save the contents to a zip file with same file name and replace the original file.   now again build your VSIX project, uninstall your extension. close VS. now run .vsix file. open vs, add an item of type messages to your project, bingo, your wizard form will show up. fill the fields and click ok, values are replaced in .tt file added.     that’s it. tried so hard to make this post brief, hope it was not so long…   Cheers Maziar

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• Removing Barriers to Create Effective Data Models

  After years of creating and maintaining data models, I have started to notice common barriers that decrease the accuracy and usefulness of models. In my opinion, the main causes of these barriers are the lack of knowledge and communication from within a company. The lack of knowledge in regards to data models or data modeling can take many forms. Company Culture Knowledge Whether documented or undocumented, existing business rules of a company can affect how data is modeled. For example, if a company only allows 1 assigned person per customer to be able to manipulate a customer’s record then then a data model that includes an associated table that joins customers and employee’s would be unneeded because that would allow for the possibility of multiple employees to handle a customer because of the potential for a many to many relationship between Customers and Employees. Technical Knowledge Depending on the data modeler’s proficiency in modeling data they can inadvertently cause issues and/or complications with a design without even noticing. It is important that companies share data modeling responsibilities so that the models are developed from multiple perspectives of a system, company and the original problem.  In addition, the tools that a company selects to create data models can also affect the accuracy of the model if designer are not familiar with the tools or the tools are too complex to use for the designer. Existing System Knowledge In order for a data modeler to model data for an existing system so that new changes can be applied to a system then they need to at least know the basic concepts of a system so that they can work within it. This will promote reusability of data and prevent the chance of duplicating data. Project Knowledge This should be pretty obvious, but it is very hard to create an accurate data model without knowing what data needs to be modeled. I have always found it strange that I have been asked to start modeling data prior to a client formalizing any requirements. Usually when this happens I have to make several iterations to a model, and the client still does not know exactly what they want.  In addition additional issues can arise when certain stakeholders of a project are not consulted prior to the design or after the project is over because it can cause miss understandings and confusion by the end user as well as possibly not solving the original problem for which a project is intended to solve. One common thread between each type of knowledge is that they can all be avoided through the use of good communication. For example, if a modeler is new to a company then they should ask older employees about any business specific rules that may be documented or undocumented that must be applied to projects in general. Furthermore, if a modeler is not really familiar with a specific data modeling software then they need to speak up and ask for help form other employees or their manager. This will not only help the modeler in the project, but also help them in future projects that they do for the company. Additionally, if a project is not clearly defined prior to a data modeler being assigned the modeling project then it is their responsibility to communicate with the other stakeholders to clarify any part of a project that is unclear so that the data model that is created is accurately aligned with a project.

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• ASP.NET MVC 3 Hosting :: How to Deploy Web Apps Using ASP.NET MVC 3, Razor and EF Code First - Part II

