Search Results

Search found 14626 results on 586 pages for 'hidden features'.

Page 315/586 | < Previous Page | 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322  | Next Page >

• Creating a dynamic proxy generator with c# – Part 4 – Calling the base method

  - by SeanMcAlinden

  Creating a dynamic proxy generator with c# – Part 1 – Creating the Assembly builder, Module builder and caching mechanism Creating a dynamic proxy generator with c# – Part 2 – Interceptor Design Creating a dynamic proxy generator with c# – Part 3 – Creating the constructors   The plan for calling the base methods from the proxy is to create a private method for each overridden proxy method, this will allow the proxy to use a delegate to simply invoke the private method when required. Quite a few helper classes have been created to make this possible so as usual I would suggest download or viewing the code at http://rapidioc.codeplex.com/. In this post I’m just going to cover the main points for when creating methods. Getting the methods to override The first two notable methods are for getting the methods. private static MethodInfo[] GetMethodsToOverride<TBase>() where TBase : class {     return typeof(TBase).GetMethods().Where(x =>         !methodsToIgnore.Contains(x.Name) &&                              (x.Attributes & MethodAttributes.Final) == 0)         .ToArray(); } private static StringCollection GetMethodsToIgnore() {     return new StringCollection()     {         "ToString",         "GetHashCode",         "Equals",         "GetType"     }; } The GetMethodsToIgnore method string collection contains an array of methods that I don’t want to override. In the GetMethodsToOverride method, you’ll notice a binary AND which is basically saying not to include any methods marked final i.e. not virtual. Creating the MethodInfo for calling the base method This method should hopefully be fairly easy to follow, it’s only function is to create a MethodInfo which points to the correct base method, and with the correct parameters. private static MethodInfo CreateCallBaseMethodInfo<TBase>(MethodInfo method) where TBase : class {     Type[] baseMethodParameterTypes = ParameterHelper.GetParameterTypes(method, method.GetParameters());       return typeof(TBase).GetMethod(        method.Name,        BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.NonPublic,        null,        baseMethodParameterTypes,        null     ); }   /// <summary> /// Get the parameter types. /// </summary> /// <param name="method">The method.</param> /// <param name="parameters">The parameters.</param> public static Type[] GetParameterTypes(MethodInfo method, ParameterInfo[] parameters) {     Type[] parameterTypesList = Type.EmptyTypes;       if (parameters.Length > 0)     {         parameterTypesList = CreateParametersList(parameters);     }     return parameterTypesList; }   Creating the new private methods for calling the base method The following method outline how I’ve created the private methods for calling the base class method. private static MethodBuilder CreateCallBaseMethodBuilder(TypeBuilder typeBuilder, MethodInfo method) {     string callBaseSuffix = "GetBaseMethod";       if (method.IsGenericMethod || method.IsGenericMethodDefinition)     {                         return MethodHelper.SetUpGenericMethod             (                 typeBuilder,                 method,                 method.Name + callBaseSuffix,                 MethodAttributes.Private | MethodAttributes.HideBySig             );     }     else     {         return MethodHelper.SetupNonGenericMethod             (                 typeBuilder,                 method,                 method.Name + callBaseSuffix,                 MethodAttributes.Private | MethodAttributes.HideBySig             );     } } The CreateCallBaseMethodBuilder is the entry point method for creating the call base method. I’ve added a suffix to the base classes method name to keep it unique. Non Generic Methods Creating a non generic method is fairly simple public static MethodBuilder SetupNonGenericMethod(     TypeBuilder typeBuilder,     MethodInfo method,     string methodName,     MethodAttributes methodAttributes) {     ParameterInfo[] parameters = method.GetParameters();       Type[] parameterTypes = ParameterHelper.GetParameterTypes(method, parameters);       Type returnType = method.ReturnType;       MethodBuilder methodBuilder = CreateMethodBuilder         (             typeBuilder,             method,             methodName,             methodAttributes,             parameterTypes,             returnType         );       ParameterHelper.SetUpParameters(parameterTypes, parameters, methodBuilder);       return methodBuilder; }   private static MethodBuilder CreateMethodBuilder (     TypeBuilder typeBuilder,     MethodInfo method,     string methodName,     MethodAttributes methodAttributes,     Type[] parameterTypes,     Type returnType ) { MethodBuilder methodBuilder = typeBuilder.DefineMethod(methodName, methodAttributes, returnType, parameterTypes); return methodBuilder; } As you can see, you simply have to declare a method builder, get the parameter types, and set the method attributes you want.   Generic Methods Creating generic methods takes a little bit more work. /// <summary> /// Sets up generic method. /// </summary> /// <param name="typeBuilder">The type builder.</param> /// <param name="method">The method.</param> /// <param name="methodName">Name of the method.</param> /// <param name="methodAttributes">The method attributes.</param> public static MethodBuilder SetUpGenericMethod     (         TypeBuilder typeBuilder,         MethodInfo method,         string methodName,         MethodAttributes methodAttributes     ) {     ParameterInfo[] parameters = method.GetParameters();       Type[] parameterTypes = ParameterHelper.GetParameterTypes(method, parameters);       MethodBuilder methodBuilder = typeBuilder.DefineMethod(methodName,         methodAttributes);       Type[] genericArguments = method.GetGenericArguments();       GenericTypeParameterBuilder[] genericTypeParameters =         GetGenericTypeParameters(methodBuilder, genericArguments);       ParameterHelper.SetUpParameterConstraints(parameterTypes, genericTypeParameters);       SetUpReturnType(method, methodBuilder, genericTypeParameters);       if (method.IsGenericMethod)     {         methodBuilder.MakeGenericMethod(genericArguments);     }       ParameterHelper.SetUpParameters(parameterTypes, parameters, methodBuilder);       return methodBuilder; }   private static GenericTypeParameterBuilder[] GetGenericTypeParameters     (         MethodBuilder methodBuilder,         Type[] genericArguments     ) {     return methodBuilder.DefineGenericParameters(GenericsHelper.GetArgumentNames(genericArguments)); }   private static void SetUpReturnType(MethodInfo method, MethodBuilder methodBuilder, GenericTypeParameterBuilder[] genericTypeParameters) {     if (method.IsGenericMethodDefinition)     {         SetUpGenericDefinitionReturnType(method, methodBuilder, genericTypeParameters);     }     else     {         methodBuilder.SetReturnType(method.ReturnType);     } }   private static void SetUpGenericDefinitionReturnType(MethodInfo method, MethodBuilder methodBuilder, GenericTypeParameterBuilder[] genericTypeParameters) {     if (method.ReturnType == null)     {         methodBuilder.SetReturnType(typeof(void));     }     else if (method.ReturnType.IsGenericType)     {         methodBuilder.SetReturnType(genericTypeParameters.Where             (x => x.Name == method.ReturnType.Name).First());     }     else     {         methodBuilder.SetReturnType(method.ReturnType);     }             } Ok, there are a few helper methods missing, basically there is way to much code to put in this post, take a look at the code at http://rapidioc.codeplex.com/ to follow it through completely. Basically though, when dealing with generics there is extra work to do in terms of getting the generic argument types setting up any generic parameter constraints setting up the return type setting up the method as a generic All of the information is easy to get via reflection from the MethodInfo.   Emitting the new private method Emitting the new private method is relatively simple as it’s only function is calling the base method and returning a result if the return type is not void. ILGenerator il = privateMethodBuilder.GetILGenerator();   EmitCallBaseMethod(method, callBaseMethod, il);   private static void EmitCallBaseMethod(MethodInfo method, MethodInfo callBaseMethod, ILGenerator il) {     int privateParameterCount = method.GetParameters().Length;       il.Emit(OpCodes.Ldarg_0);       if (privateParameterCount > 0)     {         for (int arg = 0; arg < privateParameterCount; arg++)         {             il.Emit(OpCodes.Ldarg_S, arg + 1);         }     }       il.Emit(OpCodes.Call, callBaseMethod);       il.Emit(OpCodes.Ret); } So in the main method building method, an ILGenerator is created from the method builder. The ILGenerator performs the following actions: Load the class (this) onto the stack using the hidden argument Ldarg_0. Create an argument on the stack for each of the method parameters (starting at 1 because 0 is the hidden argument) Call the base method using the Opcodes.Call code and the MethodInfo we created earlier. Call return on the method   Conclusion Now we have the private methods prepared for calling the base method, we have reached the last of the relatively easy part of the proxy building. Hopefully, it hasn’t been too hard to follow so far, there is a lot of code so I haven’t been able to post it all so please check it out at http://rapidioc.codeplex.com/. The next section should be up fairly soon, it’s going to cover creating the delegates for calling the private methods created in this post.   Kind Regards, Sean.

  Read the article

• Smithsonian Showcases Video Game History with The Art of Video Games [Video]

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  The Art of Video Games is the Smithsonian’s look at the history of video games; check out this video trailer to see what the exhibition is all about and hear from some notable folks. From the Smithsonian listing for the exhibition: The Art of Video Games is one of the first exhibitions to explore the forty-year evolution of video games as an artistic medium, with a focus on striking visual effects and the creative use of new technologies. It features some of the most influential artists and designers during five eras of game technology, from early pioneers to contemporary designers. The exhibition focuses on the interplay of graphics, technology and storytelling through some of the best games for twenty gaming systems ranging from the Atari VCS to the PlayStation 3. The exhibit will be at the Smithsonian until the end of September and will then begin touring the country. Hit up the link below for more information. The Art of Video Games Tour [via Neatorama] How To Properly Scan a Photograph (And Get An Even Better Image) The HTG Guide to Hiding Your Data in a TrueCrypt Hidden Volume Make Your Own Windows 8 Start Button with Zero Memory Usage

  Read the article

• Visual Studio 2010 Extension Manager (and the new VS 2010 PowerCommands Extension)

