Chris Kirby's Inner Monolog : OpenSource

Asp.net AJAX Beta 1 a showstopper

Chris Kirby — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 23:08:31 GMT

I, like many others, have just put in the time to migrate my atlas ctp site over to ajax beta 1 only to find out that ajax extender controls no longer work with templated controls!! You've got to be kidding me! I just don't know how this could have slipped past testing, being that its such a major issue. I hate to rag on the dev team being that this is still a beta product, but this bug wasn't present in the last 2 ctp's and now is a major showstopper for me and many others...and unfortunately, the workaround that was posted by the team just won't do the trick for the majority of my controls. I'm now left with the lose lose decision of trying to stick it out and hack it together or going back to the July CTP :(

Please guys, get us an update soon!

Insert source code plugin for Windows Live Writer

Chris Kirby — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 18:13:00 GMT

Last night, I finally got a chance to finish a workable version of my source code formatting plugin for Live Writer. The plugin isn't quite done yet, but as of now, will let you insert and format C#, VB, Javascript, Html, Xml, and T-Sql, very similar to the functionality available in the Wookie Blog Extension v2 which is also based on the original source code from Jean-Claude Manoli's CSharpFormat project. As for the cross posting support, the api just isn't there yet...so far, there is only support for content based plugins, but I'm assuming they will add support for more integrated plugins in future releases. You can grab the code plugin using the link below...and, to install, just drop it in your Live Writer plugins directory.

Insert Source Code Plugin Beta 1

dotNetWookie now running CS 2.1

Chris Kirby — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 19:26:31 GMT

dotNetWookie.com is now up and running with Community Server 2.1!

Wookie users...dont' forget to check out all of the new features and skins available.

CS 2.1 goes gold...Beta site up and running

Chris Kirby — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 19:23:00 GMT

The dotNetWookie beta site is now running Community Server 2.1! The most noticeably feature right off the bat, is the new Tags feature...Tags have replaced blog categories, and are a great way to quickly find the most popular and relevant content in any section of the site. And, perhaps a not very noticeable feature, but important to me, Feedburner support! For a complete list of new features, check out the announcement at communityserver.org.

The upgrade to the main site should be happening sometime this week...just have to do a few migration test runs and some skin tweaking first.

Asp.net 2.0 membership and migrating legacy users

Chris Kirby — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 16:07:00 GMT

I've encountered many instances lately in which i'm developing a new version of a site with an existing (custom) authentication database. Now, in cases like these, most .net developers would suggest writing your own membership and role providers to tie directly in to the existing schema; however, instead of rolling my own, I've decided to take a different approach in which I simply utilize the events provided with the login control to manually authenticate and migration the legacy accounts in real time. This approach requires considerably less code and allows you to utilize the default providers while still supporting the legacy user database. The event code would look something like this: (*note* that the db code makes use of classes and methods from a custom library)

protected void Login1_Authenticate(object sender, System.Web.UI.WebControls.AuthenticateEventArgs e)
{ // first, check to see if the user has already been migrated. if so, then were done here.
if(Membership.ValidateUser(Login1.UserName, Login1.Password))
{
e.Authenticated = true;
return;
}
else
{
// check legacy credentials
DataParameters parameters = new DataParameters();
parameters.Add("@Login", SqlDbType.VarChar, Login1.UserName);
parameters.Add("@Password", SqlDbType.VarChar, Login1.Password);
parameters.Add("@Email", SqlDbType.VarChar, 50, ParameterDirection.Output);
parameters.Add("@UserId", SqlDbType.Int, 1, ParameterDirection.Output);
parameters.Add("ReturnValue", SqlDbType.Int, 1, ParameterDirection.ReturnValue);
DataUtility.ExecuteNonQuery("ConnectionString", CommandType.StoredProcedure, "ValidateUser", parameters);
// if the credentials are good, then migrate to membership
if((int)parameters["ReturnValue"].Value == 0)
{
// migrate the user account
MembershipCreateStatus status;
MembershipUser newUser = Membership.CreateUser(Login1.UserName, Login1.Password, parameters["@Email"].Value.ToString(), "What is your Username?", Login1.UserName, true, out status);

if (status == MembershipCreateStatus.Success)
{
// update legacy user with new membership user id, tying the old to the new
parameters = new DataParameters("@UserId", SqlDbType.Int, Login1.UserName);
parameters.Add("@MembershipUserId", SqlDbType.UniqueIdentifier, newUser.ProviderUserKey);
DataUtility.ExecuteNonQuery("ConnectionString", CommandType.StoredProcedure, "UpdateUser", parameters);
// Create an empty Profile for the newly created user
ProfileCommon profile = (ProfileCommon)ProfileCommon.Create(Login1.UserName, true);
// Populate default profile values
profile.Theme = "Default";
// Save the profile
profile.Save();
e.Authenticated = true;
return;
}
else
Login1.FailureText = "We were unable to migrate you user account. Please contact support for further assistance.";
}
e.Authenticated = false;
}

So, with the little bit of code above, I'm able to authenticate and migrate legacy user accounts to the new membership system without breaking the existing db schema. It may not be as elegant as writing your own provider, but in my case, it was equally as effective.

