This Old Code - VB

Visual Basic

Aaron Fischer — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:46:38 GMT

I am starting to suspect VB.net 2008 is not saving all my changes. This is not a good sign. Maybe this will be fixed in SP1. I hope a lot of my VB headaches will go a way with SP1

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Setting a property via anonymous delegates

Aaron Fischer — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 19:27:21 GMT

I was looking for a way to pass a parameter by reference today. More specifically the setter.

I found a couple interesting blog posts

http://geekswithblogs.net/akraus1/archive/2006/02/10/69047.aspx

notice the comment by Tedesco.

He offers a nice way to do this via an anonymous delegate.

 public delegate void InsertString( System.String param );

public partial class Bird

 {

public void FileToDb( int x )

{

FillEntityColumn( delegate( System.String value )

{

tExtra.Text = value;

} );

}

}

So we actual pass the FillEntityColumn method an anonymous delegate which then sets the property.

Now in vb you can write

 Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click



 testme(TextBox1.Text)

End Sub

 Sub testme(ByRef s As String)

s = "hello"

 End Sub

which a commenter on http://musingmarc.blogspot.com/2006/04/tale-of-two-implementations.html eluded to. But in vb you still cannot pass a Property by reference, at least not really. Take a look what vb generates into il.

 Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As EventArgs)

Dim VB$t_ref$S0 As TextBox = Me.TextBox1

 Dim VB$t_string$S0 As String = VB$t_ref$S0.Text

 Me.testme((VB$t_string$S0))

VB$t_ref$S0.Text = VB$t_string$S0

 End Sub

As you can see vb is writing some code for you which is nice, but we are still not passing the property by ref.
-Mike has also talked about the want of passing parameters. ( the same misguided comment that vb supports passing parameters by ref)

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Packaged ASP.NET Programs

Aaron Fischer — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 22:02:29 GMT

Scott posted a nice article Tip/Trick: Creating Packaged ASP.NET Setup Programs with VS 2005 for deploying your Visual Studio 2005 project. While Scott's article is focused on deploying to a customer I have found those scenarios to be beyond what VS offers and requires Install shield. I do this this post is a handy trick for moving your project from dev to QA to staging maybe even production.

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Data driven document generation with Word 2007

Aaron Fischer — Tue, 29 May 2007 15:36:12 GMT

Erika wrote a couple posts worth a look regarding Data driven document generation.

Data-driven document generation with Word 2007 and the Office XML File Formats: Part 1

Data-driven document generation with Word 2007 and the Office XML File Formats: Part 2

Also If you wanted to take a Mail Merge word doc and port it over to XML

Migrating Mail Merge Fields to Content Controls ( I republished the code so that its legible)

