DevCity.NET - Articles

Extension Methods

Roger McCook — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Extension methods are available starting with C# 3.0 and Visual Basic 9.0, which were released in 2007 with version 3.5 of the .NET platform.

Windows Presentation Foundation: Flow Documents (Part 2)

Ged Mead — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT

In Part 1, you saw how easy it is to populate a WPF RichTextBox with a XAML FlowDocument. If you've ever previously struggled with trying to force a RichTextBox to accept an image - and place it exactly where you want it - in Windows Forms, then you'll welcome this new tool.

However, for legacy reasons you might want to populate the RichTextBox with content that has been saved in RTF format. In this part we will look at how that can be achieved.

Local Type Inference

Roger McCook — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Type inference refers to the ability of a programming language to automatically deduce a variable’s type. The feature was added to C# and Visual Basic to support anonymous types and the relaxed programming style required by Linq.

Auto-implemented Class Properties

Roger McCook — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Auto-implemented properties is not a difficult subject, only a simple concept that can make your programs easier to code and read.

WinForms and WPF Interop - The Best of Both Worlds

Ged Mead — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Whenever I see a question along the lines of "How can I include an image alongside each item in a list of items or use more than one font, or varying background colors?" I usually find myself muttering "WPF!". This is a lot more sociable and positive than many of the things I mutter as I sit here each day, but finally I've realised that I need to do something about it.

The result is this article, which works through the steps needed to harness the rich UI features of WPF to the more familiar paradigm of Windows Forms.

The example used will show you how easy it can be to use a WPF control in a Windows Forms application and you can use this article as the stepping stone to creating your own. The ListBox layout shown below will be created in WPF and ported over to be used in a Windows Forms application.

Web Application Security: Don't Bolt It On; Build It In

Caleb Sima — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

In light of breaches in Web application security worldwide, the importance of catching potential areas for intrusion is necessary at the beginning. Performing application vulnerability testing during production (and not after a breach has been detected) can save a company thousands of dollars. The only way to ensure the highest level of security is to build it in from the outset.

Multithreading The Easy Way: The BackgroundWorker

Ged Mead — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Sometimes you may need your application to work on a slow or time- consuming task in such a way that your user isn't kept waiting unnecessarily while this is happening.

The answer to this problem is to use multithreading. Having seen many forum questions about multithreading, I know that many people are a bit apprehensive about tackling it. However, as it turns out, the BackgroundWorker component is versatile and easy to use, providing a painless solution to this requirement.

In this article I will show you how you can incorporate the BackgroundWorker into your projects to give your users a more professional and less frustrating experience.

Windows Presentation Foundation: FlowDocuments (Part 1)

Ged Mead — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT

When WPF first came on the scene, one of the features that got a lot of air time was the display of documents. Leading edge projects like the NY Times Reader and the British Library manuscript display raised a lot of awareness of the possibilities. Strangely though, since VS 2008 shipped there doesn't seem to have been a lot of mention of this part of the package. So I thought I'd take a look at how easy (or not) document handling really is in WPF.

What You Need to Know about PCI Compliance and Web Application Security Policy Changes

Michael Sutton — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 00:00:00 GMT

PCI compliance exists to protect consumers from credit fraud, and their data will be protected if rules are followed. If your business accepts credit cards, you are aware of changes to PCI compliance in June. Adherence to section 6.6 of the PCI compliance rules should have been met; if not, web application security must be integrated into existing applications. This mandate allows businesses to evaluate their security practices.

SubMain CodeIt.Right 1.0

Mike McIntyre — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 00:00:00 GMT

CodeIt.Right is a code analysis tool with a welcome twist - it can automatically fix the code issues it finds.

You can use CodeIt.Right in the Microsoft Visual Studio IDE to find AND automatically fix code issues in C# and Visual Basic code. Perform static code analysis with configurable rule sets to find code issues. Automatically fix code issues all at once, in groups, or one-at-a-time.