Kevin McNeish [C# and .NET]

Silverlight 3 DataForm Edit Pencil

2009-11-09T16:40:00Z

Here's a quick tip--if your Silverlight 3 DataForm is not dsplaying an Edit Pencil in the upper right corner, set the DataForm's AutoEdit to false (or if using the Visual Studio or Expression Blend IDE, uncheck the AutoEdit checkbox). Best Regards, Kevin McNeish INETA Speaker Chief Architect MM .NET Application Framework www.oakleafsd.com...(read more)

Silverlight 3 and the Bindable Attribute

2009-11-09T16:06:00Z

You may see a number of videos and sample code for Silverlight 3 that uses the Bindable attribute to specifying editing features of an entity property when working with the Silverlight DataForm control. However, the Bindable attribute (as well as the System.ComponentModel assembly) were removed from Silverlight with the Silverlight 3 RTM. Now, if you want to specify if an entity property you are binding to should be readonly, set its Editable attribute like this: [ Editable ( false )] public DateTime...(read more)

Don't Miss the Silverlight Toolkit for Getting Additional Silverlight Mojo!

2009-11-09T11:41:00Z

Regardless of whether you have installed Silverlight for VS 2008 or VS2010, you will want to install the additional Silverlight Toolkit: http://www.codeplex.com/Silverlight This toolkit gives you additional controls, components and utilities released outside the regular Silverlight release cycle. This is good news because Microsoft is releasing new Silverlight functionality iteratively. Rather than providing these controls with a "big bang" release, Microsoft is releasing them iteratively...(read more)

Pixel Shaders and Silverlight, WPF

2009-11-08T02:55:00Z

Recently, Silverlight 3 gained the ability to use custom pixel shaders as was already available in WPF. What exactly are custom pixel shaders? A shader is a set of software instructions executed on your computer's Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) that performs complex per-pixel effects suh as applying a lighting value, bump mapping (a technique used to make a surface look more realistic by modeling interaction of a bumpy surface texture), shadows, highlights, translucency, and so on. Pixel shaders...(read more)

Handling Trailing Spaces with VFP Data and ADO.NET

2009-11-04T21:08:00Z

When working with Visual FoxPro data in ADO.NET, you may be surprised to see trailing spaces at the end of your character data. Visual FoxPro automatically trims these trailing spaces in BROWSE windows and when binding to user interface controls, but .NET does not. To address this issue, you can change your character fields to varchar fields (introduced in VFP 9.0). You can then write a quick utility to remove the trailing spaces from the character data. If you can't remove the extra spaces due...(read more)

.NET Framework 4.0 Beta 2 Installation Error: Unable to create or save new files in the folder...

2009-10-31T00:48:00Z

When trying to install the .NET Framework 4.0 Beta 2 on the Windows partition of my Macbook Pro, I encountered this error: Unable to create or save new files in the folder into which the files are being extracted. Please check the folder properties to ensure you have permission on the folder to write files and that the folder is not read-only. Apparently, Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 is trying to extract files into my Mac partition--even though i didn't tell it to do this! To fix this problem: 1...(read more)

Visual Studio 2010 Version Comparison

2009-10-28T16:51:00Z

It's official that Microsoft plans to release Visual Studio 2010 / .NET 4.0 in March 2010. I found this link helpful in determining the difference between the VS 2010, Professional, Premium and Ultimate versions: http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products/2010/default.mspx Best Regards, Kevin McNeish Chief Software Architect - MM .NET Application Framework INETA Speaker www.oakleafsd.com...(read more)

Fixing the MS Office SP2 "Outlook cannot connect to your incoming POP3 account" error

2009-10-17T04:37:00Z

Bad Outlook Juju So, when I got up this morning, I noticed my computer had rebooted--my main development machine is a MacBook Pro, and I was booted into Mac OSX rather than Windows Vista where I had left it last night. Step 1: Uninstalling Microsoft Office SP2 I then realized I couldn't send or receive mail--the last mail I received was from last night--so I immediately suspected a problem with a Windows Update. Sure enough, after a quick Google search I determined that others were experiencing...(read more)

Visual Studio 2010, .NET 4.0, C# and VB .NET 4 - What's New?

2009-10-14T10:07:00Z

I'm starting a series of blog posts today on what's new in the following technologies: - Visual Studio 2010 - .NET 4.0 - C# and VB .NET 4 I'll be giving my take on these technologies, grading them, and talk about how they can and should impact your software development. Here's the big picture for Visual Studio 2010...in subsequent posts we will dive down into details of the new features. Visual Studio 2010 Visual Studio itself has changed more than any of the other technologies. Working...(read more)

ASP.NET: Storing JavaScript in a separate .js file

2009-10-03T12:49:00Z

Rather than hard-coding your JavaScript into an aspx page, you can store you JavaScript functions in a separate .js file. This allows your furnctions to be used from multiple pages. For example, you could add a .js file to your project (right-click your project and select Add New Item | JScript File ) from the shortcut menu) and place the following function in it: function isValidEmail(emailAddressControl) { var emailPat = /^(\ ".*\"|[A-Za-z]\w*)@(\[\d{1,3}(\.\d{1,3}){3}]|[A-Za-z]\w*(\...(read more)