  - by mbridge

  In previous post, I have discussed on how to work with ASP.NET MVC 3 and EF Code First for developing web apps. In this post, I will demonstrate on working with domain entity with deep object graph, Service Layer and View Models and will also complete the rest of the demo application. In the previous post, we have done CRUD operations against Category entity and this post will be focus on Expense entity those have an association with Category entity. Domain Model Category Entity public class Category   {       public int CategoryId { get; set; }       [Required(ErrorMessage = "Name Required")]       [StringLength(25, ErrorMessage = "Must be less than 25 characters")]       public string Name { get; set;}       public string Description { get; set; }       public virtual ICollection<Expense> Expenses { get; set; }   } Expense Entity public class Expense     {                public int ExpenseId { get; set; }                public string  Transaction { get; set; }         public DateTime Date { get; set; }         public double Amount { get; set; }         public int CategoryId { get; set; }         public virtual Category Category { get; set; }     } We have two domain entities - Category and Expense. A single category contains a list of expense transactions and every expense transaction should have a Category. Repository class for Expense Transaction Let’s create repository class for handling CRUD operations for Expense entity public class ExpenseRepository : RepositoryBase<Expense>, IExpenseRepository     {     public ExpenseRepository(IDatabaseFactory databaseFactory)         : base(databaseFactory)         {         }                } public interface IExpenseRepository : IRepository<Expense> { } Service Layer If you are new to Service Layer, checkout Martin Fowler's article Service Layer . According to Martin Fowler, Service Layer defines an application's boundary and its set of available operations from the perspective of interfacing client layers. It encapsulates the application's business logic, controlling transactions and coordinating responses in the implementation of its operations. Controller classes should be lightweight and do not put much of business logic onto it. We can use the service layer as the business logic layer and can encapsulate the rules of the application. Let’s create a Service class for coordinates the transaction for Expense public interface IExpenseService {     IEnumerable<Expense> GetExpenses(DateTime startDate, DateTime ednDate);     Expense GetExpense(int id);             void CreateExpense(Expense expense);     void DeleteExpense(int id);     void SaveExpense(); } public class ExpenseService : IExpenseService {     private readonly IExpenseRepository expenseRepository;            private readonly IUnitOfWork unitOfWork;     public ExpenseService(IExpenseRepository expenseRepository, IUnitOfWork unitOfWork)     {                  this.expenseRepository = expenseRepository;         this.unitOfWork = unitOfWork;     }     public IEnumerable<Expense> GetExpenses(DateTime startDate, DateTime endDate)     {         var expenses = expenseRepository.GetMany(exp => exp.Date >= startDate && exp.Date <= endDate);         return expenses;     }     public void CreateExpense(Expense expense)     {         expenseRepository.Add(expense);         unitOfWork.Commit();     }     public Expense GetExpense(int id)     {         var expense = expenseRepository.GetById(id);         return expense;     }     public void DeleteExpense(int id)     {         var expense = expenseRepository.GetById(id);         expenseRepository.Delete(expense);         unitOfWork.Commit();     }     public void SaveExpense()     {         unitOfWork.Commit();     } } View Model for Expense Transactions In real world ASP.NET MVC applications, we need to design model objects especially for our views. Our domain objects are mainly designed for the needs for domain model and it is representing the domain of our applications. On the other hand, View Model objects are designed for our needs for views. We have an Expense domain entity that has an association with Category. While we are creating a new Expense, we have to specify that in which Category belongs with the new Expense transaction. The user interface for Expense transaction will have form fields for representing the Expense entity and a CategoryId for representing the Category. So let's create view model for representing the need for Expense transactions. public class ExpenseViewModel {     public int ExpenseId { get; set; }       [Required(ErrorMessage = "Category Required")]     public int CategoryId { get; set; }       [Required(ErrorMessage = "Transaction Required")]     public string Transaction { get; set; }       [Required(ErrorMessage = "Date Required")]     public DateTime Date { get; set; }       [Required(ErrorMessage = "Amount Required")]     public double Amount { get; set; }       public IEnumerable<SelectListItem> Category { get; set; } } The ExpenseViewModel is designed for the purpose of View template and contains the all validation rules. It has properties for mapping values to Expense entity and a property Category for binding values to a drop-down for list values of Category. Create Expense transaction Let’s create action methods in the ExpenseController for creating expense transactions public ActionResult Create() {     var expenseModel = new ExpenseViewModel();     var categories = categoryService.GetCategories();     expenseModel.Category = categories.ToSelectListItems(-1);     expenseModel.Date = DateTime.Today;     return View(expenseModel); } [HttpPost] public ActionResult Create(ExpenseViewModel expenseViewModel) {                      if (!ModelState.IsValid)         {             var categories = categoryService.GetCategories();             expenseViewModel.Category = categories.ToSelectListItems(expenseViewModel.CategoryId);             return View("Save", expenseViewModel);         }         Expense expense=new Expense();         ModelCopier.CopyModel(expenseViewModel,expense);         expenseService.CreateExpense(expense);         return RedirectToAction("Index");              } In the Create action method for HttpGet request, we have created an instance of our View Model ExpenseViewModel with Category information for the drop-down list and passing the Model object to View template. The extension method ToSelectListItems is shown below public static IEnumerable<SelectListItem> ToSelectListItems(         this IEnumerable<Category> categories, int  selectedId) {     return           categories.OrderBy(category => category.Name)                 .Select(category =>                     new SelectListItem                     {                         Selected = (category.CategoryId == selectedId),                         Text = category.Name,                         Value = category.CategoryId.ToString()                     }); } In the Create action method for HttpPost, our view model object ExpenseViewModel will map with posted form input values. We need to create an instance of