1. Check the site authentication mode. It must have only one authentication. Check “Anonymous” and un-check “Integrated windows”
2. Check Theme style link binding. Sometimes you need to add aspnet_isapi.dll wildcard in order to make the theme work again.
   IIS > Website > Properties > Home directory tab > Configuration > Wildcard application maps > Add (C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\aspnet_isapi.dll)
   Make sure to UNCHECK “Verify that file exists” or you will have 404 errors everywhere.
3. Check if your server have all required MIME types eg. Silverlight MIMEs
4. Give the website folder “ASPNET” and “NETWORK SERVICE” WRITE access
5. Reindex all your search indexes.
6. Update your license file to correct site domain license

… will add more as I find things later.

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Related Posts:

• Sitefinity – New Site Setup DOs and DON’Ts
• Sitefinity – Fixing Version Dependent Custom Controls Errors
• Sitefinity – Linking External JS file in Master pages
• How to fix Cruise build deployment that adds extra assemblies and .nlp files
• Sitefinity – Empty Document Uploader Screen and Silverlight MIME

Correct Screen

Error Screen

I’ve created a forum post but received no good answers. The dude kept asking me to install Silverlight Tools on all the machines. I don’t understand why we have to install silverlight on all machines and which silverlight exactly to install as there’re browser plugin, silverlight tools, silverlight framwork etc. And I cannot install silverlight tools unless the prerequisites, Visual Studio 2010 and Web Developer Express 2010, been installed which I absolutely don’t want to do. Also on the DEV server, there’s not a single instance of Silverlight installation was there and the uploader’s working just fine so I really had a hard time figuring out the issue with STAGING site. The forum responds were so slow, so I created a ticket and the same dude replied as followed:

Can you enable Firebug and check what errors come up in the Net tab when you try to access the Upload section? Also is there a way to provide RDC to your server so I can inspect the settings in more depth?

Ofcos I don’t want to give RDC access but I checked the Firebug and that really helps figure out the problem.
With the help of Firebug, I got 404 file not found for Telerik.Sitefinity.Silverlight.xap file with the error below:

Unhandled Error in Silverlight Application
Code: 2104
Category: InitializeError
Message: 2104 An error has occurred.

Now that’s some good hint, so I checked the path and the file exists on the server so must be the file permission issue; I googled the error message and found out that it’s all to do with missing MIME Types on STAGING server.

I’ve added these 3 types to the server MIME types list and it fixes the problem.

.xap application/x-silverlight-app
.xaml application/xaml+xml
.xbap application/x-ms-xbap
Ref: Configuration IIS for Silverlight Applications

I wasn’t happy with the support but thank god he at least gave me a hint to check with Firebug.

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Related Posts:

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• Sitefinity – New Site Setup DOs and DON’Ts
• Sitefinity – Fixing Version Dependent Custom Controls Errors
• How to fix Cruise build deployment that adds extra assemblies and .nlp files

Could not load file or assembly ‘Telerik.Sitefinity, Version=…, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b28c218413bdf563′

To fix that, place the assembly binding redirect info to the runtime section of your web.config and change the values of the “oldVersion” and “newVersion” acordingly. Your site should work again after a rebuild.

<runtime>
<assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1">
<dependentAssembly>
<assemblyIdentity name="Telerik.Sitefinity" publicKeyToken="b28c218413bdf563" />
<bindingRedirect oldVersion="4.1.1574.0" newVersion="4.2.1650.0"/>
</dependentAssembly>
<dependentAssembly>
<assemblyIdentity name="Telerik.Sitefinity.Model" publicKeyToken="b28c218413bdf563" />
<bindingRedirect oldVersion="4.1.1574.0" newVersion="4.2.1650.0"/>
</dependentAssembly>
</assemblyBinding>
</runtime>

Some of the most recent version numbers I’ve tracked are as followed:

• Sitefinity 4.0 (4.0.1210.0)
• Sitefinity 4.1 (4.1.1395.0)
• Sitefinity 4.1 SP1 (4.1.1405.0)
• Sitefinity 4.1 SP2 (4.1.1501.0)
• Sitefinity 4.1 SP3 (4.1.1574.0)
• Sitefinity 4.2 (4.2.1650.0)
• Sitefinity 4.2 SP1 (4.2.1733.0)

Another short note/ref to check out is this post on stackoverflow explaining some of the solution to version conflict error:

“Found conflicts between different versions of the same dependent assembly”.