  - by ScottGu

  This is the twenty-third in a series of blog posts I’m doing on the VS 2010 and .NET 4 release. Today’s blog post covers some of the extensibility improvements made in VS 2010 – as well as a cool new "PowerCommands for Visual Studio 2010” extension that Microsoft just released (and which can be downloaded and used for free). [In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu] Extensibility in VS 2010 VS 2010 provides a much richer extensibility model than previous releases.  Anyone can build extensions that add, customize, and light-up the Visual Studio 2010 IDE, Code Editors, Project System and associated Designers. VS 2010 Extensions can be created using the new MEF (Managed Extensibility Framework) which is built-into .NET 4.  You can learn more about how to create VS 2010 extensions from this this blog post from the Visual Studio Team Blog. VS 2010 Extension Manager Developers building extensions can distribute them on their own (via their own web-sites or by selling them).  Visual Studio 2010 also now includes a built-in “Extension Manager” within the IDE that makes it much easier for developers to find, download, and enable extensions online.  You can launch the “Extension Manager” by selecting the Tools->Extension Manager menu option: This loads an “Extension Manager” dialog which accesses an “online gallery” at Microsoft, and then populates a list of available extensions that you can optionally download and enable within your copy of Visual Studio: There are already hundreds of cool extensions populated within the online gallery.  You can browse them by category (use the tree-view on the top-left to filter them).  Clicking “download” on any of the extensions will download, install, and enable it. PowerCommands for Visual Studio 2010 This weekend Microsoft released the free PowerCommands for Visual Studio 2010 extension to the online gallery.  You can learn more about it here, and download and install it via the “Extension Manager” above (search for PowerCommands to find it). The PowerCommands download adds dozens of useful commands to Visual Studio 2010.  Below is a screen-shot of just a few of the useful commands that it adds to the Solution Explorer context menus: Below is a list of all the commands included with this weekend’s PowerCommands for Visual Studio 2010 release: Enable/Disable PowerCommands in Options dialog This feature allows you to select which commands to enable in the Visual Studio IDE. Point to the Tools menu, then click Options. Expand the PowerCommands options, then click Commands. Check the commands you would like to enable. Note: All power commands are initially defaulted Enabled. Format document on save / Remove and Sort Usings on save The Format document on save option formats the tabs, spaces, and so on of the document being saved. It is equivalent to pointing to the Edit menu, clicking Advanced, and then clicking Format Document. The Remove and sort usings option removes unused using statements and sorts the remaining using statements in the document being saved. Note: The Remove and sort usings option is only available for C# documents. Format document on save and Remove and sort usings both are initially defaulted OFF. Clear All Panes This command clears all output panes. It can be executed from the button on the toolbar of the Output window. Copy Path This command copies the full path of the currently selected item to the clipboard. It can be executed by right-clicking one of these nodes in the Solution Explorer: The solution node; A project node; Any project item node; Any folder. Email CodeSnippet To email the lines of text you select in the code editor, right-click anywhere in the editor and then click Email CodeSnippet. Insert Guid Attribute This command adds a Guid attribute to a selected class. From the code editor, right-click anywhere within the class definition, then click Insert Guid Attribute. Show All Files This command shows the hidden files in all projects displayed in the Solution Explorer when the solution node is selected. It enhances the Show All Files button, which normally shows only the hidden files in the selected project node. Undo Close This command reopens a closed document , returning the cursor to its last position. To reopen the most recently closed document, point to the Edit menu, then click Undo Close. Alternately, you can use the CtrlShiftZ shortcut. To reopen any other recently closed document, point to the View menu, click Other Windows, and then click Undo Close Window. The Undo Close window appears, typically next to the Output window. Double-click any document in the list to reopen it. Collapse Projects This command collapses a project or projects in the Solution Explorer starting from the root selected node. Collapsing a project can increase the readability of the solution. This command can be executed from three different places: solution, solution folders and project nodes respectively. Copy Class This command copies a selected class entire content to the clipboard, renaming the class. This command is normally followed by a Paste Class command, which renames the class to avoid a compilation error. It can be executed from a single project item or a project item with dependent sub items. Paste Class This command pastes a class entire content from the clipboard, renaming the class to avoid a compilation error. This command is normally preceded by a Copy Class command. It can be executed from a project or folder node. Copy References This command copies a reference or set of references to the clipboard. It can be executed from the references node, a single reference node or set of reference nodes. Paste References This command pastes a reference or set of references from the clipboard. It can be executed from different places depending on the type of project. For CSharp projects it can be executed from the references node. For Visual Basic and Website projects it can be executed from the project node. Copy As Project Reference This command copies a project as a project reference to the clipboard. It can be executed from a project node. Edit Project File This command opens the MSBuild project file for a selected project inside Visual Studio. It combines the existing Unload Project and Edit Project commands. Open Containing Folder This command opens a Windows Explorer window pointing to the physical path of a selected item. It can be executed from a project item node Open Command Prompt This command opens a Visual Studio command prompt pointing to the physical path of a selected item. It can be executed from four different places: solution, project, folder and project item nodes respectively. Unload Projects This command unloads all projects in a solution. This can be useful in MSBuild scenarios when multiple projects are being edited. This command can be executed from the solution node. Reload Projects This command reloads all unloaded projects in a solution. It can be executed from the solution node. Remove and Sort Usings This command removes and sort using statements for all classes given a project. It is useful, for example, in removing or organizing the using statements generated by a wizard. This command can be executed from a solution node or a single project node. Extract Constant This command creates a constant definition statement for a selected text. Extracting a constant effectively names a literal value, which can improve readability. This command can be executed from the code editor by right-clicking selected text. Clear Recent File List This command clears the Visual Studio recent file list. The Clear Recent File List command brings up a Clear File dialog which allows any or all recent files to be selected. Clear Recent Project List This command clears the Visual Studio recent project list. The Clear Recent Project List command brings up a Clear File dialog which allows any or all recent projects to be selected. Transform Templates This command executes a custom tool with associated text templates items. It can be executed from a DSL project node or a DSL folder node. Close All This command closes all documents. It can be executed from a document tab. How to temporarily disable extensions Extensions provide a great way to make Visual Studio even more powerful, and can help improve your overall productivity.  One thing to keep in mind, though, is that extensions run within the Visual Studio process (DevEnv.exe) and so a bug within an extension can impact both the stability and performance of Visual Studio.  If you ever run into a situation where things seem slower than they should, or if you crash repeatedly, please temporarily disable any installed extensions and see if that fixes the problem.  You can do this for extensions that were installed via the online gallery by re-running the extension manager (using the Tools->Extension Manager menu option) and by selecting the “Installed Extensions” node on the top-left of the dialog – and then by clicking “Disable” on any of the extensions within your installed list: Hope this helps, Scott

  Read the article

• FileNameColumnName property, Flat File Source Adapter : SSIS Nugget

  - by jamiet

  I saw a question on MSDN’s SSIS forum the other day that went something like this: I’m loading data into a table from a flat file but I want to be able to store the name of that file as well. Is there a way of doing that? I don’t want to come across as disrespecting those who took the time to reply but there was a few answers along the lines of “loop over the files using a For Each, store the file name in a variable yadda yadda yadda” when in fact there is a much much simpler way of accomplishing this; it just happens to be a little hidden away as I shall now explain! The Flat File Source Adapter has a property called FileNameColumnName which for some reason it isn’t exposed through the Flat File Source editor, it is however exposed via the Advanced Properties: You’ll see in the screenshot above that I have set FileNameColumnName=“Filename” (it doesn’t matter what name you use, anything except a non-zero string will work). What this will do is create a new column in our dataflow called “Filename” that contains, unsurprisingly, the name of the file from which the row was sourced. All very simple. This is particularly useful if you are extracting data from multiple files using the MultiFlatFile Connection Manager as it allows you to differentiate between data from each of the files as you can see in the following screenshot: So there you have it, the FileNameColumnName property; a little known secret of SSIS. I hope it proves to be useful to someone out there. @Jamiet Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

  Read the article

• Windows Azure: Import/Export Hard Drives, VM ACLs, Web Sockets, Remote Debugging, Continuous Delivery, New Relic, Billing Alerts and More

