Background
Some times we need to execute some custom task just before we build our solution or project, I have no idea how others IDE do that, but recently we have gathered some experience about Visual Studio 2008, and doing these kind of task became pretty easy.
In one of our project we had to use a custom third-party component, the component is easy to incorporate in the project, but we have a problem, the component uses a d-com component which can not be added in the project, but if we keep the com component in bin directory the program runs okay. so our challenge is to copy the component before build in the bin directory of output project from the other projects bin.
Visual Studio 2008 Build Events
In Visual studio 2008 we have two build event, prebuilt event command and post build event command, post build event can be controlled with various parameters for example, post build event will raise when a successful build is happened.
Figure: Visual Studio 2008 Build tab under Project properties
In our particular case we solved our problem in using pre-build event, now let us discuss a little bit more about pre-built event, you can use almost any kind of command in command line, provided that the commands don’t require special permissions for executions.
In our case we have used “xcopy” command to solved the problem, there are lot of macro for execution. we used target directory as output macro, and source directory as solution macro, since its a simple problem we set the relative path of the DLL from solution path. worked okay, when we published the project we found that in publish version also contains the DLL, job done with very good time and in a good way.
Post build is almost similar like pre-build except it has some extra control, user can specify when to raise it, in the above screen shot you can see that there is a large combo at the bottom.
Here is a small example command in the for pre-build command.
If we want to copy all output files of a project to a deployment folder after post build event we have to put down the following command in the post build command line,
““xcopy "$(TargetDir)*.*" "c:\output" /S /I /F <NUL:””
Bellow i have put down a pre-build event command line input window with macro.
well that’s all for now, please visit the references for more information, best of luck and happy coding.
References
- http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/42x5kfw4.aspx
- http://geekswithblogs.net/dchestnutt/archive/2006/05/30/80113.aspx
- http://dotnetperls.com/post-pre-build-macros
- http://skysanders.net/subtext/archive/2009/09/05/visual-studio-2008-build-event-xcopy-bug.aspx
Windows from have web browser control since .net 2.0, WPF also introduced a browser control from .net 3.5 sp1, well the controls are very good as far as functionality is concern, i my self prefer windows forms browser since it have more control with the functionality.
Today i encountered with a strange problem, in one of my application i used a modal dialog to present data as light box effect, inside the modal i added a browser control and then populated appropriate data, when i run the application the modal showed up, but the browser was just blank, no data what so ever. Later after few trial and error i found that my modal windows allow transparency property is set to true, when i turned it to false, browser’s content showed up.
Its a small problem perhaps many of you already knew about it, but since it killed almost two hour of my time, i thought its worth sharing. Happy coding..
In our organization we have finished a three day agile software development work shop. we had lots of fun in the workshop, and most of the developer in our organization is convinced to adapt the process. Its important for me that I share with the community about few resources about agile.
few important links about agile
We followed the resources provided by Naresh Jain. Few of our seniors attended the workshop of Naresh organized by BASIS and replicated the whole workshop for the teams.
All materials are available here
http://agilefaqs.com/
You must look at the training section here for a end to end guide line about agile software development process. The training basically shows how to adapt agile with baby steps. All the materials are available here.
http://agilecoach.in/
Its a guided workshop of 3 day long. All slides are shared using slideshare.net.
Happy learning.
“Days,months,years has past and I have been developing just about the same way I had started from the beginning of my career”.
The above statement is not valid, its a lie, and can not be true, in fact its impossible. In my day to day job, I had to work with Microsoft technology to deliver clients needs. I my self probe round the web searching knowledge about my area.
Now the intricate part, each and every day lots of new technology is evolving. Microsoft is lunching many new technology. And I have to learn lot of stuff to keep my skills shinning. Well more importantly not only Microsoft, but the other technology vendors are also releasing lots of interesting technology which can work seemly with Microsoft product line. So those products are also in my learning backlog. Not to mention I am completely unaware of other technology vendors for instance like sun and Google.
Its really hard for me to keep up the pace with the improvements of the technology. I am doing daily work and finding some how i am left behind by the world. Choosing a particular field may save the day for a while but eventually no company require a specialist in “database” only. Companies require a developer who is equipped with all the necessary knowledge about tools that is necessary to finish a product.