Below is the direct quote from Brian which I find it pretty useful.:

This warning means that two projects reference the same assembly (e.g. System.Windows.Forms) but the two project require different versions. You have a few options:

1. Recompile all projects to use the same versions (e.g. move all to .Net 3.5). This is the preferred option because all code is running with the versions of dependencies they were compiled with.
2. Add a binding redirect. This will suppress the warning. However, your .Net 2.0 projects will (at runtime) be bound to the .Net 3.5 versions of dependent assemblies such as System.Windows.Forms. You can quickly add a binding redirect by double-clicking on error in Visual Studio.
3. Use CopyLocal=true. I’m not sure if this will suppress the warning. It will, like option 2 above, mean that all projects will use the .Net 3.5 version of System.Windows.Forms.

Here is a utility to identify the offending reference(s):
http://www.brianlow.com/index.php/2010/01/25/find-conflicting-assembly-references/

K that’s about it for now.

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• Sitefinity – New Site Setup DOs and DON’Ts
• Checking SQL Server Edition Version
• How to fix Cruise build deployment that adds extra assemblies and .nlp files

Exception Details: System.BadImageFormatException: Could not load file or assembly ‘Microsoft.VisualBasic.Activities.Compiler’ or one of its dependencies. An attempt was made to load a program with an incorrect format.

The Error Page

I did not make any changes to the build configs at all and the site runs fine locally. There is no reference to ‘Microsoft.VisualBasic.Activities.Compiler‘ in my project and it doesn’t have VB code. I found some extra files, see below list, in the deployment bin while comparing the bin assemblies on deployment server and my local. Once remove those files, the site comes back on, but the files are added with every cruise build.

• Microsoft.VisualBasic.Activities.Compiler.dll
• Microsoft.Practices.ServiceLocation.dll
• Microsoft.Practices.ServiceLocation.xml
• mscorlib.dll
• normidna.nlp
• normnfc.nlp
• normnfd.nlp
• normnfkc.nlp
• normnfkd.nlp
• PresentationCore.dll
• System.Data.dll
• System.Data.OracleClient.dll
• System.EnterpriseServices.dll
• System.EnterpriseServices.Wrapper.dll
• System.Printing.dll
• System.Transactions.dll

I google a bit to check similar problems out there and found only one link, which was fixed by installing missing SDK or something. I didn’t think that was the right solution for me but got an idea to check for target platform configuration on the solution and project files.

I compare with one of my working project many times using visual studio property window to check for the solution and project file configuration properties but they seemed to be the same, using ANYCPU for the build platform. I didn’t trust the VS property designer so used WinMerge to compare the two files and found that there are some additional configuration lines added to the solution file. So I open the .sln and .csproj in notepad, removed all the extra configs, see the image below, checked back in, forced build the Cruise Control and walah all those craps gone and the site is back to the way it was.

.sln Solution file comparison and the lines to remove

.csproj Project file comparison and the line to remove

The point I like to make here is that although no error with cruise build, your site can still be broken and freaking Visual Studio design views lie many time so remember to go for the good old way of editing it in notepad.

Note: If you don’t have any working version to compare, just search for “Mixed Platforms” or “x86” in .sln file and “<PlatformTarget>AnyCPU</PlatformTarget>” in .csproj file and remove them accordingly.

