Andrew Stevenson's WebLog

The wallpaper is not funny (house of spam)

AndrewSeven — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 18:41:00 GMT

It seems like every blog post on weblogs.asp.net is the recipient of a comment with "funny wallpaper >>"

It looks like spam, can it not be blocked?

Commerce Server 2007 SP2 now available !

AndrewSeven — Thu, 29 May 2008 13:08:00 GMT

Just in case you don't already have 3 links to it, here is a link.

https://blogs.msdn.com/tschultz/archive/2008/05/28/commerce-server-2007-sp2-now-available.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/Browse.aspx?DisplayLang=en&nr=20&productId=1D25BFD4-FAE9-4E08-BF77-60FB266BEE44&sortCriteria=date#

NUnitAsp and style="display: none"

AndrewSeven — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:32:00 GMT

I have a control, which I test with a customvalidatortester, that produces an html span with (I thought) style="display:none" and it was failing the test for visible==false.

A closer inspection showed that there was a space after the colon: style="display: none"

Removing the space fixes the problem, but the root of the problem is where the space comes from. The space is inserted when I use Visual Studio 2005's format document on the aspx markup.

To solve this, I mad another small change to NUnitAsp.

In ValidatorTester, I chanbed the visible property to check for both versions.

bool displayNone = (style != null && (style.IndexOf("display:none") != -1 || style.IndexOf("display: none") != -1));

NUnitAsp and WebForm_PostBackOptions

AndrewSeven — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 18:39:00 GMT

I've decide to use NUnitAsp on the current project.

After doing some basic visibility checks I tried to call Click() on a LinkButtonTester and I got an error.

I did some digging and found that the new WebForm_PostBackOptions was not being recognized as a postback.

With a bit of hacking around, I've got it working again, the biggest issue was different quotes in the postBackScript from those in the html.

The fix:I'm not sure how comprehensive it is, but the basic fix is 2 changes in WebFormTester:

public bool IsPostBack(string candidatePostBackScript)

{

bool postback = (candidatePostBackScript.IndexOf("__doPostBack") != -1)

|| (candidatePostBackScript.IndexOf("WebForm_PostBackOptions") != -1);

return (candidatePostBackScript != null) && postback ;

}

and

public void PostBack(string postBackScript)

{

string postBackPattern1 = @"__doPostBack\('(?<target>.*?)','(?<argument>.*?)'\)";

string postBackPattern2 = @"__doPostBack\(\\'(?<target>.*?)\\',\\'(?<argument>.*?)\\'\)";

string postBackPattern3 = @"WebForm_PostBackOptions\(""(?<target>.*?)"", ""(?<argument>.*?)""";

bool succeeded = TryPostBack(postBackScript, postBackPattern1);

if (!succeeded) succeeded = TryPostBack(postBackScript, postBackPattern2);

if (!succeeded) succeeded = TryPostBack(postBackScript, postBackPattern3);

//if (!succeeded) succeeded = TryPostBack(postBackScript, postBackPattern4);

if (!succeeded)

{

throw new ParseException("'" + postBackScript + "' doesn't match expected patterns for postback in " + Description);

}

A shortcut to TFS Explorer

AndrewSeven — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 14:45:00 GMT

I find the number of clicks it takes to get to the Team Explorer a little long so I dug up this shortcut so that I can put it on a toolbar button.

Customize your toolbars, select "View" from the available categories, then scroll down to the commands that start with T and you will find TfsSourceControlExplorer.

Drag that puppy onto your favorite toolbar.

-A

Why is GMail better about spam than hotmail.

AndrewSeven — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 18:47:00 GMT

I have accounts on both services and I can tell that lots of spam gets sent to each account.

The big difference seems to be that most spam sent to gmail is delivered directly to the spam folder where at least half of the spam in hotmail goes to the inbox.

IE6 UI , Vista and Firefox

AndrewSeven — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 17:54:00 GMT

I'm looking for a browser that will run on Vista and give me the same UI that I had with IE6.

At the moment, I'm using Firefox, it isn't my favorite, but I find the UI to be better than IE7.

I've tried some registry hacks for IE7 but now I'm ready to try other things ( I'm addicted to the Google Toolbar's search this site option so that might limit my options)

-A

A little footnote : I still have IE 6 on one machine at home (the main web browsing machine) and the main page of this site doesn't display very well.

Understanding and solving the JavaScript/CSS entanglement phenomenon... deep web UI

AndrewSeven — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 20:59:00 GMT

A friend of mine who is a web UI specialist just put up an article about the complexities (and a fix) of showing and hiding parts of the UI when there is mix of css and javascript and javascript is disabled.

I prefer to leave these subtleties to him, but I think there may be some people here who would like the solution.

http://arapehlivanian.com/2007/02/14/understanding-and-solving-the-javascriptcss-entanglement-phenomenon/

CruiseControl.Net with MsBuild is giving me some strange behavior.

AndrewSeven — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 16:53:00 GMT

I've used CCNet in previous projects with nAnt to launch the build and I can't remember having any issues like the ones I have now.
It worked very smoothly.

In the project I am in now:
-I use the msbuild and the msbuil task instead of nAnt.
-The task is configured to use the the ThoughtWorks..XmlLogger.
-The build server running CC is a 64bit VMWare system.

