CharlieDigital

Buy This Book!

cchen@charliedigital.com (Charles Chen) — Tue, 06 May 2008 23:15:31 GMT

This is quite exciting: my wife is now a published author (with her own ISBN and everything :-D)!

Check out her book The Parent Connection for Singapore Math.

:-D She's also got a media set, you know, if you've got $459 and nothing better to spend it on :-P

SharePoint "Unknown Error" Quirk

cchen@charliedigital.com (Charles Chen) — Tue, 06 May 2008 19:16:53 GMT

Anyone who's done any bit of SharePoint development is probably familiar with the completely useless "Unknown Error" view. Well, in fact, SharePoint actually knows what the error is, it just doesn't want to tell you (okay, it's really just disabled for users).

In ASP.NET, you can usually get error messages to show up by setting <customErrors="Off"/>

However, this is not sufficient with SharePoint. As Stefan Keir Gordan points out, to get the nitty gritty details, you also need to set <SafeMode CallStack="True""/>

MbUnit And TestDriven.NET On x64

cchen@charliedigital.com (Charles Chen) — Mon, 05 May 2008 16:23:45 GMT

I came across an interesting issue while trying to run some MbUnit RowTests this morning.

Namely, it seemed that the rows being passed in contained all null values. It left me scratching my head. I ran the tests using MbUnit console and it worked fine but didn't work as expected from TestDriven.NET in VS2005.

Well, it turns out that (I think) the install for MbUnit does not create the requisite registry keys in an x64 environment. It properly creates the keys under the Wow6432Node, but it does not create the keys under the path:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\MutantDesign\TestDriven.NET\TestRunners

So to make it work, all you have to do is to copy the string values from the Wow6432Node to the key above and restart VS.

Hope this saves some headaches for other developers working in an x64 environment!

Update: Jeff Brown notes in the comments that this should be fixed with future releases so that x64 environment registry keys are properly generated.

The Sad State of Secularism

cchen@charliedigital.com (Charles Chen) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 20:26:01 GMT

This story is kind of upsetting.

Like hundreds of young men joining the Army in recent years, Jeremy Hall professes a desire to serve his country while it fights terrorism.

Known as "the atheist guy," Hall has been called immoral, a devil worshipper and -- just as severe to some soldiers -- gay, none of which, he says, is true. Hall even drove fellow soldiers to church in Iraq and paused while they prayed before meals.

"I was ashamed to say that I was an atheist," Hall said.

"Religion brings comfort to a lot of people," he said. "Personally, I don't want it or need it. But I'm not going to get down on anybody else for it."

I dunno...it's just kind of unnerving that in this day and age, a person should feel ashamed to be known as an atheist (especially one that is respectful of others' right to believe). In fact, recent polls have shown that atheists are the most distrusted group in America, even below Muslims:

From a telephone sampling of more than 2,000 households, university researchers found that Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in “sharing their vision of American society.” Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry.

It just doesn't make sense.

Automating Remote GAC Installs On Build

cchen@charliedigital.com (Charles Chen) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 20:42:15 GMT

When working with SharePoint, you'll find yourself working with the GAC quite often during development.

If you've seen the light and you're working with SharePoint on a VM, one tricky problem is how to update the GAC using a post-build event. The following is a little script that I use:

::----------------------- GAC binaries code ------------------------
:: Check if the share is available on the server
IF EXIST "\\server-name\temp" GOTO COPYFILES
GOTO SHOWNOTICE

:: Copy file to the server
:COPYFILES
ECHO Found \\server-name\temp; proceeding to copy files...

SET SN=\\server-name\temp

:: Copy the binary
XCOPY "$(TargetPath)" "%SN%" /Y /I

:: Use PsExec to execute gacutil
PATH=$(SolutionDir)Tools;%windir%\Microsoft.Net\Framework\v2.0.50727;%programfiles%\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0\Bin;%path%

psexec \\server-name -u Administrator -p password -w "c:\temp" gacutil.exe /i "$(TargetFileName)" /f

GOTO END

:SHOWNOTICE
ECHO Your VM image is not sharing the directory "c:\temp"
GOTO END

:END
ECHO Completed

The batch script makes use of Sysinternal's PsExec. I've included the binary executable in my solution tree under the directory "Tools".

