Steve Trefethen

Powered by discountASP.NET
referal ID: sdtref
Why recommend discountASP.NET?

Archives
Tags
Disclaimer
The posts on this weblog are provided �AS IS� with no warranties, and confer no rights. The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer�s view in any way.
# Friday, November 14, 2008

Intellisense for TestComplete's Script Extensions description.xml file

Posted @ 9:34AM

Categories: howto

Tags:

I’ve been working on Script Extensions for TestComplete and thought it would be nice to have Intellisense support while editing the description.xml file required by the IDE. Here is what I did:
  1. Opened the TestComplete online help and searched for description.xml
  2. Copied the xml and saved it to a .xml file

     TestComplete online help for description.xml
  3. From the command line I ran xsd.exe on the file as follows:

    %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\Bin\xsd.exe TCSchema.xml
  4. In VS.NET I opened my description.xml file and changed the Schema property to point to the XSD file I created above:

    Adding a schema to edit an xml file in VS.NET 2008

Now, I have Intellisense support for creating description.xml files.

Intellisense support for custom xml file

# Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Adding XFBML support to the Facebook Starter Kit

Posted @ 9:59AM

Categories: Facebook

Tags:

I’ve been playing around with XFBML support for Facebook and thinking about how to incorporate support for it into the Starter Kit. I haven’t decided yet if it should be added directly to the existing master page or add another master page or some other approach. If you feel strongly either way please let me know.

If you would like to add support for XFBML simply replace existing site.master with the following:

<%@ Master Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeFile="Site.master.cs" Inherits="FacebookApp.Site" %>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:fb="http://www.facebook.com/2008/fbml"> 
<head runat="server">
    <title>Untitled Page</title>
    <!-- Load Javascript for Facebook Connect -->
    <script src="http://static.ak.facebook.com/js/api_lib/v0.4/FeatureLoader.js.php" type="text/javascript"></script>
</head>
<body>
  <form id="form1" runat="server">
  <div>
      <asp:contentplaceholder id="MainContentPlaceHolder" runat="server"></asp:contentplaceholder>
  </div>
  </form>
  <script type="text/javascript">FB_RequireFeatures(["XFBML"], function(){ FB.Facebook.init('<%=ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings["APIKey"] %>', "xd_receiver.htm"); });</script>
</body>
</html>

Add an HTML file called xd_receiver.htm to the root of your project with this content:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<title>Cross-Domain Receiver Page</title>
</head>
<body>
<script src="http://static.ak.facebook.com/js/api_lib/v0.4/XdCommReceiver.debug.js" type="text/javascript"></script> 
</body>
</html>

Once you’ve made these changes you can start using XFBML tags. Here’s an example of the <fb:user-status /> added to the Default.aspx page:

<%@ MasterType VirtualPath="~/Site.Master" %>
<asp:Content ID="Content1" ContentPlaceHolderID="MainContentPlaceHolder" runat="Server"> <h1>ASP.NET Starter Kit Application</h1> <fb:user-status uid="<%=Master.API.uid%>" /><br /> ...
# Monday, November 10, 2008

Importing photos from Picasa to Facebook always fails

Posted @ 1:09PM

Categories: General

Tags:

Over the past few months I’ve tried numerous times to import pictures into Facebook from Picasa using the import option that’s part of Facebook. Each time I try I almost always get "Importing from external sites failed. Please try again later". I think out of ~50 times I’ve tried it’s managed to work only twice but it seems more or less broken with no additional information as to what’s wrong nor any way to actually debug the problem. Here’s what I’m seeing: image

The above screenshot is from the Import option on the Profile tab. I’ve posted here about it but does anyone know who/how to contact Facebook to report this problem?

Missing Install Script Extensions menu item in TestComplete

Posted @ 10:30AM

Categories: howto | Testing

Tags:  | 

Recently, I upgraded my copy of TestComplete from v6.4 to v6.5 which includes a cool new feature called Script Extensions. The online help for this feature mentions a new File|Install Script Extensions... menu item which, after upgrading was not present on the File menu.

Fortunately, there is a simple workaround which is to manually place the item onto the menu as follows:

TestComplete Customize dialog

  1. Right click on the toolbar and select Customize...
  2. On the Customize dialog click the Commands tab
  3. Select the Script Extensions Category
  4. Select the "Install Script Extensions..." item
  5. Drag/drop it onto the File menu

At present, I’m still experimenting with Script Extensions but they look very powerful and are a welcome addition to TestComplete.

# Thursday, November 06, 2008

Facebook Starter Kit updated (again) now to v2.0 release code

Posted @ 9:01PM

Categories: Facebook

Tags:

I wasn’t sure how long it was going to take to move from RC3 to the released v2.0 of the Facebook Developer’s Toolkit (FDT) but I wouldn’t have guessed it would only be hours after I posted my latest update. Anyway, here is an updated update of the v2.0 Facebook Starter Kit.

For detailed instructions on how to get started developing a Facebook Applications take a look at my wiki page which is now updated for v2.0 of FDT.

Enjoy and feedback welcome...

Facebook Developer Toolkit Starter Kit updated to v2.0 RC3

Posted @ 8:34AM

Categories: Facebook

Tags:

UPDATED: Download now points to the v2.0 release code version and here is my wiki page about using the Starter Kit.

Now that the Facebook Developer Toolkit has reached v2.0 RC3 I’ve updated my Starter Kit with the download, for VS.NET 2008, is available here. The new Toolkit has changed dramatically since v1.7 and now utilizes LINQ to XSD and Facebook.xsd to wrap the API. While a complete departure from the previous release I think the new release more natural and maps directly to the FB API as well as the documentation. Kudos to the Clarity team.

# Tuesday, October 28, 2008

VS.NET needs implicit closing of debugger files like Delphi

Posted @ 9:18AM

Categories: .NET | Development

Tags:  | 

One of the features I really miss from Delphi is the option to close files implicitly opened while debugging. You know, those files that are opened by the debugger as your stepping through code. In Delphi, those files are closed automatically at the end of the debug session thus helping keep you focused on the code you’ve been working on. I was just wading through all of the open files in my current solution and trying to close files I no longer wanted open the vast majority of which were opened during a debug session. After closing 6-8 files manually I clicked on the tab dropdown and there was still a huge list of open files so my usual approach is to close all my tabs and start opening files individually again. Here is the option as it appears in Delphi, note the default is checked. I’m sure lots of Delphi developers now take this option for granted.

Delphi Environment Options dialog

I wonder if CodeGear will have this in Prism? Anyone know how/where to make a VS.NET feature requests?

[Update: Oct. 30, 2008] Thanks to a comment I’ve logged a suggestion for this feature and if this is something you would like to see as well please vote for this request. Warning, that link may require login.