  - by ScottGu

  Two weeks ago we released a giant set of improvements to Windows Azure, as well as a significant update of the Windows Azure SDK. This morning we released another massive set of enhancements to Windows Azure.  Today’s new capabilities include: Storage: Import/Export Hard Disk Drives to your Storage Accounts HDInsight: General Availability of our Hadoop Service in the cloud Virtual Machines: New VM Gallery, ACL support for VIPs Web Sites: WebSocket and Remote Debugging Support Notification Hubs: Segmented customer push notification support with tag expressions TFS & GIT: Continuous Delivery Support for Web Sites + Cloud Services Developer Analytics: New Relic support for Web Sites + Mobile Services Service Bus: Support for partitioned queues and topics Billing: New Billing Alert Service that sends emails notifications when your bill hits a threshold you define All of these improvements are now available to use immediately (note that some features are still in preview).  Below are more details about them. Storage: Import/Export Hard Disk Drives to Windows Azure I am excited to announce the preview of our new Windows Azure Import/Export Service! The Windows Azure Import/Export Service enables you to move large amounts of on-premises data into and out of your Windows Azure Storage accounts. It does this by enabling you to securely ship hard disk drives directly to our Windows Azure data centers. Once we receive the drives we’ll automatically transfer the data to or from your Windows Azure Storage account.  This enables you to import or export massive amounts of data more quickly and cost effectively (and not be constrained by available network bandwidth). Encrypted Transport Our Import/Export service provides built-in support for BitLocker disk encryption – which enables you to securely encrypt data on the hard drives before you send it, and not have to worry about it being compromised even if the disk is lost/stolen in transit (since the content on the transported hard drives is completely encrypted and you are the only one who has the key to it).  The drive preparation tool we are shipping today makes setting up bitlocker encryption on these hard drives easy. How to Import/Export your first Hard Drive of Data You can read our Getting Started Guide to learn more about how to begin using the import/export service.  You can create import and export jobs via the Windows Azure Management Portal as well as programmatically using our Server Management APIs. It is really easy to create a new import or export job using the Windows Azure Management Portal.  Simply navigate to a Windows Azure storage account, and then click the new Import/Export tab now available within it (note: if you don’t have this tab make sure to sign-up for the Import/Export preview): Then click the “Create Import Job” or “Create Export Job” commands at the bottom of it.  This will launch a wizard that easily walks you through the steps required: For more comprehensive information about Import/Export, refer to Windows Azure Storage team blog.  You can also send questions and comments to the [email protected] email address. We think you’ll find this new service makes it much easier to move data into and out of Windows Azure, and it will dramatically cut down the network bandwidth required when working on large data migration projects.  We hope you like it. HDInsight: 100% Compatible Hadoop Service in the Cloud Last week we announced the general availability release of Windows Azure HDInsight. HDInsight is a 100% compatible Hadoop service that allows you to easily provision and manage Hadoop clusters for big data processing in Windows Azure.  This release is now live in production, backed by an enterprise SLA, supported 24x7 by Microsoft Support, and is ready to use for production scenarios. HDInsight allows you to use Apache Hadoop tools, such as Pig and Hive, to process large amounts of data in Windows Azure Blob Storage. Because data is stored in Windows Azure Blob Storage, you can choose to dynamically create Hadoop clusters only when you need them, and then shut them down when they are no longer required (since you pay only for the time the Hadoop cluster instances are running this provides a super cost effective way to use them).  You can create Hadoop clusters using either the Windows Azure Management Portal (see below) or using our PowerShell and Cross Platform Command line tools: The import/export hard drive support that came out today is a perfect companion service to use with HDInsight – the combination allows you to easily ingest, process and optionally export a limitless amount of data.  We’ve also integrated HDInsight with our Business Intelligence tools, so users can leverage familiar tools like Excel in order to analyze the output of jobs.  You can find out more about how to get started with HDInsight here. Virtual Machines: VM Gallery Enhancements Today’s update of Windows Azure brings with it a new Virtual Machine gallery that you can use to create new VMs in the cloud.  You can launch the gallery by doing New->Compute->Virtual Machine->From Gallery within the Windows Azure Management Portal: The new Virtual Machine Gallery includes some nice enhancements that make it even easier to use: Search: You can now easily search and filter images using the search box in the top-right of the dialog.  For example, simply type “SQL” and we’ll filter to show those images in the gallery that contain that substring. Category Tree-view: Each month we add more built-in VM images to the gallery.  You can continue to browse these using the “All” view within the VM Gallery – or now quickly filter them using the category tree-view on the left-hand side of the dialog.  For example, by selecting “Oracle” in the tree-view you can now quickly filter to see the official Oracle supplied images. MSDN and Supported checkboxes: With today’s update we are also introducing filters that makes it easy to filter out types of images that you may not be interested in. The first checkbox is MSDN: using this filter you can exclude any image that is not part of the Windows Azure benefits for MSDN subscribers (which have highly discounted pricing - you can learn more about the MSDN pricing here). The second checkbox is Supported: this filter will exclude any image that contains prerelease software, so you can feel confident that the software you choose to deploy is fully supported by Windows Azure and our partners. Sort options: We sort gallery images by what we think customers are most interested in, but sometimes you might want to sort using different views. So we’re providing some additional sort options, like “Newest,” to customize the image list for what suits you best. Pricing information: We now provide additional pricing information about images and options on how to cost effectively run them directly within the VM Gallery. The above improvements make it even easier to use the VM Gallery and quickly create launch and run Virtual Machines in the cloud. Virtual Machines: ACL Support for VIPs A few months ago we exposed the ability to configure Access Control Lists (ACLs) for Virtual Machines using Windows PowerShell cmdlets and our Service Management API. With today’s release, you can now configure VM ACLs using the Windows Azure Management Portal as well. You can now do this by clicking the new Manage ACL command in the Endpoints tab of a virtual machine instance: This will enable you to configure an ordered list of permit and deny rules to scope the traffic that can access your VM’s network endpoints. For example, if you were on a virtual network, you could limit RDP access to a Windows Azure virtual machine to only a few computers attached to your enterprise. Or if you weren’t on a virtual network you could alternatively limit traffic from public IPs that can access your workloads: Here is the default behaviors for ACLs in Windows Azure: By default (i.e. no rules specified), all traffic is permitted. When using only Permit rules, all other traffic is denied. When using only Deny rules, all other traffic is permitted. When there is a combination of Permit and Deny rules, all other traffic is denied. Lastly, remember that configuring endpoints does not automatically configure them within the VM if it also has firewall rules enabled at the OS level.  So if you create an endpoint using the Windows Azure Management Portal, Windows PowerShell, or REST API, be sure to also configure your guest VM firewall appropriately as well. Web Sites: Web Sockets Support With today’s release you can now use Web Sockets with Windows Azure Web Sites.  This feature enables you to easily integrate real-time communication scenarios within your web based applications, and is available at no extra charge (it even works with the free tier).  Higher level programming libraries like SignalR and socket.io are also now supported with it. You can enable Web Sockets support on a web site by navigating to the Configure tab of a Web Site, and by toggling Web Sockets support to “on”: Once Web Sockets is enabled you can start to integrate some really cool scenarios into your web applications.  Check out the new SignalR documentation hub on www.asp.net to learn more about some of the awesome scenarios you can do with it. Web Sites: Remote Debugging Support The Windows Azure SDK 2.2 we released two weeks ago introduced remote debugging support for Windows Azure Cloud Services. With today’s Windows Azure release we are extending this remote debugging support to also work with Windows Azure Web Sites. With live, remote debugging support inside of Visual Studio, you are able to have more visibility than ever before into how your code is operating live in Windows Azure. It is now super easy to attach the debugger and quickly see what is going on with your application in the cloud. Remote Debugging of a Windows Azure Web Site using VS 2013 Enabling the remote debugging of a Windows Azure Web Site using VS 2013 is really easy.  Start by opening up your web application’s project within Visual Studio. Then navigate to the “Server Explorer” tab within Visual Studio, and click on the deployed web-site you want to debug that is running within Windows Azure using the Windows Azure->Web Sites node in the Server Explorer.  Then right-click and choose the “Attach Debugger” option on it: When you do this Visual Studio will remotely attach the debugger to the Web Site running within Windows Azure.  The debugger will then stop the web site’s execution when it hits any break points that you have set within your web application’s project inside Visual Studio.  For example, below I set a breakpoint on the “ViewBag.Message” assignment statement within the HomeController of the standard ASP.NET MVC project template.  When I hit refresh on the “About” page of the web site within the browser, the breakpoint was triggered and I am now able to debug the app remotely using Visual Studio: Note above how we can debug variables (including autos/watchlist/etc), as well as use the Immediate and Command Windows. In the debug session above I used the Immediate Window to explore some of the request object state, as well as to dynamically change the ViewBag.Message property.  When we click the the “Continue” button (or press F5) the app will continue execution and the Web Site will render the content back to the browser.  This makes it super easy to debug web apps remotely. Tips for Better Debugging To get the best experience while debugging, we recommend publishing your site using the Debug configuration within Visual Studio’s Web Publish dialog. This will ensure that debug symbol information is uploaded to the Web Site which will enable a richer debug experience within Visual Studio.  You can find this option on the Web Publish dialog on the Settings tab: When you ultimately deploy/run the application in production we recommend using the “Release” configuration setting – the release configuration is memory optimized and will provide the best production performance.  To learn more about diagnosing and debugging Windows Azure Web Sites read our new Troubleshooting Windows Azure Web Sites in Visual Studio guide. Notification Hubs: Segmented Push Notification support with tag expressions In August we announced the General Availability of Windows Azure Notification Hubs - a powerful Mobile Push Notifications service that makes it easy to send high volume push notifications with low latency from any mobile app back-end.  Notification hubs can be used with any mobile app back-end (including ones built using our Mobile Services capability) and can also be used with back-ends that run in the cloud as well as on-premises. Beginning with the initial release, Notification Hubs allowed developers to send personalized push notifications to both individual users as well as groups of users by interest, by associating their devices with tags representing the logical target of the notification. For example, by registering all devices of customers interested in a favorite MLB team with a corresponding tag, it is possible to broadcast one message to millions of Boston Red Sox fans and another message to millions of St. Louis Cardinals fans with a single API call respectively. New support for using tag expressions to enable advanced customer segmentation With today’s release we are adding support for even more advanced customer targeting.  