Expense for the persistence purpose. So we need to copy values from ExpenseViewModel object to Expense object. ASP.NET MVC futures assembly provides a static class ModelCopier that can use for copying values between Model objects. ModelCopier class has two static methods - CopyCollection and CopyModel.CopyCollection method will copy values between two collection objects and CopyModel will copy values between two model objects. We have used CopyModel method of ModelCopier class for copying values from expenseViewModel object to expense object. Finally we did a call to CreateExpense method of ExpenseService class for persisting new expense transaction. List Expense Transactions We want to list expense transactions based on a date range. So let’s create action method for filtering expense transactions with a specified date range. public ActionResult Index(DateTime? startDate, DateTime? endDate) {     //If date is not passed, take current month's first and last dte     DateTime dtNow;     dtNow = DateTime.Today;     if (!startDate.HasValue)     {         startDate = new DateTime(dtNow.Year, dtNow.Month, 1);         endDate = startDate.Value.AddMonths(1).AddDays(-1);     }     //take last date of start date's month, if end date is not passed     if (startDate.HasValue && !endDate.HasValue)     {         endDate = (new DateTime(startDate.Value.Year, startDate.Value.Month, 1)).AddMonths(1).AddDays(-1);     }     var expenses = expenseService.GetExpenses(startDate.Value ,endDate.Value);     //if request is Ajax will return partial view     if (Request.IsAjaxRequest())     {         return PartialView("ExpenseList", expenses);     }     //set start date and end date to ViewBag dictionary     ViewBag.StartDate = startDate.Value.ToShortDateString();     ViewBag.EndDate = endDate.Value.ToShortDateString();     //if request is not ajax     return View(expenses); } We are using the above Index Action method for both Ajax requests and normal requests. If there is a request for Ajax, we will call the PartialView ExpenseList. Razor Views for listing Expense information Let’s create view templates in Razor for showing list of Expense information ExpenseList.cshtml @model IEnumerable<MyFinance.Domain.Expense>   <table>         <tr>             <th>Actions</th>             <th>Category</th>             <th>                 Transaction             </th>             <th>                 Date             </th>             <th>                 Amount             </th>         </tr>       @foreach (var item in Model) {              <tr>             <td>                 @Html.ActionLink("Edit", "Edit",new { id = item.ExpenseId })                 @Ajax.ActionLink("Delete", "Delete", new { id = item.ExpenseId }, new AjaxOptions { Confirm = "Delete Expense?", HttpMethod = "Post", UpdateTargetId = "divExpenseList" })             </td>              <td>                 @item.Category.Name             </td>             <td>                 @item.Transaction             </td>             <td>                 @String.Format("{0:d}", item.Date)             </td>             <td>                 @String.Format("{0:F}", item.Amount)             </td>         </tr>          }       </table>     <p>         @Html.ActionLink("Create New Expense", "Create") |         @Html.ActionLink("Create New Category", "Create","Category")     </p> Index.cshtml @using MyFinance.Helpers; @model IEnumerable<MyFinance.Domain.Expense> @{     ViewBag.Title = "Index"; }    <h2>Expense List</h2>    <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.unobtrusive-ajax.min.js")" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery-ui.js")" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.ui.datepicker.js")" type="text/javascript"></script> <link href="@Url.Content("~/Content/jquery-ui-1.8.6.custom.css")" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />      @using (Ajax.BeginForm(new AjaxOptions{ UpdateTargetId="divExpenseList", HttpMethod="Get"})) {     <table>         <tr>         <td>         <div>           Start Date: @Html.TextBox("StartDate", Html.Encode(String.Format("{0:mm/dd/yyyy}", ViewData["StartDate"].ToString())), new { @class = "ui-datepicker" })         </div>         </td>         <td><div>            End Date: @Html.TextBox("EndDate", Html.Encode(String.Format("{0:mm/dd/yyyy}", ViewData["EndDate"].ToString())), new { @class = "ui-datepicker" })          </div></td>          <td> <input type="submit" value="Search By TransactionDate" /></td>         </tr>     </table>         }   <div id="divExpenseList">             @Html.Partial("ExpenseList", Model)     </div> <script type="text/javascript">     $().ready(function () {         $('.ui-datepicker').datepicker({             dateFormat: 'mm/dd/yy',             buttonImage: '@Url.Content("~/Content/calendar.gif")',             buttonImageOnly: true,             showOn: "button"         });     }); </script> Ajax search functionality using Ajax.BeginForm The search functionality of Index view is providing Ajax functionality using Ajax.BeginForm. The Ajax.BeginForm() method writes an opening <form> tag to the response. You can use this method in a using block. In that case, the method renders the closing </form> tag at the end of the using block and the form is submitted asynchronously by using JavaScript. The search functionality will call the Index Action method and this will return partial view ExpenseList for updating the search result. We want to update the response UI for the Ajax request onto divExpenseList element. So we have specified the UpdateTargetId as "divExpenseList" in the Ajax.BeginForm method. Add jQuery DatePicker Our search functionality is using a date range so we are providing two date pickers using jQuery datepicker. You need to add reference to the following JavaScript files to working with jQuery datepicker. - jquery-ui.js - jquery.ui.datepicker.js For theme support for datepicker, we can use a customized CSS class. In our example we have used a CSS file “jquery-ui-1.8.6.custom.css”. For more details about the datepicker component, visit jquery UI website at http://jqueryui.com/demos/datepicker . In the jQuery ready event, we have used following JavaScript function to initialize the UI element to show date picker. <script type="text/javascript">     $().ready(function () {         $('.ui-datepicker').datepicker({             dateFormat: 'mm/dd/yy',             buttonImage: '@Url.Content("~/Content/calendar.gif")',             buttonImageOnly: true,             showOn: "button"         });     }); </script> Summary In this two-part series, we have created a simple web application using ASP.NET MVC 3 RTM, Razor and EF Code First CTP 5. I have demonstrated patterns and practices  such as Dependency Injection, Repository pattern, Unit of Work, ViewModel and Service Layer. My primary objective was to demonstrate different practices and options for developing web apps using ASP.NET MVC 3 and EF Code First. You can implement these approaches in your own way for building web apps using ASP.NET MVC 3. I will refactor this demo app on later time.

