DotNetKicks.com - new stories

How to pass Dictionary as a parameter to an ActionResult

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 22:48:07 GMT

I'm using jQuery to make an Ajax call using an Http Post in ASP.NET MVC. I would like to be able to pass a Dictionary of values. I finally figured out the best solution is to pass JSON via the Http Post and use a custom ModelBinder to convert the JSON to a Dictionary. One thing I did in my solution is created a JsonDictionary object that inherits from Dictionary so that I can attach the custom ModelBinder to the JsonDictionary type, and it wont cause any conflicts in the future if I use Dictionary as a ActionResult parameter later on for a different purpose than JSON.

Bing VS. Google - A Spark of Search Engine Wars?

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 21:53:25 GMT

Bing is a new search engine from Microsoft that has been released exactly one month ago...

Hiding the Mouse Pointer (C#)

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:41:15 GMT

Some applications require that the mouse pointer be hidden during use. Examples of such software include screen savers and graphical applications or games. Each may fundamentally change the manner of display or the general behaviour of the cursor.

Moving the Mouse Pointer Programmatically (C#)

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:35:03 GMT

Although rare, there are some situations where you may wish to reposition the mouse pointer programmatically to improve the user experience or to enhance accessibility. This can be easily achieved using standard .NET classes and properties.

Article: Azure Storage

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 16:45:54 GMT

In this article, we will cover just the basics of the three storage services of Windows Azure. I want to give you a sense for what it's like to program against Azure Storage. At the base level all access to Azure Storage uses pure REST APIs. This means that you can access it from any HTTP enabled platform / language.

Accessing static properties using C# reflections

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:42:54 GMT

access static properties using C# reflections

How NOT To Design a UI - The dotnetkicks Example

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:42:35 GMT

With the advent of ajax and jquery flooding the internet, web developers are providing professional and polished web designs like never before. For example, when I search with google I type begin typing my query and google responds with other popular search terms and giving me feedback as I type.

WPF Label vs. TextBlock revised

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:35:40 GMT

New conclusions on the battle "TextBlock vs. Label". Think about more than performance only!

ASP.NET MVC: DefaultControllerFactory is not thread safe!

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:10:19 GMT

A bug in the current DefaultControllerFactory can create serious concurrency issues if you implement your own controller factory. This article explains how to work around it.

Testing Your Javascript

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 11:38:15 GMT

TDD is becoming a very popular way to verify the integrity of your applications. In my opinion, Dynamic languages, like Javascript, benefit more from TDD than other languages as they can easily be modified at any time. This post discusses creating a simple test suite using Javascript.

Development Tip: How to use Host Header with Development Server

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 10:44:00 GMT

If you are using "Asp.Net Development Server" One of the big problem of developing multiple web site at the same time is Development Server does not recognize and support Host Header. So you have to use different port for each web site. Problem with this solution is if you have hard coded links or templates pointing website you have to tweak code for testing and development. Here is the solution; Use Fiddler

Drink the red token - debug your claims-aware apps

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 10:32:00 GMT

Another identity development widget brought to you by Vittorio's team. This time it's a very tiny control called SecurityTokenVisualizer that helps debugging claims-aware web applications. But the thing I like of this control is that it can also be used as a teaching tool, very useful for demos by the way. Last week we "dogfooded" it during the Iteration Review of an identity-related project and the audience made the click when we expanded the red small pentagon that shows the behind the scenes...

A Simple .NET Profanity Filter

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 10:29:48 GMT

A website I am working on right now accepts public comments, and one of the requirements is to do a basic check for dirty language. Surprisingly for such a common problem I wasn't able to find any code on the net that did what I wanted and so I've ended up writing my own. The Censor class is pretty simple: you give it a list of words you want to censor, either simple text or with wildcards, and the censor will star out any matches it finds.

ASP.NET control for claims-aware apps

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 10:27:50 GMT

Vittorio just announced it in his blog. we helped writing an experiment of raising the level of abstraction to work against claims. We created a server control that allows you to work with claims. There are three types of expression: Claim Value: set the value of a property with the value of a specified claim type ...

Microsoft forums - where they are?

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 09:17:31 GMT

Microsoft has a lot forums in different (community) sites with a lot of topics. In this posting I listed up Microsoft forums, their locations and forum groups (categories under which forums belong). The purpose of this posting is to provide you with important information - where you get help when you have technical problems.

ASP.NET 3.5 ListView control - Is it perhaps too early?

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 09:04:26 GMT

ASP.NET 3.5 ListView control is finally explained in some tricky details it this short story.

$(document).ready handler will not be fired on asynchronous postback

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 08:54:29 GMT

Alternative: $(document).ready handler will not be fired on asynchronous postback

VistaDB two day sale July 3-4, 2009

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 06:01:12 GMT

You want to the source code added on to your Small Business or Corporate account we are offering it for 50% off these same two days. Open a ticket with your information request and we will take care of you. Visit the online pricing page for more information.

Visual Studio 2008 var Keyword Bug

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 04:12:11 GMT

Visual Studio has a feature which is causing it to provide syntax highlighting for non-compilable code. An investigation into run-time versus compile-time code in ASP.NET 2.0 web projects using C# 3.0 syntax.

Best and simple approach to deal with JSON Dates problem

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 02:27:55 GMT

This article will show you how to trick and overcome the JSON date problem when you are using jQuery, JSON callback alongwith asp.net

Use WPC Connect today to connect with your peers and Microsoft

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:05:57 GMT

TEST POST

Top 10 Things to know about Silverlight Prism

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:01:49 GMT

Prism is one of the hottest topics in Silverlight. Here, I provide the top 10 things that I think every developer should know about Prism.

Asynchronous posting with jQuery and ASP.NET

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 00:52:57 GMT

A short article showing the link between client side jQuery Ajax calls and a web handler ashx file.

Creating Excel spreadsheets .XLS and .XLSX in C# - ASP.NET MVC Project

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 00:20:00 GMT

Recently I had to implement some code to create an Excel spreadsheet/report using C#. The task was: given an Excel spreadsheet template - a .XLS file (with formulas, pivot tables, macros, etc) I had to fill some data in one of the sheets of the spreadsheet and send this modified spreadsheet back to the user requesting such an operation (Excel report). I had a great time while studying the possible ways of doing what the task asks for. In this article I present an ASP.NET MVC project that shows you how to create an .XLS file using NPOI and an .XLSX file using ExcelPackage.

Entity Framework support - Be there first, or getting it right?

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 23:00:01 GMT

An in depth look at the issues surrounding VistaDB publishing an EF provider, and why we may just skip it and wait until .Net 4 if Microsoft has changed the model significantly enough.