The script only has one assumption: the VM (or remote machine, really) is sharing the c:\temp directory (okay, and that the path to gacutil.exe has been added to the remote machine's PATH environment variable). Here's a breakdown of the logic:

The first step is to check if the directory exists and can be reached. If not, we go to the end and show a notice about sharing the directory.
If the directory is shared, the output dll from the build is copied to the shared directory using plain old XCOPY.
Once it's copied over, we use PsExec to execute gacutil on the VM (or remote machine). The -w argument specifies the working directory on the remote machine.

Enjoy!

FOR XML Needs More Love

cchen@charliedigital.com (Charles Chen) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:55:27 GMT

I'm constantly amazed by the number of developers who have never worked with FOR XML EXPLICIT and the new FOR XML PATH. If I were designing data access, it would be my go-to commands for building queries for complex data structures (nested DataReaders? yuck!).

In the past, to support paging using FOR XML EXPLICIT queries took tons of lines to accomplish (although there is something about the whole explicitness that makes it surprisingly legible). Now with the fancy pants ROW_NUMBER function in SQL along with CTEs, a hundred line query can be written with maybe 15-20 lines.

Here's a simple example that you can copy+paste and run:

/*  Demonstrates
   usage of ROW_NUMBER and FOR XML PATH to create  pageable
   XML results queries. In this case, the key is to page only
   on the Route objects. */ --//
   Mock Route table DECLARE @Route TABLE ( Id int, Title varchar(100) ) --//
   Mock Step table DECLARE @Step TABLE ( Id int, RouteId int, Title varchar(100), Sequence int ) --//
   Insert mock data INSERT INTO @Route VALUES (1, 'Route
   1') INSERT INTO @Route VALUES (2, 'Route
   2') INSERT INTO @Route VALUES (3, 'Route
   3') INSERT INTO @Route VALUES (4, 'Route
   4') INSERT INTO @Route VALUES (5, 'Route
   5') --// Route 1 Steps INSERT
   INTO @Step VALUES (1,
   1, 'Step 1.1', 1) INSERT
   INTO @Step VALUES (2,
   1, 'Step 1.2', 2) INSERT
   INTO @Step VALUES (3,
   1, 'Step 1.3', 3) INSERT
   INTO @Step VALUES (4,
   1, 'Step 1.4', 4) INSERT
   INTO @Step VALUES (5,
   1, 'Step 1.5', 5) --//
   Route 2 Steps INSERT INTO @Step VALUES (6,
   2, 'Step 2.1', 1) INSERT
   INTO @Step VALUES (7,
   2, 'Step 2.2', 2) INSERT
   INTO @Step VALUES (8,
   2, 'Step 2.3', 3) --//
   Route 3 Steps INSERT INTO @Step VALUES (9,
   3, 'Step 3.1', 1) --//
   Route 4 Steps INSERT INTO @Step VALUES (10,
   4, 'Step 4.1', 1) --//
   Route 5 Steps INSERT INTO @Step VALUES (11,
   5, 'Step 5.1', 1) INSERT
   INTO @Step VALUES (12,
   5, 'Step 5.2', 2) INSERT
   INTO @Step VALUES (13,
   5, 'Step 5.3', 3) INSERT
   INTO @Step VALUES (14,
   5, 'Step 5.4', 4) /* Define
   the page size.  -- Add sorting and ordering later */ DECLARE @PageSize int DECLARE @CurrentPage int SET @CurrentPage
   = 0 SET @PageSize = 3 /* Calculate
   starting and ending row. */ DECLARE @StartIndex int DECLARE @EndIndex int SET @StartIndex
   = @CurrentPage * @PageSize SET @EndIndex
   = @StartIndex + @PageSize ; --//
   Need to terminate with a semicolon for CTE  /* Perform
   core XML select */ WITH Routes AS ( SELECT  *, ROW_NUMBER()
   OVER (ORDER BY Id) AS 'RowNumber' FROM @Route ) SELECT Routes.Id AS "@Id", Routes.Title AS "@Title", ( SELECT Step.Id AS '@Id', Step.Title AS '@Title' FROM @Step AS Step WHERE Step.RouteId
   = Routes.Id ORDER BY  Step.Sequence ASC FOR XML
   PATH('Step'), TYPE  ) AS 'Steps' FROM  Routes WHERE RowNumber
   > @StartIndex AND RowNumber
   <= @EndIndex --// BETWEEN Results in improper paging FOR XML
   PATH('Route'), ROOT('Routes')