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• Feynman's inbox

  - by user12607414

  Here is Richard Feynman writing on the ease of criticizing theories, and the difficulty of forming them: The problem is not just to say something might be wrong, but to replace it by something — and that is not so easy. As soon as any really definite idea is substituted it becomes almost immediately apparent that it does not work. The second difficulty is that there is an infinite number of possibilities of these simple types. It is something like this. You are sitting working very hard, you have worked for a long time trying to open a safe. Then some Joe comes along who knows nothing about what you are doing, except that you are trying to open the safe. He says ‘Why don’t you try the combination 10:20:30?’ Because you are busy, you have tried a lot of things, maybe you have already tried 10:20:30. Maybe you know already that the middle number is 32 not 20. Maybe you know as a matter of fact that it is a five digit combination… So please do not send me any letters trying to tell me how the thing is going to work. I read them — I always read them to make sure that I have not already thought of what is suggested — but it takes too long to answer them, because they are usually in the class ‘try 10:20:30’. (“Seeking New Laws”, page 161 in The Character of Physical Law.) As a sometime designer (and longtime critic) of widely used computer systems, I have seen similar difficulties appear when anyone undertakes to publicly design a piece of software that may be used by many thousands of customers. (I have been on both sides of the fence, of course.) The design possibilities are endless, but the deep design problems are usually hidden beneath a mass of superfluous detail. The sheer numbers can be daunting. Even if only one customer out of a thousand feels a need to express a passionately held idea, it can take a long time to read all the mail. And it is a fact of life that many of those strong suggestions are only weakly supported by reason or evidence. Opinions are plentiful, but substantive research is time-consuming, and hence rare. A related phenomenon commonly seen with software is bike-shedding, where interlocutors focus on surface details like naming and syntax… or (come to think of it) like lock combinations. On the other hand, software is easier than quantum physics, and the population of people able to make substantial suggestions about software systems is several orders of magnitude bigger than Feynman’s circle of colleagues. My own work would be poorer without contributions — sometimes unsolicited, sometimes passionately urged on me — from the open source community. If a Nobel prize winner thought it was worthwhile to read his mail on the faint chance of learning a good idea, I am certainly not going to throw mine away. (In case anyone is still reading this, and is wondering what provoked a meditation on the quality of one’s inbox contents, I’ll simply point out that the volume has been very high, for many months, on the Lambda-Dev mailing list, where the next version of the Java language is being discussed. Bravo to those of my colleagues who are surfing that wave.) I started this note thinking there was an odd parallel between the life of the physicist and that of a software designer. On second thought, I’ll bet that is the story for anybody who works in public on something requiring special training. (And that would be pretty much anything worth doing.) In any case, Feynman saw it clearly and said it well.