Private Sub Document_Open() If (MsgBox("Convert
Mail Merge fields to Content Controls?", vbYesNo, "Convert
Mail Merge Fields") = vbYes) Then ConvertMailMergeFields End If End Sub '**
Traverse Mail Merge fields collection and convert each mail merge field into a content
control '** while preserving its font style and format. Private Sub ConvertMailMergeFields() Dim i As Integer,
Count As Integer Dim currentFont As Font Dim mergeFieldname As String Dim field As MailMergeField For Each field In ActiveDocument.MailMerge.Fields '**
Select Mail Merge field to process. field.Select Set currentFont
= Selection.Font '** Set name for content control. mergeFieldname
= GetMailMergeFieldName(field.Code) Debug.Print ("Processing [" &
mergeFieldname & "]") '** Remove Mail
Merge field and replace it with addition of new content control. Selection.Cut '**
Add new content control. AddContentControl mergeFieldname, currentFont Count
= Count + 1 Next Debug.Print ("Number
of Mail Merge Fields converted to Content Controls: " & Count) End Sub '**
Add new content control. Private Sub AddContentControl(ByVal mergeFieldname As String, ByVal currentFont As Font) Dim newControl As ContentControl Dim fontStyleName As String Set newControl
= ActiveDocument.ContentControls.Add(wdContentControlText) '** The
Title property only allows for 64 characters. '** If name
is longer, we will put the rest in the Tag property. If (Len(mergeFieldname)
< 64) Then newControl.Title = mergeFieldname newControl.Tag
= "" Else newControl.Title = Mid(mergeFieldname,
1, 64) newControl.Tag = Mid(mergeFieldname, 65, Len(mergeFieldname) - 64) End If newControl.SetPlaceholderText
, , "Click to add." '** Set font for content
control. fontStyleName = GetFontStyleName(currentFont) SetFontStyle newControl,
fontStyleName, currentFont '** Allow carriage return. newControl.MultiLine
= True End Sub '**
Quick and dirty way to check to see if the given font style exist; if it does not,
create it. Private Sub SetFontStyle(ByRef newControl As ContentControl, ByVal fontStyleName As String, ByVal currentFont As Font) On Error GoTo Error_FontStyleDoesNotExist
newControl.DefaultTextStyle = fontStyleName Exit Sub Error_FontStyleDoesNotExist:
AddNewFontStyle fontStyleName, currentFont newControl.DefaultTextStyle = fontStyleName End Sub Private Sub AddNewFontStyle(ByVal newFontStyleName As String, ByVal currentFont As Font) Dim fontStyle As Style Set fontStyle
= ActiveDocument.Styles.Add(newFontStyleName) With currentFont
fontStyle.Font.Name = .Name fontStyle.Font.Size = .Size fontStyle.Font.Bold = .Bold
fontStyle.Font.Italic = .Italic End With End Sub Private Function GetFontStyleName(ByVal currentFont As Font) As String Dim fontStyleName As String With currentFont
fontStyleName = .Name fontStyleName = fontStyleName & .Size fontStyleName = fontStyleName
& .Bold fontStyleName = fontStyleName & .Italic End With '**
Return result. GetFontStyleName = fontStyleName End Function Private Function GetMailMergeFieldName(ByVal fieldCode As String) As String Dim mergeFieldname As String:
mergeFieldname = "" '** Name of Mail merge
field: MERGEFIELD MailMergeFieldName \* MERGEFORMAT mergeFieldname = Replace(fieldCode, "MERGEFIELD", "")
mergeFieldname = Replace(mergeFieldname, "\* MERGEFORMAT", "")
mergeFieldname = Trim(mergeFieldname) '** Return result. GetMailMergeFieldName
= mergeFieldname End Function

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How-To share class/resources between projects in Visual Studio 2005

Aaron Fischer — Fri, 18 May 2007 20:41:40 GMT

start by having a solution with two projects.

In the solution exploder window right click the solution and choose add New or existing item.

For this how two we will add a new c# class

click add. Visual studio will create a new suborder under the solution called "Solution Items" Class1.cs will be in this folder.

now select one of your projects and right click select add existing item. Navigate to your solutions directory and select Class1.cs

click the drop down arrow next to the add button

select add as link

You will now have a shared link to a common solution file/class

repeat for each project you wish to add this file/class to.

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LINQ for Orcas Beta1

Aaron Fischer — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 21:47:59 GMT

You can find the updated LINQ samples for both VB and C# here

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Beta 1 Of Orcas Released Into The Wild

Aaron Fischer — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 21:43:03 GMT

Incase you missed it yesterday Soma announced the release of Orcas Beta 1, it can be downloaded here.

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My New Favorite Function

Aaron Fischer — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 16:27:05 GMT

I wanted to take a moment to point out my new favorite DotNet Function. At VSLive in San Francisco I was introduced to System.IO.Path.Combine( path1, path2) as string. I no longer have to deal with the logic of adding a trailing or leading slash when combing file and directory locations.

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Teach a child to program

Aaron Fischer — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 14:52:03 GMT

I have finally found some programing books at my reading level ;)

C# for Sharp Kids - An ebook on programming with C#
VB For Very Bright Kids - An ebook for learning how to programming with Visual Basic
Code Rules - A curriculum for learning how to program using Visual Basic. This package includes Teacher materials, Student lessons and quizzes and has been used in schools around the country.
CurliQue Studios - A curriculum for learning to build a dynamic web site for a rock band. This one also includes teacher materials. My friend Dave Jacobus blogs about using it with his class and seems to like it.
Creating your First Website using HTML - Follow along with this Microsoft DigiGirlz Tech Camp presentation to learn how to use HTML to create your own website!
A list of other kid friendly websites and learning resources.

Microsoft's Kid's Corner

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Code Conversion Again

Aaron Fischer — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 23:10:09 GMT

I found another online code converter this time by SharpDevelop. This will convert between C#, VB, and Boo. They also have a web service.

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