Zuker On Foundations

Wcf Contrib v2 - New Release - August 2009

Amir Zuker — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 22:16:00 GMT

It's been ages since my last post, I feel so bad about it.
I've been swamped at work, I hope I will get the blogging frenzy again soon :)

Don't forget this is my old blog though! I post here only on WcfContrib, for my new blog make sure you visit my current blog.

I'm very glad to announce a new release of WcfContrib!

New stuff:

    * Client Channel - Closes channels asynchronously after invoking O/W operations (Check the post WCF OneWay - Abort or Not regarding why)
    * Service Extensions - Mocking & Tracing with the ability to trigger from the client side
    * Configuration-less Services
    * Integrated Endpoint and Binding Boosting - Service and Client side
    * Enhanced Helpers

Go have a look, recommended :)

WCF Contrib - A new release, May 2009

Amir Zuker — Sat, 02 May 2009 22:26:00 GMT

This release delivers a better packaged assembly.
XML documentation was added, showcases don't require password for compiling the solution (because of the key file)

Context extensions were added - Session and Call carried items similar to ASP.NET.

Wcf Contrib

WCF Contrib - Packaging

Amir Zuker — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 06:22:00 GMT

There was a problem with the zipped archive with the showcases (In the Downloads section)
It was fixed, please download it again if you wish.

WCF Contrib

Amir Zuker — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 22:00:00 GMT

I no longer update this blog, blog has moved Here.

I decided to post here also about the release of WCF Contrib.

There are a log of useful extensions and components for you to use with WCF communications, be sure to check it out.

There's a lot to come in future releases too.

Blog has Moved!

Amir Zuker — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 14:12:00 GMT

My blog has moved!

Please invest a couple of minutes to update your feed subscription.

The new location:
http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/zuker

Syndication link: http://feeds.feedburner.com/ZukerOnFoundationsMs

See you there ;)

SQL Reporting Services - Query Report Server

Amir Zuker — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 15:11:00 GMT

It took me quite a while to find a proper example of how to communicate with SQL Reporting Services in order to execute a specific report, I though I might share it.

We have Report Server 2008 installed over SQL Server 2005.
I needed to extract data of a specific report in runtime (desired output in my case - XML).

I found 2 suitable ways of doing so:

1) Use ReportExecution2005 Service

SQL Reporting Services include the following:

ReportService2005 - A service which exposes the realm of the entire reports
ReportService2006 - Represents the SharePoint integration mode

ReportExecution2005 - A service used to execute reports - my main focus.

TalkWithWs() method in the attached project illustrates the use of the ReportExecution2005 service.

2) Use the Report Server ReportViewer page directly

This is a very easy way to extract the data.

I could extract any report's data through the ReportViewer page, E.g.
http://<Server>/<ReportServer Instance>/Pages/ReportViewer.aspx?%2fSandBox%2fadv_testforAmir&rs:Command=Render&rs:Format=xml

This will yield the XML data for the following report path: /SandBox/adv_testforAmir

Very clean and handy.

This mechanism also support parameters (through the QueryString)

The source code is attached.
In order to view the attached files, make sure you enter the specifc post page.

WPF Popups and ToolTip Behavior - Implementation

Amir Zuker — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 13:24:00 GMT

In continuation to my first post -
WPF Popups and ToolTip behavior - A Journey

I decided to approach the implementation of such a popup like the ToolTip and ContextMenu are doing it themselves.
I did not inherit from Popup but rather created my own control and I used the Popup.CreateRootPopup which sets the Popup.Child property to my control and it picks up on all the ToolTipService properties defined on my control.

I started from reading the following post:
Popup your control

There were some problems with this pattern though, I had to overcome these with quite many event hooking which I'm not very happy about. At least it works for now :)

There is a way to improve the implementation, I could use mouse capturing but that introduced another set of problems so I left it as it is for the time being.

I will post my solution soon enough.

LINQ to XML - XElement - Descendants vs. Elements

Amir Zuker — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 13:18:00 GMT

Someone asked me what the difference between descendants and elements is, I thought I'd post the details here for common interest.

Descendants will yield you elements of your choice from the entire source element sub-tree, whereas Elements will yield the child elements only.

