Claus Konrad Blog

Friday, November 14

WPF HyperLink Controls

Been toying around with the “coaster” WPF only to learn that no HyperLink control is present! Come on – what’s that about?
Well - it can by created by nesting 3 controls like this simple construct using the System.Windows.Documents.HyperLink control:

         <!--"Hyperlink" control (copy to clipboard)-->
         <TextBlock>
            <Hyperlink Click="Hyperlink_Click">
                <TextBlock ToolTip="Copy to Clipboard...">Copy</TextBlock>
            </Hyperlink>
        </TextBlock>

Pure and simple. It could be wrapped into a WPF-control if you wish, but then again…

Tuesday, November 4

Hejlsberg: “The Future of C#”

Just a quick note here: http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/TL16/

A darn interesting talk on the C#-programming language by my fellow countryman Mr. Hejlsberg. Be aware it last entire 70 minutes!

Tuesday, October 28

Fading effect in IE

I’ve always been puzzled on how to make the “fading” effect that you now and then stumble into when browsing the web using IE.

It turns out to be darn simple! Enter this metatag between the <head></head> tags in the webpage and you are good to go!

<meta http-equiv="Page-Enter" content="BlendTrans(Duration=3.0)">

Saturday, October 18

Design Myth: Exceptions are for "Exceptional Errors"

Just came across this post from Kryztof that I'm completely in sync with! People tend to be too afraid of Exceptions as something of a big bad wolf. Exceptions are just means for the Server to communicate to the Client, that it is unable to fulfill the promise exposed in the “contracts” (method). No more...

That it might be “heavy” to instantiate an “Exception”-object; I don’t buy that at all. And even more so if we are talking webservices that by design are “slow”. If it presents a problem to you – go buy a faster processor or some more RAM on the machine. The hardware limitations should not affect proper software design, that is for sure!

Link: http://blogs.msdn.com/kcwalina/archive/2008/07/17/ExceptionalError.aspx

Wednesday, October 15

Passed 70-504 TS: Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 – Windows Workflow Foundation Application Development

So finally – this exam is under the belt as well. It was actually harder than I expected asking some pretty exoteric questions about Custom Activity Development and IPendingWork interfaces that you do not use all that frequently.

The Rule-engine of WF is asked extensively so know how to build the rules “by hand” and understand how to read the rules found in the .rules files (xml-document). In addition – know how to expose and consume webservices from/to a workflow. Understand how to communicate with the workflow from the host (events), and the other way around (method calls). The signature of types used for communication is also quite important to understand.

Know what services are added to WFRuntime by default and what they do to the runtime.

The exam lasts 240 minutes and consists of 53 questions.

Tuesday, October 7

Windows Live Messenger and Flash: No good idea!

If you experience that your windows live messenger suddenly stops working with a blank screen, you might want to uninstall your flash player.
Goto Control Panel – “Uninstall or change program” and uninstall Adobe Air and Adobe Air .

For some reason, it affects the Windows Live Messenger application. Wonder if they are using Flash behind the scenes (where is silverlight then?)

Tuesday, September 23

Visual SourceSafe 2005 and Visual Studio 2005/2008

I am using VSS2005 as source control system for private projects.
To make sure you are actually running on the latest bits – it is sometimes desirable to open the projects directly from VSS over your own harddisk. To enable this trick – you need to install a hotfix to VS2005/2008. Without it, some features like "Open from Source Control" will not work at all.

How to:

Download this: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=FAF41EDD-924D-449F-AEFC-9C86DD499720&displaylang=en
and install the bits.

Don’t worry it says CTP – it still works like a charm!

From another blog:
”Why does SourceSafe need an update anyway? Aren't VS plugin interfaces supposed to be backwards compatible? Yes, they are. In fact, there are no changes to the MSSCCI API in 2008; none of the fixes are related to MSSCCI. (3rd party source control developers can now breathe a sigh of relief). The changes come from the way SourceSafe implements Open from Source Control, Add to Source Control, and Share inside Visual Studio. Starting in VSS 2005, these functions let you browse the database inside VS's open/add dialogs instead of hanging off the File -> Source Control menu like most other source control providers. ”