Tips for software engineer

GridView: get selected rows

noreply@blogger.com (Guogang Hu) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 06:27:00 +0000

Below is sample C# code to get selected rows in GridView.


        protected int[] GetSelectedRows()
        {
            List rowIDs = new List();
            foreach (GridViewRow row in GridView.Rows)
            {
                CheckBox cb = ((CheckBox)row.FindControl("chkRow"));
                if (cb.Checked)
                {
                    string IDString = GridView.DataKeys[row.RowIndex].Value.ToString();
                    rowIDs.Add(Int32.Parse(IDString));
                }
            }
            return rowIDs.ToArray();
        }

"SelectAll" CheckBox in GridView using jQuery

noreply@blogger.com (Guogang Hu) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 06:15:00 +0000

Here is a way to do it:


/**
 * Register logic for "select all" check box and the group of check boxes 
 * for each data row.
 * 
 * @param {Object} chkAllSelector     jQuery selector to find the "select all" check box
 * @param {Object} chkItemSelector    jQuery selector to find the check boxes for all the rows
 */

function registerSelectAll(chkAllSelector, chkItemSelector) {
    //"select all" checkbox
    var checkAllBox = $(chkAllSelector);
    //checkbox for each row
    var checkItems = $(chkItemSelector);       
    
    //check/uncheck all rows if "select all" is clicked
 checkAllBox.bind("click", function(){
            checkItems.each(function(){
                this.checked = checkAllBox[0].checked;
                })
        });
        
    //uncheck "select all" if some rows are unchecked
 checkItems.bind("click", function(){
            if(this.checked === false) {
             checkAllBox[0].checked = false;                    
            }
     });                     
}

To use it:


registerSelectAll(".chkAllHeader input", ".chkItem input");

"An unexpected error occurred." accessing Network Connection's properties

noreply@blogger.com (Guogang Hu) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:39:00 +0000

Cause: seems like it suddenly happens after a recent Windows Update. I cannot ping or "remote desktop" to the computer. Trying to access network connection give me this error: "An unexpected error occurred."

Solution:
This seems to fix the problem:
command line:
regsvr32 netshell.dll
regsvr32 ole32.dll
reboot

Then I can access the properties page, and I disable/re-enabled firewall. Everything coming back to normal.

P.S.
Keep my fingers crossed. Waiting for more surprised from next automatic Windows Update.

3D Visualization on iPhone - Got to see it to believe it

noreply@blogger.com (Guogang Hu) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 21:44:00 +0000

Ziosoft showcased this amazing 3D visualization on iPhone. It is fast and smooth with very high image resolution. With dual touch, seem like it is very easy to control zoom, move cutoff plane, rotate and move object, and select depth of rendering.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDVAosnh1j4&feature=channel_page

From their description and the look, it is obvious that there is web server doing the rendering behind. iPhone seem to provide the dual touch and navigation. Still the the speed is impressive. Either the iPhone has very high speed internet access, or there is some very efficient decompress and rendering algorithms running on it so that data transfer rate is not too high.

Server Explorer Missing

noreply@blogger.com (Guogang Hu) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 22:57:00 +0000

Symptom: Visual Studio 2005 Server Explorer is missing.
Reason: A while back, Visual Studio failed to load the server explorer at starup time, and showed a dialog to disable it. I guess I accidentally clicked "yes".

Solution: run this command in Visual Studio 2005 command line environment:

devenv /resetskippkgs

Refeactor! for C++ -- Review

noreply@blogger.com (Guogang Hu) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:37:00 +0000

Tried Refactor! for C++ (free version 9.1.5 published June 29, 2009). Visual Studio 2005

Summary of my experience:
Pros:

Free;
The idea is very attractive: refactor C++ code with right click and no modal dialogs;
Rename class names seem to work fine;

Cons:

Does not work most of the times. Usually global search and replace did a better job in renaming things;
Affects VS grammar highlight. After installation, code grey out by "ifdef"s are totally messed up. Unistall the softwate, Visual Studio went back to correct grey out;

Recommended? No. I uninstalled the software after a few days.

