Alexey Zakharov's Blog

My new blog is now hosted on posterous

Mon, 09 May 2011 03:44:00 GMT

My new blog is now hosted on posterous: http://zakharov.posterous.com

Im not writing about ms staff anymore... I have totally switched to open source technologies and now focused on HTML 5 web development using Ruby and Nodejs.

Fork me on github!

HTML 5 vs Silverlight : Sencha - The First HTML5 Mobile App Framework

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 12:43:00 GMT

While Microsoft Silverlight and Adobe Flex future on Apple iOS is still uncertain ExtJs released "The First HTML5 Mobile App Framework" called Sencha that works on both Apple iOS and Google Android touchscreen devices. Read more

How to use hosted versions of popular javascript libraries only after deployment in asp.net mvc

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 07:06:00 GMT

There is good website performance practice to use hosted version of popular javascript libraries such as jquery after deployment. However, while running application on local developer machine you’d better to use local version instead. In this post I will show you how you can solve this problem with ASP.NET MVC build in methods.

We have lauched our company's website

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 09:04:00 GMT

Hi guys,

Today we have launched our company's web site http://witcraft.ru.

Also I'd like to announce that my feed is also relocated. So my future posts will be here - http://witcraft.ru/blog or you can just subscribe on our feed - http://feeds.feedburner.com/witcraft.

We've got a lot to share about our development process, vision of web's future and experience with modern technologies such as Ruby on Rails, ASP.NET MVC, Silverlight, Mongo etc.

So bookmark it! Hot stuff would be here soon!

A strange bug of Blend 4 RC

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 18:38:00 GMT

We've been breaking our heads about a week because blend 4 RC stop showing visual states of controls in design view.

Here is the simple blend project with single button style inside app.xaml. Could anybody see visual states changes of this button style in blend?

Alternative Grid Layout for Silverlight suggestion

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 10:21:00 GMT

I've proposed a suggestion to create alternative grid layout for Silverlight. Please vote for it if also faced the same problems.

As i write before current Silverlight Grid Layout breakes best practices of HTML and Adobe Flex Grid layouts. Current defention based approach have following disadvantages that makes xaml coding very hard:

1. It is very hard to create new row. In that case you should rewrite
all Grid.Row and Grid.Columns for all rows inserted below.
2. Defenitions are static by their nature and because of it, it is
impossible to use grid for dynamic forms. Currently even in toolkit DataForm
Microsoft is using StackPanel. But StackPanel is not designed for multi
column layout that have dataform.
3. It is impossible to use Grid as ItemsPanel for ItemsControl

Here is a sample code of AdobeFlex datagrid, which incorporates best
practices of HTML.

<mx:Grid id="myGrid">

<mx:GridRow id="row1">
           
           <mx:GridItem>
               <mx:Button label="Button 1"/>
           </mx:GridItem>
           
           <mx:GridItem>
               <mx:Button label="2"/>
           </mx:GridItem>
           
           <mx:GridItem>
               <mx:Button label="Button 3"/>
           </mx:GridItem>
       </mx:GridRow>

<mx:GridRow id="row2">
           
           <mx:GridItem colSpan="3" horizontalAlign="center">
               <mx:Button label="Long-Named Button 4"/>
           </mx:GridItem>
       </mx:GridRow>

<mx:GridRow id="row3">
           
           <mx:GridItem/>
           
           <mx:GridItem colSpan="2" horizontalAlign="center">
               <mx:Button label="Button 5"/>
           </mx:GridItem>
       </mx:GridRow>

</mx:Grid>

Rapid convention based development of REST webservices for Silverlight

Mon, 19 Apr 2010 18:24:00 GMT

I've just published a small framework on codeplex, which allows rapidly create REST webservices for Silverlight applications. This framework is the first public component of our Silverlight Application Framework. You can read more about it in my article for SilverlightShow portal.

Silverlight Grid Layout is pain

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 17:56:00 GMT

I think one of the biggest mistake of Silverlight and WPF is its Grid layout.

Imagine you have a data form with 2 columns and 5 rows. You need to place new row after the first one. As a result you need to rewrite Grid.Rows and Grid.Columns in all rows belows.

But the worst thing of such approach is that it is static. So you need predefine all your rows and columns. As a result creating of simple dynamic datagrid or dataform become impossible...

