.NET, Universe and Everything according to Dirk

Some Design Tips

Dirk — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:28:00 +1100

I recently came across a couple of interesting summaries regarding web design techniques and tools. I'm posting them here as a note to self.

8 Layout Solutions To Improve Your Designs: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/05/19/8-layout-solutions-to-improve-your-designs/
55+ Extremely Useful Online Generators for Designers: http://www.balkhis.com/web-designs-resources/55-extremely-useful-online-generators-for-designers/

Using HttpModules on IIS7 in Integrated Mode

Dirk — Wed, 20 May 2009 23:10:07 +1100

HttpModules are a convenient way of hooking into the ASP.NET request lifecycle. You need to implement a simple interface (IHttpModule) and register it in the web.config of your application. In IIS6 and IIS7 with your application in Classic Mode you need to add the entries to the system.web/httpModules section.

For IIS7 in Integrated Mode, however, you need to add the entries to a different section: system.webServer/modules. If you encounter the problem that your HttpModules mysteriously fail to execute when running your application on IIS7 with the application in Integrated Mode, then the most likely cause is that your HttpModules are still in the system.web/httpModules section.

If you need to run your application both on II6 (or IIS7 in Classic Mode) and II7, then you need to add the module registrations to both the system.web/httpModules and the system.webServer/modules sections. Additionaly, you need to add <validation validateIntegratedModeConfiguration="false" /> to the system.webServer section; otherwise IIS7 in Integrated Mode will throw an error because of the entries in system.web/httpModules.

How to send Ctrl+Alt+Del to a Windows terminal session

Dirk — Tue, 05 May 2009 16:48:00 +1100

Every so often, you need to send Ctrl+Alt+Del to a Windows terminal session. Blindly hitting those keys with the actived terminal window, however, will bring up the Windows Security window (the "Ctrl+Alt+Del Window") of your local machine, not that of the remote machine. My usual reaction in those cases used to be cursing Microsoft for their lack of consideration and giving up in disgust.

No more, though: some time ago, a colleague whose name has disappeared in the recesses of my mind showed me how to do this: press Ctrl+Alt+End. It's probably no coincidence that the "End" key is located just to the right of the "Del" key on a traditional keyboard layout.

Inheriting your ASP.NET Pages and Controls from a Generic Base Class

Dirk — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 18:35:00 +1100

I have wanted to be able to inherit my ASP.NET pages and controls from a generic base class a couple of times in the past. I can of course make the page derive from a generic base class in the code behind file, but then I end up with lots of code behind files whose only purpose in life it is to derive the page or control from that base class.

XAML makes this possible using the x:TypeArguments="..." attribute off the Window or Control element: the type(s) declared in TypeArguments will be used as generic type parameters for the class defined in the x:Class="..." attribute.

Up until now, I thought this was impossible in ASP.NET. Thanks to a post by Scott Guthrie (ASP.NET MVC Design Gallery and Upcoming View Improvements with the ASP.NET MVC Release Candidate) I now know better: the exact procedure is described in another post by Tim Barcz (Strongly-Typed ViewData Without A Codebehind):

<%@ Page Language="C#"

MasterPageFile="~/Views/Shared/Site.Master"

Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage`1[[ABCCompany.MVC.Web.Models.LoginData, ABCCompany.MVC.Web]]" %>

A couple of caveats here:

The "`1[[" does not start with a straight apostrophe, but rather a single left quote (the key to the left of the "1/!" key on a querty keyboard).
Don't forgot to delete the designer-generated code file, and probably the code behind file too (it is just empty, isn't it?)
ReSharper doesn't like this notation

FxCopCmd and global suppressions

Dirk — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 10:36:00 +1100

At the customer I'm currently working for, there's a continuous build system in place, which is great. Some weeks ago we integrated FxCop / Code Analysis into the process and synchronized the rule set between server and Visual Studio, which is also great. What puzzled me, though, is the fact that the warnings we decided to suppress showed up again on the build report.

A bit of internet research turned up this thread on Microsoft's MSDN forums: FxCopCmd and global suppressions. The relevant quote:

Suppressions are only emitted to the binary if the CODE_ANALYSIS preprocessor directive is defined. If you invoke FxCop using the IDE or via the msbuild task this happens automatically. However, if you do your own build and kick off FxCopCmd.exe manually, you need to make sure that the configuration that you're analyzing has CODE_ANALYSIS defined.

It's important to note that merely defining the CODE_ANALYSIS preprocessor directive will not kick of FxCop during your build in Visual Studio - That's good if you want to keep your build fast in Visual Studio.