Still looking for a decent C++ refactoring tool.

Modem Error: NO CARRIER

noreply@blogger.com (Guogang Hu) — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 01:44:00 +0000

What to check when you get "NO CARRIER" (numeric code: 3) error from Modem:

Verify Modem is connected to phone line properly;
Verify the phone number you are dialing works properly by calling this number using your phone, and verify that you hear: first ring tone, then the negotiation tone (yes, you should be able to hear the chirping sound over a regular phone);

If you can hear the negotiation tone, but frequently get "NO CARRIER" error, here is a solution:

Set modem register S7 to a longer timeout value. 50 is the default, you can set it to 120 (ATS7=120). Sometimes, you can set this timeout value through MODEM configuration GUI, you can find something like: "Cancel the call if not connected within __ seconds".

Firefox keep crashing -- a solution

noreply@blogger.com (Guogang Hu) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 22:19:00 +0000

Every couple of days, I will see my Firefox using 99% of CPU and crash.

I am a web developer. My Firefox has all sorts of add-ons: Abduction, Firebug, Html Validator, ScapBook, Screen grab!, Web Developer, YSlow. So, I do not need YSlow to know why my Firefox is slow and tend to crash.

I have an idea: how about start two instances of Firefox, one with all the add-ons and the other one clean. I will use the clean one for normal web browsing, and the fully loaded one with development. And, guess what, there is already someone who has done this and posted a blog about it: Firefox: Run a Regular and Development Profile at the Same Time. I used the solution, and it works perfectly.

Blue Screen Trying to Install Windows XP SP3

noreply@blogger.com (Guogang Hu) — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 04:14:00 +0000

During last few months, I have been through a couple of Windows XP SP3 installation. They are mostly eventless. One of the worst was a computer that hung after reboot, but after a forced power recycle that system seem to be fine.

Just when I am about to conclude that Windows XP SP3 update is pretty good, I got the famous Blue Screen of Death.

While trying to install Windows XP SP3 on my computer, I got an "Access is denied" error message. So that was not too scary, I typed the error message along with keyword "Windows XP SP3" in Google and found an MSKB 949377 which provided a solution to this exact problem.

Now, following KB 949377, I downloaded full Windows XP SP3 package and subinacl.exe, and created Reset.CMD. But, I tried it 3 times, everytime I ran Reset.CMD, it gave me Blue Screen of Death with error message about registry access. So, I did another Google search with keywords: "windows xp sp3 access denied subinacl registry blue screen". Now "I'm feeling lucky". The first hit provides a solution that works perfectly for me. Here is link to Jason's blog post that solved my problem: http://www.mrfloppysa.com/wordpress/?p=13

The trick is to remove the HKLM line in RESET.CMD. The new RESET.CMD file would be like this:


cd /d "%ProgramFiles%\Windows Resource Kits\Tools"
REM subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CURRENT_USER /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f
subinacl /subdirectories %SystemDrive% /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f
subinacl /subdirectories %windir%\*.* /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f
secedit /configure /cfg %windir%\repair\secsetup.inf /db secsetup.sdb /verbose

How to Delete Broken Windows Service

noreply@blogger.com (Guogang Hu) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 23:42:00 +0000

As a developer who writes Windows Services, I sometimes get services registered with the source code and executables long gone (because I no longer work on that project). When it finally came the time to cleanup. I found it difficult to remove them from the registry without the original executables.

After a bit of Google, however, I found a useful tool: sc.exe (Service Controller Tool) come with Windows Resource Kit. This command line tool make deleting service very easy, just run:

sc.exe delete [service name]

Notice: the service name for the command line is not the same as "Name" you see in the list (this is usually the "Display Name"). You need to double click the service to open the properties page. And there you will find "Service Name".

C++/CLI Gotchas

noreply@blogger.com (Guogang Hu) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 23:05:00 +0000

C++/CLI is a hybrid monster. I am very green in the world of C++/CLI. Below are a few very stupid problems I have met.

