Customizing Visual Studio code templates to fit your needs

Did you ever get rid of that the default template on project context menu > add > class misses you prefered regions, default method overrides, properties or constructors?

Here is a guide how do you extend this template.

Tortoise SVN Plugin for issue tracking system

In the field of software development it is enssential that source code is managed through a version control system. Without that, you loose an easy way to track changes and versions of your project.
(But discuss that is not the intention of this blog post, so skip comments about that.)

On the other hand, a version control system is not the right tool to manage project dependent things, feature requests and to track bugs. So professional teams use also a project management tools in combinition with bug tracking systems.
(To discuss the pro an cons of different systems is also not the intention of this post, so ...)

And now, one question:  
What it will be, if you combine these applications and let them communicate in two ways?

Multi-Startpage with Firefox

Ever get rid that firefox doesn't open multiple pages on startup?

The settings dialog only offers to set the current page as startpage, not the opened tabs. But a a short research on the internet results, that is it possible to sett multiple startpages by manual.

So just enter the urls to the pages separated by pipes an you get multiple startpages with firefox.

German version on www.baer-torsten.de

Two ways of disabling Ctrl-Alt-Delete on logon

Especially in domain environments users are forced to press Ctrl-Alt-Delete (German: Strg-Alt-Enf) to logon any machine by default.

Some like this feature, I not.

I have found two ways to disable this on Windows 7^® and Vista^®.

Not Requiring Ctrl-ALT-DEL at logon
Vista requiring ctrl-alt-del before login

The two ways are:

1. Advanced User Accounts Control Panel (NETPLWIZ; %systemroot%\system32\netplWiz.exe)
2. Local Security Policy

The Advanced User Accounts Control Panel is reachable via

• <Win> + <R> ⇒ type Netplwiz ⇒ hit <Enter>
• Start button or <Win> ⇒ press Run ⇒ type Netplwiz ⇒ hit <Enter>
• Start button or <Win> ⇒ press "Help and Support" ⇒ search for "Secure Login" or Ctrl-Alt-Del ⇒ usually the first result ⇒ hit "Click here to open Advanced User Accounts"
• Control Panel ⇒ User Accounts ⇒ User Accounts ⇒ Manage User Accounts ⇒ Advanced
  [not reproduceable]

If Panel is open switch to Advanced Tab and under Secure Logon tick the checkbox right before Require Users to Press Ctrl-Alt-Delete.

The Local Security Policy is reachable via

• Start or <Win> ⇒ Control Panel ⇒ System and Maintenance ⇒ Administrative Tools ⇒ Local Security Policy ⇒ Local Policies
  
• <Win> + <R> ⇒ Type gpedit.msc ⇒hit <Enter> ⇒ Local Computer Policy ⇒ Computer Configuration ⇒ Windows Settings ⇒ Security Settings ⇒ Local Policies

Select Security Options and double click on Interactive logon: Do not require CTRL+ALT+DEL and select Enabled.

Have fun.

guaranteed random number

found on http://xkcd.com/221/

Printing numeric values as HEX

I sometimes need to print integer numeric values as a hexadecimal string for better reading and everytime I have to search about it with google.

So here is a collection of printing values as hexadecimal string.

The simpliest way is to use the IFormattable interface:

   1:  String.Format("{0:X02}", int.MaxValue);

Other ways with support of differend radix is to user Convert.ToString().
Radix could be 2, 8, 10, or 16.

   1:  Convert.ToString(int.MaxValue, 2);

From:
MSDN: Convert.ToString()
mikrocontroller.net

Are there any other ways? So let me know!

Advanced Stringreplace

While handling string data it's often needed to replace or cut a partial string. String.Replace is such a simple method to replace values in C#.

But what about if you have to deal with patterns to replace or manipulate partial string?

Here you have to go beyond String.Replace and deal with regular expressions.
If you have't heared about Regular Expressions, I suggest to read this articles about it:

• Regular Expression article @ wikipedia (german: Regülärer Ausdruck)
• MSDN: Regex (german: Regex)
• The 30 Minute Regex Tutorial @ codeproject.com

and some tools to check you patterns against data:

• On-the-fly Regex-Tester: Regex-Lab
• The Regulator

And now, time for some excamples.

Assume you have a string like

   1:  string data = "52/00000012340056";

and have to replace the zeros after the slash.