You can now identify customers that you want to send push notifications to by defining rich tag expressions. With tag expressions, you can now not only broadcast notifications to Boston Red Sox fans, but take that segmenting a step farther and reach more granular segments. This opens up a variety of scenarios, for example: Offers based on multiple preferences—e.g. send a game day vegetarian special to users tagged as both a Boston Red Sox fan AND a vegetarian Push content to multiple segments in a single message—e.g. rain delay information only to users who are tagged as either a Boston Red Sox fan OR a St. Louis Cardinal fan Avoid presenting subsets of a segment with irrelevant content—e.g. season ticket availability reminder to users who are tagged as a Boston Red Sox fan but NOT also a season ticket holder To illustrate with code, consider a restaurant chain app that sends an offer related to a Red Sox vs Cardinals game for users in Boston. Devices can be tagged by your app with location tags (e.g. “Loc:Boston”) and interest tags (e.g. “Follows:RedSox”, “Follows:Cardinals”), and then a notification can be sent by your back-end to “(Follows:RedSox || Follows:Cardinals) && Loc:Boston” in order to deliver an offer to all devices in Boston that follow either the RedSox or the Cardinals. This can be done directly in your server backend send logic using the code below: var notification = new WindowsNotification(messagePayload); hub.SendNotificationAsync(notification, "(Follows:RedSox || Follows:Cardinals) && Loc:Boston"); In your expressions you can use all Boolean operators: AND (&&), OR (||), and NOT (!).  Some other cool use cases for tag expressions that are now supported include: Social: To “all my group except me” - group:id && !user:id Events: Touchdown event is sent to everybody following either team or any of the players involved in the action: Followteam:A || Followteam:B || followplayer:1 || followplayer:2 … Hours: Send notifications at specific times. E.g. Tag devices with time zone and when it is 12pm in Seattle send to: GMT8 && follows:thaifood Versions and platforms: Send a reminder to people still using your first version for Android - version:1.0 && platform:Android For help on getting started with Notification Hubs, visit the Notification Hub documentation center.  Then download the latest NuGet package (or use the Notification Hubs REST APIs directly) to start sending push notifications using tag expressions.  They are really powerful and enable a bunch of great new scenarios. TFS & GIT: Continuous Delivery Support for Web Sites + Cloud Services With today’s Windows Azure release we are making it really easy to enable continuous delivery support with Windows Azure and Team Foundation Services.  Team Foundation Services is a cloud based offering from Microsoft that provides integrated source control (with both TFS and Git support), build server, test execution, collaboration tools, and agile planning support.  It makes it really easy to setup a team project (complete with automated builds and test runners) in the cloud, and it has really rich integration with Visual Studio. With today’s Windows Azure release it is now really easy to enable continuous delivery support with both TFS and Git based repositories hosted using Team Foundation Services.  This enables a workflow where when code is checked in, built successfully on an automated build server, and all tests pass on it – I can automatically have the app deployed on Windows Azure with zero manual intervention or work required. The below screen-shots demonstrate how to quickly setup a continuous delivery workflow to Windows Azure with a Git-based ASP.NET MVC project hosted using Team Foundation Services. Enabling Continuous Delivery to Windows Azure with Team Foundation Services The project I’m going to enable continuous delivery with is a simple ASP.NET MVC project whose source code I’m hosting using Team Foundation Services.  I did this by creating a “SimpleContinuousDeploymentTest” repository there using Git – and then used the new built-in Git tooling support within Visual Studio 2013 to push the source code to it.  Below is a screen-shot of the Git repository hosted within Team Foundation Services: I can access the repository within Visual Studio 2013 and easily make commits with it (as well as branch, merge and do other tasks).  Using VS 2013 I can also setup automated builds to take place in the cloud using Team Foundation Services every time someone checks in code to the repository: The cool thing about this is that I don’t have to buy or rent my own build server – Team Foundation Services automatically maintains its own build server farm and can automatically queue up a build for me (for free) every time someone checks in code using the above settings.  This build server (and automated testing) support now works with both TFS and Git based source control repositories. Connecting a Team Foundation Services project to Windows Azure Once I have a source repository hosted in Team Foundation Services with Automated Builds and Testing set up, I can then go even further and set it up so that it will be automatically deployed to Windows Azure when a source code commit is made to the repository (assuming the Build + Tests pass).  Enabling this is now really easy.  To set this up with a Windows Azure Web Site simply use the New->Compute->Web Site->Custom Create command inside the Windows Azure Management Portal.  This will create a dialog like below.  I gave the web site a name and then made sure the “Publish from source control” checkbox was selected: When we click next we’ll be prompted for the location of the source repository.  We’ll select “Team Foundation Services”: Once we do this we’ll be prompted for our Team Foundation Services account that our source repository is hosted under (in this case my TFS account is “scottguthrie”): When we click the “Authorize Now” button we’ll be prompted to give Windows Azure permissions to connect to the Team Foundation Services account.  Once we do this we’ll be prompted to pick the source repository we want to connect to.  Starting with today’s Windows Azure release you can now connect to both TFS and Git based source repositories.  This new support allows me to connect to the “SimpleContinuousDeploymentTest” respository we created earlier: Clicking the finish button will then create the Web Site with the continuous delivery hooks setup with Team Foundation Services.  Now every time someone pushes source control to the repository in Team Foundation Services, it will kick off an automated build, run all of the unit tests in the solution , and if they pass the app will be automatically deployed to our Web Site in Windows Azure.  You can monitor the history and status of these automated deployments using the Deployments tab within the Web Site: This enables a really slick continuous delivery workflow, and enables you to build and deploy apps in a really nice way. Developer Analytics: New Relic support for Web Sites + Mobile Services With today’s Windows Azure release we are making it really easy to enable Developer Analytics and Monitoring support with both Windows Azure Web Site and Windows Azure Mobile Services.  We are partnering with New Relic, who provide a great dev analytics and app performance monitoring offering, to enable this - and we have updated the Windows Azure Management Portal to make it really easy to configure. Enabling New Relic with a Windows Azure Web Site Enabling New Relic support with a Windows Azure Web Site is now really easy.  Simply navigate to the Configure tab of a Web Site and scroll down to the “developer analytics” section that is now within it: Clicking the “add-on” button will display some additional UI.  If you don’t already have a New Relic subscription, you can click the “view windows azure store” button to obtain a subscription (note: New Relic has a perpetually free tier so you can enable it even without paying anything): Clicking the “view windows azure store” button will launch the integrated Windows Azure Store experience we have within the Windows Azure Management Portal.  You can use this to browse from a variety of great add-on services – including New Relic: Select “New Relic” within the dialog above, then click the next button, and you’ll be able to choose which type of New Relic subscription you wish to purchase.  For this demo we’ll simply select the “Free Standard Version” – which does not cost anything and can be used forever:  Once we’ve signed-up for our New Relic subscription and added it to our Windows Azure account, we can go back to the Web Site’s configuration tab and choose to use the New Relic add-on with our Windows Azure Web Site.  We can do this by simply selecting it from the “add-on” dropdown (it is automatically populated within it once we have a New Relic subscription in our account): Clicking the “Save” button will then cause the Windows Azure Management Portal to automatically populate all of the needed New Relic configuration settings to our Web Site: Deploying the New Relic Agent as part of a Web Site The final step to enable developer analytics using New Relic is to add the New Relic runtime agent to our web app.  We can do this within Visual Studio by right-clicking on our web project and selecting the “Manage NuGet Packages” context menu: This will bring up the NuGet package manager.  You can search for “New Relic” within it to find the New Relic agent.  Note that there is both a 32-bit and 64-bit edition of it – make sure to install the version that matches how your Web Site is running within Windows Azure (note: you can configure your Web Site to run in either 32-bit or 64-bit mode using the Web Site’s “Configuration” tab within the Windows Azure Management Portal): Once we install the NuGet package we are all set to go.  We’ll simply re-publish the web site again to Windows Azure and New Relic will now automatically start monitoring the application Monitoring a Web Site using New Relic Now that the application has developer analytics support with New Relic enabled, we can launch the New Relic monitoring portal to start monitoring the health of it.  We can do this by clicking on the “Add Ons” tab in the left-hand side of the Windows Azure Management Portal.  Then select the New Relic add-on we signed-up for within it.  The Windows Azure Management Portal will provide some default information about the add-on when we do this.  Clicking the “Manage” button in the tray at the bottom will launch a new browser tab and single-sign us into the New Relic monitoring portal associated with our account: When we do this a new browser tab will launch with the New Relic admin tool loaded within it: We can now see insights into how our app is performing – without having to have written a single line of monitoring code.  The New Relic service provides a ton of great built-in monitoring features allowing us to quickly see: Performance times (including browser rendering speed) for the overall site and individual pages.  You can optionally set alert thresholds to trigger if the speed does not meet a threshold you specify. Information about where in the world your customers are hitting the site from (and how performance varies by region) Details on the latency performance of external services your web apps are using (for example: SQL, Storage, Twitter, etc) Error information including call stack details for exceptions that have occurred at runtime SQL Server profiling information – including which queries executed against your database and what their performance was And a whole bunch more… The cool thing about New Relic is that you don’t need to write monitoring code within your application to get all of the above reports (plus a lot more).  The New Relic agent automatically enables the CLR profiler within applications and automatically captures the information necessary to identify these.  This makes it super easy to get started and immediately have a rich developer analytics view for your solutions with very little effort. If you haven’t tried New Relic out yet with Windows Azure I recommend you do so – I think you’ll find it helps you build even better cloud applications.  Following the above steps will help you get started and deliver you a really good application monitoring solution in only minutes. Service Bus: Support for partitioned queues and topics With today’s release, we are enabling support within Service Bus for partitioned queues and topics. Enabling partitioning enables you to achieve a higher message throughput and better availability from your queues and topics. Higher message throughput is achieved by implementing multiple message brokers for each partitioned queue and topic.  The  multiple messaging stores will also provide higher availability. You can create a partitioned queue or topic by simply checking the Enable Partitioning option in the custom create wizard for a Queue or Topic: Read this article to learn more about partitioned queues and topics and how to take advantage of them today. Billing: New Billing Alert Service Today’s Windows Azure update enables a new Billing Alert Service Preview that enables you to get proactive email notifications when your Windows Azure bill goes above a certain monetary threshold that you configure.  This makes it easier to manage your bill and avoid potential surprises at the end of the month. With the Billing Alert Service Preview, you can now create email alerts to monitor and manage your monetary credits or your current bill total.  To set up an alert first sign-up for the free Billing Alert Service Preview.  Then visit the account management page, click on a subscription you have setup, and then navigate to the new Alerts tab that is available: The alerts tab allows you to setup email alerts that will be sent automatically once a certain threshold is hit.  For example, by clicking the “add alert” button above I can setup a rule to send myself email anytime my Windows Azure bill goes above $100 for the month: The Billing Alert Service will evolve to support additional aspects of your bill as well as support multiple forms of alerts such as SMS.  Try out the new Billing Alert Service Preview today and give us feedback. Summary Today’s Windows Azure release enables a ton of great new scenarios, and makes building applications hosted in the cloud even easier. If you don’t already have a Windows Azure account, you can sign-up for a free trial and start using all of the above features today.  Then visit the Windows Azure Developer Center to learn more about how to build apps with it. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