Example 1: If you are writing unsafe code in C++/CLI with mixed managed code and unmanaged code, it proved to be more dangerous than plain old C++. Here are a few examples of using System::String together with char (C native data type). Without thorough understanding of the new .NET String class will create code that compiles perfectly but return unexpected results to you in run time.


String^ str = "";
char ch = 'a';
str += ch; //result: str="97", instead of "a", because it called ch.ToString()
str = gcnew String(&ch); //result: str="a@#!$%", because &ch is considered to be a string
str = gcnew String(&ch, 0, 1); //result: str="a" as expected.

Example 2: Visual Studio 2005 Debugger is a liar


int i;
i=1000;
... //all the code in between so that you forgot what is defined
for(int i=0; i < 3; i++)
{
    ...
}
int k = i++; //if you set a break here, Visual Studio Debugger will tell you i=4??!

I agree that the code above is stupid which is an artifact from trying to correct old VC++ code. But Debugger giving a wrong answer wouldn't help!

C++/CLI Warning C4945

noreply@blogger.com (Guogang Hu) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 23:17:00 +0000

Reason: This warning was generated because I referenced multiple C# projects in the C++/CLI project, and they all have "copy local" set to true.

Solution: Change reference to the C# projects, set all "copy local ..." properties to false.

A hotfix is available, which does not seem to be in SP1 as of 7/7/2008. So this fix probably will never be publicly available. This proves again C++/CLI is not on the top of TODO list for Visual Studio team.

Reference:
Microsoft KB 922271: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922271

Convert VC++6 to VC++7 -- (2)

noreply@blogger.com (Guogang Hu) — Thu, 08 May 2008 03:39:00 +0000

Below is a laundry list of the problems and solutions.

Compiler Error: fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'fstream.h': No such file or directory
Solution: change include from fsream.h to fstream, and add using namespace std;
Related problems: ios::nocreate and ios::noreplace are deprecated. ios::nocreate is replace by ios::in

CFile::ReadHuge() and CFile::WriteHuge() are obsolete. Use CFile::Read() and CFile::Write() instead.

Replace &afxChNil by empty string "".

Compiler Error:

error C2059: syntax error : '<'
error C2143: syntax error : missing ';' before '<'
error C2182: 'ConstructElements' : illegal use of type 'void'
error C2988: unrecognizable template declaration/definition

Solution: ConstructElements and DestructElements are deprecated. Remove definition of these functions. Ref: Microsoft KB 318734

WINVER default changed to 0x0501 (Windows XP). If your program still want to support Windows 2000, the the following line must be included in the project:
#define WINVER 0x0400

CPropetySheetEx, CPropertyPageEx are deprecated, they are included back to CPropertySheet and CPropertyPage.

CString s(45) no longer compiles. Because CString is changed to template based function with more constructors. This definition has ambiguous overloaded constructors. Change to CString s((TCHAR)45).

VC++7.1 has stricter type requirements. For example, conversion from HANDLE to int and uint is not allowed.

Compiler Error:
error C2668: 'sqrt' : ambiguous call to overloaded function
Solution:
sqrt, fabs, log and other CRT math functions support both double and float type now. An integer input to these functions will cause the error above.
Example:

int i = 10;
float f = sqrt(i); //error C2688
float f = sqrt((float)i); //compiles ok

Compiler Error:

error C2440: 'static_cast' : cannot convert from 'void (__thiscall XXXXXXXX::* )(void)' to 'void (__thiscall XXXXXX::* )(NMHDR *,LRESULT *)'

Solution:
Function signature of event handler OnKillfocus was changed from void Func(void) to void Func(NMHDR*, LRESULT*).

Convert VC++6 to VC++7 -- (1)

noreply@blogger.com (Guogang Hu) — Thu, 01 May 2008 07:34:00 +0000

VC++6 is a pretty solid product, which can still produce decent software in Windows XP. But Microsoft has decided to stop support for VC6 for about 2 years now. With the arrival of VS2008 and Windows Vista, it might finally be the time to convert those old projects that you still want to keep alive into a newer platform.