E.g.

string xml = @"
                <Root>
                    <Item>
                        <id>1</id>
                    </Item>
                    <Item>
                        <id>2</id>
                    </Item>
                    <Item>
                        <id>3</id>
                        <Items>
                            <Item>
                                <id>5</id>
                            </Item>
                            <Item>
                                <id>6</id>
                            </Item>
                        </Items>
                    </Item>
                    <Item>
                        <id>4</id>
                    </Item>
                </Root>";

            XDocument doc1 = XDocument.Parse(xml);

            var q1 = from e in doc1.Root.Descendants("Item")
                     select e;

            var q2 = from e in doc1.Root.Elements("Item")
                     select e;

            int c1 = q1.Count(); //6
            int c2 = q2.Count(); //4

WPF Popups and ToolTip behavior - A Journey

Amir Zuker — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 10:04:00 GMT

I am currently working on a WPF project which I needed a ToolTip with a certain behavior:

It should act like a ToolTip
Support content template
Appear upon hovering with a small interval
Appear once - hovering another element with a tooltip should hide the last shown tooltip.
Support Rich Content

The latter is marked as bold since that was the essential requirement that made me not use the ordinary WPF ToolTip.

I needed the ToolTip to hold rich content - such as clickable buttons.
This also implicates that I wanted the ToolTip to remain shown until either one of the following

The window was moved/size changed
The window was deactivated (E.g. Alt+Tab)
A click was made outside the boundary of the shown tooltip
Otherwise - Keep being shown! - Unsupported by the built-in ToolTip.

I went over and examined my possibilities along with my close friend Aelij Arbel who worked together with me on this.
The options we were considering are as follows:

1) Built-in ToolTip - As indicated above - unsuitable.

2) Context Menu - The behavior I was looking for resembled the Context-Menu behavior, so I thought about perhaps I could template the Context menu to look like I wanted and try to change it's core Right-Click functionality but it turned out to be quite complicated and I'm unsure it's possible.

3) Use Popup - Popup is a great thing. It allows you to place content apart from the window Visual Tree - floating.
It supports most of the ToolTip placement properties which I needed - Let the popup control the placement positioning, take a lot of pain off my back.

Obviously, the third way appeared to be the best way to go.

Good news - Popups did do the trick I needed. However, they wouldn't work properly in some cases.
Unfortunately, bad news - It didn't in my case.

I attached a project sample showing some behavior disfunctions in the Popup, just so you see for yourself there are issues with that.

That was the starting point of my journey - I was going to create such RichToolTipPopup behavior that would be supported in every case!

I will post about my solution in the following days.

In order to view the attached files, make sure you enter the specifc post page.

The MetadataExchangeClient has resolved more than MaximumResolvedReferences

Amir Zuker — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 09:28:00 GMT

This error was resulted in a specific scenario where I tried to pull a service metadata using .NET MetadataExchangeClient.

The reason was that the metadata consisted with more metadata references than the limit defined on my MEXClient instance. (The default is 10)

Solution - Increase the limit.

MetadataExchangeClient mexClient = new MetadataExchangeClient();
mexClient.MaximumResolvedReferences = MaximumResolvedReferences; //some constant

PyBinding MarkupExtension: use Python statements for Data Binding

Amir Zuker — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 07:56:00 GMT

A very nice extension built for WPF, Read the full details Here.

E.g. -

Very cool!

NDepend

Amir Zuker — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 10:18:00 GMT

I finally had the chance to look into the NDepend tool.

In short:

"NDepend is a tool that simplifies managing a complex .NET code base. Architects and developers can analyze code structure, specify design rules, plan massive refactoring, do effective code reviews and master evolution by comparing different versions of the code."

I decided to NDepend a component assembly written in our project - the output was very cool.
I was able to see the analyzing reports. There's a lot of information exposed there.

You can use that tool to extract practical development practices and potential improvements that should be made.
Moreover, you can use CQL (Code Query Language) to execute queries against the actual code and examine whatever you wish, sweet!

To sum things up, my experience with the tool had been very positive and I do see potential usage in utilizing development practices with this tool.

Very cool

Making Ajax calls to server using PageMethods and Session_End

Amir Zuker — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 13:36:00 GMT

We were working on a project where there was used the ajax pattern of PageMethods in order to call to the server.

We experienced a weird behavior where calling the operation marked as WebMethod (required to be called as part of the PageMethods) caused weird occurrences in the Session_End global event handler.

After dwelling into it, we found that the issue was solved once we enabled the session state in the WebMethod attribute.

I thought it might be worth sharing.

Enabling cross-domain calls for Silverlight on self-hosted WCF services

Amir Zuker — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 05:53:00 GMT

Read the full details Here.