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• Sitefinity – Linking External JS file in Master pages
• List storedprocedures or database objects by last modified date
• Checking SQL Server Edition Version

<sf:JsFileLink id="jsLink" runat="server" ScriptType="jQuery"></sf:JsFileLink>
<sf:JsFileLink id="jsLink" runat="server" ScriptType="prototype"></sf:JsFileLink>
<sf:JsFileLink id="jsLink" runat="server" ScriptType="mooTools"></sf:JsFileLink>

To use it, reference the assembly from the project and add the following code in the master page.

<%@ Register Assembly="Telerik.Cms.Web.UI" Namespace="Telerik.Cms.Web.UI" TagPrefix="sf" %>

It didn’t mention which version of Sitefinity it’s used at but after testing, found out that it’s definitly not for our current 4.1 SP2 version. The “JsFileLink” property is for older version of the sitefinity 3.6 etc which comes from Telerik.Cms.Web.UI assembly.

Did a bit more digging around and got the right referencing for 4.1 version.

1. Add this to master page, immediately after Page tag.

<%@ Register TagPrefix="sf" Assembly="Telerik.Sitefinity" Namespace="Telerik.Sitefinity.Web.UI.PublicControls"%>

2. Place the following inside the “form” tag, NOT in the “head” section.

If you have the “JS” folder location as mention in this structure, reference as followed:

<sf:JavaScriptEmbedControl runat="server" ID="jsLink1" ScriptEmbedPosition="Head" Url="~/Sitefinity/WebsiteTemplates/YourSiteTemplates/JS/test.js"></sf:JavaScriptEmbedControl>

If you have the script folder in your website root, use the following:

<sf:JavaScriptEmbedControl runat="server" ID="jsLink2" ScriptEmbedPosition="Head" Url="~/scripts/test.js"></sf:JavaScriptEmbedControl>

For built-in JQuery library, reference as followed:

<sf:JavaScriptEmbedControl runat="server" ID="jQyeryLink" ScriptEmbedPosition="Head" ScriptType="jQuery"></sf:JavaScriptEmbedControl>

3. Must have unique “ID” and specify “ScriptEmbedPosition” fields.

The JavaScriptEmbedControl will register a script in the selected ScriptEmbedPosition (Head, InPlace, BeforeBodyEndTag). This control is also available in the page editor in the Scripts and Styles toolbox section. You can add references to scripts when editing the page through the UI, and even write inline scripts by hand. ref

IMPORTANT
Place all the external JS link or code blocks at the end of the page rather than the “Head”. ie. use “BeforeBodyEndTag” for some reason sitefinity loads it’s own copy of jquery in the middle of the markup and it tends to mess up the rest of the scripts.
eg.

<sf:JavaScriptEmbedControl runat=”server” ID=”jQyeryLink” ScriptEmbedPosition=”BeforeBodyEndTag” Url=”~/scripts/jquery.min.js”></sf:JavaScriptEmbedControl>
<sf:JavaScriptEmbedControl runat=”server” ID=”JavaScriptEmbedControl1″ ScriptEmbedPosition=”BeforeBodyEndTag” Url=”~/scripts/jquery.cycle.all.js”></sf:JavaScriptEmbedControl>

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• Checking SQL Server Edition Version
• List storedprocedures or database objects by last modified date

Name the solution.
Open the solution via Sitefinity Project Manager and save the solution in the project folder with proper name

Set up DB with appropriate name.
Click “Browse” on the Project Manager to set up the DB.

Add all references as solution items.
Copy all reference DLLs from the bin folder of the project to the “Lib” folder. Add them under solution folder items.

Repoint/Rereference the dlls from “Lib” folder
Remove all sitefinity related references from the project and rereferences them from the “Lib” folder.
Tip: The easiest way to reference the sitefinity related dlls to the project file would be:
- open the project file in the notepad
- search for “bin\”
- replace the appropriate dll refernces with “..\Lib\”
DO NOT hit “Replace All” as not all places require replacement.
All sitefinity related dlls will be rereferenced to correct folder EXCLUDING AjaxControlToolkit and a few others.
Search for the followings:

..\Reference Assemblies\AjaxControlToolkit.dll
..\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\WindowsAzure\Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Diagnostics.dll
..\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\WindowsAzure\Microsoft.WindowsAzure.ServiceRuntime.dll
..\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\WindowsAzure\Microsoft.WindowsAzure.StorageClient.dll

and repoint to Lib folder as well.
Note: Everytime you do the upgrade or add a custom dlls, make sure to add/update them in the Lib folder and repoint the project references to Lib.