To start the conversion is really easy, just open the .dsp file in Visual Studio 2003. It will convert the project for you automatically, and generate the .vcproj and .sln files. If you are lucky, the next step is press F7 to build the solution and press F5 to run it, and you are done. Unfortunately, 90% of us will need to change the code to make it even compile. VC++6 is less standard compliant than VC++7 and there are some other breaking changes in VC++7.

This series will report problems I've seen when I convert a VC++6 project to VC++7 and some tips to help smooth the process.

Tip 1: for a project that is still actively maintained, during the conversion care must be taken so that changes do not break the software under VC++6. Use this to allow the code changes exists peacefully in VC++6:


#if _MSC_VER >=1500
    //this is VC++9.0 or above
#elif _MSC_VER >= 1400
    // this is VC++8.0
#elif _MSC_VER >= 1310
    // this is VC++7.1
#elif _MSC_VER > 1300
    // this is VC++7.0
#else
    //assume VC++6
#endif

ActiveSync Remote Display for Windows Mobile 5.0 Devices

noreply@blogger.com (Guogang Hu) — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:11:00 +0000

The Problem

"ActiveSync Remote Display" (ARD) version 2.03 does not support Windows Mobile 5.0. If a Windows Mobile 5.0 device is connected to a PC through ActiveSync, when you start the program, you will see a dialog with title: "Remote Display for Windows CE" and error message: "The OS or CPU of this device is unknown to this application". After you click OK,it will show another error dialog and a blank screen.

Work Around

To Enable ActiveSync Remote Display

Go to directory: C:\Program Files\Windows Mobile Developer Power Toys\ActiveSync_Remote_Display\devices\wce400\armv4
Copy the two files to the Windows directory on the mobile device.

To Use the ActiveSync Remote Display

Start the ARD program;

You will see the same error dialog as before, click "OK";

There will no longer be the second error dialog and you will see the screen shown on the PC or laptop;

After you are done, click on the ARD icon on the Mobile Device and select exit (if you simply close the remote display on the PC end, the ARD will still be running on the mobile device);

Embed Silverlight Streaming in Blogger

noreply@blogger.com (Guogang Hu) — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 04:54:00 +0000

I tried to post a video hosted on Microsoft Silverlight Streaming service in the previous post. This post will show you how to embed Silverlight in a Blogger post.

1. Source code to embed the video in Blogger post. Notice, since Blogger tend to insert <br/> for new lines, the Javascript segment has to be on a single line:


<script type="text/javascript" src="http://agappdom.net/h/silverlight.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">function CreateSilverlight() { Silverlight.createHostedObjectEx( { source:"streaming:/[account ID]/MovieTest", parentElement:Wrapper_MovieTest}); } </script>
<div id="Wrapper_MovieTest" style="width: 640px; height: 480px;"></div>
<script type="text/javascript">var Wrapper_MovieTest = document.getElementById("Wrapper_MovieTest"); CreateSilverlight(); </script>

2. manifest.xml (required for Microsoft Silverlight Streaming upload)


<SilverlightApp>
<source>Movie.xaml</source>
<version>1.1</version>
<width>100%</width>
<height>100%</height>
<enableHtmlAccess>true</enableHtmlAccess>
<jsOrder>
  <js>Movie.xaml.js</js>
</jsOrder>
</SilverlightApp>

3.Movie.xaml (stage layout)


<Canvas x:Name="movieCanvas"
      xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/client/2007"
      xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
      Width="640" Height="480" Background="White" MouseEnter ="mouseEnter"
      MouseLeave ="mouseLeave">

<MediaElement x:Name="movie" Source="Lake.wmv"/>
<Canvas MouseLeftButtonDown="moviePlay"
  Canvas.Left="10" Canvas.Top="365">
  <TextBlock Canvas.Left="5" Canvas.Top="5" Visibility="Collapsed" x:Name="playButton" Foreground="White">Play</TextBlock>
</Canvas>
<Canvas MouseLeftButtonDown="moviePause"
  Canvas.Left="70" Canvas.Top="365">
  <TextBlock Canvas.Left="5" Canvas.Top="5" Visibility="Collapsed" x:Name="pauseButton" Foreground="White">Pause</TextBlock>
</Canvas>
<Canvas MouseLeftButtonDown="movieStop"
  Canvas.Left="130" Canvas.Top="365">
  <TextBlock Canvas.Left="5" Canvas.Top="5" Visibility="Collapsed" x:Name="stopButton" Foreground="White">Stop</TextBlock>
</Canvas>
</Canvas>

