Neil Cowburn - OpenNETCF - .NET Framework

HOW-TO: Disable/Enable Network Connections Programmatically under Vista

Neil Cowburn — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:06:00 GMT

I got an email last week asking about how to disable a particular network connection under Vista. The specific scenario, how to disable an active 3G connection, is not something I'm going to cover, but what I present below could be used as basis for that scenario.

With Vista, Microsoft introduced two new methods to the Win32_NetworkAdapter class under WMI: Enable and Disable. Before can call either of those methods, we need to know how to enumerate the network connections.

The .NET Framework SDK provides a helpful utility called mgmtclassgen.exe, which can be used to create .NET-friendly wrappers of the WMI classes. Open up a Visual Studio command prompt and enter the following:

mgmtclassgen Win32_NetworkAdapter -p NetworkAdapter.cs

This will generate a file called NetworkAdapter.cs which will contain a C# representation of the WMI Win32_NetworkAdapter class. You can add this source code file to your C# project and then access all the properties without too much extra effort.

To filter and disable the specific adapters, you do something like this:

SelectQuery query = new SelectQuery("Win32_NetworkAdapter", "NetConnectionStatus=2");
ManagementObjectSearcher search = new ManagementObjectSearcher(query);
foreach(ManagementObject result in search.Get())
{
    NetworkAdapter adapter = new NetworkAdapter(result);

    // Identify the adapter you wish to disable here. 
    // In particular, check the AdapterType and 
    // Description properties.

    // Here, we're selecting the LAN adapters.
    if (adapter.AdapterType.Equals("Ethernet 802.3")) 
    {
        adapter.Disable();
    }
}

Don't forget to add a reference to System.Management.dll!

HOWTO: Force MSBuild into "Visual Studio" output mode

Neil Cowburn — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 16:04:55 GMT

Are you swamped by the output from your MSBuild runs? Would you like to see exactly the same minimal output on the command line as you get when compiling inside Visual Studio? You can and it's easy! The trick here is to set the correct verbosity level for the output from MSBuild. It's as simple as passing /verbosity:minimal (or /v:m for the true minimalist).

You can also set this up as default behavior by adding it to MSBuild.rsp (you can find this at %WINDIR%\Microsoft.Net\Framework\v2.0.50727\MSBuild.rsp). Command-line options added to MSBuild.rsp will be processed before any options you manually specify, so you can override your own defaults if need be.

Parallel FX Library

Neil Cowburn — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 14:23:52 GMT

The October issue of MSDN Magazine has an interesting article on a new product from the CLR team at Microsoft: the Parallel FX Library.

When reading the sample syntax of Parallel.For method, I couldn't help but feel that I'd read this somewhere before. It turns out my suspicions were correct: Annex G of Partition VI of Common Language Infrastructure spec (ECMA-335) has all the details. There's even a reference implementation here.

Tags: Parallel+FX, ECMA-335

HOWTO: Check if ActiveSync is installed

Neil Cowburn — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 10:54:51 GMT

This is one of those FAQ items that keeps cropping up in the forums. Below is a method that will not only return true if ActiveSync or Windows Mobile Device Center is installed, but it will also return the version of ActiveSync or Windows Mobile Device Center.

/// <summary>
/// Checks to see if ActiveSync/Windows Mobile Device Center is installed on the PC.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="syncVersion">The version of the synchronization tool installed.</param>
/// <returns>True: Either ActiveSync or Windows Mobile Device Center is installed. False: </returns>
public static bool IsActiveSyncInstalled(out Version syncVersion)
{
    using(RegistryKey reg = Registry.LocalMachine.OpenSubKey(@"SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows CE Services"))
    {
        if (reg == null)
        {
            syncVersion = null;
            return false;
        }

        int majorVersion = (int)reg.GetValue("MajorVersion", 0);
        int minorVersion = (int)reg.GetValue("MinorVersion", 0);
        int buildNumber = (int)reg.GetValue("BuildNumber", 0);

        syncVersion = new Version(majorVersion, minorVersion, buildNumber);
    }
    return true;
}

Tags: ActiveSync, RAPI, WMDC

Implicit Method Group Conversion in C#

Neil Cowburn — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 11:16:38 GMT

It's always useful to learn something new everyday. It keeps you fresh and on your toes. Even after 6 or so years of using .NET, I'm still learning new, useful nuggets. This one is a gem, though.

If you look at the constructor signatures for the System.Threading.Thread class, you'll find something like this:

The Thread class constructor takes an instance of a ThreadStart delegate, so naturally, you code this:

new Thread(new ThreadStart(MyThreadDelegate));

where MyThreadDelegate is a method with the same signature as the ThreadStart delegate. Easy, right? Of course, but there is another way...

new Thread(MyThreadDelegate);

This example is functionally the same as the previous example! This is called implicit method group conversion. Excellent, I can save a time and space by letting the compile infer the delegate type from the method signature. Nice! It turns out this is not just restricted to threading either. Anywhere in your code where you reference a delegate method, you can do this. For example, take a look at assigning an event handler:

The traditional way:

using System;

class Program
{
    public static event EventHandler MyEvent;

    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        MyEvent
+= new EventHandler(MyEventHandler); } static void MyEventHandler(object
sender, EventArgs e) { } }

Using implicit method group conversion:

using System;

class Program
{
    public static event EventHandler MyEvent;

    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        MyEvent
+= MyEventHandler; } static void MyEventHandler(object sender, EventArgs
e) { } }

Now that rocks! This is documented in Section 21.9 of The C# Programming Language (pp. 534-535).

