FarPoint Forums

Input Pro for Silverlight June 2009 is released!

Jimmy — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 07:08:00 GMT

Several days ago we released Input Pro for Silverlight June 2009 - the first official release of this product. We believe this powerful input control suite will greatly enhance the input experience of your Silverlight applications and make the task of receiving and validating data from end users much easier.

We've added several important features and fixed some bugs since the preview version was released. One of such features is the new FpElasticSlider control:

It is the one used to change the edit value in date time and numeric controls. Unlike the standard slider control defining value range, FpElasticSlider controls the rate of change by firing Updating events in a frequency specified by the ball's offset from midpoint. The more offset, the more frequent. This makes the end users be able to easily change a value to a desired value by sliding. If you want to have a try, go to the demo page.

Another useful new feature is validation states. Users can use MaxValue and MinValue to define the data range of Input Pro controls, or handle Validating event to do custom validation. When validation fails, the control will enter invalid state:

We also added an AutoDropDown feature for date time controls. When you edit the text portion of date time controls, the calendar can automatically pop up and sync with the value change.

Here I just list some of the new features. See more info about the product, check out Input Pro for Silverlight.

Win a Trip to PDC!

donald — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:49:00 GMT

INETA is sponsoring the INETA Component Code Challenge, with the winner receiving a scholarship to PDC 2009 in Los Angeles, CA. All you need to do is build the best application using Spread and another component.

The Details:
Build a .NET Application (WinForms, ASP.NET, WPF, Silverlight, Compact Framework, etc.) using at least 2 components from at least 2 different approved vendors (yes, FarPoint is an approved vendor) then make a 3-5 minute Camtasia video showing your entry and describing what components you used and why your application is cool. Our judges will review the submissions and the best two will win a scholarship to PDC 2009 in Los Angeles, CA, including air fare, hotel, and conference pass. The submission deadline is 08/25/2009 at Midnight Eastern and the winners will be announced on 09/14/2009. Entries will be judged on four criteria:

•             Effective use of a component to solve a problem/display data
•             innovative use of components
•             Impact using components (i.e. reduction in lines of code written, increased productivity, etc.)
•             Most creative use of a component.

See the contest page (http://ineta.org/codechallenge) on the INETA web site for more details and full rules.

That’s it. So what are you waiting for? Show them how you are using Spread today and possibly win a free trip to PDC. Good luck!

Spread for ASP.NET is a ‘Finalist’

donald — Thu, 07 May 2009 20:15:00 GMT

We just found out that Spread for ASP.NET is a finalist in the ‘Best Grid’ category, as voted by the asp.netPRO readers. Ya, we know, it’s a spreadsheet but that category wasn’t available. Just goes to show you the power of a spreadsheet. Thanks to everyone who voted for us!

Check out the latest features of Spread for ASP.NET here:
http://www.fpoint.com/netproducts/spreadweb/spread.aspx

Spread 8 COM With XLSX (Excel 2007 support) Released!

petew — Thu, 07 May 2009 18:47:00 GMT

This is ready for all Spread 8 customers to download now! Here is the link:

http://www.clubfarpoint.com/FarPointSupportSite/Modules/Download/updates.aspx

For those of you who have been waiting to upgrade to Spread 8 we are open for business so please give us a call: 919-460-4551 or if you would like to download a trial first here is the link:

http://www.clubfarpoint.com/FarPointSupportSite/Modules/Download/trials.aspx?pcode=spread

Thanks,

Pete

New Training Dates for 2009

petew — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 15:19:00 GMT

Hello! I am happy to announce that our training guru, Mr. Microsoft MVP himself Jim Duffy has posted the training dates for 2009!

Feel free to go to his website www.takenote.com and find out when you or your team can take a training class and become an expert in our .Spread for Windows and/or Spread for ASP.NET spreadsheets!

Last year we only had one class but man was it popular and effective! This year we have multiple dates to choose from. Jim will also come to your company if you are interested so feel free to ask him!

If the following quote from Dan Grider at Finsh Line does not get you interested, I do not what will!

"Jim Duffy breaks FarPoint Spread down and shows you how this object's feature set can be implemented to enhance what you're currently doing with

datagrids. Remember, it's not a grid...it's a spread.  I really didn't understand until I saw the many options and flexibility the FarPoint Grid has to offer.

Thoroughly enjoyed this class!"