4. Movie.xaml.js (event handler, logic)


function movieStop(sender, args) {
  sender.findName("movie").stop();
}
function moviePause(sender, args) {
  sender.findName("movie").pause();
}
function moviePlay(sender, args) {
  sender.findName("movie").play();
}

function mouseEnter(sender, args) {
  setControlVisibility(sender, "Visible");
}

function mouseLeave(sender, args) {
  setControlVisibility(sender, "Collapsed");
}

function setControlVisibility(sender, visibility) {
  sender.findName("playButton").visibility = visibility;
  sender.findName("stopButton").visibility = visibility;
  sender.findName("pauseButton").visibility = visibility;
}

Files 2-4 and the movie are added to a zip file and uploaded to the Microsoft Silverlight Streaming host.

P.S.
You might also be interested in the following previous posts:

If you like how the code snippets are formatted on this page, you might want to read my other post: Using SyntaxHighlighter on BLOGGER

Embedding Chart in Web Pages Made Easy

Microsoft Silverlight Streaming Service Test

noreply@blogger.com (Guogang Hu) — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 07:37:00 +0000

This is a test of Microsoft Silverlight Streaming -- a free service that provides 4GB online space for Silverlight application hosting. You will need Silverlight 1.1 or higher to see the content. Move mouse over the video to see the movie controls. Resources for this implementation: a video file from Windows Vista, Silverlight 1.1 SDK, Visual Studio Express (Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition), and a Microsoft Silverlight Streaming account.

"Newer Version" of GMail does not like Firefox

noreply@blogger.com (Guogang Hu) — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 00:27:00 +0000

It is hard to believe, but our old faithful Google is producing a newer version which is badder than the older version.

I am generally happy with Firefox. But after the "newer" version of GMail is out, I am forced to use IE more, because Firefox will crash on GMail before I can do anything. These are frequent places of crash:

- send a new email;
- browse trash or spam folder;
- close a tab with GMail;

After switch to the "older" version of GMail, the crash problem goes away immediately. Hopefully the next "newer" version of GMail will be a better one.

Embedding Chart in Web Pages Made Easy

noreply@blogger.com (Guogang Hu) — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 19:00:00 +0000

This week, embedding charts in your web page (either dynamic or static) is made extremely easy by the release of two new tools by Yahoo and Google. Both released free tools to help create chart online.

I am not sure if this is competition between Yahoo and Google or just coincidence. The two tools are released within the same week (this week):
YUI 2.4.0 released on 12/04/2007
Google Chart API released on 12/06/2007

The two tools actually complement each other.

Google Chart API:
Nothing can describe it better than the following text on their web site:

The Google Chart API lets you dynamically generate charts. To see the Chart API in action, open up a browser window and copy the following URL into it:
http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=p3&chd=s:hW&chs=250x100&chl=Hello|World
Press the Enter or Return key ...

Pros:
- absolutely the simplest and the easiest chart tool I have ever seen;
- there is no CPU overhead on your web server and client's computer;
Cons:
- may have problem serving chart over SSL (at least IE will complain about secure and non-secure content on the same page);
- chart is static, no user interaction;
- very limited control over chart's look and feel;
- can only show limited data range;
- can only show limited number of data points;
- your data has to be sent to a Google server, it may be a security concert;

Below is a sample chart serve by Google Chart API. It is the real thing! Served dynamically from Google's server farms! It takes me only 20 seconds to embed it into this blog.