“Learn Learn Learn”
So the tag line of developers is like the above three words. And it will not stop. So its not just “happy coding” its “happy learning” also.
Introduction
Hi, in this post I am going to share a simple knowledge about IIS. The knowledge is about how to expose local IIS to network, so that other network users in team can access and use the functionality.
In a web application development team we might want to check our web sites not only in our local pc but also from other team members machine. That's why its necessary to expose IIS to network environment. Lets say we have a web application called “myweb” normally while development if we use iis we access the myweb as “http://localhost/myweb” well it works all the time.
Lets say our developers PC is “MYDeveloperPC” we can expose the local IIS to share with team members as “http://MYDeveloperPC/myweb”. If we have windows firewall enabled by default its not exposed to network. so we got to expose it explicitly. Bellow I am providing a simple screen cast.
Step 1:
Go to control panel and open windows Firewall. Now switch to advance tab, now select “Local Area Connection” and click on the settings button. After that advance settings tab will popup.
Step 2:
Bellow the advance settings window is displayed. Now select the services you want to expose to network and click ok to commit. That's it your local iis now exposed to network and your team members can access it from there pc.
Key Notes
Its a relatively pretty simple knowledge, almost every developer knows it. But still I took the liberty to share it because, one day one of our senior developer complained that his IIS can not be accessed out side his pc. Then I showed to him, where to pock.
A things must be considered, this post is related to the problem of windows firewall. If third-party firewall is installed in the developer pc. user must allow in the third-party firewall as well.
Best of luck and happy programming.
Introduction
Tooltip is very important part of any modern software. It helps and suggests what to do with the any user interaction item control or what a particular content or legends means. In this article I am going to discuss about a small yet interesting feature of WPF, the “ToolTipService”. Using tooltip service we can do a good amount of customization on how we can display tooltip.
let putdown a small example how we can define a tooltip of any content in xaml markup.
<Button Width="100" Height="30" Content="Click Me!"
ToolTip="Click here to do some thing"></Button>
WPF have two default event to help the developers do some level of customization, the events are ToolTipOpening and ToolTipClosing.
Customizing the tooltip
In almost all the technology exists except WPF, tooltip is not that much of customizable. But in WPF all most all the gates are opened. We can customize tooltip in such a way that we can put any content in a tooltip, event a data grid!, just kidding, no scenario can be that much bizarre. But no kidding, we can put almost any thing in a tooltip content. Enough talk let put a example and see actually how pretty handy it is.
<Button Width="100" Height="30" Content="Click Me!">
<Button.ToolTip>
<Border Margin="-4,0,-4,-3" Padding="10" Background="Silver">
<Border.BitmapEffect>
<OuterGlowBitmapEffect></OuterGlowBitmapEffect>
</Border.BitmapEffect>
<Label>This is a simple customization of tooltip</Label>
</Border>
</Button.ToolTip>
</Button>
In the above example we have added a border as a content of the tooltip and also applied few changed on the look and feel of the border. And the effect after running the application is look like the following image.
Using the tooltip service
So we now know that tooltip is very good level of customizable in WPF. Now lets explore a service that is evolved around tooltip the “ToolTipService”. Normally a tooltip is displayed exactly where the mouse pointer is. If we want to display the tooltip always at a particular position we can just modify the markup little using ToolTipService and set the ToolTipService.Placement property to our desired location, bellow code is given to show a tooltip always at bottom of a button element
<Button Width="100" Height="30" Content="Click Me!"
ToolTipService.Placement="Bottom">
<Button.ToolTip>
<Border Margin="-4,0,-4,-3" Padding="10" Background="Silver">
<Border.BitmapEffect>
<OuterGlowBitmapEffect></OuterGlowBitmapEffect>
</Border.BitmapEffect>
<Label>This is a simple customization of tooltip</Label>
</Border>
</Button.ToolTip>
</Button>
And the result is look like the following image.
Lets see another very interesting feature about the tooltipservice. If we have a disable element the tooltip does not get showed when we move over on the element. But using ToolTipService.ShowOnDisabled property we can display tooltip even on a disabled item. Bellow the code is given.