Your regex could be the following

   1:  Regex regex = new Regex(@"0+");

but take care about the zeros within the numbers. So you have to extend you regex like this:

   1:  Regex regex = new Regex(@"^\d+/0+");

If you run this expression over the sample data, the result looks like this:

   1:  string result = regex.Replace(data, String.Empty);

   2:  // result == "12340056";

Missing the prefix?

Extend the expressions with some named groups and use the matching values:

   1:  Regex regex = new Regex(@"^(?<prefix>\d+/)(0+)");

   2:  string result = regex.Replace(data, "${prefix}"); 

   3:  // result == "52/12340056";

That's it!

WANTED - Dead or Alive

What devolpers hunting for:

MetalScroll

Just got a hint from rschu@twitter / blogpost @ kodierer.blogspot.com about a MetalScroll extension for Visual Studio.

Here some features:

• scrollbar extension (shows file structure with highlighted position of booksmarks and breakpoints)
  
• split editor into two panes
• highlighting all occurrences of a word within a file

Check it out:
MetalScroll @ code.google.com
MetalScroll in der Visual Studio Gallery

XML Validation

Next post in the line of XML processing hints with C#. This time we want to validate a xml file.

Assume a sample:
You've got an XML-File books.xml as follows:

   1:  <books xmlns="urn:books">

   2:   <book>

   3:    <author>It's just me</author>

   4:    <publisheddate>2009-09-25T09:06</publisheddate>

   5:   </book>

   6:  </books>

And a xml schmema (books.xsd) like this:

   1:  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

   2:  <xs:schema targetNamespace="urn:books" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">

   3:   <xs:element name="books">

   4:    <xs:complexType>

   5:     <xs:sequence>

   6:      <xs:element name="book">

   7:       <xs:complexType>

   8:        <xs:sequence>

   9:         <xs:element name="author" type="xs:string" />

  10:         <xs:element name="publisheddate" type="xs:dateTime" />

  11:        </xs:sequence>

  12:       </xs:complexType>

  13:      </xs:element>

  14:     </xs:sequence>

  15:    </xs:complexType>

  16:   </xs:element> 

  17:  </xs:schema>

Now there is more than one way to validate the xml file.

The first way I want to show is to load the whole xml file into a XmlDocument instance like.

   1:  // load xml

   2:  XmlDocument xmlDoc = new XmlDocument();

   3:  xmlDoc.Load("books.xml");

Now we need the schema to validate against ...

   1:  // load schema XmlSchema schema; using(XmlReader schemaReader = XmlReader.Create("books.xsd")) schema = XmlSchema.Read(schemaReader, (p, q) => if(q.Exception != null) throw q.Exception); 

Add this to the schemas of the XmlDocument to provide it for validation. Be carefull, that the schema is added for the namespace of the document nodes.

   1:  // add schema xmlDoc.Schemas.Add(xmlDoc.DocumentElement.NamespaceUri, schema);

Now the document could be validated. (Just providing a lamda expression as ValidationEventHandler.)

   1:  // validate document

   2:  xmlDoc.Validate((p, q) => if(q.Exception != null) throw q.Exception);

There is only one handycap: Validation Warnings are not passed to the ValidationEventHandler.

The other way to validate a xml file is to use a XmlReader (or just one of it's derived classes). This is the favored way for large xml files.

First let us initialize such an reader. To use validation functionality of the reader we must pass in some XmlReaderSettings to configure that reader.

   1:  // loading schema

   2:  XmlSchemaSet schemaSet = new XmlSchemaSet();

   3:  schemaSet.Add("urn:books", "books.xsd");

   4:  XmlReaderSettings settings = new XmlReaderSettings();

   5:  settings.ValidationType = ValidationType.Schema;

   6:  settings.ValidationFlags |= XmlSchemaValidationFlags.ReportValidationWarnings;

   7:  settings.Schemas = schemaSet;

   8:  settings.ValidationEventHandler += (p, q) =>

   9:  {

  10:     if (args.Severity==XmlSeverityType.Warning)

  11:        Console.WriteLine("Warning: Matching schema not found. No validation occurred." + args.Message);

  12:     else if(q.Exception != null)

  13:        throw q.Exception;

  14:     else

  15:        Console.WriteLine("\tValidation error: " + args.Message);

  16:  };

  17:  // create reader

  18:  using(XmlReader reader = XmlReader.Create("books.xml", settings))

  19:  {

  20:     // validate

  21:     while(reader.Read());

  22:  }

This is it, now you receive validation errors and warnings.