Tags: .NET+Compact+Framework, .NET+Framework, C#

Launching devenv from the command-line under Vista

Neil Cowburn — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 16:38:40 GMT

I frequently find myself using a command prompt for pretty much everything from launching a new instance of a browser to search google and msdn (I have a batch of Python scripts that I use as aliases). One of the banes has been how to launch Visual Studio from the normal, medium trust command prompt. I tried using runas but I got the output below:

$> runas /user:neilco devenv
Enter the password for neilco:
Attempting to start devenv as user "CWMYGLO\neilco" ...
RUNAS ERROR: Unable to run - devenv
740: The requested operation requires elevation.

What I need is a way of forcing the command prompt to launch Visual Studio as an elevated process. UAC allows you to do this by passing the runas verb to ShellExecute like this:

ShellExecute(NULL, L"runas", L"C:\\Windows\\Notepad.exe", NULL, NULL, SW_SHOWNORMAL);

The C# equivalent of this is:

Process p = new Process();
p.UseShellExecute = true;
p.StartInfo.FileName = @"C:\Windows\Notepad.exe";
p.StartInfo.Verb = "runas";
p.Start();

Using this, I wrote a simple console application that will launch devenv.exe from the command-line and proxy any arguments through to Visual Studio. Note that the code first checks that it is running under Vista before using the runas verb:

namespace OpenNETCF.Console.Utilities
{
    using System;
    using System.IO;
    using System.Diagnostics;
    using Microsoft.Win32;

    static class StartVS
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            string devenvPath = Path.Combine(GetVsInstallationDir(Registry.LocalMachine), "devenv.exe");

            Process p = new Process();
            p.StartInfo.FileName = devenvPath;
            p.StartInfo.Arguments = GetArgsString(args);
            p.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = true;
            if (IsVista())
            {
                p.StartInfo.Verb = "runas";
            }

            try
            {
                p.Start();
                return;
            }
            catch (Win32Exception)
            {
                return;
            }
            finally
            {
                p.Dispose();
            }
        }

        static string GetVsInstallationDir(RegistryKey key)
        {
            return (string)key.OpenSubKey(@"Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0").GetValue("InstallDir");
        }

        static bool IsVista()
        {
            if (Environment.OSVersion.Version.Major >= 6)
            {
                return (Environment.OSVersion.Version.Minor >= 0);
            }
            return false;
        }

        static string GetArgsString(string[] args)
        {
            System.Text.StringBuilder argString = new System.Text.StringBuilder();
            foreach (string arg in args)
                argString.AppendFormat("\"{0}\" ", arg);

            return argString.ToString().Trim();
        }
    }
}

Compile this to startvs.exe and then call it from a command prompt. You will be prompted for authorization to launch Visual Studio just as you would if you launched it from the start menu.

Update: Fixed bug in GetArgsString to handle spaces in paths.

Tags: Vista, Visual+Studio, UAC

Sandcastle: DocSet Filtering

Neil Cowburn — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 23:04:13 GMT

One of the tool combinations that we find invaluable at OpenNETCF is Sandcastle and the Sandcastle Help File Builder. We’ve been using these tools to build our documentation for our products and I’ve come across a few limitations and workarounds for the December CTP that I’ve not seen discussed elsewhere so I’d like to share them here.

The biggest issue that I’ve found is the lack of support for setting the DocSet attributes in the help topic metadata. The particular attribute allows you to associate a set of help topics by assigning a name to the set. This is useful as you can use it to filter the topics displayed in the Content, Index and Search sections of the Document Explorer.

The DocSet attribute looks something like this when added to a help topic:

<MSHelp:Attr Name="DocSet" Value="NETCompactFramework" />

This XML fragment will assoicate a help topic with a Document Set (DocSet) called "NETCompactFramework". So if you filtered by documentation by the .NET Compact Framework option in the Visual Studio Help (note: this option is available only if you have the MSDN Library installed), then all the help topics with this DocSet attribute will be listed. As an example, below is a screenshot of the Visual Studio Help filtered to only show the Smart Device Framework documentation.

Sandcastle uses a series of XML transformations to turn your XML documentation generated by Visual Studio into something that can be integrated with the Visual Studio Help system. The XSL file responsible for setting the various metadata attributes is called utilities_metadata.xsl and can be found in %ProgramFiles%\Sandcastle\Presentation\vs2005\Transforms.