<Button Width="100" Height="30" Content="Click Me!"
IsEnabled="False"
ToolTipService.ShowOnDisabled="True"
ToolTipService.Placement="Bottom">
<Button.ToolTip>
<Border Margin="-4,0,-4,-3" Padding="10" Background="Silver">
<Border.BitmapEffect>
<OuterGlowBitmapEffect></OuterGlowBitmapEffect>
</Border.BitmapEffect>
<Label>This is a simple customization of tooltip</Label>
</Border>
</Button.ToolTip>
</Button>
And the effect of the above code is look like this
Lets put few more interesting code here.
<Button Width="100" Height="30" Content="Click Me!"
ToolTipService.HasDropShadow="False"
ToolTipService.InitialShowDelay="100"
ToolTipService.ShowDuration="5000"
ToolTipService.ShowOnDisabled="True"
ToolTipService.Placement="Bottom">
<Button.ToolTip>
<Border Margin="-4,0,-4,-3" Padding="10" Background="Silver">
<Border.BitmapEffect>
<OuterGlowBitmapEffect></OuterGlowBitmapEffect>
</Border.BitmapEffect>
<Label>This is a simple customization of tooltip</Label>
</Border>
</Button.ToolTip>
</Button>
In above code we have set the ToolTipService.InitialShowDelay to 100 ms. Which allow the tooltip to show almost just after we mouse over the button. New we have made the tooltip stay open a little longer using ToolTipService.ShowDuration to 5000 ms. we can customize more using the other properties of ToolTipService.
Summery
In this sort article we have seen few interesting tricks about tooltip using ToolTipService. For more information about how to customize the tooltip please visit the references. Best of luck and happy programming.
References
- http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.controls.tooltipservice.aspx [About ToolTipService Class]
- http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms752368.aspx [How to Position a ToolTip]
- http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.controls.tooltipservice_fields.aspx [Fields of ToolTip service]
Microsoft is ready to release its next version of window named windows 7.
From April 30 ,2009 the RC is available to MSDN subscribers and TechNet Plus subscribers.
On Tuesday, May 5 (PST),2009 , the RC will be available to everyone via our Customer Preview Program. As with the Beta, the Windows 7 RC Customer Preview Program is a broad public program that offers the RC free to anyone who wants to download it. It will be available at least through June 30, 2009, with no limits on the number of downloads or product keys available.
With “Faster & easier” product tag line windows 7 is equipped with lot of new stuff that the user is bound to like. please visit “what's new in windows-7” at windows 7 portal.
for more information see latest Microsoft press release on
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/default.mspx
Introduction
In this short article we are going to see few tricks about WPF ItemsControl. ItemsControl is one of the simplest yet powerful control in WPF. ItemsControl is just like the repeater control in asp.net. It supports Binding and supports custom template to display the data. for detail study about power of ItemsControl please read MSDN documentation here. In this article we going to focus on how to display alternating item in ItemsControl and apply few effects on items of ItemsControl.
Use Alternating Item Style
Items control can be used to display data both via populating the ItemsControl.Items collection or specify a Items Source in ItemControl.ItemsSource property. In this example we are going to use ItemsSource to display our data. Lets assume we have a custom class called country and we want to display the information about country in a ItemsControl. Bellow a simple code listing is given to get the total idea.