Carlos came up with an elegant way to enable cross domain calls from silverlight to self hosted WCF service.

Such calls requires the server to allow cross site scripting which is done by placing a settings XML file in the web site root.
But what about the cases where you self host a service in a process and you're not in the context of a web site root?

Well, that's what the post is about.

UpdatePanels, RadioButtons, UpdateProgresses and AutoPostBacks

Amir Zuker — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 13:37:00 GMT

(or, why my RadioButton which has AutoPostBack=”true” actually doesn’t display my UpdateProgress or even perform a PostBack at all?!)

My fellow colleague Yitzhak Steinmetz has been playing around with Ajax capabilities and controls.

He came across some interesting scenarios, I was allowed to post his details here in my blog, so here it is:

While writing a webpage, I ran into an interesting (gently phrased) quirk with ASP.NET AJAX.

To simplify the problem, imagine the following scenario:

I have 2 RadioButtons, an UpdatePanel, and an UpdateProgress on a page. The RadioButtons are outside the UpdatePanel, but are supposed to trigger a partial PostBack of the UpdatePanel, and of course display the UpdateProgress.

My code (relevant parts) looks like this:

Defauls.aspx.cs

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (this.IsPostBack)
Thread.Sleep(3000);

this.lblTime.Text = DateTime.Now.ToLongTimeString();
}

Defauls.aspx

<asp:ScriptManager ID="ScriptManager1" runat="server" />

<asp:RadioButton ID="btn1" runat="server" Text="1" GroupName="MyGroup1" AutoPostBack="true" Checked="true" />

<asp:RadioButton ID="btn2" runat="server" Text="2" GroupName="MyGroup1" AutoPostBack="true" />

<asp:UpdateProgress ID="MyUpdateProgress" runat="server" AssociatedUpdatePanelID="MyUpdatePanel">

<h1>Loading</h1>

</ProgressTemplate>

</asp:UpdateProgress>

<asp:UpdatePanel ID="MyUpdatePanel" runat="server" ChildrenAsTriggers="false" UpdateMode="Conditional">

<asp:Label ID="lblTime" runat="server" />

</ContentTemplate>

<asp:AsyncPostBackTrigger ControlID="btn1" EventName="CheckedChanged" />

<asp:AsyncPostBackTrigger ControlID="btn2" EventName="CheckedChanged" />

</Triggers>

</asp:UpdatePanel>

Run this code and you’ll see a few unexpected behaviours:

The UpdatePanel performs a partial a PostBack only when clicking the second RadioButton and the UpdateProgress is never displayed (even when we do perform a partial PostBack).

Clicking the second RadioButton, we see that after 3 seconds the time on the page chages. If now we click the first RadioButton, nothing happens, and if we click the second RadioButton again, nothing happens.

Removing the Checked="true" from the first RadioButton solves the PostBack issue, but still doesn’t display the UpdateProgress. This isn’t really a solution, since we want the RadioButton to be checked when the page initlaly loads.

In come smarx.com with a simple, yet annoying solution (the annoying part isn’t their fault J):

Adding the following code to your page (with minor relevant changes) will display the UpdatePanel correctly (If adding this script the way it is doesn’t work, try adding a handler for OnLoad of the <body> element and pasting it in there):

Sys.WebForms.PageRequestManager.getInstance().add_beginRequest(function(sender, args)

{

var postBackElementID = args.get_postBackElement().id;

if (postBackElementID == '<%= this.btn1.ClientID %>')

{

$find('<%= this.uprogPageContents.ClientID %>').get_element().style.display = 'block';

return;

}

if (postBackElementID == '<%= this.btn2.ClientID %>'))

{

$find('<%= this.uprogPageContents.ClientID %>').get_element().style.display = 'block';

return;

}

</script>

This solution solves the UpdatePanel issue, but still doesn’t solve the issue with the first RadioButton not posting back to the server.

After much research and a few conults, the only solution I found to this issue is moving both RadioButtons into the UpdatePanel (you can give up on the earlier mentioned handler if you implement this).

Please note that the second solution is needed only in the case of a RadioButton outside of the UpdatePanel. If you have a different control outside the UpdatePanel (a button for instance), you can leave it where it is and simply add the script mentioned in the first solution.

I know this solution isn’t perfect, but it’s the best I could find.

If you can do better, please leave a comment.

P.S.

Credit should be given to 2 posts which set me on the path to the solutions (I recommend reading them for further understanding):

The UpdateProgress solution

The AutoPostBack solution