Spread for ASP.NET 4 maintenance release (now IE8 ready)

scotts — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:30:21 GMT

Yesterday afternoon we released the new maintenance release for Spread for ASP.NET 4. For the second maintenance release in a row we decided to add functionality to the release rather than just fixing the bugs. In the December release, we shipped the 3.5 framework build of the Spread with support for Dynamic Data web sites. Yesterdays release provides full support for Internet Explorer 8. If you are planning on using a spreadsheet or grid control in IE8, then you can know with confidence that the FarPoint Spread for ASP.NET product has been tested and will fully support this environment.

Vote for Spread for ASP.NET!

donald — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 14:30:00 GMT

It’s once again that time of year to vote for your favorite Grid and Component Suite! We would love to have you support us. Please visit the asp.netPRO web site and vote now:

http://www.aspnetpro.com/awards/default.asp

We are entered in the following categories:

#7: “Component Set” – Spread for .NET Bundle nominated
#12 “Grid” – Spread for ASP.NET nomiated

Please vote now as it ends on April 25. Thanks from all of us at FarPoint!

- Donald

Come Meet Us!

donald — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:58:00 GMT

What a busy (and hopefully warmer!) March it’s going to be. If you’re going to be in the Southeast region this month, stop by any of these events and say hello to Scott Shorter, our Technical Evangelist. He’d love to meet you!

MSDN Southern Fried Roadshow
Friday, March 13 - Alpharetta, GA
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032403861&Culture=en-US
We’re partnering up with the Microsoft Regional Evangelists to help bring you the 4-day Roadshow held in several locations

The Atlanta Code Camp
Saturday, March 14 – Atlanta, GA
http://atlantacodecamp.com/

“Battle of the Third-Party Controls”
Wednesday, March 18th
http://www.swfldev.net/
Scott will be presenting our Spread for ASP.NET product to the SW Florida .Net Developers Group.

There’s also the Charlotte Code Camp held on March 28th - http://www.developersguild.org/Default.aspx?alias=www.developersguild.org/codecamp/2009/spring

Again, if you’re in the area, stop by say hello!

Introducing InputPro for Silverlight

Jimmy — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 01:13:00 GMT

Data input and validation are essential part of almost all applications. A set of highly dependable and flexible input controls can relieve the burden of application developers and make them concentrate on the core business logic. InputPro for Silverlight is created to focus on data input and validation and tries to be such a control set in Silverlight.

InputPro for Silverlight is a brand new product designed from scratch. We take time to design it and try to make it powerful but still easy-to-use. Our philosophy is make basic things easy and hard things possible. We hope this philosophy could result in consistent and concise interfaces and fluent input experience. Here are some highlights of the control set:

Fully support .NET format strings and format providers. We don't want to invent a new format language and force the user to learn it. The date time controls support both Standard Date and Time Format Strings and Custom Date and Time Format Strings, and the number controls support both Standard Numeric Format Strings and Custom Numeric Format Strings. DateTimeFormatInfo and NumberFormatInfo are also supported respectively to enable more flexible format control.
Internationalization and localization support. By utilizing .NET parsing and formatting, the controls are built-in culture-aware. The date time controls also have local calendar (Japanese currently) and timezone support.
Smart and fluent input experience. We did a lot of jobs to help the user enter a correct value fluently. Character filtering, smart caret movement, spinning, value slider etc. are all the helpers.
Unlimited and customizable undo/redo. We make every single edit operation undoable. The length of undo queue is unlimited (limited by the available memory) by default, but you can explicitly set a limit on it. You can also programmatically create a custom undo unit by calling the BeginChange and EndChange methods. Custom undo units behave same as other undo units.
Customizable parsing and formatting. If you are not satisfied with the default parsing and formatting, you can handle corresponding events to add your own parsing/formatting logic.
Customizable key/command binding. The commands include both basic keyboard operations (caret movement, text selection etc.) and useful shortcuts (spin, clear, drop-down etc.). There's a default binding key for each command, but you can also change it with your own.

The first preview build of InputPro for Silverlight has been published. You can try the demo and download the build here. This build includes the following controls:

Date time controls:

FpDateTime: value type is DateTime.
FpDateTimeOffset: value type is DateTimeOffset, a new added type since .NET Framework 2.0 sp1, recommended to be the default date and time type for application development by MSDN.

Numeric controls:

FpDecimal: value type is Decimal.
FpDouble: value type is Double.
FpInteger: value type is Int32.
FpLongInteger: value type is Int64.