public partial class Window1 : Window
{
public Window1()
{
loadDemoData();
this.DataContext = this;
}
public static readonly DependencyProperty DataListProperty =
DependencyProperty.Register(
"DataList", typeof(ObservableCollection<Country>),
typeof(Window1));
private void loadDemoData()
{
ObservableCollection<Country> data =
new ObservableCollection<Country>();
Country c1 = new Country { ID = "1", Name = "Bangladesh",
Capital = "Dhaka", Continent = "Asia" };
Country c2 = new Country { ID = "2", Name = "India",
Capital = "Delhi", Continent = "Asia" };
Country c3 = new Country { ID = "3", Name = "U.S.A",
Capital = "Washington", Continent = "North America" };
Country c4 = new Country { ID = "4", Name = "Australia",
Capital = "Canbarra", Continent = "Australia" };
Country c5 = new Country { ID = "5", Name = "Kenya",
Capital = "", Continent = "Africa" };
data.Add(c1);
data.Add(c2);
data.Add(c3);
data.Add(c4);
data.Add(c5);
this.SetValue(Window1.DataListProperty, data);
}
public class Country
{
public string ID { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public string Continent { get; set; }
public string Capital { set; get; }
}
}
In few of example given in the online community I have seen that items control is not directly been used to display the idea of alternating items, rather list box or perhaps more higher level control is shown to display alternating items. In this section we will see how we can add styles in items and alternating items of ItemsControl just by using a simple DataTemplate. When we use ItemsControl, items of ItemsControl are generally rendered inside a ContentPresenter, which have only few basic properties, and we can not assign the background or foreground.
Using DataTemplate and use smart use of styles on DataTemplate might just solve our problem. Bellow a complete code listing is give, how to do the intended effect.
<Window x:Class="WPFDemo.Window1"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
Title="ItemsControl" MinHeight="350"
MinWidth="550" Background="#f5f5f5">
<Window.Resources>
<Style x:Key="alternatingWithTriggers"
TargetType="{x:Type ContentPresenter}">
<Setter Property="Height" Value="25"></Setter>
</Style>
<DataTemplate x:Key="MyItemTemplate">
<Border x:Name="yahoo">
<StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">
<Label Content="{Binding Name}"></Label>
<Label Content="is in"></Label>
<Label Content="{Binding Continent}"></Label>
</StackPanel>
</Border>
<DataTemplate.Triggers>
<Trigger Property="ItemsControl.AlternationIndex" Value="0">
<Setter Property="Background" Value="#e9e9e9"
TargetName="yahoo"></Setter>
</Trigger>
<Trigger Property="ItemsControl.AlternationIndex" Value="1">
<Setter Property="Background" Value="#d9d9d9"
TargetName="yahoo"></Setter>
</Trigger>
</DataTemplate.Triggers>
</DataTemplate>
</Window.Resources>
<Grid MinHeight="350" MinWidth="550">
<ItemsControl ItemsSource="{Binding DataList}"
ItemContainerStyle="{StaticResource alternatingWithTriggers}"
AlternationCount="2"
ItemTemplate="{StaticResource MyItemTemplate}"/>
</Grid>
</Window>
In above code listing we didn’t did any style change in item container styles, rather we override the item template and used the item templates style in such a way so that it shows alternate items style. Main engine to make go this trick is AlternatingItemIndex property of ItemsControl. In data template we used trigger to check the index of item and then apply style to DataTemplates one of inner elements.
Hover Effect
Applying hover effect is now easy since we know how to apply styles using trigger. but in this case we wont use AlternatingItemIndex. We want to apply a mouse over effect regardless of whether its item or alternating item. Bellow the code snippet is give for hover effect on items.
<Style x:Key="onmouseover" TargetType="{x:Type StackPanel}">
<Style.Triggers>
<Trigger Property="IsMouseOver" Value="True">
<Setter Property="Background" Value="Yellow">
</Setter>
</Trigger>
</Style.Triggers>
</Style>
<DataTemplate x:Key="MyItemTemplate">
<Border x:Name="yahoo">
<StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal"
Style="{StaticResource onmouseover}">
<Label Content="{Binding Name}"></Label>
<Label Content="is in"></Label>
<Label Content="{Binding Continent}"></Label>
</StackPanel>
</Border>
<DataTemplate.Triggers>
<Trigger Property="ItemsControl.AlternationIndex" Value="0">
<Setter Property="Background" Value="#e9e9e9"
TargetName="yahoo"></Setter>
</Trigger>
<Trigger Property="ItemsControl.AlternationIndex" Value="1">
<Setter Property="Background" Value="#d9d9d9"
TargetName="yahoo"></Setter>
</Trigger>
</DataTemplate.Triggers>
</DataTemplate>
In above code snippet you can see that we have applied the style on stack panel. Style of hover on border that is the parent control of data template will not work, since we have already added styles using trigger in Data template. so we defined separate style for stack panel and applied to it. And that concludes are mission.