To get Sandcastle to correctly add the DocSet attributes to each help topic, I had to add the following lines just below the <xml> node in the insertMetadata template:

<MSHelp:Attr Name="DocSet" Value="OpenNETCF.SDF2" />
<MSHelp:Attr Name="DocSet" Value="NETFramework" />
<MSHelp:Attr Name="DocSet" Value="NETCompactFramework" />

If you are thinking that I'm hardcoding these attributes and that they will appear in each help topic I ever generate with Sandcastle, you are correct. I will need to modify the OpenNETCF.SDF2 DocSet attribute for each product that I generate help documentation for.

In the Sandcastle March CTP, things don't get a lot better as there is still no support for custom DocSet attributes.

Tags: Sandcastle, Sandcastle+Help+File+Builder, Smart+Device+Framework

Useful Macro for COM Interop

Neil Cowburn — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 23:47:31 GMT

If you're creating CCWs in your project, or even creating RCWs manually, then you'll know the annoyance of having to create a new GUID, format it as a string without curly braces and then add it to your Guid attribute. This little macro will cut out those mouse pointer reaches to the Tools menu for "Create GUID". Simply assign a key stroke combination to it in the Visual Studio projects and you too can have new GUID strings in an instant.

    Sub CreateNewGuid()
        Dim newGuid As String = Guid.NewGuid().ToString()
        newGuid = newGuid.Replace("{", String.Empty)
        newGuid = newGuid.Replace("}", String.Empty).ToUpper()

        Dim sel As TextSelection = DTE.ActiveDocument.Selection
        sel.Text = """" + newGuid + """"
        DTE.ActiveDocument.Save()
    End Sub

C# Everywhere: XNA - a framework for game developers

Neil Cowburn — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 09:17:06 GMT

If you like games and game development, then check out what Mike is showing the world. Wow!

Shared Source CLI (ROTOR) v2.0 is out

Neil Cowburn — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 09:10:08 GMT

At long last, ROTOR 2.0 is out. Sweet! There goes my weekend...

[via Brad Abrams and Jason Zander]

Access rectangular array elements via pointers

Neil Cowburn — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 21:37:29 GMT

One of the things I love about coding is that you're constantly learning something new. Today was no exception.

I'd been working on some code that required multiplying a couple of m x n matrices. These matrices could potentially be quite large, so I looked into how I could optimize the multiplication procedure. I knew you could pin one-dimensional arrays and retrieve a pointer to the pinned array using unsafe code. However, I didn't think you could do it with multi-dimensional arrays. To my surprise, it turns out you can and the reason behind this is that multi-dimensional arrays are allocated as contiguous memory blocks. The story is different with jagged arrays (i.e. int[][] arrays) as that are non-contiguous in memory, that is, jagged arrays are arranged as an array of pointers to arrays. Below is some simple code that shows you how you can access multi-dimensional array elements using pointers in C#.

// Create a rectangular array
int[,] A = { { 1, 2 }, { 2, 1 }, { 1, 3 }, { 2, 2 } };

unsafe
{
    fixed(int* pA = A)
    {
        for(int i = 0; i < A.Length; i++)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(pA[i]);
        }
    }
}

New MS Certifications but it's not all good

Neil Cowburn — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 14:58:47 GMT

News about the new certifications that are to replace the MCAD and MCSD is circulating around the net. In summary, the MSCD is being replaced with the Microsoft Certified Professional Developer, while the MCAD is being replaced with the Microsoft Certified Technical Specialist.Further to this, the MCTS is split into 3 technology specialisms for developers (there are 2 more specialisms for IT Pros), including .NET Windows, .NET Web, and .NET Distributed apps.

This is all good stuff, but I'm won't be happy until mobile and embedded development is fairly represented in the certification roadmaps.

DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper Day 2: October 22nd

Neil Cowburn — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 21:22:11 GMT

Apparently, the first DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper Day at MS UK was such a raging success that they are running a second event in October. I missed out on the first one because I was in Orlando for Tech Ed 2005. I'm already registered for DDDDay 2, so if you are going, I'll see you there!

Interesting C# property construct

Neil Cowburn — Fri, 08 Jul 2005 07:23:35 GMT

Recently I was playing around with some code and, by complete accident, I ended up with something similar to this:

private string someString;

public string SomeString
{
    get { return someString; }
    internal set { someString = value; }
}

This is fully legitimate code and will compile, even with the internal access modifier on the setter. The beauty of this is that you can still set the property value from any class within the same assembly, but any code consuming the class from outside the same assembly will get a read only property. It gets even more interesting if you limit the scope just to the current class by changing "internal" to "private". Imagine you have some class that will be used in a multi-threaded application and you wish to notify consumers when the property's value changes, yet you do not wish to allows any consumers to modify the value -- you could use something like this:

public event EventHandler SomeStringChanged;
private string someString;

public string SomeString
{
    get { return someString; }
    private set
    {
        someString = value;
        if (SomeStringChanged != null)
        {
            SomeStringChanged(this, EventArgs.Empty);
        }
    }
}

Very cool!

