.NET Blog - Chris Frazier Style

here September, 2003(16)

there September, 2003(14)

and the internal one, September, 2003(34)

hehe, you can't see how big of a dope I am on the internal one

Leave your name if you have something to say. Okay, my posts may be childish rants. I may have little experience. I may make wild accusations without even understanding WinForms - but at least I have the balls to put my name to it. If you think my posts are crap, don't subscribe. Easy as pie.

To make my last post clearer: Windows Forms are not very approacheable, and anywhere you would ask questions about it is covered by one or two folks - there is a complete lack of community in that area of .NET. If you want proof, look at the amount of posts at www.asp.net/forums vs. www.windowsforms.net/forums .

Furthermore, in regards to my '-1' comment, I have spoken directly with Mark Boulter (winforms PM) about the windows forms datagrid. He admitted that they did not get to get everything on the datagrid done that they wished. There is a 'column' or 'row' based approach taken with it, and it is indeed quite cumbersome to work with. I think in future versions, there may be a different approach taken.

Working with windows forms sucks.

Especially if you're coming from the much more approachable asp.net side. I have state, but simple things like pre-selecting an item in a datagrid are not easy - and they should be. You should make me feel comfortable in your environment. Give me a reason to use Windows Forms other than 'it runs on Windows'.

I'm about halfway thru my first Windows Forms project. If I were doing this in asp.net, I would be done by now.

That is all.

For anyone else who might have run into Intellisense weirdness, I found that just 'touching' the file that was generated by vs.net for the dataset and recompiling gave intellisense its needed kick in the rear.

All I did was go to the file, hit enter, hit backspace, shift+ctrl+b, and intellisense was ready again to do my bidding. Weird, but it worked for me

So I'm doing some work with typed datasets right now that is really souring my experience with VS.NET 2003.

I'm using the same technique that I used months ago with VS.NET 2002 that worked pretty smoothly - wait, first let me say that it is working, it's the Intellisense that's jacked up. Unfortunately, it looks like it doesn't pick up everything that is included within the generated DataSet, including the public DataTable and DataRow classes generated. So, the code compiles and works fine during runtime, but intellisense is shot down at the first level. Is this what it was like before intellisense? So maybe the problem is that I'm spoiled now thanks to the technology - then it craps out on me after working before.

Technology is like crack. First you get a taste of the good stuff, then you really pay.

In response to a post I made about VS.NET 2002 failing to open connections with Sql Server, Roman says:

I have just found solvation. Installing MDAC 2.8 helps

Tony, who had been having a similar problem, found the post and thanks Roman. So, if you're having problems connecting to Sql Server, try installing MDAC 2.8.

9/11. I was at home that day, my son wasn't born yet, and I saw the whole thing televised after my (ex) girlfriend's crazy best friend told us that America was under attack over the phone.

I've recently added emoticonsto my .Text blog. If you could see the code, it might look familiar. Heh, that was pretty easy. I did make a change or two to the source of .Text and also added a key to the web.config's appsettings node.

The magic happens in a method called StripFTB (for free textbox, the editor used for this app) All I did was add a call to the new Transform class, added the appropriate text file, and we're in business.

If you haven't checked it out yet, .Text is a real good app - it's been real easy to make changes to it to 'fit my needs'.

I just added geoUrl to my blog. I don't know why I didn't thing to do this before! I just have it pointing to my personal blog that has the correct tags, so when you click on the link it queries the database based on the url here not there.

Nice. There's also this site which has a world map on it and shows up where you are if you make a post.

Looks like Marc is having trouble with sealed ImageLists.

I've been working on my first Windows Forms project and I'm using the same ImageList throughout the application, even tho there are yet only a few forms in it. I adapted an example by Lutz Roeder that uses a static class (well, ya know static members, whatever) to load a bitmapstrip into an internal ImageList. The class has a bunch of static properties that return the correct index of the image based on the loaded ImageList. (Like Images.Forward or Images.Undo)

I also added a static property to return the internal ImageList incase I want to use it in one of my Forms without calling the individual properties.

The trick is to load the bitmap strip in a static constructor - it's always  called first. If I want to add an individual image to a form, I can either create a local ImageList and set it to Images.ImageList or simply set the image of the control I'm targeting to say Images.Back. I have to admit, I usually add the image in (gasp) the InitializeComponent() call - but here's the nice part: since I'm calling a completely static class, the designer can get to the images and loads it not only to the designer surface but also (usually) replaces my Images.Back call with an appropriate call to the ResourceManager to grab the image from its new home - my Form's .resx file.

Good luck, Marc.