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• SQL Server Reporting Services Data Extention

  - by Vercinegetorix

  Hello! So... here's my story: I'm trying to create a SQL server data extension (to be precise, I'm trying to get some sample code to run) (SSRS2005). I've done the following: Placed the extension assembly into the ReportServer/bin folder. Placed the assembly into the Private Assemblies folder. Modified rsreportserver.config in, and added the assembly info to the data section. Modified rssrvpolicy.config, and added a code group for the assembly with Full Trust. Modified RSReportDesigner.config in PrivateAssemblies. Added the assembly to the data and the designer sections, specifying the generic query designer. Modified RSPreviewPolicy.config. Added the assembly with Full Trust. The new Data Source type is available for selection, but when I try to view the dataset I get this error: The data extension DataSet could not be loaded. Check the configuration file RSReportDesigner.config. The location of the assembly is configured properly (I think), because I've added logging code and I can see that the constructor of the Connection object is being called. In fact, I've added logging code to every method of every class in the assembly, and as far as I can tell the failure occurs right after the connection object's constructor is called. Any ideas on how I might proceed to debug this? Thanks alot!

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• MVVM Madness: Commands

  - by JP

  I like MVVM. I don't love it, but like it. Most of it makes sense. But, I keep reading articles that encourage you to write a lot of code so that you can write XAML and don't have to write any code in the code-behind. Let me give you an example. Recently I wanted to hookup a command in my ViewModel to a ListView MouseDoubleClickEvent. I wasn't quite sure how to do this. Fortunately, Google has answers for everything. I found the following articles: http://blog.functionalfun.net/2008/09/hooking-up-commands-to-events-in-wpf.html http://joyfulwpf.blogspot.com/2009/05/mvvm-invoking-command-on-attached-event.html http://sachabarber.net/?p=514 http://geekswithblogs.net/HouseOfBilz/archive/2009/08/27/adventures-in-mvvm-ndash-binding-commands-to-any-event.aspx http://marlongrech.wordpress.com/2008/12/13/attachedcommandbehavior-v2-aka-acb/ While the solutions were helpful in my understanding of commands, there were problems. Some of the aforementioned solutions rendered the WPF designer unusable because of a common hack of appending "Internal" after a dependency property; the WPF designer can't find it, but the CLR can. Some of the solutions didn't allow multiple commands to the same control. Some of the solutions didn't allow parameters. After experimenting for a few hours I just decided to do this: private void ListView_MouseDoubleClick(object sender, MouseButtonEventArgs e) { ListView lv = sender as ListView; MyViewModel vm = this.DataContext as MyViewModel; vm.DoSomethingCommand.Execute(lv.SelectedItem); } So, MVVM purists, please tell me what's wrong with this? I can still Unit test my command. This seems very practical, but seems to violate the guideline of "ZOMG... you have code in your code-behind!!!!" Please share your thoughts. Thanks in advance.

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• Windows Workflow Foundation - Application-Integrated Debugging

  - by user292103

  I've got a typical n-tier app that has a heavy workflow component to it, so I'm interested in using WWF. There's a server-side piece that runs as a Windows Service, and there's the client-side piece written in Silverlight. To have a really great, seamlessly integrated experience for my users, what I want is to incorporate both a workflow designer and a workflow debugger into the application. Not Visual Studio, but something tightly integrated right into the app itself. Using the Silverlight client, the user (probably more of a power user) can design workflows. But not only that, they can open a debugger from within the Silverlight client, set breakpoints (which are really remote breakpoints back to the Windows Service), catch in-process workflows, and step through them. Wouldn't that be great? I think I have some idea how I might go about incorporating an integrated designer (use a Silverlight diagramming component, save the diagram to .XAML, parse the .XAML to re-create the diagram, etc., etc.) but how on Earth would I do the debugger? I have no idea how I would do that part. Is there some kind of debugging support engineered into WWF?