Mask control:

FpMaskedTextBox

Text control:

FpTextBox

Controls to support the above controls:

FpCalculator
FpErrorReminder
FpSpinButton

These controls are currently in Preview Quality Band and are open to feature requests and feedback. I'll write more about these controls in the following days. Your comments are important for us to make a better product. Please try the demo and tell us what you think about it:

InputPro for Silverlight Demo Page

InputPro for Silverlight - Preview

robby — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 14:40:00 GMT

FarPoint Technologies, and the InputPro for Silverlight team are proud to announce the Preview of our first Silverlight product - a set of Silverlight Input Controls - InputPro for Silverlight. Based the Quality Bands introduced with the Silverlight Toolkit, InputPro for Silverlight is well within the Preview Band for features and quality, and we are now at the point in the production cycle where we can no longer "develop in a bubble" so please let us know what you think. We need your feedback to direct us, and to let us know how these components stack up from functionality and usability perspectives.

We decided to create this set of input controls because we need a sophisticated, highly programmable and customizable, set of input controls to use as celltypes for our upcoming Silverlight spreadsheet component - Spread for Silverlight component that is currently in the design/dev process. We have not yet decided how we are going to deliver InputPro – as a stand-alone product, or as part of a suite, and we have not decided on a price. Any feedback from the dev community would be apprecieated here as well.

We are very excited to officially announce our entry into the Silverlight market, and look forward to your remarks and comments.

Spread for Asp.NET application broke with last Vista Windows Update? Mine too.

scotts — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 14:40:43 GMT

Yesterday, we had two enquiries about customers web application that was using ClientAutoCalculation was no longer working (just stopped). When I tested this on my Vista computer, I saw the same behavior. So, when I got to my work computer (Windows XP), I tested this again and had no problems. So I started debugging the issue on my Vista computer and found the problem in our fpspread.htc file (this is the JavaScript that gets attached to the Spread object client side). The problem was on this line of code.

if (window.external) req = window.external.XMLHttpRequest;

The problem was XMLHttpRequest was not a property of window.external and was throwing an exception and so our AJAX callback was not working. This all came due to a Windows Update earlier this week on my Vista computer. My first thought was this was going to break customers web applications who are using version 2.5 and higher of Spread for ASP.NET, but the development team said this line of code was added only to version 4 for use with our Spread for SharePoint product.

SO... We have fixed the line of code and have posted the new htc file on our ftp server.

ftp://ftp.fpoint.com/SpreadASPNET4/fpspreadhtc.zip

AND... We should be updating the latest maintenance release setups with the new client script file shortly.

If you are using Spread for ASP.NET 4 and have users browsing to it on IE7 in Vista, then you will need to get this latest script file and replace it in your web application.

Thank you Ngu Soon Hui

scotts — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 16:24:13 GMT

This FarPoint customer just posted a great blog on using the CustomTypeDescriptor with objects bound to the FarPoint Spread. He also mentions one of the reasons why he likes the FarPoint Spread over the built in DataGridView control. Take a look at Mr. Ngu’s blog and see how he shared his “FarPoint Experience”. but don’t stop there, share your “FarPoint Experience” with others through your personal blogs, posting to our forums solutions you have found, making presentations to your local .NET Users Group, or any other way you can think of and let us know about it.

14 Years!!!

scotts — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 21:43:35 GMT

Today marks my 14th anniversary with FarPoint Technologies. For someone who knew relatively nothing about developing computer software, FarPoint gave me a chance to learn and share with others their terrific Spread products. And I thank them for this opportunity.

I was working for a Midwest computer company providing hardware support (and customer service) when the phone rang that September 1994 day. I answered the phone which had the very irate President of FarPoint on the other end. I was use to these kind of calls because of the lack of good QA at the company I was at. I quickly and efficiently (IMHO) calmed the customer and told him how I will make sure the situation would be rectified. (I decided to do what a Floor Manager would have done because they were busy and I knew it was the right thing to do). The customer (President of FarPoint) quieted down quickly and then said "Anybody who can listen to me the way you just did and give me the support you just did I want working for me". That is when I saw the 919 area code and said
I am from North Carolina and would love to move back". He said whenever you want to come back to NC, you will have a job". I was down in just a couple of months and been on this exciting ride ever since.