So the question if why best practices of HTML and Adobe Flex were dropped????

If anybody have tried to port Flex Grid layout to silverlight please mail me or drop a comment.

Silverlight layout hack: Centered content with fixed maxwidth

Fri, 02 Apr 2010 16:45:00 GMT

Today we need to create centered content with fixed maxwidth. It is very easy to implement it for fixed width, but is not clear how to achieve the same for maxwidth.

The solution to the problem is Grid with 3 columns:

<Grid>

<Grid.ColumnDefenitions>

</Grid.ColumnDefenitions>

</Grid>

Huh... like html coding xaml coding is still full of dirty tricks =)

Silverlight web site for innovation business incubator of Chelyabinsk

Sat, 27 Mar 2010 11:43:00 GMT

Today we released Silverlight powered web site for innovation business incubator of Chelyabinsk. I hope you find it interesting!

File manager for Hyper-V Server

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 18:05:00 GMT

For all who are using Windows Hyper-V Server I want to recommend Far Manager for file managment. Perhaps it is the best file manager for this console only OS.

Silverlight Commands Hacks: Passing EventArgs as CommandParameter to DelegateCommand triggered by EventTrigger

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 06:19:00 GMT

Today I've tried to find a way how to pass EventArgs as CommandParameter to DelegateCommand triggered by EventTrigger. By reverse engineering of default InvokeCommandAction I find that blend team just ignores event args.

To resolve this issue I have created my own action for triggering delegate commands.

public sealed class InvokeDelegateCommandAction : TriggerAction<DependencyObject>
{
    /// <summary>
    ///
    /// </summary>
    public static readonly DependencyProperty CommandParameterProperty =
        DependencyProperty.Register("CommandParameter", typeof(object), typeof(InvokeDelegateCommandAction), null);

    /// <summary>
    ///
    /// </summary>
    public static readonly DependencyProperty CommandProperty = DependencyProperty.Register(
        "Command", typeof(ICommand), typeof(InvokeDelegateCommandAction), null);

    /// <summary>
    ///
    /// </summary>
    public static readonly DependencyProperty InvokeParameterProperty = DependencyProperty.Register(
        "InvokeParameter", typeof(object), typeof(InvokeDelegateCommandAction), null);

    private string commandName;

    /// <summary>
    ///
    /// </summary>
    public object InvokeParameter
    {
        get
        {
            return this.GetValue(InvokeParameterProperty);
        }
        set
        {
            this.SetValue(InvokeParameterProperty, value);
        }
    }

    /// <summary>
    ///
    /// </summary>
    public ICommand Command
    {
        get
        {
            return (ICommand)this.GetValue(CommandProperty);
        }
        set
        {
            this.SetValue(CommandProperty, value);
        }
    }

    /// <summary>
    ///
    /// </summary>
    public string CommandName
    {
        get
        {
            return this.commandName;
        }
        set
        {
            if (this.CommandName != value)
            {
                this.commandName = value;
            }
        }
    }

    /// <summary>
    ///
    /// </summary>
    public object CommandParameter
    {
        get
        {
            return this.GetValue(CommandParameterProperty);
        }
        set
        {
            this.SetValue(CommandParameterProperty, value);
        }
    }

    /// <summary>
    ///
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="parameter"></param>
    protected override void Invoke(object parameter)
    {
        this.InvokeParameter = parameter;

        if (this.AssociatedObject != null)
        {
            ICommand command = this.ResolveCommand();
            if ((command != null) && command.CanExecute(this.CommandParameter))
            {
                command.Execute(this.CommandParameter);
            }
        }
    }

    private ICommand ResolveCommand()
    {
        ICommand command = null;
        if (this.Command != null)
        {
            return this.Command;
        }
        var frameworkElement = this.AssociatedObject as FrameworkElement;
        if (frameworkElement != null)
        {
            object dataContext = frameworkElement.DataContext;
            if (dataContext != null)
            {
                PropertyInfo commandPropertyInfo = dataContext
                    .GetType()
                    .GetProperties(BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Instance)
                    .FirstOrDefault(
                        p =>
                        typeof(ICommand).IsAssignableFrom(p.PropertyType) &&
                        string.Equals(p.Name, this.CommandName, StringComparison.Ordinal)
                    );

                if (commandPropertyInfo != null)
                {
                    command = (ICommand)commandPropertyInfo.GetValue(dataContext, null);
                }
            }
        }
        return command;
    }
}

Example:

BTW: InvokeCommanAction CommandName property are trying to find command in properties of view. It very strange, because in MVVM pattern command should be in viewmodel supplied to datacontext.