Training: Designing Great Frameworks

Mon, 17 Jan 2005 00:55:59 GMT

This is hot news right now, and rightly so. Brad et al in the BCL team have begun a series of training sessions around class library design and how to apply this to designing a top notch framework. This series is essential viewing, IMO. The first session is up an offers an overview of what is to come in the following 13 sessions. You can view the full session plan at http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/programming/classlibraries/.

Unfortunately, this is online viewing only. No download option. That is unless, like me, you use something like WMRecorder to save the stream for offline viewing.

Using Custom Actions with WiX

Tue, 04 Jan 2005 14:10:17 GMT

A couple of weeks ago, I started looking into using managed custom actions with the WiX toolkit to add functionality to my installers. During my research, I came across a blog entry by Jose Almeida which described how to do what I wanted, but it lacks a concrete example of a complete WiX script detailing how to include & call the custom actions in an installer. So that's what I'm going to do today.

Below is the code I used for my custom actions. It's nothing impressive, but it gets the job done. I wrote this in notepad, but you can create the same in Visual Studio by starting a new Class Library project and adding an Installer Class project item. Then it's just a matter over overriding the Install/Uninstall/Commit/Rollback methods to provide your own action implementation.

using System;
using System.Collections;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Configuration.Install;
using System.Windows.Forms;
[RunInstaller(true)]
public class CustomActions : Installer
{
    public override void Install(IDictionary stateSaver)
    {
        base.Install(stateSaver);
        MessageBox.Show("Installing");
    }
    public override void Uninstall(IDictionary savedState)
    {
        base.Uninstall(savedState);
    }
    public override void Commit(IDictionary savedState)
    {
        base.Commit(savedState);
        MessageBox.Show("Committing");
    }
    public override void Rollback(IDictionary savedState)
    {
        base.Rollback(savedState);
        MessageBox.Show("Rolling back");
    }
}

Once I had the installer class all coded up, I compiled it to a DLL and then set about creating the WiX script. This is the part that I had the most problems with since Jose's post was a little vague in places, but after an hour or so of playing around with it I got something working that I was happy with. The main points to note when you look at the WiX script are the CustomAction sections and the Custom sections in the InstallExecuteSequence section. In the CustomAction section, you can pass custom parameters to the installer method by using the "/MyParameter=MyValue" pattern, as below (note: the WiX script included in the download does not make use of custom parameters, nor does the installer class demonstrate how to use them):

<CustomAction Id=Install Execute="deferred" DllEntry="ManagedInstall" BinaryKey="InstallUtil" />
<CustomAction Id=InstallSetProp Value='/MyParameter=MyValue /installtype=notransaction /action=install 
/LogFile= &quot;[#InstFile]&quot; &quot;[#InstCfgFile]&quot;' Property="Install" />

Included in the Zip file is a makefile to compile the Installer assembly and to run the WiX script through Candle and Light.

ManagedCustomActions.zip (18.16 KB).

NAnt 0.85 RC 1 is available

Mon, 29 Nov 2004 12:09:00 GMT

Over the weekend, Gert sent a message to the NAnt-Dev mailing list announcing the release of NAnt 0.85-RC1. Release notes are available here.

Fun with the ConditionalAttribute

Fri, 12 Nov 2004 01:32:51 GMT

Nathan has a cracking post on the use of the ConditionalAttribute. This has just opened my eyes to something quite cool:

#define DESKTOP void foo() {
DoCommonStuff(); DoDeviceStuff(); DoDesktopStuff(); } void DoCommonStuff()
{ // code that's common to both device and desktop fx's }
[Conditional("DESKTOP")] void DoDesktopStuff() { //
desktop specific code only } [Conditional("DEVICE")] void DoDeviceStuff()
{ // device specific code only }

Cross-platform coding anyone?

Hosting Native Controls in your Desktop Apps

Thu, 11 Nov 2004 20:15:04 GMT

Hot on the trial of Peter's latest MSDN article, and in the spirit of showing that we embedded can fair well in the desktop world too, here's how you can play those groovy AVI movie native resources (like the File Copy dialog with the worst guestimates for 'Time remaining' ever known to mankind ): Host the SysAnimate32 native control in your .NET app! And the code below shows you how to does this:

 1: using System;

 2: using System.Drawing;

 3: using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

4:

 5: namespace OpenNETCF.Desktop.Windows.Forms

 6: {

 7:  public class SysAnimate32
: IDisposable

 8:  {

 9:  #region Interop

10:

 11:  IntPtr hAnimCtrl, avi;

12:

 13:  readonly string ANIMATE_CLASS
= "SysAnimate32";

14:

 15:  readonly uint WS_CHILD
= 0x40000000;

 16:  readonly uint WS_VISIBLE
= 0x10000000;

 17:  readonly uint ACS_TRANSPARENT
= 0x0002;

 18:  readonly uint ACS_CENTER
= 0x0001;

19:

 20:  readonly int ACM_OPEN
= 0x400 + 100;

