By Ian Lackey on 11/29/2009 12:01 PM

I have recently been practicing playing the bass again and during one of the practicing session my friend had suggested some features for a digital metronome. We had used a few JavaScript based ones; however none of them had a few helpful features. These features included: Adjustable tempo, support for different beats per measures, a visual counter displaying the current count of the measure, the ability to allow for multiple measures, the ability to have two different volumes for the tick sound that plays for each beat, the ability to mute the tick for specified beats of a measure and allow the metronome to be run from the computer without being connected to the internet.So since we could not find a single metronome that supported these features, I decided to build one using Silverlight, figuring that it would be a pretty simple exercise. It turns out I was right, well for the most part.

Obviously the most important feature of a metronome is to keep time, this turned out to be so easy it was almost ridiculous....

Read More »

By Ian Lackey on 11/20/2009 11:02 PM

Maybe I am a bit to “old school” but I still prefer to use the ASP.Net Web Site project type as opposed to the ASP.Net Web Application project type. I believe this comes from the time spent developing Classic ASP sites and being used to the more “Windows-Like” development of WAP. I am not saying that I will not eventually switch to the “Dark Side” and honestly I already have embraced the Compiled Module project template for my recent DotNetNuke development. However, for now I still have several existing ASP.Net Web Sites that are in use and will not be changing to the compiled project paradigm anytime soon.

This has never been an issue and I had never even considered it to be a drawback until I started learning RIA Services. It didn’t take long to notice that the RIA Services template only allows for the WAP style projects. So I started to wonder how to go about adding RIA to existing web sites. I put together a quick example of how to structure a solution to enable RIA on a stand ASP.Net Web Site. The projects look this:

 

RegularWebSite: Obviously this is the regular non-compiled site, created using the ASP.Net Web Site template. ExampleRIAServicesApplication: This is a project created using Silverlight Navigation Application template. ExampleRIAServicesLibrary: A Silverlight class library project that was created using the WCF RIA Services Class Library project template. The template also created the next project automatically. ExampleRIAServicesLibrary.Web: A .Net class library project that was created using the WCF RIA Services Class Library project template.  

Once these projects were created I started setting up the Domain Services that will be hosted on the ASP.Net site. To do this I first added the following references to the ExampleRIAServicesLibrary.Web:



I then added a LinqToSql model to the project and created a Domain Service to expose the entities in the model. (To keep this post focused, I will not be discussing how to create the domain services. There are plenty of great resources on how to create these services, write custom queries, enable authentication and so on. This article is meant only to explain how to use RIA Services with a non-compiled ASP.Net site.) Once I had these services built (or at least started), I built the ExampleRIAServiceLibrary.Web project and verified that the code was generated in the ExampleRIAServiceLibrary project. If the code is generated, then the RIA Services link is functioning properly and you can move on to wiring this library projects to the application projects.



Note: If the code is not generated verify that the Silverlight class library is linked to the .Net library via the .Net RIA Services link project property.



 

First I added a reference to the ExampleRIAServiceLibrary project in the main Silverlight application:



Then I added a reference to the ExampleRIAServiceLibrary.Web project in the RegularWebSite project:



The final step to link all of the projects together is to link the ExampleRIAServicesApplication Silverlight application to the web site:



Now that all of the projects are linked properly, I built the solution to verify that all of the files were generated and\or copied to the appropriate locations and no errors where reported. Everything built properly so we are ready to published right? Well, actually not yet. There are a few web.config changes that need to be made to allow the Domain Services to function properly. All of the changes that need to be made should be found in the App.Config file of the ExampleRIAServiceLibrary.Web and can be copied directly into the RegularWebSite web.config. First make sure that the necessary connection strings are copied over so the Domain Services can access the data store. The two RIA Services specific settings are as follows:

Under system.web->httpModules  add the following entry: 

add name="DomainServiceModule" ...

Read More »

By Ian Lackey on 10/9/2009 2:00 AM

I created a package and posted it to the CodePlex site associated with this series of articles. The package aims to allow you to easily implement the strategy outlined in Part 2 (Solidifying a Strategy) of these posts. This article will discuss how to integrate the code in the package with your existing ASP.Net site to allow links to be mapped between current urls and new Silverlight Deep Links. With the page mappings in place, you can effectively move your entire site to Silverlight while maintaining the links already indexed by the search engines. This also allows users that have not installed Silverlight and search engine bots to continue to use the original ASP.Net site.

A correction is needed for some information in the previous post. Apparently, I was mistaken about needing to require the...