  Read the article

• Web Browser Control &ndash; Specifying the IE Version

  - by Rick Strahl

  I use the Internet Explorer Web Browser Control in a lot of my applications to display document type layout. HTML happens to be one of the most common document formats and displaying data in this format – even in desktop applications, is often way easier than using normal desktop technologies. One issue the Web Browser Control has that it’s perpetually stuck in IE 7 rendering mode by default. Even though IE 8 and now 9 have significantly upgraded the IE rendering engine to be more CSS and HTML compliant by default the Web Browser control will have none of it. IE 9 in particular – with its much improved CSS support and basic HTML 5 support is a big improvement and even though the IE control uses some of IE’s internal rendering technology it’s still stuck in the old IE 7 rendering by default. This applies whether you’re using the Web Browser control in a WPF application, a WinForms app, a FoxPro or VB classic application using the ActiveX control. Behind the scenes all these UI platforms use the COM interfaces and so you’re stuck by those same rules. Rendering Challenged To see what I’m talking about here are two screen shots rendering an HTML 5 doctype page that includes some CSS 3 functionality – rounded corners and border shadows - from an earlier post. One uses IE 9 as a standalone browser, and one uses a simple WPF form that includes the Web Browser control. IE 9 Browser:   Web Browser control in a WPF form: The IE 9 page displays this HTML correctly – you see the rounded corners and shadow displayed. Obviously the latter rendering using the Web Browser control in a WPF application is a bit lacking. Not only are the new CSS features missing but the page also renders in Internet Explorer’s quirks mode so all the margins, padding etc. behave differently by default, even though there’s a CSS reset applied on this page. If you’re building an application that intends to use the Web Browser control for a live preview of some HTML this is clearly undesirable. Feature Delegation via Registry Hacks Fortunately starting with Internet Explore 8 and later there’s a fix for this problem via a registry setting. You can specify a registry key to specify which rendering mode and version of IE should be used by that application. These are not global mind you – they have to be enabled for each application individually. There are two different sets of keys for 32 bit and 64 bit applications. 32 bit: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\MAIN\FeatureControl\FEATURE_BROWSER_EMULATION Value Key: yourapplication.exe 64 bit: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\MAIN\FeatureControl\FEATURE_BROWSER_EMULATION Value Key: yourapplication.exe The value to set this key to is (taken from MSDN here) as decimal values: 9999 (0x270F) Internet Explorer 9. Webpages are displayed in IE9 Standards mode, regardless of the !DOCTYPE directive. 9000 (0x2328) Internet Explorer 9. Webpages containing standards-based !DOCTYPE directives are displayed in IE9 mode. 8888 (0x22B8) Webpages are displayed in IE8 Standards mode, regardless of the !DOCTYPE directive. 8000 (0x1F40) Webpages containing standards-based !DOCTYPE directives are displayed in IE8 mode. 7000 (0x1B58) Webpages containing standards-based !DOCTYPE directives are displayed in IE7 Standards mode.   The added key looks something like this in the Registry Editor: With this in place my Html Html Help Builder application which has wwhelp.exe as its main executable now works with HTML 5 and CSS 3 documents in the same way that Internet Explorer 9 does. Incidentally I accidentally added an ‘empty’ DWORD value of 0 to my EXE name and that worked as well giving me IE 9 rendering. Although not documented I suspect 0 (or an invalid value) will default to the installed browser. Don’t have a good way to test this but if somebody could try this with IE 8 installed that would be great: What happens when setting 9000 with IE 8 installed? What happens when setting 0 with IE 8 installed? Don’t forget to add Keys for Host Environments If you’re developing your application in Visual Studio and you run the debugger you may find that your application is still not rendering right, but if you run the actual generated EXE from Explorer or the OS command prompt it works. That’s because when you run the debugger in Visual Studio it wraps your application into a debugging host container. For this reason you might want to also add another registry key for yourapp.vshost.exe on your development machine. If you’re developing in Visual FoxPro make sure you add a key for vfp9.exe to see the rendering adjustments in the Visual FoxPro development environment. Cleaner HTML - no more HTML mangling! There are a number of additional benefits to setting up rendering of the Web Browser control to the IE 9 engine (or even the IE 8 engine) beyond the obvious rendering functionality. IE 9 actually returns your HTML in something that resembles the original HTML formatting, as opposed to the IE 7 default format which mangled the original HTML content. If you do the following in the WPF application: private void button2_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) { dynamic doc = this.webBrowser.Document; MessageBox.Show(doc.body.outerHtml); } you get different output depending on the rendering mode active. With the default IE 7 rendering you get: <BODY><DIV> <H1>Rounded Corners and Shadows - Creating Dialogs in CSS</H1> <DIV class=toolbarcontainer><A class=hoverbutton href="./"><IMG src="../../css/images/home.gif"> Home</A> <A class=hoverbutton href="RoundedCornersAndShadows.htm"><IMG src="../../css/images/refresh.gif"> Refresh</A> </DIV> <DIV class=containercontent> <FIELDSET><LEGEND>Plain Box</LEGEND><!-- Simple Box with rounded corners and shadow --> <DIV style="BORDER-BOTTOM: steelblue 2px solid; BORDER-LEFT: steelblue 2px solid; WIDTH: 550px; BORDER-TOP: steelblue 2px solid; BORDER-RIGHT: steelblue 2px solid" class="roundbox boxshadow"> <DIV style="BACKGROUND: khaki" class="boxcontenttext roundbox">Simple Rounded Corner Box. </DIV></DIV></FIELDSET> <FIELDSET><LEGEND>Box with Header</LEGEND> <DIV style="BORDER-BOTTOM: steelblue 2px solid; BORDER-LEFT: steelblue 2px solid; WIDTH: 550px; BORDER-TOP: steelblue 2px solid; BORDER-RIGHT: steelblue 2px solid" class="roundbox boxshadow"> <DIV class="gridheaderleft roundbox-top">Box with a Header</DIV> <DIV style="BACKGROUND: khaki" class="boxcontenttext roundbox-bottom">Simple Rounded Corner Box. </DIV></DIV></FIELDSET> <FIELDSET><LEGEND>Dialog Style Window</LEGEND> <DIV style="POSITION: relative; WIDTH: 450px" id=divDialog class="dialog boxshadow" jQuery16107208195684204002="2"> <DIV style="POSITION: relative" class=dialog-header> <DIV class=closebox></DIV>User Sign-in <DIV class=closebox jQuery16107208195684204002="3"></DIV></DIV> <DIV class=descriptionheader>This dialog is draggable and closable</DIV> <DIV class=dialog-content><LABEL>Username:</LABEL> <INPUT name=txtUsername value=" "> <LABEL>Password</LABEL> <INPUT name=txtPassword value=" "> <HR> <INPUT id=btnLogin value=Login type=button> </DIV> <DIV class=dialog-statusbar>Ready</DIV></DIV></FIELDSET> </DIV> <SCRIPT type=text/javascript>     $(document).ready(function () {         $("#divDialog")             .draggable({ handle: ".dialog-header" })             .closable({ handle: ".dialog-header",                 closeHandler: function () {                     alert("Window about to be closed.");                     return true;  // true closes - false leaves open                 }             });     }); </SCRIPT> </DIV></BODY> Now lest you think I’m out of my mind and create complete whacky HTML rooted in the last century, here’s the IE 9 rendering mode output which looks a heck of a lot cleaner and a lot closer to my original HTML of the page I’m accessing: <body> <div>         <h1>Rounded Corners and Shadows - Creating Dialogs in CSS</h1>     <div class="toolbarcontainer">         <a class="hoverbutton" href="./"> <img src="../../css/images/home.gif"> Home</a>         <a class="hoverbutton" href="RoundedCornersAndShadows.htm"> <img src="../../css/images/refresh.gif"> Refresh</a>     </div>         <div class="containercontent">     <fieldset>         <legend>Plain Box</legend>                <!-- Simple Box with rounded corners and shadow -->             <div style="border: 2px solid steelblue; width: 550px;" class="roundbox boxshadow">                              <div style="background: khaki;" class="boxcontenttext roundbox">                     Simple Rounded Corner Box.                 </div>             </div>     </fieldset>     <fieldset>         <legend>Box with Header</legend>         <div style="border: 2px solid steelblue; width: 550px;" class="roundbox boxshadow">                          <div class="gridheaderleft roundbox-top">Box with a Header</div>             <div style="background: khaki;" class="boxcontenttext roundbox-bottom">                 Simple Rounded Corner Box.             </div>         </div>     </fieldset>       <fieldset>         <legend>Dialog Style Window</legend>         <div style="width: 450px; position: relative;" id="divDialog" class="dialog boxshadow">             <div style="position: relative;" class="dialog-header">                 <div class="closebox"></div>                 User Sign-in             <div class="closebox"></div></div>             <div class="descriptionheader">This dialog is draggable and closable</div>                    <div class="dialog-content">                             <label>Username:</label>                 <input name="txtUsername" value=" " type="text">                 <label>Password</label>                 <input name="txtPassword" value=" " type="text">                                 <hr/>                                 <input id="btnLogin" value="Login" type="button">                        </div>             <div class="dialog-statusbar">Ready</div>         </div>     </fieldset>     </div> <script type="text/javascript">     $(document).ready(function () {         $("#divDialog")             .draggable({ handle: ".dialog-header" })             .closable({ handle: ".dialog-header",                 closeHandler: function () {                     alert("Window about to be closed.");                     return true;  // true closes - false leaves open                 }             });     }); </script>        </div> </body> IOW, in IE9 rendering mode IE9 is much closer (but not identical) to the original HTML from the page on the Web that we’re reading from. As a side note: Unfortunately, the browser feature emulation can't be applied against the Html Help (CHM) Engine in Windows which uses the Web Browser control (or COM interfaces anyway) to render Html Help content. I tried setting up hh.exe which is the help viewer, to use IE 9 rendering but a help file generated with CSS3 features will simply show in IE 7 mode. Bummer - this would have been a nice quick fix to allow help content served from CHM files to look better. HTML Editing leaves HTML formatting intact In the same vane, if you do any inline HTML editing in the control by setting content to be editable, IE 9’s control does a much more reasonable job of creating usable and somewhat valid HTML. It also leaves the original content alone other than the text your are editing or adding. No longer is the HTML output stripped of excess spaces and reformatted in IEs format. So if I do: private void button3_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) { dynamic doc = this.webBrowser.Document; doc.body.contentEditable = true; } and then make some changes to the document by typing into it using IE 9 mode, the document formatting stays intact and only the affected content is modified. The created HTML is reasonably clean (although it does lack proper XHTML formatting for things like <br/> <hr/>). This is very different from IE 7 mode which mangled the HTML as soon as the page was loaded into the control. Any editing you did stripped out all white space and lost all of your existing XHTML formatting. In IE 9 mode at least *most* of your original formatting stays intact. This is huge! In Html Help Builder I have supported HTML editing for a long time but the HTML mangling by the Web Browser control made it very difficult to edit the HTML later. Previously IE would mangle the HTML by stripping out spaces, upper casing all tags and converting many XHTML safe tags to its HTML 3 tags. Now IE leaves most of my document alone while editing, and creates cleaner and more compliant markup (with exception of self-closing elements like BR/HR). The end result is that I now have HTML editing in place that's much cleaner and actually capable of being manually edited. Caveats, Caveats, Caveats It wouldn't be Internet Explorer if there weren't some major compatibility issues involved in using this various browser version interaction. The biggest thing I ran into is that there are odd differences in some of the COM interfaces and what they return. I specifically ran into a problem with the document.selection.createRange() function which with IE 7 compatibility returns an expected text range object. When running in IE 8 or IE 9 mode however. I could not retrieve a valid text range with this code where loEdit is the WebBrowser control: loRange = loEdit.document.selection.CreateRange() The loRange object returned (here in FoxPro) had a length property of 0 but none of the other properties of the TextRange or TextRangeCollection objects were available. I figured this was due to some changed security settings but even after elevating the Intranet Security Zone and mucking with the other browser feature flags pertaining to security I had no luck. In the end I relented and used a JavaScript function in my editor document that returns a selection range object: function getselectionrange() { var range = document.selection.createRange(); return range; } and call that JavaScript function from my host applications code: *** Use a function in the document to get around HTML Editing issues loRange = loEdit.document.parentWindow.getselectionrange(.f.) and that does work correctly. This wasn't a big deal as I'm already loading a support script file into the editor page so all I had to do is add the function to this existing script file. You can find out more how to call script code in the Web Browser control from a host application in a previous post of mine. IE 8 and 9 also clamp down the security environment a little more than the default IE 7 control, so there may be other issues you run into. Other than the createRange() problem above I haven't seen anything else that is breaking in my code so far though and that's encouraging at least since it uses a lot of HTML document manipulation for the custom editor I've created (and would love to replace - any PROFESSIONAL alternatives anybody?) Registry Key Installation for your Application It’s important to remember that this registry setting is made per application, so most likely this is something you want to set up with your installer. Also remember that 32 and 64 bit settings require separate settings in the registry so if you’re creating your installer you most likely will want to set both keys in the registry preemptively for your application. I use Tarma Installer for all of my application installs and in Tarma I configure registry keys for both and set a flag to only install the latter key group in the 64 bit version: Because this setting is application specific you have to do this for every application you install unfortunately, but this also means that you can safely configure this setting in the registry because it is after only applied to your application. Another problem with install based installation is version detection. If IE 8 is installed I’d want 8000 for the value, if IE 9 is installed I want 9000. I can do this easily in code but in the installer this is much more difficult. I don’t have a good solution for this at the moment, but given that the app works with IE 7 mode now, IE 9 mode is just a bonus for the moment. If IE 9 is not installed and 9000 is used the default rendering will remain in use.   It sure would be nice if we could specify the IE rendering mode as a property, but I suspect the ActiveX container has to know before it loads what actual version to load up and once loaded can only load a single version of IE. This would account for this annoying application level configuration… Summary The registry feature emulation has been available for quite some time, but I just found out about it today and started experimenting around with it. I’m stoked to see that this is available as I’d pretty much given up in ever seeing any better rendering in the Web Browser control. Now at least my apps can take advantage of newer HTML features. Now if we could only get better HTML Editing support somehow <snicker>… ah can’t have everything.© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2011Posted in .NET  FoxPro  Windows  