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• MonoTouch: using embedded resx files on iPhone build

  - by bright

  I'm able to load and access resx files in Simulator builds of my iPhone app built using MonoTouch. The resx file entry in the csproj file looks like: <ItemGroup> <EmbeddedResource Include="MapMenu\Resources\MapMenu.resx"> <Generator>ResXFileCodeGenerator</Generator> <LastGenOutput>MapMenu.Designer.cs</LastGenOutput> </EmbeddedResource> </ItemGroup> The .resx file itself has an entry like this: <data name="Main_Menu" type="System.Resources.ResXFileRef, System.Windows.Forms"> <value>Main Menu.mm;System.String, mscorlib, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089;Windows-1252</value> </data> and the generated MapMenu.Designer.cs file has this: internal static string Main_Menu { get { return ResourceManager.GetString("Main_Menu", resourceCulture); } } As mentioned above, calling the Main_Menu accessor works fine on the simulator. On the device, however, it produces: <Notice>: Unhandled Exception: System.MissingMethodException: No constructor found for System.Resources.RuntimeResourceSet::.ctor(System.IO.UnmanagedMemoryStream) <Notice>: at System.Activator.CreateInstance (System.Type type, BindingFlags bindingAttr, System.Reflection.Binder binder, System.Object[] args, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture, System.Object[] activationAttributes) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 <Notice>: at System.Activator.CreateInstance (System.Type type, System.Object[] args, System.Object[] activationAttributes) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 <Notice>: at System.Activator.CreateInstance (System.Type type, System.Object[] args) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 <Notice>: at System.Resources.ResourceManager.InternalGetResourceSet (System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture, Boolean createIfNotExists, Boolean tryParents) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 <Notice>: at System.Resources.ResourceManager.GetString (System.String name, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 <Notice>: at MapMenu.Resources.MapMenu.get_Main_Menu () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 Did a few sanity checks, and am wondering at this point if this really is missing functionality in Monotouch. Thanks,

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• Crystal report subreport parameter autobinding logic feeds duplicate parameters to different subrepo

  - by quillbreaker

  I have a report, and I place the same subreport within the footer twice. The report has three parameters and the subreport has four parameters. When I try to run the report through the report designer, it prompts me for seven parameters instead of the eleven I was hoping for. It prompts for one set of parameters for the subreport (with a default prompt of @parameter(subreport.rpt)/@parameter(subreport.rpt - 01), and passes the same set of parameters to both subreports. This isn't what I want the report to do. Furthermore, if I look at 'show report parameters', it does show eleven parameters, with the same value for both subreport parameter sets. So it knows that it's two different subreports, but it does not want to let me enter it that way. Is there some way I can make crystal designer realize that it should take different values for each subreport? The only solution I've found is to add 8 more parameters, one for each subreport / subreport parameter combination, and bind them individually. It works, but it feels like a workaround. Does anyone have a better solution?

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• How do I eliminate Error 3002?

  - by Andrew

  Say I have the following table definitions in SQL Server 2008: CREATE TABLE Person (PersonId INT IDENTITY NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY, Name VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL, ManyMoreIrrelevantColumns VARCHAR(MAX) NOT NULL) CREATE TABLE Model (ModelId INT IDENTITY NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY, ModelName VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL, Description VARCHAR(200) NULL) CREATE TABLE ModelScore (ModelId INT NOT NULL REFERENCES Model (ModelId), Score INT NOT NULL, Definition VARCHAR(100) NULL, PRIMARY KEY (ModelId, Score)) CREATE TABLE PersonModelScore (PersonId INT NOT NULL REFERENCES Person (PersonId), ModelId INT NOT NULL, Score INT NOT NULL, PRIMARY KEY (PersonId, ModelId), FOREIGN KEY (ModelId, Score) REFERENCES ModelScore (ModelId, Score)) The idea here is that each Person may have only one ModelScore per Model, but each Person may have a score for any number of defined Models. As far as I can tell, this SQL should enforce these constraints naturally. The ModelScore has a particular "meaning," which is contained in the Definition. Nothing earth-shattering there. Now, I try translating this into Entity Framework using the designer. After updating the model from the database and doing some editing, I have a Person object, a Model object, and a ModelScore object. PersonModelScore, being a join table, is not an object but rather is included as an association with some other name (let's say ModelScorePersonAssociation). The mapping details for the association are as follows: - Association - Maps to PersonModelScore - ModelScore ModelId : Int32 <=> ModelId : int Score : Int32 <=> Score : int - Person PersonId : Int32 <=> PersonId : int On the right-hand side, the ModelId and PersonId values have primary key symbols, but the Score value does not. Upon compilation, I get: Error 3002: Problem in Mapping Fragment starting at line 5190: Potential runtime violation of table PersonModelScore's keys (PersonModelScore.ModelId, PersonModelScore.PersonId): Columns (PersonModelScore.PersonId, PersonModelScore.ModelId) are mapped to EntitySet ModelScorePersonAssociation's properties (ModelScorePersonAssociation.Person.PersonId, ModelScorePersonAssociation.ModelScore.ModelId) on the conceptual side but they do not form the EntitySet's key properties (ModelScorePersonAssociation.ModelScore.ModelId, ModelScorePersonAssociation.ModelScore.Score, ModelScorePersonAssociation.Person.PersonId). What have I done wrong in the designer or otherwise, and how can I fix the error? Many thanks!