 21:  readonly int ACM_PLAY
= 0x400 + 101;

 22:  readonly int ACM_STOP
= 0x400 + 102;

23:

 24:  [DllImport("user32")]

 25:  static extern IntPtr
CreateWindowEx(

 26:  uint dwExStyle,

 27:  string lpClassName,

 28:  string lpWindowName,

 29:  uint dwStyle,

 30:  int x,

 31:  int y,

 32:  int width,

 33:  int height,

 34:  IntPtr hWndParent,

 35:  int hMenu,

 36:  IntPtr hInstance,

 37:  string lpParam

 38:  );

39:

 40:  [DllImport("kernel32")]

 41:  static extern IntPtr
LoadLibrary(string lpLibrary);

42:

 43:  [DllImport("kernel32")]

 44:  static extern void FreeLibrary(IntPtr
hLibrary);

45:

 46:  [DllImport("user32")]

 47:  static extern int SendMessage(

 48:  IntPtr hWnd,

 49:  int dwMsg,

 50:  int WParam,

 51:  int LParam

 52:  );

53:

 54:  #endregion

55:

 56:  private bool disposed
= false;

57:

 58:  #region .ctor

59:

 60:  public SysAnimate32(IntPtr
parent, string library, int index)
:

 61:  this(parent, library,
index, new Point(0,0), new Size(270,70))

 62:  {

 63:  }

64:

 65:  public SysAnimate32(IntPtr
parent, string library, int index,

 66:  int x, int y, int width, int height)
:

 67:  this(parent, library,
index, new Point(x, y), new Size(width,
height))

 68:  {

 69:  }

70:

 71:  public SysAnimate32(IntPtr
parent, string library, int index,

 72:  Point origin, Size size)

 73:  {

 74:  if((avi = LoadLibrary(library))
== IntPtr.Zero)

 75:  {

 76:  System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show(

 77:  string.Format("Unable
to load library \"{0}\"",library)

 78:  );

 79:  }

 80:  else

 81:  {

 82:  hAnimCtrl = CreateWindowEx(

 83:  0,

 84:  ANIMATE_CLASS,

 85:  null,

 86:  WS_CHILD|WS_VISIBLE|ACS_TRANSPARENT|ACS_CENTER,

 87:  origin.X,

 88:  origin.Y,

 89:  size.Width,

 90:  size.Height,

 91:  parent,

 92:  0,

 93:  avi,

 94:  null

 95:  );

96:

 97:  SendMessage(hAnimCtrl, ACM_OPEN, (int)avi,
index);

 98:  }

 99:  }

 100:

 101:  #endregion

 102:

 103:  /// <summary>

 104:  /// Plays the AVI movie

 105:  /// </summary>

 106:  public void Animate()

 107:  {

 108:  System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(100);

 109:  SendMessage(hAnimCtrl, ACM_PLAY, -1, -1);

 110:  }

 111:

 112:  /// <summary>

 113:  /// Stops the AVI movie

 114:  /// </summary>

 115:  public void Stop()

 116:  {

 117:  SendMessage(hAnimCtrl, ACM_STOP, -1, -1);

 118:  }

 119:

 120:  public void Dispose()

 121:  {

 122:  Dispose(true);

 123:  GC.SuppressFinalize(this);

 124:  }

 125:

 126:  private void Dispose(bool disposing)

 127:  {

 128:  if(!this.disposed)

 129:  {

 130:  if(disposing)

 131:  {

 132:  // Dispose managed resources

 133:  }

 134:

 135:  // Dispose unmanaged resources

 136:  if(avi != IntPtr.Zero)

 137:  {

 138:  FreeLibrary(avi);

 139:  avi = IntPtr.Zero;

 140:  }

 141:  disposed = true;

 142:  }

 143:  }

 144:

 145:  // Finalizer required because
not everyone calls Dispose

 146:  ~SysAnimate32()

 147:  {

 148:  Dispose(false);

 149:  }

 150:  }

 151: }

Enjoy!

Is unit testing finally coming of age?

Wed, 01 Sep 2004 10:34:00 GMT

Check out this position asking for NUnit skills! That's the first time I've seen a job description detailing the necessity of NUnit skills.

Build Your Own .NET Language and Compiler

Fri, 28 May 2004 20:24:37 GMT

Well, despite my good intentions, I was not able to resist the temptation to purchase "Build Your Own .NET Language and Compiler" (Apress) by Edward G. Nilges. This is one area I've been meaning to read up on for a LONG time now so I'm looking forward to this book being delivered so I can drive right on in :)

Automating iTunes on Windows: Playlist filtering/searching

Wed, 12 May 2004 11:51:27 GMT

If you've used iTunes, you'll know that the filtering/searching is fast. The grid control that Apple uses is very performant, even with a few thousand tracks. However, displaying the track info from the search results in a managed application is not.

In the screen grab below, iTunes Search is a C# application. As you can see, the search was quick. iTunes filtered out 31 tracks from 2994 in just 10 milliseconds. However, since we have to for-loop through the resulting IITTrackCollection, it took 180 milliseconds to add the tracks to the list view.