Yahoo! User Interface Library (YUI):
YUI implementation is based on a Flash component. You will need to write JavaScript to control the data and look&feel on the Flash chart.
Pros:
- Rich user interaction (there is potential to allow user zoom, pan, or edit charts);
- More control over look and feel;
- Can show more data;
- Can be hosted on your own server (no worry about Google being BIG BROTHER or going BANKRUPT);
- Less Internet traffic is required (only need to download data, not PNG or any other image files);
- Can serve live data (again, only data download is needed, we can afford to update the chart frequently);
Cons:
- substantial JavaScipt programming and HTML editing is required;
- end user need to have Flash Player 9.0.45 or higher (not many people have that as on December 2007);
- end user's computer must have some spare CPU power, especially when multiple charts are embedded on the web page;

As an obvious proof of the difficulty to start using YUI, I am not willing to try to embed a sample chart here in my blog! :-(

The Verdict:
If you want a simple chart embedded on a static page or your blog, use Google Chart API.
If you have total control of your web server, and want to create powerful dynamic charts, use YUI 2.4.0's experimental chart component.

Last Words:
Of course, if you have enough server side CPU power and deep programming knowledge, server side chart rendering always give you ultimate control over the look and feel of your charts. On this end, you have these great open source libraries to help you: ZedGrap (C#), JFreeChart (Java), ASTRA (Flash).

Error Installing ActiveX in IE

noreply@blogger.com (Guogang Hu) — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 20:13:00 +0000

If an ActiveX component fails to install in IE, to find out the source of the problem, you just need to select IE menu: Tools > Internet Options, click "Settings" button in the "Browsing history" group, then click the "View files" button. There should be a file named like this: "?CodeDownloadErrorLog!name={XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX}". This is the error log that contains a bit more information to help find the source of installation failure. The above description is based on IE 7, you should be able to find similar options in other IE versions.

In my specific case, the error log looks like this:


*** Code Download Log entry (07 Nov 2007 @ 10:01:26) ***
Code Download Error: (hr = 800c0300) Unknown Error!!
Operation failed. Detailed Information:
...

...
LOG: Item mfc42.dll being processed.
ERR: INF Processing:  Failed (800c0300) processing: mfc42.dll
. Cannot get primary/default language!LOG: URL Download Complete: hrStatus:0, hrOSB:800c0300, hrResponseHdr:0, URL:(*****.CAB)
LOG: Reporting Code Download Completion: (hr:800c0300 (FAILED), CLASSID: e45975a1..., szCODE:(*****.cab), MainType:(null), MainExt:(null))

Below is the related section in the .inf file:


 [mfc42.dll]
 FileVersion=6,2,4131,0
 file=http://[Web Server]/libraries.cab
 RegisterServer=no
 DestDir=11

After I commented out the "FileVersion" parameter, the ActiveX component is installed successfully.


 [mfc42.dll]
 ;FileVersion=6,2,4131,0
 file=http://[Web Server]/libraries.cab
 RegisterServer=no
 DestDir=11

Since the problem only happens on Windows 2000 computers, and my development environment in Windows XP Pro. I suspect that the MFC42 library provided by me may not be compatible with Win2000. Or the MFC42 is already in use by Win2000, and Win2000 have difficulty upgrading to the newer version provided by me.

Reboot Remote Computer

noreply@blogger.com (Guogang Hu) — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 19:40:00 +0000

"Remote Desktop" makes it easy to manage Windows computers remotely.

But, if you want to reboot the remote computer, you will be frustrated. Because there is no "Shut Down" button on the start menu. The trick is to click on the "Windows Security" menu which will bring up the "Windows Security" dialog which gives you the options to "Shut Down..." computer. You can also use the shortcut: Ctrl+Del+End to access the "Windows Security" dialog.

Aptana Out of Beta: 1.0 Released

noreply@blogger.com (Guogang Hu) — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 20:11:00 +0000

Just noticed that Aptana has been out of beta. In the 2.0 era when everything stays "BETA" forever, this is a rare achievement.

In version 1.0, an open-source Community edition and a commercial Professional edition are available at the same time. The professional edition definitely deserves the nominal price it asked for. But as its name suggests, only professionals really have an urge for that edition. The free Community edition has enough features for 90 percent of its potential users.