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• Definition of the job titles involved in a software development process.

  - by Rafael Romão

  I have seen many job titles for people involved in a software development process, but never found a consensus about they mean. I know many of them are equivalent, and found some other questions about that here in SO, but I would like to know your definitions and comments about them. I want not only to know if there is really a consensus, but also to know if what I suppose to be a Software Architect, is really a Software Architect, and so on. The job titles I mean are: Developer; System Analyst; Programmer; Analyst Programmer; Software Engineer; Software Architect; Designer; Software Designer; Business Manager; Business Analyst; Program Manager; Project Manager; Development Manager; Tester; Support Analyst; Please, feel free to add more titles to this list in your answers. It would be very helpful.

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• Understanding Flash SWC's imported into Flex Builder 3 and key framed animation

  - by Hank Scorpio

  I am trying to understand what is going on in a SWC that I am importing from Flash CS4 into Flex Builder 3. Specifically I am using a SWC supplied by a Designer as the animation for a custom preloader (a subclassed DownloadProgressBar). The issue I am trying to understand is, once the FlexEvent.INIT_COMPLETE is fired, I cleanup by removing the swc by running this : removeChild(myPreloader); myPreloader = null; though even after I have removed this (which is successful, as I have checked by comparing this.numChildren before and after the call) the key framed animation still continues to run (not visibly). This has been detected by the Designer placing a trace in the time line of the animation (in Flash). Can anyone tell me why is it, that even after I have removed the animation from the subclassed DownloadProgressBar, it still keeps running ? Also, is it standard practice when importing SWCs to manage the cleanup of resources from the Flash side of things (much like releasing memory in obj-c). I find it counter intuitive that removing the child from the Flex side does not stop the animation. Any clues to this would be greatly appreciated.

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• Error displaying a WinForm in Design mode with a custom control on it.

  - by George

  I have a UserControl that is part of a Class library. I reference this project from my solution. This adds a control from the referenced project to my toolbox. I add tghe control to a form. Everything looks good, I compile all and run. Perfect... But when I close the .frm with the control on it and re-open it, I get this error. The code continues to run. It may have something to do with namespaces. The original namespace was simply "Design" and this was ambiguous and conflicting so i decided to rename it. I think that's when my problems began. To prevent possible data loss before loading the designer, the following errors must be resolved: 2 Errors Ignore and Continue Why am I seeing this page? Could not find type 'Besi.Winforms.HtmlEditor.Editor'. Please make sure that the assembly that contains this type is referenced. If this type is a part of your development project, make sure that the project has been successfully built using settings for your current platform or Any CPU. Instances of this error (1) 1. There is no stack trace or error line information available for this error. Help with this error Could not find an associated help topic for this error. Check Windows Forms Design-Time error list Forum posts about this error Search the MSDN Forums for posts related to this error The variable 'Editor1' is either undeclared or was never assigned. Go to code Instances of this error (1) 1. BesiAdmin frmOrder.Designer.vb Line:775 Column:1 Show Call Stack at System.ComponentModel.Design.Serialization.CodeDomSerializerBase.Error(IDesignerSerializationManager manager, String exceptionText, String helpLink) at System.ComponentModel.Design.Serialization.CodeDomSerializerBase.DeserializeExpression(IDesignerSerializationManager manager, String name, CodeExpression expression) at System.ComponentModel.Design.Serialization.CodeDomSerializerBase.DeserializeExpression(IDesignerSerializationManager manager, String name, CodeExpression expression) at System.ComponentModel.Design.Serialization.CodeDomSerializerBase.DeserializeStatement(IDesignerSerializationManager manager, CodeStatement statement) Help with this error MSDN Help Forum posts about this error Search the MSDN Forums for posts related to this error