Get the most out of Master Pages

Chris Kirby — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 00:06:00 GMT

<<	Master Pages: Tips, Tricks, and Traps

MasterPages are a great addition to the ASP.NET feature set, but are not without their quirks. This article will highlight the common problems developers face with master pages, and provide tips and tricks to use master pages to their fullest potential.

This article really digs in to the inner workings and advance usage of Master Pages. I took quite a few useful things from it...definitely a great read for any .net developer.

The schema and service versioning dilemma

Chris Kirby — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 22:49:31 GMT

<<	Solving the XSD versioning problem

I would agree, as with most xml and web service developers, that schema and service versioning is a major pain in the ass. In this post by Tim Ewald, he discusses a way to approach this by using a more in-depth approach to validation. The way most of us approach this is simply by throwing the document up against latest known schema, and, if it errors, then the data must be invalid. Well, as well all know, that is usually not the case. Most likely, the document may have been created with a different version and simply contain some minor variations, which, in the end, may not even apply to the data we care about. In those scenarios, his solution suggests that we just get a little more detailed with our validation process...basically ignoring elements we dont understand or care about during validation, and only hiccup a validation error to the sender when its obvious that required data is missing. To my surprise, this type of, per element, validation meta data, is already built into the xsd specification and should be supported by xml processors in .net. I'll definitely look forward to checking out his implementation when he posts the code.

Wookie Blog Extension v2 Final

Chris Kirby — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 00:27:00 GMT

The final build of the Wookie Blog Extension v2 is now available under Current Releases in the Files section. This version just addressed some minor issues that came up with beta 2 and now includes a native MSN Spaces plugin with the installation. You can view the complete release notes over in the discussion forums.

All of the plugins are also available for independent download under Plugins in the Files section, including the project files and source code for the Community Server and MetaWeblog plugins.

** update ** I've just updated the rtm installer package with the new Blogger plugin, as well as uploaded the Blogger plugin source and assembly for seperate download.

New Gengis for .net 2.0

Chris Kirby — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 21:38:00 GMT

Chris Sells announced a new version Gengis a few days ago on his blog. This new version, 0.6, is now targeted for .net 2.0, and includes many new controls. I was hoping they would continue work on this project, its definitely been of great to help to me in the past...and, now this its out for win forms 2.0, I definitely plan on integrating some of the new controls into the wookie blog extension ui.

OSS Socket Library for .net

Chris Kirby — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 20:36:00 GMT

I just came across this really cool open source socket library for .net, mono, and Delphi called Indy.Sockets. I've been looking for an easier way to work with telnet, pop, and others without having to pay for an expensive solution like IPWorks, and Indy.Sockets appears to cover all of those needs and then some. The only minor issue I've run into so far, is that all the source and examples are written in Delphi. Its not too hard to muddle my way through the syntax, but Delphi is no C#. A great way to work around that, just to view the code, is to open the compiled assembly with Reflector and have it decompile the IL to C# for you...and, since I have no need to modify the source anytime soon, that method works quite well for now. I've also come across a few articles and demo projects written in C# over at Code Project and Atozed Software if your interested in checking it out.

Feed me

Chris Kirby — Mon, 05 Dec 2005 21:01:00 GMT

A new version of RSS Bandit was just released last week with some long awaited features, such as NNTP support, Atom 1.0 support, a new subscription wizard, and synchronization features. If you use RSS Bandit, then definitely check out the upgrade...you can grab it from SourceForge here.

IBlogExtension Interface

Chris Kirby — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 21:36:00 GMT

 


public interface IBlogExtension 
{
   // Name of plug-in, suitable for display to a user 
   string DisplayName { get; }


   


   // return true if plug-in has configuration settings 
   bool HasConfiguration { get; } 


   


   // Return true if an editing GUI will be shown to the 
   // user when BlogItem is called. In this case, the 
   // aggregator will not display its own editing UI. 
   bool HasEditingGUI { get ; } 


   


   // Display configuration dialog to user, if applicable 
   void Configure(IWin32Window parent); 


  


    // Post item to weblog. If plug-in is going to show a 
   // GUI for editing, it should return true to HasEditingGUI(). 
   void BlogItem(IXPathNavigable rssFragment, bool edited); 
}