Incidently, to add 2994 tracks to the list view takes around 22 seconds -- ouch! I agree with Dan Crevier -- we need Apple to expose a managed API.

Click the image for a larger version

I code I used to add the tracks to the list view is as follows:

IITTrackCollection searchResults = app.LibraryPlaylist.Search(
SearchCriteria.Text,
ITPlaylistSearchField.ITPlaylistSearchFieldAll
);

if ( searchResults.Count > 0 )
{
    listView1.BeginUpdate();
    listView1.Items.Clear();

    for(int i=1; i<=searchResults.Count ; i++)
    {
        listView1.Items.Add(new ListViewItem(new string [] {
                searchResults[i].Artist,
                searchResults[i].Name,
                searchResults[i].Album
        } ));
    }

    listView1.EndUpdate();
}>

Visual Studio 2005 Community Tech Preview

Mon, 10 May 2004 17:04:49 GMT

I seem to have a couple of spare copies of the Visual Studio 2005 Community Tech Preview. If you would like a copy, drop me an email at neilc[at]opennetcf.org and I'll sort something out to you. I've only got two spare copies so it's first come, first served.

Automating iTunes on Windows: Changed track event handling

Sun, 09 May 2004 11:04:48 GMT

When you skip a track, or when one track ends and another begins, iTunes bubbles two events: first, it fires the OnPlayerStopEvent followed by the OnPlayerPlayEvent when the next track begins.

To receive a notification that a track has started, you can add an event handler to your code as follows:

[STAThread]
static void Main(string[] args)
{
    iTunesApp app = new iTunesAppClass();
    app.OnPlayerPlayEvent += new _IiTunesEvents_OnPlayerPlayEventEventHandler(app_OnPlayerPlayEvent);

    // Pause execution so we can trap the events
    Console.ReadLine();
}

private static void app_OnPlayerPlayEvent(object iTrack)
{
    IITTrack track = iTrack as IITTrack;
    if(track != null)
        Console.WriteLine("{0} - {1}",track.Artist, track.Name);
}

Automating iTunes on Windows: Retrieving Playlists

Sun, 09 May 2004 10:02:39 GMT

Dan Crevier gives some useful information on how to automate iTunes 4.5 in C#. One of the features I want to use is to change between the playlists I have set up. You can retrieve all the known playlists by using the very simple piece of code shown below:

iTunesApp app = new iTunesAppClass();

IITPlaylistCollection playlists = app.LibrarySource.Playlists;
for(int i=0;i<playlists.Count;i++)
{
Console.WriteLine(playlists[i+1].Name);
}

To play a particular playlist, you call the PlayFirstTrack() method on a particular playlist:

app.LibrarySource.Playlists[3].PlayFirstTrack();

Remember that all arrays in the iTunes type library are 1-based arrays.

OpenNETCF Consulting, LLC

Sat, 08 May 2004 10:16:55 GMT

As ChrisTacke mentions, a few of the folks from OpenNETCF.org are going into the consulting business. We're just working on getting the web site up and running over at OpenNETCF.com, so it's pretty spare right now.

Need help architecting or implementing a .NET-enabled Mobile solution? Need advice on design or just help writing code? We are looking for possible contract work for our upcoming DCS branch. If you would like more information or you have a specific project in mind, feel free to contact us.

I'm not a UI developer and I have proof!

Wed, 28 Apr 2004 10:58:44 GMT

Here's definitive proof that I should not be allowed anywhere near a UI:

This is taken from the online Developing Enterprise Windows®-based Applications with .NET: Rich Client--Visual C#® .NET Skills Assessment from MS Learning. (The green arrows indicate the average scores for the assessment.)

Now you know why I enjoy working with OpenNETCF.org so much :)

.NET Framework Standard Library Annotated Reference and Understanding Web Service Specifications and WSE

Wed, 21 Apr 2004 00:20:08 GMT

Last week, I got a copy of Brad Abram's .NET Framework Standard Library Annortated Reference from Computer Manuals. This is a "must have" book for anyone who wants to learn more about class library design. I've not finished reading it yet, but I highly recommend it. Oh, guess what? The book even identifies which methods are available in the .NET Compact Framework. Sweeeeet.

I also got Understanding Web Service Specifications and WSE by Jeannine Hall Gailey. This looks like another good read. I'll let you know when I'm through with it. I'm sure it's going to help with some plans I have.

SSCLI for Windows CE

Thu, 08 Jan 2004 00:11:11 GMT

Somedays you come across a site that *totally* makes your day. This is one of those days. Check out the SSCLI for Windows CE port!

Garbage Collection

Wed, 07 Jan 2004 17:11:18 GMT

I suffer from "knowledge gluttony". By that I mean I am constantly trying to learn new stuff. One of the things I'm trying to understand better is how the garbage collector works in the .NET Framework. One interesting article I read is titled "A Real-Time Garbage Collector Based on the Lifetimes of Objects". The article describes a heap storage framework that makes storage of short-lived objects a lot less expensive that longer-lived objects. This sounds similar to what the .NET Framework uses. The .NET Compact Framework, if my supposition is correct, uses a much simpler mark-sweep garbage collector, rather than the generational garbage collector described in the article. If I'm wrong, please correct me.