Connect ViewModel and View using Unity

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 13:47:00 GMT

In this post i want to describe the approach of connecting View and ViewModel which I'm using in my last project.

The main idea is to do it during resolve inside of unity container. It can be achived using InjectionFactory introduced in Unity 2.0

public static class MVVMUnityExtensions
{
    public static void RegisterView<TView, TViewModel>(this IUnityContainer container) where TView : FrameworkElement
    {
        container.RegisterView<TView, TView, TViewModel>();
    }

    public static void RegisterView<TViewFrom, TViewTo, TViewModel>(this IUnityContainer container)
        where TViewTo : FrameworkElement, TViewFrom
    {
        container.RegisterType<TViewFrom>(new InjectionFactory(
            c =>
            {
                var model = c.Resolve<TViewModel>();
                var view = Activator.CreateInstance<TViewTo>();
                view.DataContext = model;
                return view;
            }
         ));
    }
}
}

And here is the sample how it could be used:

var unityContainer = new UnityContainer();

unityContainer.RegisterView<IFooView, FooView, FooViewModel>();

IFooView view = unityContainer.Resolve<IFooView>(); // view with injected viewmodel in its datacontext

Please tell me your prefered way to connect viewmodel and view.

Disable Visual Studio XAML Designer better way.

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 07:41:00 GMT

In my previous posts I've already written about disabling XAML Designer in Visual Studio 2010, but i find that way very bad, because in spite of we will see only XAML code, XAML designer would also try to render. Much better and simple way is it to open your xaml with "open with" option and choose " xml editor" instead of "xml editor chooser" and then set it as default option. In this case XAML designer won't try to render and all those ugly lags will go away.

AnonymousComparer - lambda compare selector for Linq

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 06:52:00 GMT

One guy from Japan created a very cool linq extension. It is called AnonymousComparer, which allows to use Func instead of annoying IEqualityComparer.

    var anonymous = new[] 
    {
        new { Foo = "A", Key = 10 },
        new { Foo = "B", Key = 15 }
    };
    // true
    anonymous.Contains(new { Foo = "dummy", Key = 10 }, a => a.Key);

Subscribe RSS with your own language with Google Reader

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 06:41:00 GMT

Today I find a very interesting blog, but the bad thing was that it is in Japanese. The great i thing i discover for myself is that i can subscribe this rss in my own language with google reader.

TileMode feature request for Silverlight 4

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 16:54:00 GMT

After using of SL 4 beta I found that there is still no tilemode support in imagebrush.

This feature is extreamely useful when u want to fill some area with image pattern like wood, steel or some other material. HTML CSS supports this from the ancient time with repeat-x property and that was really bad surprise for us when we find it missing in Silverlight.

One guy have already reported this feature in Silverlight Feature Request Web site

I hope that you, my readers will join me and vote for this feature.

New article for SilverlightShow: Deep Dive Into Silverlight Services Part 2: Serialization on the speed of light with Google Protocol Buffers

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 18:26:00 GMT

I've written new article for SilverlightShow.net. In this article I’ve showed how you can use ASP.NET MVC and Google Protocol Buffers to create fast and scalable REST services. Enjoy!

We launched our first commercial silverlight rich internet application : house hotel project

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 13:07:00 GMT

Today we launched our first commercial Silverlight rich internet application called house hotel.

House hotel is silverlight powered web site created for promotion of mini hotel based in Chelyabinsk.

Also I'd like to announce that our company are currently looking for new orders on silverlight rich internet applications. If you need or know the people who needs silverlight application or silverlight powered web site please contact us.

Disable XAML Designer in Visual Studio 2010

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 06:04:00 GMT

In visual studio 2010 Silverligh XAML designer is visible by default. For me it is totally useless and only require additional machine resources.

Also I think it will never provide functionality close to Blend.

So I recommend everybody to turn it off.

You can do it by selection following option:

Always open documents in full XAML view under Tools -> Options -> Text Editor -> XAML -> Miscellaneus