One of the great benefits of working for FarPoint is the family atmosphere and how everyone works as a team to better everyone. I quickly learned the FarPoint product and the development environment that most customers I would be working with would be using thanks to this fact. I am now the moderator on our forums, answering support/sales/presales phone calls, exhibiting at trade shows, and speaking about our product as much as possible. I get to meet many people and share what FarPoint is doing and how we can help them succeed in their development.

I am looking forward to many more years working with everyone and hope to take this one step further to evangelize our customers to want to share their FarPoint experience with others. We have many things we are working on this year at FarPoint and can't wait to share them with you. Happy New Year everyone.

Scott Shorter
Technical Evangelist

Things You Didn't Know About Spread for Windows Forms: The Formula Provider Control

Kevin — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 14:31:00 GMT

If you have done any development with Spread for Windows Forms you've probably come to realize by now that there is so much packed into this product that you may never fully grasp what all it can do. With that in mind we've decided to start blogging on some of the lesser known features that you might not yet have uncovered and show you some more of what Spread can do for you.

For our first blog we decided to talk about the Formula Provider control. Now if this is the first time you have heard about the Formula Provider control don't feel bad because you aren't the only one. Spread for Windows Forms is full of these little surprises. When I was first approached to write this blog posting I believe my response was "The Formula what control?"

So what then exactly is the Formula Provider control? The Formula Provider is a component which allows us to create a Formula property as an extended property for controls. After the formula expression is assigned, it’ll be calculated automatically. Now what does that mean exactly? Well, let's take a look by walking through a simple project, so if you haven't already started Visual Studio to look for this mysterious component do so now. If you've already installed Spread for Windows Forms you should be able to locate the Formula Provider control in the Spread Components group. Drag both a Spread and a Formula Provider to your form. Since the Formula Provider is a non-GUI control it will not display on your form directly. However, what you should now notice in the property grid for the Spread control are two new properties, Formula and FormulaTriggerEvent. You should also drag a NumericUpDown control to your form and initialize it as follows:

NumericUpDown1.Increment = .25

NumericUpDown1.Minimum = .25

NumericUpDown1.DecimalPlaces = 2

NumericUpDown1.Maximum = 4

NumericUpDown1.Value = 1

FpSpread1.Height = 200

FpSpread1.Width = 400

Now the idea for this example is simply to alter the Spread's ZoomFactor and its dimensions based on the value of the NumericUpDown control. This is a simple and fairly common feature you might have added to one of your projects already. To accomplish this with the Formula Provider control all we need to do is set the Formula property in the property grid for the Spread control to the following:

ZoomFactor=NumericUpDown1.Value

What you should notice now is an arrow drawn from the NumericUpDown control to the Spread control signifying that the two controls are bound together. Compile and run your project. What you should see is that when you change the value in the NumericUpDown control the Spread will zoom in and out.

The other property added to the Spread was the FormulaTriggerEvent. This property specifies the event on the control which will trigger Formula recalculations. Each control has a Default event which will trigger the recalculation. For the NumericUpDown control that is the ValueChanged event. But suppose we didn't want the Formula to be recalculated while the mouse is held down over the spin buttons in the NumericUpDown control? Simple enough. Just go to the property grid for the NumericUpDown control and changed the value of the FormulaTriggerEvent to MouseUp. This tells the Formula Provider that formulas dependent on the NumericUpDown control should not recalculate until the mouse is released over the NumericUpDown control. If you now compile and run your project you should notice that the Spread's ZoomFactor does not change until you stop spinning the NumericUpDown control.

Now up to this point we have only worked on changing the ZoomFactor for the Spread but have not yet altered its dimensions. Here is where we get to really show off what this control can do. If we go back to the property grid for Spread and look at the Formula property added by the Formula Provider control we see how we effected the change to the ZoomFactor property but how would we alter multiple properties at once? And how would we calculate a Height and Width for the Spread based on the value of the NumericUpDown control?

What is so powerful about the Formula Provider control is that it has access to the FarPoint CalcEngine. So in writing out our Formulas we can use Spread's CalcEngine formulas, custom names and even custom functions to accomplish our tasks. So let's alter our Formula now to take advantage of this new found knowledge.