Summery
In this short article we have seen how we can use alternating item using ItemsControl. In this demonstration we have used AlternatingItemCount as 2, but user can set grater than two, but to get the alternating item effect it must be larger than 1. The styles must be modified to support according to AlternatingItemCount. for more study on ItemsControl please visit the references.
Reference
In this sort article we are going to see few tricks about Resource dictionary of WPF how we can merge it in XAML and how we can also use it in c#.
Adding a WPF Resource Dictionary
Since WPF applications have rich media and graphics support reusable styles need to utilize and in a managed way. We can define the styles in WPF XAML files or perhaps we can manage to accumulate all our useful styles for a particular applications in a resource dictionary file. Adding Resource dictionary is pretty simple. User have to select the project or folder in solution explorer and then right click and select “Add”. After that user will find a menu item called “Resource Dictionary”. Click on that menu item will popup up the add new item wizard with Resource Dictionary Item template selected. Rename the item on users convenient.
In a ResouceDictionary we can keep our custom styles, DataTemplates, ControlTemplates, even Custom Definitions of Brush,Color, Background and lot of other stuff. But the important thing is that we have to assign a key to each of them since its a Dictionary. Or Perhaps we can also give name to the styles.
Using Resource File In XAML
In this section we are going to see how we can import a resource file to or XAML file of user control or windows or page. Bellow we have provided a simple code listing for demonstration. Since we can have a resource dictionary of the controls of its own, so we are going to merge the other resource files to existing resource dictionary.
<Window x:Class="WPFDemo.Window1"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
Title="Window1" Height="300" Width="300">
<Window.Resources>
<ResourceDictionary>
<ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries>
<ResourceDictionary Source="Resources/MyResourceDictionary.xaml">
</ResourceDictionary>
<ResourceDictionary Source="Resources/OthersStyle.xaml">
</ResourceDictionary>
</ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries>
</ResourceDictionary>
</Window.Resources>
<Grid>
</Grid>
</Window>
Using Resource File in C#
There can be cases where we need to access the resource dictionary that we have defined in our project from c# code. If we have already merged our resource dictionary in XAML its easy to access the inner resources using control.FindResource("KeyWillGoHere"); method. But if we haven’t merged the resources in XAML and we still need to use the resource dictionary. In that case we have options to use the stuff directly in c# code. Here is a simple code snippet is given for better understanding.
public partial class Window1 : Window
{
private ResourceDictionary myresourcedictionary;
private ResourceDictionary mystyles;
public Window1()
{
InitializeComponent();
myresourcedictionary = new ResourceDictionary();
myresourcedictionary.Source =
new Uri("/WPFDemo;component/Resources/MyResourceDictionary.xaml",
UriKind.RelativeOrAbsolute);
mystyles = new ResourceDictionary();
mystyles.Source = new Uri("/WPFDemo;component/Resources/OthersStyle.xaml",
UriKind.RelativeOrAbsolute);
}
public void ApplyStyle()
{
Style mybuttonstyle = mystyles["MyStyle"] as Style;
Button mybutton = new Button();
mybutton.Style = mybuttonstyle;
}
}
We have used URI to get hold on our resource dictionary content. I must mention one thing here that, while defining the Uri the project name goes first the the relative path, But the UriKind options is very important. If we don’t mention the UriKind it will unable to parse the Uri and find the resource. Since the this is a resource dictionary we got access the styles using keys, just like a normal dictionary.
Summery
In this short article we have seen how we can add a WPF ResourceDictionary and how we can use resource dictionary both in XAML and C#. Best of luck and happy coding.
In my developer pc I have every thing installed and I didn’t know, what its like to run the Microsoft web platform installer, since it doesn’t make sense uninstalling every thing and restart again from beginning. To get the total experience about the “install one and get all thing”, I used a virtual pc to test what it is and how it works.
When I run the installer for the first time it asked me that .net framework 2.0 is not installed and you got to install the .net 2.0 first. It redirected me to a download link from where the framework need to install. After the installation of .net framework successfully done I again clicked on the web platform installer 2.0 and it started the wizard. The first page of the wizard look like the bellow figure.
