Better CSS with .Less(markembling.info)

submitted by crpietschmann(11.3k) 2 years, 5 months ago

Too often in my web development past I have found myself wading through huge clumsy CSS files of several hundred lines or more, searching for that place where a particular class is defined or to try and identify what it is that is overriding something else. It can be quite a nightmare. However I recently came accross .Less (pronounced "dot-less"), a port of the great Ruby Less library for .NET. This is a brilliantly simple-to-use solution to an often-painful situation. read more...

add a comment |category: ASP.NET |Views: 32

tags: .Less dotLess template CSS ASP.NET another

Hacking the ASP.NET Parser (weblogs.asp.net)

submitted by crpietschmann(11.3k) 2 years, 5 months ago

A while ago I blogged about using external templates in an asp.net application. The problem with that was it wasn’t natively supported, so I had to create a derived SpecialRepeater in order to take advantage of the external template system. In this latest parser hack I’ve managed to “trick” the asp.net parser into letting me declaratively set any template property to be a virtual path in order to load a user control into that template at runtime. The ASP.NET compliation system is pretty complex. There are all kinds of extensibility points, including BuildProviders, PageParserFilters, ControlBuilders, ExpressionBuilders and the list goes on. One unknown *feature* of the parser is it’s ability to generate code from something called an InstanceDescriptor. read more...

1 comment |category: ASP.NET |Views: 295

tags: Parse trick ASP.NET repeater another

Using the New Windows Azure CDN with a Custom Domain(blog.smarx.com)

submitted by crpietschmann(11.3k) 2 years, 6 months ago

Today we announced a new service in Windows Azure: the Windows Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN). You can read about the details over on the Windows Azure blog. In short, you can now tap into our global CDN to cache your content close to your users. The Windows Azure CDN is a free preview for now, and we’ll announce pricing information in the future. read more...

add a comment |category: Azure |Views: 13

tags: Azure CDN another

Virtual Router – Turn any Windows 7 PC into Wireless Access Point(pietschsoft.com)

submitted by crpietschmann(11.3k) 2 years, 6 months ago

It’s an app that unleashes the “Virtual WiFi” and Wireless Hosted Network features of Windows 7 to turn a PC into a Wireless Access Point or Hot Spot. Well, I looked into what it would take to build such an app, and it really wasn’t that difficult since Windows 7 has all the API’s built in to do it. After some time of looking things up and referencing the “Wireless Hosted Network” C++ sample within the WIndows 7 SDK, I now have a nice working version of the application to release. I’m calling this project “Virtual Router” since it essentially allows you to host a software based wireless router from your laptop or other PC with a Wifi card. Oh, and did I mention that this is FREE and OPEN SOURCE! read more...

1 comment |category: C# |Views: 114

tags: WirelessHostedNetwork VirtualRouter VirtualWiFi C# Windows7 another

MvcMaps Preview 1 – A Unified Bing/Google Maps API for ASP.NET MVC(pietschsoft.com)

submitted by crpietschmann(11.3k) 2 years, 6 months ago

I spent some time lately working on bringing some of the concepts of Web.Maps.VE to ASP.NET MVC. The concepts I’m referring to are Simplicity and Ease of Development in making the implementation of mapping within ASP.NET MVC applications as simple as possible along with the Flexibility and Customizability of the Base Mapping API itself. Then I thought, Since I’m building an abstraction layer to simplify Bing Maps development, why not implement it in a flexible manor as to be able to support other Mapping API’s as well? The result of such an effort in a nice Unified API that allows virtually the same code to be written when implementing either Bing Maps or Google Maps. In fact, all you need to do to change your application over to using one mapping provider instead of the other is to just change a single line of code. read more...

add a comment |category: ASP.NET |Views: 136

tags: BingMaps MvcMaps ASPNETMVC GoogleMaps ASP.NET another

7 on 7: Windows Multitouch (blogs.msdn.com)

submitted by crpietschmann(11.3k) 2 years, 6 months ago

Windows Multitouch, in my opinion, is the most emotive new feature of Windows 7. From the kids at home to the audiences to whom I’m demoed Windows 7, there’s something fresh and fun about being able to manipulate an application with simple hand gestures. We’ve all used touch screens in some form before, whether it be a tablet PC, your ATM, or a mall kiosk, but generally you’re just substituting your finger for a mouse. Multitouch is different; it mimics the way we work with physical objects and as such opens up a new world of user interaction scenarios. read more...

add a comment |category: Other |Views: 4

tags: Win7 Windows7 MultiTouch another

Dynamic in C# 4.0: Introducing the ExpandoObject(blogs.msdn.com)

submitted by crpietschmann(11.3k) 2 years, 6 months ago

In fact, it’s not just better syntax. You also get flexibility. To demonstrate this flexibility, let’s move to ExpandoObject, which is a part of the new dynamic language runtime (DLR). ExpandoObject instances can add and remove members at run time. Where can you use such an object? XML is a good candidate here. read more...

add a comment |category: CLR |Views: 117

tags: C#4.0 C#4 ExpandoObject CLR dynamic another

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 Available for Download to Anyone!(tinyurl.com)

submitted by crpietschmann(11.3k) 2 years, 7 months ago

As the title states. Plus Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4 Beta 2 include a "Go Live" license to use them in production. read more...

add a comment |category: Visual Studio |Views: 20

tags: 2010 VS2010 Beta2 VisualStudio .net4.0 another

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 Setup Contains a Weird Blue Mac-Style Button(pietschsoft.com)

submitted by crpietschmann(11.3k) 2 years, 7 months ago

I just finished installing Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 within a Windows 7 Virtual Machine running within Windows VIrtual PC and the Final/Finish screen of the installation wizard contains a weird, blue, Mac-style Button. Ok, I know it’s not exactly how the button are in the UI of Max OSX, but it’s much closer to that than it is to Windows 7 buttons. The button looks so incredibly out of place, and I wonder who decided that it should be used, especially since it doesn’t match the UI of either the installer or Windows itself. read more...