Change the Formula property in the property grid for Spread from

ZoomFactor=NumericUpDown1.Value

ZoomFactor=NumericUpDown1.Value;Width=Product(START_WIDTH,NumericUpDown1.Value);Height=Product(START_HEIGHT,NumericUpDown1.Value)

Upon closer inspection we see that we now are modifying three properties of the Spread control, ZoomFactor, Width and Height. Each property affected is separated by a semi-colon in the formula string . We are also using two custom names START_WIDTH and START_HEIGHT which we will need to define later on. Finally, we are using the Product formula from the Spread CalcEngine formulas to calculate the Width and Height.

Before testing our project we will need to add some code in our Form_Load and in one new event we need to add for the Formula Provider. First, lets go to the Form_Load event and add the following code:

FormulaProvider1.BeginInit()

FormulaProvider1.AddQueryValueName("START_HEIGHT")

FormulaProvider1.AddQueryValueName("START_WIDTH")

FormulaProvider1.EndInit()

This code will add the custom names, START_HEIGHT and START_WIDTH into the Formula Provider so they can be queried as needed. The BeginInit and EndInit methods must be used when adding any custom values or functions.

We will also need to handle the QueryValue event for the FormulaProvider control so we can supply the Formula Provider with the values for our custom names. Add the following code.

Private Sub FormulaProvider1_QueryValue(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal arg As FarPoint.Win.Spread.QueryValueEventArgs) Handles FormulaProvider1.QueryValue

If arg.CustomName = "START_HEIGHT" Then

arg.Result = 200

ElseIf arg.CustomName = "START_WIDTH" Then

arg.Result = 400

End If

End Sub

Now if we compile and run the project we should see that our control sizes along with the ZoomFactor whenever the NumericUpDown control's value is changed.

So there you have it. The Formula Provider control. A nifty little component tucked away in your toolbox and dusted off courtesy of FarPoint Technologies. Keep an eye out on this blog in the future for more tips on some of the lesser known features of Spread for Windows Forms.

How to disable logging in WSS.

Albert — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 03:26:00 GMT

For a developer of WSS or MOSS, you may be interesting in this idea - disable the logging(default is on) for SharePoint for the sake of performance. Of course this should be done only for your debugging environment. It's strongly recommended to enable the logging for any of your production servers. Else you may not able to troubleshoot any WSS errors.

Go to your WSS Central Administration -> Operations -> Logging and Reporting
Click on Diagnostic Logging
- Customer Experience Improvement Program: select No, I don't wish to participate.
- Error Reports: select Ignore errors and don't collect information
- Trace log: clear the entire Path.
- Click OK.
Click on Usage Analysis Processing
- Uncheck Enable logging
- Click OK
Click on Information Management Policy Usage Reports. Uncheck Enable recurring policy usage reports.

Troubleshooting - cannot install Moss.

Albert — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:18:00 GMT

a>. First check if the asp.net 2.0 is registered to IIS properly. If not, follow the steps below to register.
1. Open the cmd winow. Open the following directory:
%drive%\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727.

where %drive% is the drive letter on which you installed Windows Server 2003.

2. Run the following command:

aspnet_regiis -iru -enable

b>. Then check if the aspnet is allowed in the Web Service Extension in the IIS(Internet Information Services Manager). Follow the instructions below to check this setting:

1. Click start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click IIS.

2. In the left pane, click the plus sign(+) to expand the nodes. Find and select the Web Service Extension node.

3. Now the ASP.NET v2.0.50727 should be listed. Check if the status is Allowed. If not, click the Allow button to set the status.

c> Run the MOSS installation again.

Till now, hope this post has helped people who has the installation problem. :-)

FarPoint Welcomes Fred to the New FarPoint Labs

scotts — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 01:18:00 GMT

We have created a new area on the FarPoint website for labs. And first into the labs is Fred. Fred is a collaborative spreadsheet application featuring our Spread for ASP.NET product. Come take a look at the power of our Spread for ASP.NET product by working with Fred. You will need to create an account (Username and Password) to log on. But then have fun. Let us know what you think of this web application.

Scott Shorter
FarPoint Technologies

Spread 8 (COM) Released!

donald — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 20:29:00 GMT

We’re excited to announce that we just released Spread 8, a major upgrade of our COM spreadsheet component!

Download the trial here - http://www.clubfarpoint.com/FarPointSupportSite/Modules/Download/trials.aspx?pcode=spread

Source Code for Spread 8 is also available for purchase. Contact our Corporate Sales team at CorporateSales@FarPointSpread.com for pricing.

Happy Developing!