  Read the article

• Awareness Makes Sure You’re Not Tuned Out While Listening to Music

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  iOS: You want to listen to your music but you don’t want to be totally unaware of your surroundings. What do you do? Install Awareness, a simple app that will alert you if your device mic picks up loud noises. Whether you want to fall asleep listening to some relaxing music while still hearing bumbs in the night or you want to listen to music when you’re out and about without being completely started by events your earbuds are filtering out. To use the app just run it in tandem with your music, adjust the sensitivity to account for the ambient sound, and you’re in business. If any sounds exceed that level, they’ll be piped in through your headphones to alert you. Awareness is currently free in the App Store (down from a high of $6.99) so if you’d like to play around with it, now’s the time to grab a copy. Awareness [via Addictive Tips] How To Be Your Own Personal Clone Army (With a Little Photoshop) How To Properly Scan a Photograph (And Get An Even Better Image) The HTG Guide to Hiding Your Data in a TrueCrypt Hidden Volume

  Read the article

• FileNameColumnName property, Flat File Source Adapter : SSIS Nugget

  - by jamiet

  I saw a question on MSDN’s SSIS forum the other day that went something like this: I’m loading data into a table from a flat file but I want to be able to store the name of that file as well. Is there a way of doing that? I don’t want to come across as disrespecting those who took the time to reply but there was a few answers along the lines of “loop over the files using a For Each, store the file name in a variable yadda yadda yadda” when in fact there is a much much simpler way of accomplishing this; it just happens to be a little hidden away as I shall now explain! The Flat File Source Adapter has a property called FileNameColumnName which for some reason it isn’t exposed through the Flat File Source editor, it is however exposed via the Advanced Properties: You’ll see in the screenshot above that I have set FileNameColumnName=“Filename” (it doesn’t matter what name you use, anything except a non-zero string will work). What this will do is create a new column in our dataflow called “Filename” that contains, unsurprisingly, the name of the file from which the row was sourced. All very simple. This is particularly useful if you are extracting data from multiple files using the MultiFlatFile Connection Manager as it allows you to differentiate between data from each of the files as you can see in the following screenshot: So there you have it, the FileNameColumnName property; a little known secret of SSIS. I hope it proves to be useful to someone out there. @Jamiet Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

  Read the article

• How bad is it to use display: none in CSS?

  - by Andy

  I've heard many times that it's bad to use display: none for SEO reasons, as it could be an attempt to push in irrelevant popular keywords. A few questions: Is that still received wisdom? Does it make a difference if you're only hiding a single word, or perhaps a single character? If you should avoid any use of it, what are the preferred techniques for hiding (in situations where you need it to become visible again on certain conditions)? Some references I've found so far: Matt Cutts from 2005 in a comment If you're straight-out using CSS to hide text, don't be surprised if that is called spam. I'm not saying that mouseovers or DHTML text or have-a-logo-but-also-have-text is spam; I answered that last one at a conference when I said "imagine how it would look to a visitor, a competitor, or someone checking out a spam report. If you show your company's name and it's Expo Markers instead of an Expo Markers logo, you should be fine. If the text you decide to show is 'Expo Markers cheap online discount buy online Expo Markers sale ...' then I would be more cautious, because that can look bad." And in another comment on the same article We can flag text that appears to be hidden using CSS at Google. To date we have not algorithmically removed sites for doing that. We try hard to avoid throwing babies out with bathwater. (My emphasis) Eric Enge said in 2008 The legitimate use of this technique is so prevalent that I would rarely expect search engines to penalize a site for using the display: none attribute. It’s just very difficult to implement an algorithm that could truly ferret out whether the particular use of display: none is meant to deceive the search engines or not. Thanks in advance, Andy

  Read the article

• The “Customer” Experience Revolution is Here

  - by Jeri Kelley

  A guest post by Anthony Lye, SVP, CRM, Oracle The Experience Revolution is here, and we are going to explore and celebrate our new customer experience (CX) ventures and strategy in an extraordinary way. In true Oracle fashion, we are hosting an exceptional event, bringing together customer experience advocates, visionaries and practitioners to discover and define Oracle’s Customer Experience vision. At The Experience Revolution, Oracle President Mark Hurd will detail the vision of where customer experience is going and how Oracle will help you get there. He will introduce for the first time Oracle Customer Experience, a cross stack suite of customer experience products that enable organizations to: Engage customers with a consistent, connected and personalized brand experience across all channels and devices Deliver exceptional cross-channel order fulfillment and customer service through web, call centers and social networks Connect and analyze data from all interactions to better personalize experiences and identify hidden opportunities The Experience Revolution will also include an interactive gallery of customer experience interactions, featuring videos, touch screens and near field communication technology that will guide each attendee through an individualized event experience. We hope you will join us for an incredible evening on June 25, from 6:00 – 9:00 p.m. at Gotham Hall in New York City.  You can register for The Experience Revolution here. And if you haven’t already joined the conversation on Twitter, please do:  #OracleCX, #ExperienceRevolution

  Read the article

• The “Customer” Experience Revolution is Here

  - by Jeri Kelley

  A guest post by Anthony Lye, SVP, CRM, Oracle The Experience Revolution is here, and we are going to explore and celebrate our new customer experience (CX) ventures and strategy in an extraordinary way. In true Oracle fashion, we are hosting an exceptional event, bringing together customer experience advocates, visionaries and practitioners to discover and define Oracle’s Customer Experience vision. At The Experience Revolution, Oracle President Mark Hurd will detail the vision of where customer experience is going and how Oracle will help you get there. He will introduce for the first time Oracle Customer Experience, a cross stack suite of customer experience products that enable organizations to: Engage customers with a consistent, connected and personalized brand experience across all channels and devices Deliver exceptional cross-channel order fulfillment and customer service through web, call centers and social networks Connect and analyze data from all interactions to better personalize experiences and identify hidden opportunities The Experience Revolution will also include an interactive gallery of customer experience interactions, featuring videos, touch screens and near field communication technology that will guide each attendee through an individualized event experience. We hope you will join us for an incredible evening on June 25, from 6:00 – 9:00 p.m. at Gotham Hall in New York City.  You can register for The Experience Revolution here. And if you haven’t already joined the conversation on Twitter, please do:  #OracleCX, #ExperienceRevolution

  Read the article

• SQL SERVER – 2 T-SQL Puzzles and Win USD 50 worth Amazon Gift Card and 25 Other Prizes

  - by pinaldave

  We all love brain teasers and interesting puzzles. Today I decided to come up with 2 interesting puzzles and winner of the contest will get USD 50 worth Amazon Gift Card. The puzzles are sponsored by NuoDB. Additionally, The first 25 individuals who download NuoDB Beta 8 by midnight Friday, Sept. 21 (EST) will automatically receive a $10 Amazon gift card. Puzzle 1: Why following code when executed in SSMS displays result as a * (Star)? SELECT CAST(634 AS VARCHAR(2)) Puzzle 2: Write the shortest code that produces results as 1 without using any numbers in the select statement. Bonus Q: How many different Operating System (OS) NuoDB support? Click here HINT If you can solve above puzzles you will be eligible for winning USD 50 Amazon Gift Card. However, you can always enroll yourself for following Bonus Prizes where if you have good chance of winning USD 10 Amazon Gift Card (if you are first 25 individual in specific time). Bonus Prizes: The first 25 individuals who download NuoDB Beta 8 by midnight Friday, Sept. 21 (EST) will automatically receive a $10 Amazon gift card. Rules: Please leave an answer in the comments section below. You can resubmit your answer multiple times, the latest entry will be considered valid. The winner will be announced on 1st October. Last day to participate in the puzzle is September 28th, 2012. All valid answer will be kept hidden till September 28th, 2012. Only One Winner will get USD 50 worth Amazon Gift Card. The first 25 individuals who download NuoDB Beta 8 by midnight Friday, Sept. 21 (EST) will automatically receive a $10 Amazon gift card. The winner will be selected using random algorithm. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology Tagged: NuoDB

  Read the article

• What are the reasons why Clojure is hyped and PicoLisp widely ignored?

  - by Thorsten

  I recently discovered the Lisp family of programming languages, and it's definitely one of the more diverse and widespread families in the programming language world. I like Elisp because that most wonderful tool Emacs is an Elisp interpreter. But I was looking for one more Lisp dialect to learn and thought Clojure would be the obvious choice nowadays - until I discovered the well hidden gem PicoLisp. That must be the most intelligent programming environment I have ever seen, like taking the best ideas from Lisp and Smalltalk and adding performance and practicability - and the beauty of parsimony. There is even an Emacs-mode for it. PicoLisp must be the productivity world champion when it comes to building business applications with database and web-client - and that's a very common task. It seems that throwing more and more hardware cores at your PicoLisp application makes it faster and faster, and the database is very performant anyway. However, reactions to PicoLisp in in general mailing-lists etc. are almost hostile (envy?), and there is absolutely no hype and very little publicity (ie not one book published). Are there real justified reasons for this (except the vast amount of java-libs accessible by Clojure, I know that one)? Or is the mainstream it getting wrong again (see C vs Lisp, Java vs Smalltalk, Windows vs Linux) and will come to the conclusion 10 years later that the JVM was good as in between solution, but a really fast Lisp interpreter on multicore machines is much better and allows much cleaner concepts? PS 1: Please note: I'm not interested in Scheme or any Common Lisp dialect, although they might be fine languages. It's just PicoLisp vs Clojure. PS 2: another thing I like about PicoLisp is its similarity to Elisp in certain aspects (both are descendants from MacLisp?) - it's easier to learn two similar languages. There is so much "dynamic binding bashing" on the web, but two of the most appealing Lisp applications use it.