add a comment |category: Visual Studio |Views: 24

tags: 2010 VS2010 Beta2 VisualStudio Install another

Another C# trick: Fluents, Inheritance and Extension Methods (blogs.msdn.com)

submitted by crpietschmann(11.3k) 2 years, 7 months ago

Here’s a scenario which Damien and I encountered recently. We needed a way of specifying Facets for properties on Entities, i.e. things like Nullable, MaxLength, Precision etc. And we needed a class hierarchy because different types of properties have different sets of available facets. The base class of the hierarchy is called PropertyConfiguration which defines a series of Fluent methods that are shared by all sub types: read more...

add a comment |category: C# |Views: 26

tags: ExtensionMethods C#3 Fluent C# Generics another

Microsoft Ajax Library (Preview 6) and the Microsoft Ajax Minifier(weblogs.asp.net)

submitted by crpietschmann(11.3k) 2 years, 7 months ago

The ASP.NET team today released a significant new update of the Microsoft Ajax Library (Preview 6). This update includes a bunch of new capabilities and improvements to our client-side AJAX library, and can be used with any version of ASP.NET (including ASP.NET 2.0, 3.5 and 4.0), and can be used in both ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC projects. Today’s release includes the following feature improvements: * Better Imperative Syntax: A new, simplified, code syntax for creating client controls. * Client Script Loader: A new client-side script loader that can dynamically load all of the JavaScript files required by a client control or library automatically, and executes the scripts in the right order. * Better jQuery Integration: All Microsoft Ajax controls are now automatically exposed as jQuery plug-ins. read more...

add a comment |category: AJAX |Views: 23

tags: ASPNETMVC Minify Minifier jQuery AJAX another

Using IProgressDialog to show Progress Dialogs in Win 7 / Vista(pietschsoft.com)

submitted by crpietschmann(11.3k) 2 years, 7 months ago

Well, I was looking through some more of my prototypes that I’ve written and I came across the following example of how to use the IProgressDialog Win32 Interface to harness the power of the Built-in Progress Dialog in Windows within your own .NET applications. I have test this on WIndows 7, but it should work as expected on Windows XP and Vista. The MSDN Documentation for IProgressDialog says it’s minimum supported operating systems are Windows 2000 and Windows XP. The full source code for this example is listed below. Just copy from this post and paste it within your app to test. read more...

add a comment |category: C# |Views: 132

tags: WindowsVista Win32API ProgressDialog IProgressDialog C# another

A Simple ScriptManager for ASP.NET MVC(pietschsoft.com)

submitted by crpietschmann(11.3k) 2 years, 7 months ago

The ASP.NET AJAX ScriptManager makes it really easy to include JavaScript references and register JavaScript blocks into the rendered Page output of an ASP.NET WebForms application. However nice the ScriptManager control is, it’s still just a WebForms control for use with ASP.NET AJAX; thus it’s use isn’t really supported with ASP.NET MVC. Also, to make things just a little more difficult, ASP.NET MVC doesn’t have it’s own “ScriptManager” implementation. This brings me to the point of posting this… I have worked out a really simple “ScriptManager” component for use with ASP.NET MVC, and I think it works really nice to help simplify the effort of including JavaScript blocks and references in a page read more...

add a comment |category: MVC |Views: 46

tags: ASPNETMVC AjaxHelper MVC ScriptManager another

Multi-Monitor Support (VS 2010 and .NET 4 Series)(weblogs.asp.net)

submitted by crpietschmann(11.3k) 2 years, 7 months ago

VS 2010 addresses this by now allowing editors, designers and tool-windows to be moved outside the top-level window and positioned anywhere you want, and on any monitor on your system. This allows you to significantly improve your use of screen real-estate, and optimize your overall development workflow. Taking advantage of the multi-monitor feature is really easy to-do. Simply click on a document tab or tool-window and drag it to either a new location within the top-level IDE window – or outside of the IDE to any location on any monitor you want: read more...

add a comment |category: Visual Studio |Views: 28

tags: VS2010 VisualStudio another

Code Optimized Web Development Profile (VS 2010 and .NET 4.0 Series) (weblogs.asp.net)

submitted by crpietschmann(11.3k) 2 years, 7 months ago

Today’s post covers a new “Web Development (Code Optimized)” profile option we are introducing with VS 2010 that allows you to optionally configure Visual Studio to run in an IDE layout mode that hides the WYSIWYG web designer and instead optimizes around a rich “source editing focused” tooling experience. read more...

add a comment |category: Visual Studio |Views: 3

tags: VS2010 VisualStudio another

URL Routing with ASP.NET 4 Web Forms (VS 2010 and .NET 4.0 Series) (weblogs.asp.net)

submitted by crpietschmann(11.3k) 2 years, 7 months ago

URL routing was a capability we first introduced with ASP.NET 3.5 SP1, and which is already used within ASP.NET MVC applications to expose clean, SEO-friendly “web 2.0” URLs. URL routing lets you configure an application to accept request URLs that do not map to physical files. Instead, you can use routing to define URLs that are semantically meaningful to users and that can help with search-engine optimization (SEO). With ASP.NET 4.0, URLs like above can now be mapped to both ASP.NET MVC Controller classes, as well as ASP.NET Web Forms based pages. read more...

add a comment |category: ASP.NET |Views: 47

tags: routing .net4.0 VS2010 WebForms ASP.NET another