What's great about this is that if your object model is properly designed, it's just a matter of deserializing the XML (using precompiled serialization binaries, of course) to rehydrate your data model.

In this case, the output XML looks like this:

<Routes>  <Route
   Id="1" Title="Route
   1">  <Steps>  <Step
   Id="1" Title="Step
   1.1" />  <Step
   Id="2" Title="Step
   1.2" />  <Step
   Id="3" Title="Step
   1.3" />  <Step
   Id="4" Title="Step
   1.4" />  <Step
   Id="5" Title="Step
   1.5" />  </Steps>  </Route>  <Route
   Id="2" Title="Route
   2">  <Steps>  <Step
   Id="6" Title="Step
   2.1" />  <Step
   Id="7" Title="Step
   2.2" />  <Step
   Id="8" Title="Step
   2.3" />  </Steps>  </Route>  <Route
   Id="3" Title="Route
   3">  <Steps>  <Step
   Id="9" Title="Step
   3.1" />  </Steps>  </Route> </Routes>

Next, you'll need some simple code to deserialize the XML to make it useful:

using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Collections.ObjectModel; using System.IO; using System.Xml.Serialization; namespace XmlDeserialization
   { internal class Program { private
   static void Main(string[]
   args) { string xml = ...; //
   XML string here RouteList routes = new RouteList(xml); Console.Out.WriteLine(routes.Count); foreach(Route
   route in routes) { Console.Out.WriteLine("
   + Route: {0}", route.Id); foreach(Step
   step in route.Steps) { Console.Out.WriteLine("
   + Step: {0}", step.Id); } } } } public
   abstract class XmlDeserializingList<Titem> : List<Titem>
   { protected XmlDeserializingList()
   { } protected XmlDeserializingList(string xml)
   { StringReader reader = new StringReader(xml); XmlSerializer serializer
   = new XmlSerializer(GetType()); XmlDeserializingList<Titem>
   items = (XmlDeserializingList<Titem>)serializer.Deserialize(reader); AddRange(items); } } [XmlRoot("Routes")] public
   class RouteList : XmlDeserializingList<Route> { public RouteList()
   {} public RouteList(string xml)
   : base(xml) { } } [Serializable] public
   class Route { private int id; private
   string title; private Collection<Step>
   steps; [XmlAttribute] public
   int Id { get { return id;
   } set { id = value; } } [XmlAttribute] public
   string Title { get { return title;
   } set { title = value; } } [XmlArray("Steps"),
   XmlArrayItem("Step", typeof(Step))] public Collection<Step>
   Steps { get { return steps;
   } set { steps = value; } } } [Serializable] public
   class Step { private int id; private
   string title; [XmlAttribute] public
   int Id { get { return id;
   } set { id = value; } } [XmlAttribute] public
   string Title { get { return title;
   } set { title = value; } } } }

It might even be useful to add some abstract methods (and properties to support it) to GetNextPage()

Nuking SharePoint Styles For Layout Page Applications

cchen@charliedigital.com (Charles Chen) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 12:59:46 GMT

SharePonit layout apps (as I call them) are the missing link in most developer's understanding of SharePoint and why it seems like it can be a pain in the butt as a development platform. As I've discussed previously, SharePoint development only deviates from regular ASP.NET development ever so slightly. A bit of creativity and ingenuity easily overcomes most hurdles.