Book: Developing an Application Framework in .NET

Tue, 06 Jan 2004 21:41:44 GMT

I was browsing through the .NET books at Computer Manuals when I came an upcoming useful nugget titled Developing an Application Framework in .NET. Looks like a very interesting read. It's on my wishlist.

Web Service immutability

Mon, 10 Nov 2003 17:27:12 GMT

Steve asks: "Are Web Services Immutable?"

In his post, Steve points to Clemens Vaster's thoughts on this. Clemens sums up with a set of guidelines for developing ASP.NET Web Services:

1. Use the [WebService(Namespace="http://myserver/myservice/myInterface/2002/07/23")] attribute on your WebService class. Always.
If you add, remove a [WebMethod] or change any of your [WebMethod]s signatures or any of the types used directly or indirectly in any of those signatures, change the namespace!
If you happen to return or accept typed .NET DataSets and the DataSet schema changes, change the DataSet namespace and for the Web Service change the namespace!
If you wonder how you can support "legacy clients" with all these namespace changes and all the resulting incompatible WSDLs, you may just have found a good reason why people say that the backend implementation doesn't belong into the web method, but into a backend component. Like XML Schema and WSDL, Web Service implementations don't know versions, backend components do.
Every time you change the namespace, you must create a new Web Service endpoint (.asmx) for the new namespace, if you at all worry about backwards compatibility for the clients that could still talk to you yesterday.

Take note. This is going to become a really important issue as we move towards a more Service Oriented Architecture for loosely coupled applications.

Anatomy of a Bug... a tester's point of view

Tue, 28 Oct 2003 05:21:18 GMT

The next time you think about bagging Microsoft for not fixing a bug in any product, go read Joe Bork's anatomy of a bug and then redirect your negative energies to something more worthwhile.

Killer CLR tip

Mon, 27 Oct 2003 00:39:00 GMT

Doug Reilly, at the PDC, offers a cool tip he learnt from the CLR Internals session. This is really one kick-ass tip! I'll definitely be using this one in fture.

[via Scoble]

C# 2.0 Language Spec Released

Fri, 24 Oct 2003 14:59:22 GMT

I just received an email from Eric Gunnerson with details of the C# 2.0 Language Spec. Also, there's now a message board at GotDotNet for discussing the C# language! Fantastic!

Intel: Using Custom SOAP Headers to Authenticate Web Service Access

Fri, 19 Sep 2003 10:41:20 GMT

Another whitepaper goes live at Intel Developer Services. This one is about using custom SOAP headers to hold authentication credentials (securely).

Link: Intel Developer Services: Using Custom SOAP Headers to Authenticate Web Service Access

Intel: Protecting Authentication Credentials

Fri, 19 Sep 2003 10:37:59 GMT

Intel Developer Services have posted another web-based training module I wrote about a month or so ago. This module focuses on using the Data Protection APIs, new to Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, to protect authentication credentials for Web services, database connections, etc. It is also a good starting point for advanced P/Invoke and manual marshaling.

Link: Intel Developer Services: Protecting Authentication Credentials.

Lexers, Parsers, Tokenizers

Fri, 19 Sep 2003 09:42:44 GMT

I'm doing some research into parsing technologies and I'm coming up empty with my Googling. Has anyone go any pointers to info on developing parsing technologies in C#? Most of the stuff I find is about writing a compiler in C# that will produce C#... I want to be able to parse a SQL string, if that helps.

Julian Date Conversions

Tue, 09 Sep 2003 18:07:41 GMT

Note to Microsoft: I get a lot Google hits looking for Julian calendar conversions.

Why is it so?

Wed, 20 Aug 2003 02:51:34 GMT

Right now I'm surfing through the pages over at MSDN and the .NET Developer Center, and something has struck me: the .NET Compact Framework is FAR removed from anything .NET at MSDN. You go look through the .NET stuff and see how easy (or not) it is to find .NET Compact Framework information. Can't find it? Try looking under Visual Studio!

WHY, OH, WHY is it like this?

Edit and Continue returns...

Fri, 01 Aug 2003 09:04:30 GMT

One of the features that has been announced for Whidbey that VB developers will be happy about is the return of edit & continue. Paul Vicks talks at length about the need for edit & continue.

Official word on Whidbey and Orcas

Wed, 30 Jul 2003 21:16:23 GMT

Chris Sells gives us all good news -- Microsoft has issued the roadmap for Visual Studio .NET!

Remote Deploy utility

Wed, 16 Jul 2003 01:33:24 GMT

I've just released a Remote Deployment utility, called RapiDeploy, at OpenNETCF.org. The utility, written in C#, uses the OpenNETCF.org Communication library to call out to RAPI functions. Yes, we really do eat our own dog food.

