Software Enthusiast - KOY

I love the computing industry, it is never in short supply of acronyms and buzzwords. One of the newly added ones is "SignalR" - which in its simplest form is actually a technology that allows FULL DUPLEX communication between the client and a Web server in real time. A typical web page is driven by HTTP ( which is the protocol through which the browser communicates with the server. The protocol in this case, is analogous to a LANGUAGE that is used for communicating between the client ( browser) and the server. The server supposedly, understands a plethora of languages but the language (Protocol) of preference for serving up web pages is called HTTP). The biggest challenge of HTTP has been its STATELESS form - which means - the SERVER ( web Server) does not maintain an open channel of communication directly with the client making a request. All it knows is that - a request came in from an address via a port, which is processed and then sent back to the address from wher...

I have been developing in Silverlight (SL) for a while and the biggest challenge has always been debugging the binding values in the XAML end. I came across this post which really explained how to go about it. For any data driven application with declarative data binding, with in XAML ,this brand new feature is the significant in many ways. Personally I remember most of the time i used to skip XAML way of binding as it lacked debugging feature. Now with Silverlight 5 my previous approach will surely take a back seat and will allow me to consider both ways equally. Prerequisites Makes sure that you have downloaded latest version Silverlight Toolkit SDK. If not download from here . Also make sure that you are running on VisualStudio SP1. The XAML Data binding The example demonstrated here implement basic XAML data binding with DomainDataSource control, lets look at the XAML binding of one of the controls. The XAML Debugging Setting Up Breakpoint As of now the XAML...

Have you ever had a situation where you needed to update the environment variables and you were also forced to logout or reboot the system? Well - with these steps - you may be able to update the variables without rebooting. Initiate command prompt as administrator ( may work as non - not sure). Type: taskkill /f /im explorer.exe Then type: explorer.exe Type SET to confirm propagation of your changes

I have been on hiatus for a while – primarily due to work pressure. I have been using SILVERLIGHT technology for about a year now and I have come to grips with the good, the bad and the ugly of it. Basically, my opinion – SILVERLIGHT – is an over rated technology. There are so many missing pieces as well as security constraints. The main selling point of SILVERLIGHT was that it would give the same functionality or close to it, of what you could get from a desktop application. To understand that selling point – you need to contrast that to what the traditional Web application gives. Simply put – SILVERLIGHT – is just a derivative of a web application with taunted hybrid features of running as either a web application or running as Desktop application in OOB mode. The major drawback of standard web applications has been the lack of a TRUE RICH USER EXPERIENCE – largely due to the STATELESS STATE of the protocol – HTTP(S). I have done my own fair share of development in Desktop...

This article I came across while googling for the best way to debug bindings in XAML. I am just reproducing just in case the original link gets broken. Introduction   Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is a joy to develop rich user experiences with. Animations, bindings, reskinnable codeless interfaces, all backed up with traditional .Net programming all make for a very rapid development cycle. However, when something goes wrong in that autogenerated super-sexy front-end, it is not always clear where the problem is.   This article will cover some of the methods for analyzing your WPF application, troubleshooting issues, and debugging seemingly obscure errors.     Binding Errors   When an error occurs in the binding framework, the notification is usually "silent", in that is doesn't pop up an error dialog to the user. The error is instead displayed in the Output Window  of Visual Studio. Althoug...

part 1 >> This is the final part of what ideally should have been a three part write-up but has been split into a 5 part write-up. This part deals with the actual consumption or running of the report. To recap, to use DevExpress XtraReport control in Silverlight - one needs a web service broker - consumed by the client and which in return calls the appropriate report and streams back a valid XAML to the client which then displays it. To consume or run the report from the client, one just needs a DocumentPreview Control which can be specified at design time or left till when needed at runtime. The thing to note when included at design time is to set the AutoCreateDocument to false to prevent the report from running automatically whenever the class it is included is instantiated. When invoking the reports, parameters values can be assigned. By default, the report is expected to pop-up a parameter dialog box when run for input. This action cam be suppressed by setting c...

part 5 >> This is the second step of the tasks - probably this should have been done first but it should not really mater. As you may recall, for Silverlight applications using Devexpress report control, the report is implemented as a Client-Server process using web services. Essentially, a web service call is made from the server which in turn runs the report and then returns an XAML representing the formatted report to the client. So, a web service needs to be installed on the server for this purpose. DevExpress has a template web service in place - so, all that is needed is use it and then do any house cleaning necessary. Just to get you in the right frame of mind - this is like a clearing house for all reports to be printed. Here, for each report requested, one needs to instantiate it before it can run. To set this up, select the Server side or Web project for the Silverlight application. Then, right click and select "DXperience vxx Report Service". The...