Web Developer Tools you can't live without...

eilsoe.nospam@nospam.in2software.dk (wwwizard) — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 16:25:00 +0100

Below you'll find links to a lot of tools that will help you write better code faster.
Tools I've been collecting during the years of my programming life.
The faster you write code, the more money you earn!

I would like to share these tools with you.
Some are free and some are not.
I'll give you a short description of each tool, but you'll have to learn how to use them yourself.

IE WebDeveloper Toolbar:
Is a free plugin for Internet Explorer from Microsoft.
Features:

Explore and modify the document object model (DOM) of a Web page.
Locate and select specific elements on a Web page through a variety of techniques.
Selectively disable Internet Explorer settings.
View HTML object class names, ID's, and details such as link paths, tab index values, and access keys.
Outline tables, table cells, images, or selected tags.
Validate HTML, CSS, WAI, and RSS Web feed links.
Display image dimensions, file sizes, path information, and alternate (ALT) text.
Immediately resize the browser window to a new resolution.
Selectively clear the browser cache and saved cookies. Choose from all objects or those associated with a given domain.
Display a fully featured design ruler to help accurately align and measure objects on your pages.
Find the style rules used to set specific style values on an element.
View the formatted and syntax colored source of HTML and CSS.

PositionIsEverything.net:
As a webdeveloper you are familar with the hassle og designing webpages for different browsers.
This tool comes in very handy with hundreds og hacks and workarounds.

I'll also recommend these sites:
QuirksMode.org
HTMLDog.com

Browsershots:
Makes screenshots of your website in different browsers.
It is a free open-source service started by Johann C. Rocholl.
When you enter your URL, it will be put in the queue for "treatment".
A certain number of distributed computers will open your website in their browser.
Then they will take screenshots of your site and uploading them to the central server.
It's a must have tool for front end developers.

Refractor for ASP.NET:
Offers a comprehensive suite of tools that enable you to simplify and shape complex code and HTML markup.
Making your web applications easier to read and less costly to maintain.

dotTrace:
If you don't messure your code with a good profiler you are missing important metrics and a clear understanding of what your code is doing.

Profilers measure how many times each line in your code is hit and how long it takes to execute that line.
You'll be surprised how fast code you can write using this tool.

ISAPI_Rewrite from Hellicon:
Is a powerful URL manipulation engine based on regular expressions.
It acts mostly like Apache's mod_Rewrite, but is designed specifically for Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS).
ISAPI_Rewrite is an ISAPI filter written in pure C/C++ so it is extremely fast.
ISAPI_Rewrite gives you the freedom to go beyond the standard URL schemes and develop your own scheme.

Online Code Converter from Telerik:
Is a free and simple VB to C# and C# to VB code converter.
While there are several other good code converters available, none are perfect.
Some are buried in busy websites. Some are awkward to use. Some just don't convert accurately!
Code Converter, while not yet perfect, aims to address these issues and provide the best free .NET converter available on the web.

Reflector:
Enables you to easily view, navigate, and search through, the class hierarchies of .NET assemblies, even if you don't have the code for them.
With it, you can decompile and analyze .NET assemblies in C#, Visual Basic, and IL.

Process Explorer:
Have you ever wondered which program has a particular file or directory open?
Now you can find out.
Process Explorer shows you information about which handles and DLLs processes have opened or loaded.

That all for now!
Happy Coding :0)

GridView with fixed row height - FIXED!

eilsoe.nospam@nospam.in2software.dk (wwwizard) — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 23:50:00 +0100

How can something that should be so easy, be so difficult ???

If you have tried to use a Gridview, where some of the columns contains a lot of text. You maybe know what I am talking about ...
You get some very high rows who are destroying the entire design of your page.
To be honest, it looks like crap!

Here's an example:

And that's only 2 rows!
Microsoft please - give us a fixed rowheight!
Believe me when I say that it doesn't help to set the height to 20 or 15 pixels.
GridView is totally indifferent :0(

If you only have to use your Gridview with a single table the solution is very simple.
Connect your grid view with a datasource, so you get your columns delivered free of charge.
Transform your columns into TemplatedFields. Now you can wrap the whole package into a div and hide the overflowing text, as shown in the code below.

<asp:TemplateField>

</div>

</asp:TemplateField>

But when you do not know in advance which table your Gridview will be associated with, you immediately have problems.
Problems like this should be solved just by setting a rowheight property to 15px.

Well, I began to look for a solution on the web and discovered that I certainly was not alone with my problem.
After 2½ hours of surfing I gave up - there were apparently no one who had solved this problem ...

Very frustrated, I began to think - sometimes that really helps - my experience with the gridview told me that it is in RowDataBound event things are happening.
Hmmm - we have a whole row filled with cells, what if we take the text out of each cell and put a Label in there instead, put some styles on the label and then we paste the text into our new label.

It is worth a try !

Protected Sub gvTable_RowDataBound(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.Web.UI.WebControls.GridViewRowEventArgs) Handles gvTable.RowDataBound

If e.Row.RowType = DataControlRowType.DataRow Then
     For Each tc As TableCell In e.Row.Cells
          Dim l As New Label
          l.Height = 15
          l.Style.Add("Overflow-y", "hidden")
          l.Text = tc.Text
          tc.Text = ""
          tc.Controls.Add(l)
Next

End If

End Sub

Yes Yes Yes it works!

But it would be really nice if we could read the text in a tooltip, so let's try again:

Protected Sub gvTable_RowDataBound(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.Web.UI.WebControls.GridViewRowEventArgs) Handles gvTable.RowDataBound

End If

End Sub

I think we are just about there ...

Now our Grid View like this:

That is certainly something nicer.

So it still ended up being a nice day: 0)

In2Code - Blog

Web Developer Tools you can't live without...

GridView with fixed row height - FIXED!