April 2004 - Posts
Craig Andera blogs a simple ListItemWrapper class for dealing with Windows Forms listbox items. This is such a common scenario that I’d really love to see a simple ListItem class as part of the framework (no sign of one in the March community preview release). While there’s no technical reason why it has to come from Microsoft (obviously it’s pretty easy to create - I’ve done it myself numerous times), it would cover probably 80% or more of my usage of the listbox, and that makes it worth it in my book. All we need is a ListItem class with a Text string property and a Tag object property. You could even throw in a couple of jazzy data binding bonus features if you really want.
My fiancé is a Mac person. She’s a web designer (and a damn good one), so I cut her some slack on that one. This weekend she upgraded her Mac to Panther (OS 10.3). On a lark, I decided to check if the new version supported Windows-based VPNs (PPTP, I guess not strictly Windows-based, but I believe it came out of the Windows world). Lo and behold, it did! I configured it to connect to my company’s VPN (a process that was harder than it should have been – sometimes I think Mac’s reputation for ease of use is overblown). Once configured correctly, it worked like a charm. I installed Microsoft’s remote desktop client for the Mac, and connected to my box at work. Bing, bang, boom, I was seamlessly controlling my XP machine from my fiancé’s Mac.
Very cool. Interoperability is a beautiful thing.
On a side note, when she was shopping for the upgrade, I was initially surprised by the fact that there was no “upgrade license vs new license” pricing. Coming from the PC world, that struck me as odd. Of course, after I thought about it for two seconds I clued in to the fact that all Macs come from Apple, with an Apple OS, so all OS purchases are inherently upgrades. Just like McDonald’s in France – “They got the same stuff over there that they got here, it’s just a little different”.
I installed Outlook 2003 the last time I repaved my machine, and generally it has worked just fine. But several times recently I've ended up with dozens, sometimes hundreds, of RSS posts in my “For Follow Up” folder (I use NewsGator as my RSS reader). I was mystified as to how they were getting there, because I never right-clicked on a bunch of posts and selected “Follow Up”.
Today I finally discovered the cause - the Insert key in Outlook 2003 flags the selected item for follow up! Apparently while scrolling around my RSS feeds with the arrows, I was accidentally bumping the Insert key on the numeric keypad. Moreover, if you have a group selected, all the items in that group get flagged. Hence the hundreds of follow up items.
I don't know if Outlook XP had the same keyboard shortcut, though I don't recall every having the problem there. Anyway, I hate computer ghost stories, so I'm glad this mystery is finally solved.
I finally started playing around with the Whidbey March Tech Preview, and thought I'd blog some comments as they occurred to me.
So far I've mainly been looking at the Windows Forms enhancement. Pre-Whidbey, I always described Windows Forms as the poor stepchild of the .NET framework. It seemed like Web Forms got all the attention (and cool features). But no longer.
- The ToolStrip/MenuStrip rocks! It's so nice to be able to put together a WinForms app that doesn't look like a circa-1994 VB app without resorting to third-party components. The “Insert Standard Items“ is a great little time-saver.
One thing I still don't understand is why the ToolStrip/MenuBar/MenuStrip show up both on the design surface and in the component tray (it was that way pre-Whidbey as well). It seems redundant.
- The Windows Application wizard now puts the Main in static EntryPoint class. Much better than putting on the initial form.
- Intellisense in the watch window. Woo-hoo! Fantasic. That feature alone makes me want Whidbey.
- The watch window now displays flag style properties like Anchor in decoded form (e.g System.Windows.Forms.AnchorStyles.Top | System.Windows.Forms.AnchorStyles.Left, rather than 5).
- The gradient fill continues its quest for world domination. This time it's the venerable breakpoint glyph.
- They changed the keyboard shortcut of Quick Watch. Ack! I hate having to re-learn shortcuts (or even customizing them back to what I'm used to, since I bounce between machines a lot).
UPDATE - they also changed the keyboard shortcut for Build. Double-ack! Although I must admit that having a one key shortcut for build (F2) makes a lot more sense than the finger-twisting, carpal-tunnel-inducing Ctrl-Shift-B.
Obviously, I've only just begun scratching the surface. Those are just things that I ran across in my first half hour of twiddling.
UPDATE - WallyM posted a fix in the comments section. Thanks Wally!
I'm having no luck getting help searching to work with the Whidbey Tech Preview. The first time I try to search, I get an error “The underlying connection was closed: The remote name could not be resolved”. If I try again, I get “There is already a command handler for the menu command '<guid> : 201”. Anyone else experiencing this and know a workaround?
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