Here's a few photos from last nights NIMTUG meeting. Sam Gentile gave a talk on eXtreme.Net and stayed behind afterwards answering questions. We had a turnout of 45 which is our best so far.

A good turn out :)

Myself (left) and Sam

Garth McFarland: one of the lucky winners of the meetings draw. Garth's prize was Writing Secure Code and a USB mobile phone charger.

The reception after the talk

At next months NIMTUG meeting Benjamin Mitchell will be talking about Visual Studio 2005 and .NET 2.0. The talk will be in Dukes Hotel from 19:30 - 21:30 on Monday 22nd August 2005.

Talk Summary: This talk with be an A-Z of tips and tricks that will save you time and make development easier with Visual Studio 2005 and .NET 2.0. We’ll cover how to deal with common real-life hurdles, and how to effectively utilize the .NET Framework and Visual Studio, by presenting a set of tools, tips, tricks, best practices, utilities and ideas that can enhance your productivity significantly. We’ll tour the new features of the Visual Studio 2005 editor for both VB 2005, such as the new Visual Basic lightweight application model for client applications, the My namespace, Data, Settings and Resources, as well as refactoring, IntelliSense improvements, Code Snippets and enhanced navigation.

Register for the talk (free) or find out more information about the talk

Sam Gentile is in town and will be giving a talk on Extreme Programming in .Net to NIMTUG members on Monday 25th July at the Dukes Hotel, Belfast.

Talk Summary: Extreme programming practices such as Refactoring, Unit Testing, and Continuous Integration have now become mainstream. This code-intensive session shows you to how to use XP practices with VS.NET 2003 and tools such as RefactorIt!, Nunit, NAnt, and CruiseControl.NET. We'll develop some code and use the tools to create unit tests, refactor, and automate the build.

For more information and to register for the talk (free) check out the NIMTUG site

I was finally getting some time to update my AJAX library but hit a snag when attempting to read an embedded resource file. I was using the following test code:

private string GetResourceText(string filename)
{
    using(Stream stream = Assembly.GetCallingAssembly().GetManifestResourceStream(filename))
    {
        if(stream == null)
        {
            throw new HttpException(404, "File Not found");
        }

        using(StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(stream) )
        {
            return sr.ReadToEnd();
        }
    }
}

I was passing in the name of the file ('ajax.js') which was located in the 'JS' folder within the project but I got a 404 error so assumed that the assembly had renamed the resource 'JS\ajax.js' within the manifest so I tried that but got the same error. It turns out that embedded resource files are arranged within namespaces and it uses the default namespace of the project as the base namespace, which in this case was 'Ajax' so the correct filename was 'Ajax.JS.ajax.js'. You can check and change the default namespace in the project properties under Common Properties > General > Default Namespace in C# or Root Namespace in VB.Net.

As for the AJAX library I've vastly improved the performance and added some new features, I'll post an update once I've finished testing.

Today I had to reinstall SQL Server 2000 on my Windows XP Dev machine - but I had a few problems.

On my first couple of attempts setup would hang with the message "setup is starting the server and installing your chosen configuration". I left if on this screen for about 30 minutes the first time and ended up having to kill the process and the second time around after a reboot I gave it 5 minutes before killing it again.

After goggling my problem I found this KB http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;290991&Product=sql2k#4. After another restart I followed it's instructions but during installation I was informed that my installation had failed and to check the C:\WINDOWS\sqlstp.log log file. It was only when I looked through the log that I realised my mistake. Instead of deleting the contents of C:\WINDOWS\TEMP  I'd deleted the contents of C:\Documents and Settings\Damien\Local Settings\Temp as I'd typed %TEMP% when navigating to it. After another reboot I then following the KB's instructions again, properly this time, and the installation worked.

I'm not sure why this problem occurred in the first place as SQL Server had been uninstalled successfully before the reinstall - another little Windows mystery.

Paul Fallon will be giving a talk on Idigo at the next NIMTUG meeting (Monday 20th June). For more information and to register for the talk visit http://nimtug.org/20-june-2005.aspx. If you're not a member you'll have to join first before registering for the talk. Membership and registration for the talks are free & there's usually a social gathering after the talk with some food & drink.

Kieran Lynam will be giving a talk on ASP.Net 2.0 to NIMTUG members on Monday 16th May in Belfast. For more information and to register for the talk (which is free) visit http://nimtug.org/16-May-2005.aspx

This will probably be the last feature update of my AJAX library as it does all I need the moment, but please keep sending me your suggestions as you never know.

Update:

New feature: you now have the ability to pass complex types as parameters. The IAjaxJavaScriptObjectConverter interface has been enhanced and now allows you to define format functions for formatting JavaScript objects into strings that can be passed as parameters.

Web.config: the attribute for adding converters has been changed from 'type' to 'converter'

New Demo: I've created a DateTime converter and extended the StringCollection to include the new features. You can use these as your skeleton converters.

I've also included another demo that allows you to send a complex type as a parameter.

Online demos: The demos are now online after a couple of requests.

Potential Problem: When converting an object to be returned into JavaScript the default converter loops through all the properties and fields and converts them too. Some types reference their parents and these types will cause a memory problem as they will be caught in an infinite loop. To ensure that this does not happen only return types that are known not to do this and if you do require a type that references it parent (or its children which causes the same problem) then write a custom converter and control the conversion process. I was considering requiring that all return types must be referenced in the web.config - but due to the added complexity decided not too. So check all types before returning them!

Download  Demos

Update:

It was pointed out to me by Manu Seiber that not everyone has write access to the /aspnet_client/system_web/[framework version]/ directory and so can't upload the 'ajax.js' file making the library useless. Now I've added the ability to set the javascript directory that the 'ajax.js' file is located. For backward compaitability it defaults to /aspnet_client/system_web/[framework version]/ if not set.

See JavaScript File section in Read Me file.

Download