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• Custom CheckBoxList in ASP.NET

  - by Rick

  Since ASP.NET's CheckBoxList control does not allow itself to be validated with one of the standard validation controls (i.e., RequiredFieldValidator), I would like to create a UserControl that I can use in my project whenever I need a checkbox list that requires one or more boxes to be checked. The standard CheckBoxList can be dragged onto a page, and then you can manually add <asp:ListItem> controls if you want. Is there any way I can create a UserControl that lets me manually (in the markup, not programmatically) insert ListItems from my page in a similar manner? In other words, can I insert a UserControl onto a page, and then from the Designer view of the Page (i.e., not the designer view of the UserControl), can I manually add my ListItems like so: <uc1:RequiredCheckBoxList> <asp:ListItem Text="A" value="B"></asp:ListItem> <asp:ListItem Text="X" value="Y"></asp:ListItem> </uc1:RequiredCheckBoxList> If a UserControl is not the appropriate choice for the end result I'm looking for, I'm open to other suggestions. Please note that I am aware of the CustomValidator control (which is how I plan to validate within my UserControl). It's just a pain to write the same basic code each time I need one of these required checkbox lists, which is why I want to create a re-usable control.

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• C# WPF XAML Problem with icon in GridViewColumn

  - by Alex

  I've created a ListView with a GridView component in it. Now trying to fill one of the cells with an icon (PNG) like in the code sample below (save_icon.png): <ListView.View> <GridView> <GridViewColumn Header="Date" Width="Auto" DisplayMemberBinding="{Binding Date}" /> <GridViewColumn Header="Time" Width="Auto" DisplayMemberBinding="{Binding Time}" /> <GridViewColumn Header="FriendlyName" Width="Auto" DisplayMemberBinding="{Binding FriendlyName}" /> <GridViewColumn Width="Auto"> <Image Source="save_icon.png" /> </GridViewColumn> </GridView> </ListView.View> Visual Studio gives me an error on the line, where i put the icon into the column (ERROR: "Error 35: The file save_icon.png is not part of the project or its 'Build Action' property is not set to 'Resource'.") I added the icon to the project as a resource and when i start the app, everything works (the icon appears at the right place). But the WPF designer window can't be reloaded and i'm not able to see changes in the designer, when i change the XAML code. Can somebody explain this error or am i doing something wrong? Thanks for every hint in advance!

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• How can I stop an auto-generated Linq to SQL class from loading ALL data?

  - by Gary McGill

  I have an ASP.NET MVC project, much like the NerdDinner tutorial example. (I'm using MVC 2, but followed the NerdDinner tutorial in order to create it). As per the instructions in part 3 of the tutorial, I've created a Linq-to-SQL model of my database by creating a "Linq to SQL Classes" (.dbml) surface, and dropping my database tables onto it. The designer has automatically added relationships between the generated classes based on my database tables. Let's say that my classes are as per the NerdDinner example, so I have Dinner and RSVP tables, where each Dinner record is associated with many RSVP records - hence in the generated classes, the Dinner object has a RSVPs property which is a list of RSVP objects. My problem is this: it appears (and I'd be gladly proved wrong on this) that as soon as I access a Dinner object, it's loading all of the corresponding RSVP objects, even if I don't use the RSVPs member. First question: is this really the default behavior for the generated classes? In my particular situation, the object graph contains many more tables (which have an order of magnitude more records), and so this is disastrous behaviour - I'd be loading tons of data when all I want to do is show the details of a single parent record. Second question: are there any properties exposed through the designer UI that would let me modify this behavior? (I can't find any). Third question: I've seen a description of how to control the loading of related records in a DataContext by using a DataShape object associated with the DataContext. Is that what I'm meant to do, and if so are there any tutorials like the NerdDinner one that would show not only how to do it, but also suggest a 'pattern' for normal use?

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