  Read the article

• Stupid Geek Tricks: Compare Your Browser’s Memory Usage with Google Chrome

  - by The Geek

  Ever tried to figure out exactly how much memory Google Chrome or Internet Explorer is using? Since they each show up a bunch of times in Task Manager, it’s not so easy! Here’s the quick and easy way to compare them. Both Chrome and IE use multiple processes to isolate tabs from each other, to make sure that one tab doesn’t kill the whole browser. Firefox, on the other hand, just uses a single process for everything. Rather than pulling out a calculator and adding them all up, you can just open up Google Chrome, and type in about:memory into the location bar to see a full list of each browser’s memory usage.   On my test system with 6 GB of system RAM, I’m running the Development channel version of Chrome, and I’ve got about 40 different tabs open, which is why the memory usage is so high. Firefox has 8 tabs open, and IE is enjoying being opened for the first time in forever. Want to help cut down on memory usage and keep your Chrome browser running fast? Disable all unnecessary extensions, and then make sure you disable any plug-ins that you don’t need either. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Stupid Geek Tricks: Duplicate a Tab with a Shortcut Key in Chrome or FirefoxStupid Geek Tricks: Shrink the XP Volume ControlStupid Geek Tricks: Tile or Cascade Multiple Windows in Windows 7Fix for Firefox memory leak on WindowsHow to Purge Memory in Google Chrome TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Download Free MP3s from Amazon Awe inspiring, inter-galactic theme (Win 7) Case Study – How to Optimize Popular Wordpress Sites Restore Hidden Updates in Windows 7 & Vista Iceland an Insurance Job? Find Downloads and Add-ins for Outlook

  Read the article

• Google Chrome Adds Two Ways to Hide Extension Icons

  - by The Geek

  If you’re using Google Chrome’s Dev channel, you can finally get rid of some of those extension icons, and there’s two different options for how to do it. Here’s how both of them work. If you’re wondering how to use the extensions when they are hidden, keep in mind that many extensions these days integrate into the context menu and can be used that way. Also, you’ll need to be using the Dev Channel release in order to get the first feature today Latest Features How-To Geek ETC The 50 Best Registry Hacks that Make Windows Better The How-To Geek Holiday Gift Guide (Geeky Stuff We Like) LCD? LED? Plasma? The How-To Geek Guide to HDTV Technology The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 8: Filters Improve Digital Photography by Calibrating Your Monitor Our Favorite Tech: What We’re Thankful For at How-To Geek Snowy Christmas House Personas Theme for Firefox The Mystic Underground Tunnel Wallpaper Ubunchu! – The Ubuntu Manga Available in Multiple Languages Breathe New Life into Your PlayStation 2 Peripherals by Hooking Them Up to Your Computer Move the Window Control Buttons to the Left Side in Windows Fun and Colorful Firefox Theme for Windows 7

  Read the article

• ASP.NET MVC AND TOOLBOX

  - by imran_ku07

     Introduction :           ASP.NET MVC popularity is not hidden from the today's world of web applications. One of the great thing in ASP.NET is the separation of concerns, in which presentation views are separate from the business or modal layer. In these views ASP.NET MVC provides some very good controls which generate commonly used HTML markup fragments using a shorter syntax. These presentation views are familiar to web forms developers. But a pain for developers to use these controls is that they need to type these helpers controls every time when they need to use a control, because they are more familiar to drag and drop controls from ToolBox. So in this article i will use a cool feature of Visual Studio that allows you to add these controls in ToolBox once and then, when needed, just drag and drop controls from ToolBox, very similar like in web forms.   Description :            Visual Studio ToolBox is rich enough that allows you to store code and HTML snippets in ToolBox. All you need is select the HTML Helper and then simply drag and drop into Toolbox. Repeat this Procedure for every HTML Helper in ASP.NET MVC.             When you need to use a HTML Helper, you can drag and drop it from ToolBox and become happy with drag and drop programming. Summary :              In this article you see that how Visual Studio helps you to drag and drop HTML snippets from Design view to toolbox. This is one of the coolest features in Visual Studio.

  Read the article

• Desktop Fun: Sci-Fi Icons Packs Series 2

  - by Asian Angel

  If you loved our first sci-fi icon packs collection then get ready for more icon goodness with the selection in our second sci-fi series. Sneak Preview As always we have an example desktop full of icon goodness to share with you. Here you can see a Star Trek themed desktop using the “Borg-green” set shown below. Note: Wallpaper can be found here. Our new desktop icons up close… Borg-green *.png format only Download Trek Insignia *.ico format only Download Star Trek Elite Force X *.ico format only Download Starships X *.ico format only Download If I Were A Thief In The 24th Century 1.0 *.ico format only Download Star Wars: Attack of the Clones *.ico format only Download BSG: Frakking Toasters *.ico format only Download Doctor Who *.ico format only Download TRON *.ico format only Download Alien vs Predator Icons *.ico and .png format Download 2001: A Space Odyssey 1.0 *.ico format only Download To the Moon *.ico format only, also has bonus set of wallpapers included! This is what the bonus wallpaper looks like…it comes in the following sizes: 1024*768, 1280*854, 1280*1024, 1440*900, 1600*1200, & 1920*1200. Download Space Icons *.ico and .png format Download Matrix Documentations *.ico format only Download Matrix Rebooted *.ico format only Download If you loved this collection of sci-fi icons then head on over to see our first sci-fi series here. Also, be certain to visit our new Desktop Fun section for more customization goodness! Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Desktop Customization: Sci-Fi Icon PacksRestore Missing Desktop Icons in Windows 7 or VistaDesktop Fun: Adventure Icon PacksDesktop Fun: Star Trek WallpapersCreate a Keyboard Shortcut to Access Hidden Desktop Icons and Files TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Microsoft’s “How Do I ?” Videos Home Networks – How do they look like & the problems they cause Check Your IMAP Mail Offline In Thunderbird Follow Finder Finds You Twitter Users To Follow Combine MP3 Files Easily QuicklyCode Provides Cheatsheets & Other Programming Stuff

  Read the article

• Replace Javascript click event with timed event?

  - by Rik

  Hi, I've found some javascript code that layers photos on top of each other when you click on them. Rather than having to click I'd like the function to automatically run every 5 seconds. How can I change this event to a timed one: $('a#nextImage, #image img').click(function(event){ Full code below. Thanks <script type="text/javascript"> $(document).ready(function(){ $('#description').css({'display':'block'}); $('#image img').hover(function() { $(this).addClass('hover'); }, function() { $(this).removeClass('hover'); }); $('a#nextImage, #image img').click(function(event){ event.preventDefault(); $('#description p:first-child').css({'visibility':'hidden'}); if($('#image img.current').next().length){ $('#image img.current').removeClass('current').next().fadeIn('normal').addClass('current').css({'position':'absolute'}); }else{ $('#image img').removeClass('current').css({'display':'none'}); $('#image img:first-child').fadeIn('normal').addClass('current').css({'position':'absolute'}); } if($('#image img.current').width()>=($('#page').width()-100)){ xPos=170; }else{ do{ xPos = 120 + (Math.floor(Math.random()*($('#page').width()-100))); }while(xPos+$('#image img.current').width()>$('#page').width()); } if($('#image img.current').height()>=300){ yPos=0; }else{ do{ yPos = Math.floor(Math.random()*300); }while(yPos+$('#image img.current').height()>300); } $('#image img.current').css({'left':xPos,'top':yPos}); }); });

  Read the article

• How to port email from evolution to thunderbird?

  - by jim

  I updated ubuntu to 11.10 using the update notification. I am also switching from Xubuntu to ubuntu - gnome interface. I have been using evolution for years and would like to port the emails to thunderbird. I have looked at the similar questions with no luck and the thunderbird help on manually importing. Most of these assume that the evolution file structure is similar to the evolution file structure. When I set up thunderbird it seems to have imported the contacts from evolution (and actually removed them from evolution. However no mail got transferred. I found the evolution mail in ~/.local/share/evolution/mail/local . this has folders.db and 3 directories - cur ,tmp, and new. then there are the hidden files and directories. Each directory has three related files with extensions .cmeta, .ibex.index, and .ibex.index.data. Then all the directories had files that seem to contain the individual messages. I have not looked at rhyme or reason to the file numbering/naming scheme. is there a nice way to import these files?