Spread 8 – with Source Code – Coming Soon!

donald — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 21:02:00 GMT

Well, it’s official...we’re unlocking the vault. Now you can own the source to the most widely used COM development spreadsheet in the world! When Spread 8 releases here shortly, you will also have the option to purchase the highly guarded Source Code (written in C and C++). You will even get the source to the Spread Designer.

Don’t care about looking at the source? You can still get it and archive the Spread Source code along with your application to lock in the vault.

Watch for more information coming soon or email our Corporate Sales team now at CorporateSales@FarPointSpread.com to get your questions answered.

- Donald

Use "Spread for ASP.NET" in ASP.NET MVC

J2.NETe — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 09:14:00 GMT

Last week, I learned some about ASP.NET MVC by watching videos(http://www.asp.net/mvc/). It's awesome~~

It will be easy to create a MVC web applicatoin.

A video named "Creating a Tasklist Application with ASP.NET MVC" is a good start to learn ASP.NET MVC which presented by Stephen Walther.

Same way, it's also a good way to show how to use "Spread for ASP.NET" in ASP.NET MVC. So I add Spread to this sample for "Show tasks", "Add task" and "Complete the task". ("Spread for ASP.NET" has useful client-side behavior, exporting features and so on, so it's easy to create a professional view.)

Firstly, to use a server-side control in ViewPage(the view in ASP.NET MVC), should add a form(runat="server") to the page to contain all server-sdie controls;

After this, any server-side control can works well in new MVC framework, but "PostBack" mechanism will break the MVC structure. So we should route all server-side control's actions to the "Actions" of "Controller".

In this sample, just show a "HelloWorld" style solution for use "Spread for ASP.NET" in new framework.

Snapshot of sample:

=====================

Source code in the attachment

Requirment:

Spread for ASP.NET (http://www.fpoint.com/netproducts/spreadweb/spread.aspx)

VS2008

SQL Server Express

ASP.NET MVC Beta (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=129910&clcid=0x409)

PDC Badges – The ‘Censored’ File

donald — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 18:24:21 GMT

Microsoft announced a new social program for exhibitors and others at the PDC show this year (several of our guys are currently manning our booth…if you’re at PDC, stop by and say hello!).

Here is the skinny on the program, straight from Adam Kinney, the Badge Evangelist -

“This year at PDC we're starting a new thing called PDC Badges. Collecting Badges is the way for Attendees to capture their experience at the PDC conference. You can think of it as applying the Xbox Achievements system to a conference.

Badge holders given to attendees at registration will contain an extra slot to display a custom badge of their choice. Each attendee will start out with the official PDC 2008 badge and will be given new badges as a result of an accomplishment or in some cases being at the right place at the right time.”

So, we put our creative minds to work and came up with the following badges to hand out at the show:

Being how it’s almost Halloween, we went with that theme for several of the cards. Oh…and one of the badges was not allowed to be taken to the show…deemed ‘possibly offensive’…guess which one! And which one is your favorite?

If you’re at the show, stop by and grab your favorite one(s) and enjoy the show!

Donald

A SaveFileDialog for Silverlight 2

J2.NETe — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 02:40:00 GMT

Before Microsoft release Silverlight2, we hope they could add a SaveFileDialog just like browser always shows. But

"We've been looking into this but after evaluating the security risks we are not planning on adding SaveFileDialog for Silverlight 2. We hope to enable a secure solution in a future release.

Our recommendation is to create the file on the server and use the HyperlinkButton control to download it, or round trip the data from the client if necessary. This may not be 100% optimal but it does enable saving files to disk and uses the browser's established security model." --from Microsoft

So here is a alternative solution for SaveFileDialog. The solution is:

=client side==

1. dynamic create a form element;

2. encode byte array to Base64 string, and set it to one input field;

3. submit this form to server side handler(aspx or php);

=server side==

4. get the Base64 string from Request, convert it to byte array;

5. rewrite byte array to Response;

6. append some additional info such as "Content-Type", "FileName";

=client side==

7. customer will get a save file dialog from the Browser;

How to use FpSaveFileDialog:

FpSaveFileDialog component has only two files:

>FpSaveFileDialog.cs --- source code of FpSaveFileDialog

>FpSaveFileDialogServerSideHandler.aspx --- server side handler. copy this file to your web site. and this handler can be written by any server side language(php and so on)

Sample Codes to use FpSaveFileDialog:

      FpSaveFileDialog fsfg = new FpSaveFileDialog(new Uri("FpSaveFileDialogServerSideHandler.aspx", UriKind.Relative));
      byte[] data = new byte[] {0x48, 0x65, 0x6C, 0x6C, 0x6F ,0x20 ,0x57, 0x6F ,0x72, 0x6C, 0x64 };
      fsfg.Save(data, new FpSaveFileDialog.FpSaveFileDialogOption("test.txt"));

You will see:

All source codes are in attachment.