I'm experiencing some reliability issues with this; frequent "Failure" and "Exception" results from builds. Sometimes a Force Build will fix the issue, but usually I need to restart the CCNet service. Sometimes I even need to reboot the CC server.

The most common "Exception" I've seen is an "attempt to read or write protected memory".
Other times, the status is just "Failure" and looking at the build log shows what seems to be a successful build :S

I'm not sure what to suspect as the source of the problem.
Is there anyone else using this same combination (on a virtual x64)?

If I could find a forum dedicated to CCNet, I'd post there...

Thanks for any suggestions about how to figure this out.

-Andrew

Who decides "off topic"?

AndrewSeven — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 20:57:00 GMT

I'm wondering who decides that a post is off topic.

I wrote my first blog entry in a long time today was confused when it didn't show up on the main site.

After trying to figure out if I had not published it properly or set some specifc property, I eventualy noticed the two links for On Topic Only and All Posts.

I don't need the entry to show up on the main page, but it doesn't seem to be further off target than some of the other things that are in the main feed.

Edit : I think I figured it out, use the "Asp.Net" tag :P

Deleting the diagramming objects from Sql Server

AndrewSeven — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 13:49:00 GMT

Maybe there is a more direct way to do it, but the scripts below will delete the objects that are created for database diagrams....(read more)

Growing dislike for chords in 2005

AndrewSeven — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 16:20:00 GMT

I'm not sure I will ever appreciate the new "chord" keyboard shortcuts in VS.Net. A big part of the problem is that I don't know how to find, configure, and control them.

I have key sequences that I use always. CTRL+SHIFT+B to build solution, CTRL+B to build the current project/selection. These 2, with CTRL-S and CTRL-SPACE are the absolute must-have items for me.

If I use a new keyboard scheme and map CTRL+B it doesn't work as I expect. When I hit CTRL+B, I get a "waiting for second key of chord".

I find this very frustrating and I revert to the VS 6 setting, throwing away all the new stuff, just to get one thing to work the way I need it to.

Is there some way to find and remove the chords I don't like other than typing each one in "Press shortcut keys"?

Update: Microsoft.Sdc.Tasks :: Operational Troubleshooting in Progress :: GDN Update

AndrewSeven — Mon, 20 Feb 2006 16:44:00 GMT

<Update>
The ~~tasks~~ GDN workspace seem to have been updated the same day I posted this.Edited date 2/20/2006
There is a doc in the download that says March 1 2006. Whatever the date, it is different than the last time I downloaded :P

n.b. I prefer the way that the (GDN) AssemblyInfo task works with the existing AssemblyInfo file over the approach MS-SDC and the Community tasks have chosen.
</Update>

http://www.gotdotnet.com/Community/UserSamples/Details.aspx?SampleGuid=2cb20e79-d706-4706-9ea0-26188257ee7d

I know this belongs in the forums, but it seem like every time I want to post something in the GotDotNet forums its broken. "Operational Troubleshooting in Progress. The Gotdotnet team is aware of the current site operational issues and is working on a solution. Thanks for your patience. "

I'm trying to setup a continuous integration server and use some of the tasks from Microsoft.Sdc.Tasks in GDN (http://weblogs.asp.net/nunitaddin/archive/2004/07/20/187950.aspx )

I wanted to post the forum, but they still have the error ...

If anyone can help, I'd appreciate it:

I'm experiencing a significant number of issues trying to use the SDC stuff.

They don't match release versions of .Net : fixed by removing strong name verification (Nagaraju Palla's WebLog )
From what I can tell the tutorial has not been updated to match the recent versions. ".Configuration" has been removed from most things.

The help contains errors in the remarks and samples for nUnit tasks. The AssemlyName property has changed and using ExcludeCategory throws a NotImplementedException ;)
Can someone point me to a working sample that uses the nUnit task?
The FxCop task is going a little better, but a good working sample would help.

I could really use some good resources for this if you know of any.

Thanks again.

Live Messenger Send Offline IM

AndrewSeven — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 19:25:00 GMT

I always liked the ICQ feature to send a message while offline. Most of the time it would just be "call me when you get home", but I always missed the feature in Messenger.

Now its there in the 8.0 Beta.

Well done, thank you.

MSN Activity API and www.worldsbestapp.com

AndrewSeven — Tue, 08 Nov 2005 15:40:00 GMT

I came across this contest, then a week later I found Robert Chartier's BareBones example, which has handlers for the common Channel events and a an OnLoad to let you know it loaded. Its a good way to start and see that "it works".
http://weblogs.asp.net/rchartier/archive/2005/10/21/428163.aspx

I've been working on an activity but it isn't ready to submit yet. I've got some performance issues because it is still very chatty and the game functions UI isn't done.

There is an FAQ, with some key links.

Forum : http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=112&SiteID=1
IE Leaky Patterns : http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/ietechcol/dnwebgen/ie_leak_patterns.asp?frame=true

I've got some cleanup code too write to fix the leaks and I would really like to be able to do some performace tests on the javascripts to see if there are bottlenecks.

If you have any links to helpful stuff about the API or about coding very complex things in javascript, please post them.