As I'm doing development in the area, I'd like to help shed some light on the mystery of it all and show how developers and SharePoint can work together in harmony :-)

One of the first steps to making happy with SharePoint when working with layout pages is to nuke the SharePoint CSS which creates weird padding around the main work area. I'm sure it may have some purpose, but it's irrelevant for us at the moment.

Let's take a look.

In the following screen, I've added a <div/> element with a one pixel, black border with width and height set to 100% (this is in IE7 and it looks about the same in FF2).

Notice the fat white padding on the top and the right. This is useless and ugly. Not only that, we didn't acheive the 100% height that we'd like to. We can nuke it with some CSS:

/*--- override
   WSS styles ---*/ body { height: 100%;
   } .ms-formareaframe { padding: 2px
   4px 4px 4px; background: #fff; height:100%;
   } .ms-propertysheet { height: 100%;
   } #onetidMainBodyPadding { height: 0px;
   } #onetidMainBodyPadding img { height: 0px; display: none;
   } #onetidYPadding { width: 0px;
   } #onetidYPadding img { width: 0px; display: none;
   }

And here's the result:

Bingo! It looks kind of the same in FF2 (FF2 overdraws the 100% declaration and cuts off the bottom and right borders; this does require some CSS hackery to fix).

But the big picture is that now we have a blank slate with which to integrate with SharePoint. You get all of the benefits of SharePoint authentication, document management, profiling, and so on just by putting your ASP.NET application into SharePoint as a layout page. Development is easier than it would seem since the package, during development, only has to be deployed once. Otherwise, all of the files can be deployed to SharePoint using an automated XCOPY or manually. In some cases, for example working with ASPX page layout, the page can be accessed directly via file share (this is how I do all of my layout).

For more info on creating layout apps, check out the following articles on packaging SharePoint solutions:

Ted Pattison on MSDN.
An excellent post by Bill Baer.
Evgeny Tugarev's excellent 5 step guide.

Quote of the Day

cchen@charliedigital.com (Charles Chen) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 03:43:04 GMT

I'm not a metal fan, but I like this one.

"We Need To Let Metal And Odin Catch The Kids Before Jesus Does!" -- HELHEIM

Funny.

New Jersey Gets Something Right

cchen@charliedigital.com (Charles Chen) — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 18:10:06 GMT

High property taxes? Check. Terrible congestion? Check. Exit 13? Check (for those not in the know, exit 13 on the NJ Turnpike is the location of an all encompassing foul odor from the refineries located in the area). Overabundance of guidos? Check.

For all the reasons that NJ sucks, there are a few bright spots like the grease trucks at Rutgers and an interesting little ruling by the NJ Supreme Court:

The justices say that IP addresses are sufficiently anonymous to justify privacy protection because, theoretically, only the Internet service provider can identify who is associated with a specific IP address.

"Internet users today enjoy relatively complete IP address anonymity when surfing the Web. Given the current state of technology, the dynamic, temporarily assigned, numerical IP address cannot be matched to an individual user without the help of an ISP. Therefore, we accept as reasonable the expectation that one's identity will not be discovered through a string of numbers left behind on a website"

VSTO Versus Extensibility

cchen@charliedigital.com (Charles Chen) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 15:57:14 GMT

As we're currently mulling a full transition to VS2008 and .NET 3.5, I've been investigating VSTO3 and ClickOnce once again. My initial encounters with VSTO and ClickOnce were lacking. With regards to VSTO, I didn't find anything that I could do with it that I couldn't do without it. Indeed, it's more of an extension of the extensibility model which provides some under the cover plumbing than anything else.

The decision to attach ourselves to VSTO3 and ClickOnce is no light matter. Luckily, Cindy Meister (Office MVP) and Mary Lee (Microsoft) were kind enough to weigh in on the matter over at the MSDN forums.

I think all Office developers should head over and take a look as it contains a wealth of information (and clarifies some common misunderstandings) with regards to VSTO and ClickOnce.