Entity Framework "Problem in Mapping Fragments" Error

2009-05-18T09:04:00Z

If you add an entity to the Entity Data Model, then later add another entity that is related in the database to the first entity, Visual Studio will give you a "Problem in Mapping Fragments" error. For example, if you add a Northwind database Orders table using the EDM Update Wizard, it produces an entity that looks has an EmployeeID property that corresponds to the EmployeeID foreign key column of the Orders table. Next, if you add a Northwind database Employees table using the EDM Update...(read more)

Problem: "Mapping URI" errors with WPF Assembly Names that include spaces

2009-04-29T20:31:00Z

This is a somewhat insidious bug. As it turns out, if you have spaces in your WPF project's assembly name, you can get "Mapping URI" errors in your project's XAML (even if the solution itself builds properly). As you might imagine, you can get around this bug by changing the namespace. For example: Change this: OakLeaf MM WPF To: OakLeaf.MM.WPF Kevin McNeish Microsoft .NET MVP INETA Speaker Chief Architect, MM .NET Application Framework http://www.oakleafsd.com...(read more)

Getting Expression Blend to Launch VS 2008

2009-04-14T10:56:00Z

If you have multiple versions of Visual Studio on your development machine, Expression Blend may launch the older version (for example, VS 2005) rather than VS 2008. To get Expression Blend to launch VS 2008, follow these steps: Run the Windows Registry Editor by launching a Command Prompt window (Windows Key + R), entering regedit and pressing ENTER. Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\VisualStudio.DTE.9.0\CLSID . In the right pane, double-click the (Default) value to edit it. In the Edit String dialog...(read more)

DevTeach, 2008 Montreal - Free VS 2008 Pro, Expression Web 2, and Tech-Ed Dev Set

2008-11-07T22:15:00Z

As if DevTeach 2008 isn't a sweet enough deal, Jean Rene Roy announced today that if you register for the conference, you get Visual Studio 2008 Professional, Expression Web 2, and the Tech-Ed Conference DVD Set for free! I've been speaking at DevTeach since the very first conference, and I have to say that Montreal is my favorite conference city--it's a great vacation spot, a beautiful city, and lots to see and do. I'm giving a "WPF at Work in the Real World" pre-conference...(read more)

DevTeach Toronto, 2008 - A Great Conference!

2008-05-08T00:36:00Z

DevTeach ( www.devteach.com ) is one of the best deals in .NET conferences...it's a great small conference that gives you access to many of the regular .NET speakers but in a much smaller venue. Personally, I'm giving a pre-con called "WPF Meets the iPhone" which elaborates on my article in CoDe Magazine ( http://www.devx.com/codemag/Article/37589 ). In this pre-con you learn a lot about WPF in general as we do something fun--recreate the iPhone user interface in WPF. Kevin McNeish...(read more)

How to select a different WPF TabItem in Visual Studio 2008

2008-03-25T14:05:00Z

Sadly, Microsoft did not provide a TabControl designer for Visual Studio 2008. If you want to edit a TabItem, you can get around this limitation and select a TabItem other than the default by temporarily changing the TabControl's <<b>>SelectedIndex<</b>> property to the index of the TabItem you want to edit. Kevin McNeish INETA Speaker Microsoft .NET MVP President, Oak Leaf Enterprises, Inc. Chief Architect, MM .NET Application Framework http://www.oakleafsd.com/...(read more)

How to apply a WPF style to all elements of a particular type?

2008-01-07T06:24:00Z

Often, you need to apply the same style to elements of a particular type, such as Button, TextBox, MenuItem, and so on. To do this, specify a style that uses the TargetType attribute. The following example demonstrates specifying Font settings and a Background color for all Buttons on a form: <Window.Resources> <Style TargetType="{x:Type Button}"> <Setter Property="FontFamily" Value="Times New Roman" /> <Setter Property="FontSize" Value...(read more)

Fixing the Vista backup error "the system cannot find the specified file"

2007-11-02T15:59:00Z

I've been getting an error "when using the Vista Backup tools the last few days "the backup did not complete...the system cannot find the specified file". As it turns out this seems to be a Vista "issue". Apparently this is because a shadow copy created by Vista is conflicting with the backup process. Here's what I did to fix the problem: From Control Panel, select "System" In the System Protection tab, uncheck all drives listed under "Automatic Restore...(read more)

Downloading the VS 2005 Class Designer PowerToys

2007-08-23T22:38:00Z

I just heard that you can download the VS 2005 Class Designer PowerToys at this link: http://www.codeplex.com/modeling With the deminse of the GotDotNet web site, it's been difficult to find a place where it can be downloaded! Kevin McNeish Microsoft .NET MVP President, Oak Leaf Enterprises, Inc. Chief Architect, MM .NET Application Framework: http://www.oakleafsd.com...(read more)

DevTeach 2007, Vancouver - .NET 3.0/3.5 Training PreCon

2007-07-17T18:24:00Z

Just wanted to let everyone know about the .NET 3.0 pre-con I'll be giving at DevTeach 2007, Vancouver on November 26. I'll be giving an introductory session on all four .NET 3.0 technologies: Windows Workflow Windows Presentation Foundation Windows Communication Foundation Windows CardSpace If you want to get up the learning curve quickly and get a great all-day immersion in these new technologies I recommend heading to Vancouver for this pre-con ( www.devteach.com )! DevTeach conference...(read more)