PathGeometry Figures Property XAML Attribute Syntax in Silverlight

Chris Idzerda — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 10:45:00 GMT

The MSDN documentation is incorrect. In the current released version of Silverlight 2, 2.0.31005.0, you cannot use attribute syntax for the Figures property of a PathGeometry in XAML. For instance, the following will fail, throwing a XamlParseException.

Open New Safari Window in Silverlight

Chris Idzerda — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 15:27:00 GMT

I suggest following the directions found here but if you need a different solution try the following instead. Add this method to your Silverlight in a convenient place, such as your application class. public static void OpenBrowser(string url){if(HtmlPage.BrowserInformation.UserAgent.Contains(&q... (More)

Avoiding Inheritance - Response

Chris Idzerda — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 17:47:00 GMT

Recently, there was an article on avoiding inheritance on the Visual Studio start page news channel. In general, I like the content of the article. I don't think there is any misinformation, but I do think there is some misrepresentation. I believe this article is overly critical of inheritance. I... (More)

GridView-DetailsView Parent-Child

Chris Idzerda — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 17:50:00 GMT

I've seen several master-detail examples using a GridView that controls a DetailsView but no parent-child examples that reverse their roles (i.e., an example using a DetailsView that contains and controls a GridView). I alluded to such a scenario in a previous post. Here, I'll walk through the ste... (More)

C++ Library v. .NET Framework

Chris Idzerda — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:31:00 GMT

I am still a die-hard C++ programmer. I don't call myself an expert (journeyman, perhaps); it's a huge and complex language. Put another way, it gives you enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot. Nowadays, I program primarily in C#. For the longest time, I still did significant recreational prog... (More)

Detect Visual Studio Debugging

Chris Idzerda — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 20:29:00 GMT

If you have code that you want to run only while debugging in Visual Studio, you can detect it if you are running in its hosting process, which is enabled by default. #if DEBUG if(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.FriendlyName.EndsWith("vshost.exe")) { // Perform whatever tasks dep... (More)

The nil attribute in XML-serialized nullable values

Chris Idzerda — Wed, 28 May 2008 19:57:00 GMT

If in a class you have a value type property that is optional, it's common to specify it as nullable. However, if you serialize a nullable value type property to XML, you'll get something like this if it's null. Or, if you turned off declaration of the ... (More)

Removing the XML schema and instance namespace declarations

Chris Idzerda — Wed, 21 May 2008 19:20:00 GMT

To remove the declarations of the XML schema (xsd) and schema instance (xsi) namespaces from the output file of XML-serialized objects, create an XmlSerializerNamespaces object and add an empty namespace to it. XmlSerializerNamespaces ns = new XmlSerializerNamespaces();ns.Add("", &quo... (More)

XML-serializing a derived collection

Chris Idzerda — Wed, 14 May 2008 17:27:00 GMT

A class derived from a collection class will XML-serialize only the collection, not any additional properties in your derived class. public class NamedNodeList : List{ public string Name { get; set; } // ignored during XML serialization} The work-around is to use containment ins... (More)

ION TTUSB

Chris Idzerda — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 16:51:00 GMT

About a year ago I received an ION TTUSB. It's a turntable that accepts 33's and 45's and has a USB output. I finally got around to using it last month to create some CDs for my mom from some old albums she has. My experience was good but the main problem I had along the way to a completely workin... (More)

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