Read More »

By Ian Lackey on 10/7/2009 10:40 PM

So thanks to the instructor (Kevin Grossnicklaus) of a Silverlight class I just attended, I have finally started to use twitter. Believe me, this was not an easy decision for me to make. I have seen many good people fall prey to the evil that is social networking sites. I must admit, I have made my fair share of jokes about the “tweeters” out there and had to eat a little crow when I told my wife that I signed up for an account.

The reason I was so resistant to twitter is all of the utterly useless information that is posted to that site. For example, I have no need or desire to know that someone is looking at a cloud shaped like a rabbit. I am sorry, but please do not clutter the information super highway with debris such as this. I mean, if I am next to you and you say “hey that cloud looks like a rabbit” that is great I will check it out. However, if you are in China and I am in the USA why do I need to know that?

...

Read More »

By Ian Lackey on 10/5/2009 9:34 PM

 So I do know that "ironic" is the right word for that fact that my first post after ... way too long ... is entitled "Remember Me?" but it fitting in more than one way.

Michael brought this post to my attention : www.dotnetnuke.com/Community/Blogs/tabid/825/EntryId/1784/a-new-solution-to-an-old-problem.aspx dealing with DotNetNuke's issue of not respecting the "Remember Me" checkbox when logging into a site.

Read More »

By Ian Lackey on 8/5/2009 12:21 AM

So I have been one of a dwindling number of VB.Net advocates since I moved from Classic ASP (or  in other words shortly after the dinosaurs went extinct and the wheel was invented). However, today was the first time I had to use C# because I simply could handle how I had to code the VB. Don’t get me wrong I am actually language agnostic and truly believe that any .Net developer worth their salt should be able to code in either C# or VB. I use C# for a few projects, but usually default to VB for production application because it is my “native” language. I figured I should preface this article with these statements in hopes of preventing the typical language wars that ensue when topics like this are addressed. Now to the point.

I have recently started an application for my employer (Washington University School of Medicine – Pediatrics Department) that would be built in Silverlight 3. It all began as every other project I have built for...

Read More »

By Ian Lackey on 8/4/2009 1:00 AM

In the previous article we outlined a possible solution to getting links to your Silverlight Navigation Application indexed in the search engines. However, the implementation of the process left much to be desired. This article will address how to make a more robust solution to the problem and deal with some rules imposed by the search engines to prevent your from penalized by the search providers.

Read More »

By Ian Lackey on 7/31/2009 1:24 AM

I have been experimenting with the new Silverlight Navigation Application project template, and the navigation framework in  general. Today, it struck me that there should be an easy way to combine the search engine friendly URLs and content of ASP.Net MVC framework and Silverlight Deep Linking. The MVC framework is setup to easily provide SEO links and content out of the box. However, Silverlight… well it returns “Get Microsoft Silverlight” to GoogleBot and the other search engine spiders trying to index your site. My hunch is this will not get you to the top of any search results.

Read More »

By Ian Lackey on 7/25/2009 11:38 PM

It appears that there is not an easy way to override the content or the style for the area that appears in the DotNetNuke menu when you need to scroll through a long list of menu items. This is not an elegant solution, but it works for me. I was hoping there was a property of the menu control that I had simply overlooked. However, the  CSSScrollItem attribute referenced in the spmenu.js file appeared to be ignored by the menu control. So I was left to dig into the JavaScript a little further. I soon figured out that the default Css class used for this element was always output the same:  .dnn_dnnmenu_ctldnnmenu_spmitmscr

So I gave it a shot and entered this class into my Skin.css file... and it worked!!! I had successfully overridden the default style for the little grey box that appears that the top and/or bottom of the menu when it will not fit in the browser window! So I took it a step further and decided, that since I could not modify the content of the div ( ... ), I would create an image and set it...

Read More »

By Ian Lackey on 7/24/2009 10:28 PM

I have seen more than one person on the DotNetNuke forums faced with a problem when trying to access their portal. Only to find out that they had moved the portal or changed the hostheader, DNS etc. for the url associated with the portal. As it turns out, the root of the problem is that the Portal Alias is now “out of sync” with the url they are using to access the portal. There are two ways to fix this, that I know of. Updating the records in the PortalAlias table in the DotNetNuke database or pointing the original url back to the portal to align with the portal alias records.

Updating the PortalAlias table should be pretty self explanatory for the most part. Simple open the table in SQL Management Studio and edit the value in the HTTPAlias column to the url you are needing to use for the portal.

The other option of pointing the original url back at the portal may not always be possible. However, there is some trickery that can be used to emulate the original url. This is a well documented and widely...

Read More »