DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by NathanE

When to make an action Invisible or Disabled

Fri, 02 May 2008 18:31:02 GMT

General rules for when to make an action invisible or disabled

I switched from Linux to Windows Server 2008

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 06:31:02 GMT

Wait, did I say that right? I thought it was supposed to be the other way around?

Over 250 High Quality Royalty Free icons set

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 13:31:02 GMT

Free Icon Download Offers High Quality Royalty Free icons for Windows, Mac and Linux.

IE8, Microsoft and the Reverse Fanboys

Sat, 08 Mar 2008 23:16:02 GMT

As the beta test of IE8 recently became available we are quickly approaching the release of another version of Internet Explorer. Much frustration has been expressed about the issues (or supposed issues ) in this beta. Some of this concern is definitely understandable, however, I think some of the negativity is present just because IE is a Microsoft product.

Write more empty lines! They will be read!

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 22:31:02 GMT

Using empty lines in source code may seem like a waste of precious screen space, but it's crucial to writing readable code.

AJAX-style Asynchronous Progress Dialog for WinForms

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 15:30:11 GMT

A base class for adding a rich asynchronous progress animation to any Form. My company develops a lot of rich-client applications and we have forever wanted a nice "slick" way to indicate to the user when activity is occuring in the background. Rarely do we know how long an operation will take (web services, remoting calls etc) so we always use to just stick a little barber pole type animation in the top-right corner of the main application window. This was never a perfect solution though because we still had to do all the nasty "locking" of the Control/Form to make sure they couldn't queue up another action. Moreover, setting Enabled = False on many WinForms controls can look quite ugly and inconsistent especially if the Form has got a variety of different controls. In recent years AJAX on the web has actually pioneered some interesting GUI concepts. I've always liked it when web sites pop-up with a central window that turns the background slightly darker and then ask you for some input. Then you type that input in and press an OK button and then you get a nice little barber pole animation to indicate it has gone off back to the server and is waiting for a reply for the next step (if any). That's basically what this project is about. Bringing that "cool" AJAX-style asynchronous indication behaviour to WinForms.