RapiDeploy can be used to send files from your desktop to any device connected via ActiveSync. In addition, you can use the optional /install switch, if the file is a CAB file, and RapiDeploy will kick off the CAB installation process on the device. I just used it to deploy and install a ringtone on my Smartphone.

RapiDeploy has several optional switches which, amongst other things, mean you can use RapiDeploy in a "silent" mode where nothing is output to the command prompt window. This is really useful for batch files and scripting.

For more information and to download the utility, visit the RapiDeploy page at OpenNETCF.org.

Hell, I'm impressed with it and I wrote it.

Visual Studio Tip

Thu, 10 Jul 2003 23:39:25 GMT

If like me, you create/open a lot of projects in Visual Studio .NET, you treasure the Projects tab on the Start Page. However, this only lists the 4 MRU items. Luckily, this can be changed by selecting Options on the Tools menu. Under Environment, select General. Locate the section that reads "Display XX items in most recently used lists". The value of XX can be anything from 1 through 24.

Visual Studio posters

Wed, 18 Jun 2003 21:15:29 GMT

Joe Bork points out that Steve Clarke tells us where to find the Visual Studio .NET posters that come in the box when you purchase the product.

Cool! I saw these posters on the wall in an advertisement for VS .NET in MSDN Magazine and I was wondering where I could get them. Even better is they are PDF downloads of the posters in their original size. Now, I just need to find one b-i-g printer...

ASPToday is back... soon!

Mon, 16 Jun 2003 11:49:57 GMT

The long awaited return of ASPToday.com is soon to be over.

Wrox went into liquidation on March 14, 2003 and since then ASPToday.com has been out of commission. However, APress bought the domain and rights to the content and are working on getting the site back up and running ASAP. The bad news is that ASPToday's sister site, CSharpToday, won't be returning from the black depths of liquidation, at least for now anyways.

Link: ASPToday.com

Anakrino on Windows Server 2003

Tue, 10 Jun 2003 11:47:49 GMT

Finally! This has been a long time coming, but I've got Anakrino running under Windows Server 2003. Thanks to Jay for this one.

If you want to run Anakrino with Win2K3 simply download this replacement Anakrino.xml file. Rename the existing Anakrino.xml to something else and copy the new file into the directory. Anakrino should now launch successful.

VB .NET annoyances

Thu, 15 May 2003 16:02:46 GMT

Today I've been mainly coding in... VB .NET. I have a grievance with VB .NET and the way it handles projects in solutions.

The problem is that you cannot have VB .NET projects that target different platforms in the same solution. That's really annoying! For my solution, I have the following:

a XML Web Service
a class library
a Smart Device Windows Forms application

The class library is something I want to share between the Web Service and Smart Device app, but I can't. Instead, I have to two solutions - one with the Web Service and a desktop-targeted class library, and another with the Smart Device app and a Pocket PC-targeted class library. For the life of me, I can't see how this could have been overlooked during the Everett beta!

I've just doubled the project complexity by choosing VB .NET over C#. And the aim of choosing VB .NET? To show it is as much a first class citizen of .NET as C# is. Maybe it is, but when you use VB .NET in Visual Studio .NET, it doesn't do itself any favours.

VS .NET cmd-line fun

Thu, 15 May 2003 00:26:24 GMT

I was playing around with the command prompt (again) and I, for some random reason, decided to call up the command-line usage for devenv.exe (the VS .NET engine). Here's what I found:

Usage: devenv  [solutionfile | projectfile | anyfile.ext]  [switches]

Available command line switches:

/build          build the specified solution configuration
/project        specifies the project to build instead of solution
                must specify /build to use /project
/projectconfig  specifies project configuration to build
                must specify /project to use /projectconfig
/out            write build output to specified file
/rebuild        like /build but forces a clean first
/clean          clean up build outputs
/deploy         build the specified solution configuration and then deploy it
/run            run the specified solution configuration
/runexit        run the specified solution configuration and then terminate
/command        executes the specified internal command line after startup
/mditabs        use tabbed documents interface
/mdi            use MDI interface
/fn             use specified font name
/fs             use specified font size
/LCID           use specified language ID
/noVSIP         disables VSIP developers license key for VSIP testing
/safemode       only default environment and services load for stability
/resetskippkgs  allow VsPackages once flagged for loading failures to
                load again
/migratesettings migrate some user settings from another version

Product-specific switches:

/debugexe       Open the specified executable to be debugged. The
                remainder of the command line is passed to this
                executable as its arguments.
/useenv         Use PATH, INCLUDE, LIBPATH, and LIB environment variables
                instead of IDE paths for VC++ builds.

To attach the debugger from the command line, use:
        vs7jit.exe -p

So, just how cool is that? This will help a lot with OpenNETCF projects. We can batch compile from the solution files, and commit to CVS all from a batch script. Still, there's no option for defining preprocessors other than to use /projectconfig after creating a new project configuration to store them. And then that's project specific, not solution-wide.