My main IDE is still Visual Studio 2005. But the Javascript editor in Aptana is the best I ever seen. Its auto-complete is way better than even the latest Visual Studio 2008 Beta2.

JSLint with ANT

noreply@blogger.com (Guogang Hu) — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 23:44:00 +0000

jslint4java:

"This is a java wrapper around the fabulous tool by Douglas Crockford, jslint. It provides a simple interface for detecting potential problems in JavaScript code."

With this tool, batch scan JavaScript files with JSLint is a piece of cake. Here is a sample ANT target:


<target name="jslint.src.js" depends="init">
<description>scan javascript files using jslint</description>
<apply executable="java" parallel="false" failonerror="false">
  <arg value="-jar" />
  <arg file="${tools.dir}/${jslint}" />
  <arg value="--bitwise" />
  <arg value="--browser" />
  <arg value="--undef" />
  <arg value="--widget" />
  <srcfile />
  <sort xmlns:rcmp="antlib:org.apache.tools.ant.types.resources.comparators">
    <rcmp:name />
    <fileset dir="${web.js.dir}">
      <include name="**/*.js" />
      <exclude name="**/YUI/**" />
      <exclude name="**/*-min.js" />
      <exclude name="**/*-debug.js" />
    </fileset>
  </sort>
</apply>
</target>

For ease of future reference, JSLint output can be redirected to a text file:
ANT jslint.src.js > jslintreport.txt

YUI Compressor in ANT

noreply@blogger.com (Guogang Hu) — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 23:16:00 +0000

Here is a sample ANT target to batch minify all JavaScript files using YUI Compressor:


<target name="js.minify" depends="init">
<description>minify js files</description>
<apply executable="java" parallel="false" failonerror="true">
<arg value="-jar" />
<arg file="${tools.dir}/${yuicompressor}" />
<arg value="--nomunge" />
<!-- line break set at 20 characters, so that we can get many line breaks, this
   is good for debugging in IE-->
<arg value="--line-break" />
<arg value="20" />
<arg value="--preserve-strings" />
<arg value="--preserve-semi" />
<arg value="--charset" />
<arg value="ISO-8859-1" />
<arg value="-o" />
<targetfile />
<srcfile />
<!-- files are processed in alpha-order so that we can know the progress,
   and easily identify the file that is failed.-->
<sort xmlns:rcmp="antlib:org.apache.tools.ant.types.resources.comparators">
 <rcmp:name />
 <fileset dir="${src.dir}">
  <include name="**/*.js" />
  <exclude name="**/YUI/**" />
  <!-- avoid cycling -->
  <exclude name="**/*-min.js" />
 </fileset>
</sort>
<!-- define output file name -->
<mapper type="glob" from="*.js" to="*-min.js" />
</apply>
</target>

About YUI Compressor: it is a tool to minimize JavaScript and CSS files. I have used it for more 6 months on a public web site without any problem.

About ANT: I have been using APACHE ANT for 7 years, since 2001. To me, an ANT build file structure is more intuitive and scalable than MAKE files.

Apache Ant is a Java-based build tool. In theory, it is kind of like Make, but without Make's wrinkles.

This is the post that gets me started on this direction:
Building Web Applications With Apache Ant

Open Source File in Visual Studio 2005 with Auto-Complete

noreply@blogger.com (Guogang Hu) — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 23:08:00 +0000

Just discovered this convenient feature of Visual Studio. It is not well publicized by Microsoft, but I believe it is one of those hidden gems of VS2005.

If you type ">open" followed with the file name in the "Command Windows" or "Find/Command Box", Visual Studio will search the whole solution and try to auto-complete the file name for you (see screenshot below).

There are 2 other approaches to open a source file in VS2005: 1. use the open file dialog; 2. expand the solution tree and double click on the file of interest.

This feature is very useful when you have solution with many projects. If you can remember the file's name, this feature allow you to open a file in under 10 seconds. With the other 2 approaches, you will have to browse up and down the project trees to find the file.