Posts

Hooking into ECO multi-association events

Although I have not (yet) needed this myself I can see myself needing it in the future and the question has been asked before. "Setting HasUserCode=True on a Child.Parent single role does what I want, but how do I handle the scenario where Parent.Children.Add(item) is called on a multirole?" By default you can’t, but with the addition of a single class and a small amount of tweaking you can get it to do what you want! Here is how to do it: 01: Mark Parent.Children’s association end with HasUserCode=True in the modeler and then generate code. 02: In the source code of your class (not within an ECO region) add the following   private EcoMultiAssociation<Child> m_Children; This is a class that does not yet exist, I will show the source code for it later. 02: In the source code locate the "Children" property and change it like so   public IEcoList<Child> Children   {     get     {       if (m_Children == null)       {         m_Children= new EcoMultiAssocia

Using Vista Aero theme in XP WPF apps

I found this article on the web recently which shows how to use the Vista Aero theme on XP in your WPF apps. I found two things: 01: It is less complicated that the article states. 02: It is a bit different if you already have stuff in your app resources, such as styles or control templates etc. So here are my steps 01: Add PresentationFramework.Aero to your applications References list. It is listed in the [.NET] tab. 02: Edit your App.xaml and change it from this <Application.Resources>   <!-- Your stuff here --> </Application.Resources> to this <Application.Resources>   <ResourceDictionary>     <!-- Put your stuff here instead -->     <ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries>       <ResourceDictionary Source="/PresentationFramework.Aero;component/themes/aero.normalcolor.xaml"/>     </ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries>   </ResourceDictionary> </Application.Resources>

Selecting WPF ListView row in code

An app I am considering migrating to WPF uses a DevExpress grid to show a list of events, as I animate my composition I highlight the current event in the grid. Things I have learned about WPF: 01: You can create a data grid type view like so: <ListView Name="ListView">   <ListView.View>     <GridView AllowsColumnReorder="False">       <GridViewColumn DisplayMemberBinding="{Binding Path=Title}" Header="Title"/>       <GridViewColumn DisplayMemberBinding="{Binding Path=FirstName}" Header="FirstName"/>       <GridViewColumn DisplayMemberBinding="{Binding Path=LastName}" Header="LastName"/>     </GridView>   </ListView.View> </ListView> 02: Don’t put a ListView in a <StackPanel>! It renders all of the data at once. When you have 6K rows of data for example it takes about 1 second to select the next row. Instead you should put it in a grid <Gri

Creating a drop shadow

Requirement: Take a PNG image that has an alpha mask and from it generate a new bitmap which has the same alpha mask but every pixel is black. Solution: private Bitmap GenerateDropShadowImage(Image image) {   Bitmap bitmap = new Bitmap(image);   BitmapData bits = bitmap.LockBits(new Rectangle(0, 0, bitmap.Width, bitmap.Height), System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageLockMode.ReadWrite, System.Drawing.Imaging.PixelFormat.Format32bppArgb);   IntPtr bottomScanLine = bits.Scan0;   int bytesPerRow = bits.Width * 4;   unsafe   {     byte* pixelValue = (byte*)bottomScanLine.ToPointer();     for (int count = 0; count < bits.Width * bits.Height; count++)     {       pixelValue[0] = 0;       pixelValue[1] = 0;       pixelValue[2] = 0;       pixelValue = pixelValue + 4;     }   }   bitmap.UnlockBits(bits);   return bitmap; }

WPF custom button templates

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I’ve had a bit of a play with WPF for the first time today. I decided to create my own button template. The idea of a template is that you can redefine the visual elements that make up the control. Create a new WPF application Now add a button within the grid like so  <Grid>   <Button Content="Click me" Width="150" Height="50"/>  </Grid> So that we can see what we are designing add a gradient background to the window. Within the <Window> node add  <Window.Background>   <LinearGradientBrush>    <GradientStop Color="Black" Offset="0"/>    <GradientStop Color="White" Offset="1"/>   </LinearGradientBrush>  </Window.Background> Now to start designing the button template. Within the <Window> node add  <Window.Resources>  </Window.Resources> this is where we will add the template, within that new node add the following  <ControlTemplate x

Binary response in ASP MVC

Today I wanted to give access to certain files on a website only via my DownloadController. This was so that I could ensure the current user had purchased the item in question first, and also sign any license info into the download aswell. I tried getting a URL like this to work http://localhost/download/1/SomeFileName which would remap to the DownloadController public void Index(int id, string fileName) This worked fine, and because the URL ended with "SomeFileName" it would get saved as the correct filename too, but this was no use because SomeFileName has no file extension. As soon as I added .zip on the end the request no longer went via the new HttpHandler in the MVC web extensions. Even when I added it in the <httpHandlers> section of web.config it just wouldn’t work. My problem was in relying on the url for the filename. This is apprarently not the way it should be done. Instead I should have stuck to the standard URL approach http://localhost/download/1 an

Silverlight and webservices

First download the binaries you need from here: http://silverlight.net/GetStarted/ Next run VS2008 and create a new project. Select the Silverlight node and then the Silverlight Application node. ProjectName = MySilverlightApp Tick the checkbox "Create directory for solution" Click OK On the wizard page you want the default values: * Add a new page to the solution for hosting the control Project type = Web Site Name = MyWebService Now delete the two ASPX files, we wont be needing those. Rename the HTML page to Index.html and set it as the project start page. Right click the website project and select "Add new item". Select "Web Service". Name = DateTimeService.asmx Click ADD Change the HelloWorld method to public DateTime GetServerDateTime() {   return DateTime.Now; } Right-click the References node on the Silverlight project and select "Add service reference". Click the "Discover" button, and in the tree view that appears select the Da