After the initial splash screen gone, the wizard provided me with lot of options to configure and customize the installation. In first tab, which is “what’s new section”, it got few options to incorporate latest extensions for example ASP.NET MVC 1.0 and other latest improvements.
If you click on the web platform installer you will get the actual necessary stuff that must be installed in a web application development environment. It ask for web server, latest framework, database, and other tools. In case of IIS web server the installer lunch the IIS setup and ask the user for windows installation disk.
The surprise package is that it ask for a wide range of application to be installed along with the web platform installer. It have options to include almost all necessary application to be installed. It got Blog,CMD, etc.
After all options are selected a final revision window is displayed informing the user what will be installed and what is the size of the component. Click accept will begin the journey and will end at installing all things that we have selected.
Its good for starter developer. They don’t need to know any thing, what is free and easy to learn, can be installed easily by “Microsoft Web Platform Installer”, well-done and cheers!.
Hi folks, for last two years I am working on WPF, WPF Browser Application, WCF and all those fancy stuff. It’s not that I am working willingly, but because I had to do this since our company’s products have been developed using these technologies so I had no other choice.
Recently I am a little bit free and looking forward to explore what’s happening around .net and the new technologies by Microsoft. A simple thing catches my attention is the “asp.net mvc”. We did not have any such thing in Microsoft product line when we started to develop web applications back in 2002 when Microsoft launched .net framework for the first time. We had to develop and implement MVC on our own.
My friends and colleagues informed me that Microsoft has this brand new technology called asp.net mvc which is a new addition to asp.net era. But I have never been that much free to explore what is inside and how much improvement is done to this sector. well I’m late to catch up things about the latest improvement, as it’s summer and time to go out and explore new things I choose asp.net mvc.
The story is about the new one-stop web resource for asp.net mvc is www.asp.net.mvc its part of www.asp.net. Let me tell you something, it’s all a starter developer can ever imagine of. Here are some of the features of the site that amazed me
The home page tag is something like this
“
ASP.NET MVC enables us to build Model View Controller (MVC) applications by using the ASP.NET framework. ASP.NET MVC is an alternative, not a replacement, for ASP.NET Web Forms that offers the following benefits:
- Clear separation of concerns
- Testability - support for Test-Driven Development
- Fine-grained control over HTML and JavaScript
- Intuitive URLs
“
really clear what asp.net mvc is for.
Next surprise package is for the starter developer or perhaps i can say its independent of any range of developer and expertise. It got all type of learning resource i.e.
- ASP.NET MVC Tutorials
- ASP.NET MVC Videos
- MVC Design Gallery
- ASP.NET MVC Sample Applications
- Who is using ASP.NET MVC?
- ASP.NET MVC Blog Posts
I can start by reading tutorials where I have a lot of articles about almost every important learning goal, if I got bored with reading, I can switch to watch videos, or perhaps then I can see some sample applications directly to get things going. When I have a little bit advanced knowledge, I can start reading the blogs and go to forums for questions and answers.
To me another interesting thing is the design gallery that encompasses a range of cool web templates those are really helpful for the developers and everyday people are contributing to make it richer that is really encouraging. I bet I don’t have to go any where else other than this www.asp.net/mvc resource site. I bet too that no other technology is that much simple to work with. Just think about the ease it’s providing for development environment, it got “Microsoft web platform Installer” just a single installation and every thing is in reach.
So it’s time to get busy with learning asp.net mvc. happy coding and best of luck.
Hi community this is Md. Masudur Rahman. I am working as a software engineer in kaz software ltd. for the last 4 year and live in Kalabagan,Dhaka.
I did contribute to the community a little by helping people in Microsoft asp.net news groups. After that i started putting down all my interesting learning experiences in www.munna.shatkotha.com/blog.
Thanks MsdnBangladesh.net for providing me this opportunity to share something with the community. I would be glad to share every news, tricks, research and learning experience with the community here.
Best of luck to MsdnBangladesh.net, and looking forward to contribute in MsdnBangladesh.net a lot.