  Read the article

• Metro: Namespaces and Modules

  - by Stephen.Walther

  The goal of this blog entry is to describe how you can use the Windows JavaScript (WinJS) library to create namespaces. In particular, you learn how to use the WinJS.Namespace.define() and WinJS.Namespace.defineWithParent() methods. You also learn how to hide private methods by using the module pattern. Why Do We Need Namespaces? Before we do anything else, we should start by answering the question: Why do we need namespaces? What function do they serve? Do they just add needless complexity to our Metro applications? After all, plenty of JavaScript libraries do just fine without introducing support for namespaces. For example, jQuery has no support for namespaces and jQuery is the most popular JavaScript library in the universe. If jQuery can do without namespaces, why do we need to worry about namespaces at all? Namespaces perform two functions in a programming language. First, namespaces prevent naming collisions. In other words, namespaces enable you to create more than one object with the same name without conflict. For example, imagine that two companies – company A and company B – both want to make a JavaScript shopping cart control and both companies want to name the control ShoppingCart. By creating a CompanyA namespace and CompanyB namespace, both companies can create a ShoppingCart control: a CompanyA.ShoppingCart and a CompanyB.ShoppingCart control. The second function of a namespace is organization. Namespaces are used to group related functionality even when the functionality is defined in different physical files. For example, I know that all of the methods in the WinJS library related to working with classes can be found in the WinJS.Class namespace. Namespaces make it easier to understand the functionality available in a library. If you are building a simple JavaScript application then you won’t have much reason to care about namespaces. If you need to use multiple libraries written by different people then namespaces become very important. Using WinJS.Namespace.define() In the WinJS library, the most basic method of creating a namespace is to use the WinJS.Namespace.define() method. This method enables you to declare a namespace (of arbitrary depth). The WinJS.Namespace.define() method has the following parameters: · name – A string representing the name of the new namespace. You can add nested namespace by using dot notation · members – An optional collection of objects to add to the new namespace For example, the following code sample declares two new namespaces named CompanyA and CompanyB.Controls. Both namespaces contain a ShoppingCart object which has a checkout() method: // Create CompanyA namespace with ShoppingCart WinJS.Namespace.define("CompanyA"); CompanyA.ShoppingCart = { checkout: function (){ return "Checking out from A"; } }; // Create CompanyB.Controls namespace with ShoppingCart WinJS.Namespace.define( "CompanyB.Controls", { ShoppingCart: { checkout: function(){ return "Checking out from B"; } } } ); // Call CompanyA ShoppingCart checkout method console.log(CompanyA.ShoppingCart.checkout()); // Writes "Checking out from A" // Call CompanyB.Controls checkout method console.log(CompanyB.Controls.ShoppingCart.checkout()); // Writes "Checking out from B" In the code above, the CompanyA namespace is created by calling WinJS.Namespace.define(“CompanyA”). Next, the ShoppingCart is added to this namespace. The namespace is defined and an object is added to the namespace in separate lines of code. A different approach is taken in the case of the CompanyB.Controls namespace. The namespace is created and the ShoppingCart object is added to the namespace with the following single line of code: WinJS.Namespace.define( "CompanyB.Controls", { ShoppingCart: { checkout: function(){ return "Checking out from B"; } } } ); Notice that CompanyB.Controls is a nested namespace. The top level namespace CompanyB contains the namespace Controls. You can declare a nested namespace using dot notation and the WinJS library handles the details of creating one namespace within the other. After the namespaces have been defined, you can use either of the two shopping cart controls. You call CompanyA.ShoppingCart.checkout() or you can call CompanyB.Controls.ShoppingCart.checkout(). Using WinJS.Namespace.defineWithParent() The WinJS.Namespace.defineWithParent() method is similar to the WinJS.Namespace.define() method. Both methods enable you to define a new namespace. The difference is that the defineWithParent() method enables you to add a new namespace to an existing namespace. The WinJS.Namespace.defineWithParent() method has the following parameters: · parentNamespace – An object which represents a parent namespace · name – A string representing the new namespace to add to the parent namespace · members – An optional collection of objects to add to the new namespace The following code sample demonstrates how you can create a root namespace named CompanyA and add a Controls child namespace to the CompanyA parent namespace: WinJS.Namespace.define("CompanyA"); WinJS.Namespace.defineWithParent(CompanyA, "Controls", { ShoppingCart: { checkout: function () { return "Checking out"; } } } ); console.log(CompanyA.Controls.ShoppingCart.checkout()); // Writes "Checking out" One significant advantage of using the defineWithParent() method over the define() method is the defineWithParent() method is strongly-typed. In other words, you use an object to represent the base namespace instead of a string. If you misspell the name of the object (CompnyA) then you get a runtime error. Using the Module Pattern When you are building a JavaScript library, you want to be able to create both public and private methods. Some methods, the public methods, are intended to be used by consumers of your JavaScript library. The public methods act as your library’s public API. Other methods, the private methods, are not intended for public consumption. Instead, these methods are internal methods required to get the library to function. You don’t want people calling these internal methods because you might need to change them in the future. JavaScript does not support access modifiers. You can’t mark an object or method as public or private. Anyone gets to call any method and anyone gets to interact with any object. The only mechanism for encapsulating (hiding) methods and objects in JavaScript is to take advantage of functions. In JavaScript, a function determines variable scope. A JavaScript variable either has global scope – it is available everywhere – or it has function scope – it is available only within a function. If you want to hide an object or method then you need to place it within a function. For example, the following code contains a function named doSomething() which contains a nested function named doSomethingElse(): function doSomething() { console.log("doSomething"); function doSomethingElse() { console.log("doSomethingElse"); } } doSomething(); // Writes "doSomething" doSomethingElse(); // Throws ReferenceError You can call doSomethingElse() only within the doSomething() function. The doSomethingElse() function is encapsulated in the doSomething() function. The WinJS library takes advantage of function encapsulation to hide all of its internal methods. All of the WinJS methods are defined within self-executing anonymous functions. Everything is hidden by default. Public methods are exposed by explicitly adding the public methods to namespaces defined in the global scope. Imagine, for example, that I want a small library of utility methods. I want to create a method for calculating sales tax and a method for calculating the expected ship date of a product. The following library encapsulates the implementation of my library in a self-executing anonymous function: (function (global) { // Public method which calculates tax function calculateTax(price) { return calculateFederalTax(price) + calculateStateTax(price); } // Private method for calculating state tax function calculateStateTax(price) { return price * 0.08; } // Private method for calculating federal tax function calculateFederalTax(price) { return price * 0.02; } // Public method which returns the expected ship date function calculateShipDate(currentDate) { currentDate.setDate(currentDate.getDate() + 4); return currentDate; } // Export public methods WinJS.Namespace.define("CompanyA.Utilities", { calculateTax: calculateTax, calculateShipDate: calculateShipDate } ); })(this); // Show expected ship date var shipDate = CompanyA.Utilities.calculateShipDate(new Date()); console.log(shipDate); // Show price + tax var price = 12.33; var tax = CompanyA.Utilities.calculateTax(price); console.log(price + tax); In the code above, the self-executing anonymous function contains four functions: calculateTax(), calculateStateTax(), calculateFederalTax(), and calculateShipDate(). The following statement is used to expose only the calcuateTax() and the calculateShipDate() functions: // Export public methods WinJS.Namespace.define("CompanyA.Utilities", { calculateTax: calculateTax, calculateShipDate: calculateShipDate } ); Because the calculateTax() and calcuateShipDate() functions are added to the CompanyA.Utilities namespace, you can call these two methods outside of the self-executing function. These are the public methods of your library which form the public API. The calculateStateTax() and calculateFederalTax() methods, on the other hand, are forever hidden within the black hole of the self-executing function. These methods are encapsulated and can never be called outside of scope of the self-executing function. These are the internal methods of your library. Summary The goal of this blog entry was to describe why and how you use namespaces with the WinJS library. You learned how to define namespaces using both the WinJS.Namespace.define() and WinJS.Namespace.defineWithParent() methods. We also discussed how to hide private members and expose public members using the module pattern.

  Read the article

• Display a Text Message During Bootup of Windows 7

  - by Mysticgeek

  Sometimes you might want to leave a text message for a user before they log into a Windows 7 computer. Today we show you a neat trick that allows you to leave a message they can read before logging in. Add a Text Message To add a message, click on Start and enter regedit into the Search box and hit Enter. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\System and double-click on legalnoticecaption. In the Value data field enter in the header you want…for instance your company name or the name of your computer…whatever you want it to be, then click OK. Then double-click on legalnoticetext … And in the Value data field enter in the message you want to display and click OK. Close out of Registry Editor and reboot the computer.   After the machine reboots you’ll see the text message you just created at the Welcome screen.   You can include whatever text message you want to be included for the user to read before they log in. This is a neat trick if you have a company or school and want to show a particular message to the user before they log into the machine. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Start Your Computer More Quickly by Delaying the Startup of a Service in VistaCopy Windows Error Messages to the ClipboardHide the Recycle Bin Icon Text on Windows VistaHow To Disable Annoying Blinking Text in FirefoxStupid Geek Tricks: Using the Quick Zoom Feature in Outlook TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Combine MP3 Files Easily QuicklyCode Provides Cheatsheets & Other Programming Stuff Download Free MP3s from Amazon Awe inspiring, inter-galactic theme (Win 7) Case Study – How to Optimize Popular Wordpress Sites Restore Hidden Updates in Windows 7 & Vista

  Read the article

• SQL SERVER – Take the Quiz for a chance to win a Quadcopter Drone – Brain Teasers

  - by Pinal Dave

  It has been a long time since we ran quiz. So let us get ready for a quiz. The quiz has two parts. You have to get both the parts correct to win Quadcopter with Camera (we will call it drone). We will be giving away a total of 2 Quadcopters. The quiz is extremely easy and I will ship the Drone anywhere in the world where Amazon will ship it. Let us jump directly to the quiz. Please complete all the three questions of the contest.  Contest Part 1: Brain Teasers There are two questions for you in this part of the contest. Question: There are two 7s. How will you write select statement with a single operator that returns single 7? Hint: SELECT 7(Answer)7 Question: Write down the shortest code that produces 1 without using any numbers in the select statement? Hint: SELECT (Answer) Contest Part 2: Download and Activate Rapid SQL Question: Download and Activate Rapid SQL. Hint: You have to download and activate Rapid SQL. If you do not activate Rapid SQL, you will be disqualified for the contest. Why take risk, let us start! That’s it! Just answer above questions in the following comments area, in following format. Remember: Use comments area right below the blog to take participation in the contest Answer before June 5, 2014 midnight GMT. The winner will be announced on June 8. The winner will be selected randomly from all the valid answers. All the valid answers will be kept hidden till June 5, 2014. There will be a total of two winners. The contest is open for any country of the world where Amazon ships products. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

  Read the article

• How to Monitor the Bandwidth Consumption of Individual Applications

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Yesterday we showed you how to monitor and track your total bandwidth usage, today we’re back to show you how to keep tabs on individual applications and how much bandwidth they’re gobbling up. We’ve received several reader requests, both by email and in the aforementioned post about bandwidth tracking, for a good way to track the data consumption of individual applications. How-To Geek reader Oaken noted that he used NetWorx to track his total bandwidth usage but another application, NetBalancer, to keep tabs on individual applications. We took NetBalancer for a spin and it’s a great solution for monitoring bandwidth at the application level. Let’s take it for a spin and start monitoring our applications. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How To Remove People and Objects From Photographs In Photoshop Ask How-To Geek: How Can I Monitor My Bandwidth Usage? Internet Explorer 9 RC Now Available: Here’s the Most Interesting New Stuff Here’s a Super Simple Trick to Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Malware How to Change the Default Application for Android Tasks Stop Believing TV’s Lies: The Real Truth About "Enhancing" Images The Legend of Zelda – 1980s High School Style [Video] Suspended Sentence is a Free Cross-Platform Point and Click Game Build a Batman-Style Hidden Bust Switch Make Your Clock Creates a Custom Clock for your Android Homescreen Download the Anime Angels Theme for Windows 7 CyanogenMod Updates; Rolls out Android 2.3 to the Less Fortunate

  Read the article

• YouTube's API and The News

  YouTube's API and The News On July 20, 2011, YouTube and Link TV hosted a Hacks/Hackers meetup in San Francisco for a first-person look at innovative news projects using YouTube's API. YouTube, Link TV and four developer partners demoed new web applications built using the YouTube API. The presentations started with YouTube API overview, followed by the demos of: * YouTube Direct (www.youtube.com is an open source user generated content video submission and moderation platform * Storyful (www.storyful.com was founded by journalists to discover the smartest conversations about world events and raise up the authentic voices on the big stories. * Storify (www.storify.com lets users make stories using social media. With Storify you can drag and drop tweets, YouTube videos, Flickr images, Facebook updates, ... and add your own narrative to tell a story. * Shortform (www.shortform.com is a new social entertainment medium, delivering continuous channels of the best videos from anywhere on the web, curated by our community of video DJs (VJs) * GoAnimate (www.goanimate.com was founded to provide an outlet for everyone's creative ideas. In just 10 minutes, one can make fun animated videos without having to draw. * Link TV (linktv.org recently launched Link News (news.linktv.org), an international news website that sifts through YouTube's library of news content to deliver breaking news and hidden stories to a wider audience. The beta site uses powerful new tools, like YouTube's API, to link visitors to <b>...</b> From: GoogleDevelopers Views: 5285 23 ratings Time: 01:10:18 More in Science & Technology

  Read the article

• Should we always prefer OpenGL ES version 2 over version 1.x

  - by Shivan Dragon

  OpengGL ES version 2 goes a long way into changing the development paradigm that was established with OpenGL ES 1.x. You have shaders which you can chain together to apply varios effects/transforms to your elements, the projection and transformation matrices work completly different etc. I've seen a lot of online tutorials and blogs that simply say "ditch version 1.x, use version 2, that's the way to go". Even on Android's documentation it sais to "use version 2 as it may prove faster than 1.x". Now, I've also read a book on OpenGL ES (which was rather good, but I'm not gonna mention here because I don't want to give the impression that I'm trying to make hidden publicity). The guy there treated only OpenGL ES 1.x for 80% of the book, and then at the end only listed the differences in version 2 and said something like "if OpenGL ES 1 does what you need, there's no need to switch to version 2, as it's only gonna over complicate your code. Version 2 was changed a lot to facillitate newer, fancier stuff, but if you don't need it, version 1.x is fine". My question is then, is the last statement right? Should I always use Open GL ES version 1.x if I don't need version 2 only stuff? I'd sure like to do that, because I find coding in version 1.x A LOT simpler than version 2 but I'm afraid that my apps might get obsolete faster for using an older version.

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322  | Next Page >