"Asp.net MVC" is not another "Asp.net". (1)

neal — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 14:14:00 GMT

The first time the word "MVC" comes into my mind was from book, <<design pattern>>. In its first chapter, to illustrate what a pattern is, the author uses SmallTalk MVC as one sample. However, it doesn't belong to the 23 design patterns introduced by the book. It says...

"MVC consists of three kinds of objects. The Model is the application object, the View is its screen presentation, and the Controller defines the way the user interface reacts to user input. Before MVC, user interface designs tended to lump these objects together. MVC decouples them to increase flexibility and reuse."

And it was put into <<Enterprise Solution Patterns>> by Microsoft also. Generally speaking, MVC could be treated as a guideline to design any GUI applications. Firstly, we design the model part of one application, which includes all document objects, data access and business logic code. Secondly, controller part can be added as operations of the model. Finally, there could have a couple of different kinds of views that are used to present the model. One key point here is the model depends on neither the view nor the controller.

But in the real world, above strings are not very straightforward to practice. For most GUI applications, you can't only define 3 type of classes, Model, View and Controller. Because it breaks some rules of the object oriented programming. While developing the application, all "lazy" developers hope their work can be re-used next time when something similar comes. It may contain a little bit view and a little bit model. He hopes his work can be kind of components out of the box. The users of the components should not care about the component internals. And the less those components know their outside world, the better. Those components may contain their own model, view and controller. Just like what Asp.net is doing.

I believe Asp.net was designed by some object oriented professionals. Every control on the page is independent. The design time features are beautiful. You can drag one button onto the page and double click it. The event handler function is generated automatically. Press "F5", you find everything looks like local windows forms application. The Asp.net framework trys to hide the nature of distributed web programming from developers. I'm admiring the guys who did Asp.net. But, it's not free.

Whenever something happens in the client, there's a post back. And a page with all its child controls is instantiated in the server to handle the http request. To give developers feeling that the page has state, one big hidden field, "ViewState" is saved, loaded and walk through the internet each time. It becomes bigger and bigger, because Asp.net developers treat it as the "memory" of the pages. Just like how native windows applications make use of virtual memory of its process. The cost is performance.

That's not all. AJAX is not a part of Asp.net framework at all. Asp.net 2.0 added a new interface, ICallBackEventHandler. But it's read-only, because there's no chance to update the view state. Asp.net AJAX answers this question by some very tricky code. It's able to update the view state. But performance is still a problem. Every time an AJAX call was made, the whole page will run into its huge life cycle. And you'll find some instantiated objects are not used at all.

When client centric AJAX applications are more and more popular, the concept of "page" becomes vague. What people need are just http post and get request handlers. They're like methods of web services. The returned value of the methods could be HTML strings or JSON objects. They should be lightweight and easy to extend. "Asp.net MVC" is the answer.
Whenever http requests come in, they're routed to corresponding controller object. The controller object can access model objects and do whatever necessary. Then return HTML view, XML, JSON string, plain text or re-direct to another controller. Ref to figure 2.

(to be continued)

Hello World

J2.NETe — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 02:19:00 GMT

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Spread for ASP.NET in Dynamic Data

scotts — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 13:50:05 GMT

A few months ago at the Triangle .NET Users Group meeting, Brad Abrams of Microsoft presented some new features releasing with the 3.5 .NET framework SP1. One that caught my eye was Dynamic Data. Brad was able to create a complete CRUD web application in just a few minutes with no writing of code. When I saw this, I was thinking how great it would be if we at FarPoint could configure our Spread control to work with this new technology. I passed this along to the product manager and development team for Spread for ASP.NET and they worked on researching what was needed in our product to enable this functionality.

After a few weeks, we had something they were ready to show me, and it looked great. I have now created a video showing how to replace the standard GridView control with our Spread control in a Dynamic Data website. Take a look and tell us what you think. If you have any comments or questions about this, feel free to email me.

Scott Shorter

Technorati Tags: FarPoint Technologies,Spread for ASP.NET,Dynamic Data,CRUD web application