Rename the Assembly and DefaultNameSpace with the project name
Right click on the project > Properties > Application tab > Type in project name in the “Assembly name” and “Default namespace” textboxes.

Build the solution
If the aboves are done correctly, your solution will build successfully and once browsed, will display “Thank you for visiting our web site. Please return soon for updates.”
Else you’ll get the error mentioned in the DON’T section below.

DON’T

Don’t use dots “.” in the project name.
Current version throws error when using dots in the project name.
Don’t build the solution before repointing the references.
After creating a new sitefinity site using Sitefinity Project Manager, do not build the project or solution as it will overwrite the dlls from the bin folder and throw the following error.
_”Unable to load one or more of the requested types. Retrieve the LoaderExceptions property for more information.”_ Ref

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I normally use literal or panel server controls to show or hide the confirmation messages. But in this code, the div tag can act as a panel control by declaring it as HtmlGenericControl.

In the front-end you add id and runat=”server” elements to the div tag.

<fieldset>
	<h3>Registration Validation</h3>
	<div id="divValidated" runat="server">
		Your account has been validated. You may now log in.
	</div>
	<div id="divNoAccount" runat="server">
		No matching account. If it has been over 30 days since you registered your
		account will have been deleted. Please sign up again.
	</div>
	<div id="divNoNeed" runat="server">
		Your account has already been validated.
	</div>
</fieldset>

In the back-end you declare it as HtmlGenericControl.

protected System.Web.UI.HtmlControls.HtmlGenericControl divValidated;
protected System.Web.UI.HtmlControls.HtmlGenericControl divNoAccount;
protected System.Web.UI.HtmlControls.HtmlGenericControl divNoNeed;

Voila, you got your div panel with all those member variables you can make use of. So here is a little info on HtmlGenericControl.

Use this class to represent an HTML server control element not directly represented by a .NET Framework class, such as <span>, <div>, <body>, or <font>.
Caution
This control can be used to display user input, which might include malicious client script. Check any information that is sent from a client for executable script, SQL statements, or other code before displaying it in your application. ASP.NET provides an input request validation feature to block script and HTML in user input. Validation server controls are also provided to assess user input.
HtmlGenericControl Class
HtmlGenericControl Members

Pretty cool isn’t it? Well, I didn’t know that and now I know.

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What is Lucene.Net?

[ # ] Lucene.Net is a source code, class-per-class, API-per-API and algorithmatic port of the Java Lucene search engine to the C# and .NET platform utilizing Microsoft .NET Framework.

Lucene.Net sticks to the APIs and classes used in the original Java implementation of Lucene. The API names as well as class names are preserved with the intention of giving Lucene.Net the look and feel of the C# language and the .NET Framework. For example, the method Hits.length() in the Java implementation now reads Hits.Length() in the C# port.

In addition to the APIs and classes port to C#, the algorithm of Java Lucene is ported to C# Lucene. This means an index created with Java Lucene is back-and-forth compatible with the C# Lucene; both at reading, writing and updating. In fact a Lucene index can be concurrently searched and updated using Java Lucene and C# Lucene processes.

What happens to Lucene.NET library?

This has no effect on Lucene.NET project incubated at Apache (http://incubator.apache.org/lucene.net/) as dotlucene.net was an independent site promoting DotLucene/Lucene.NET.

Where do I find more about Lucene.NET?

• Official website: http://incubator.apache.org/lucene.net/
• Downloads: http://incubator.apache.org/lucene.net/download/
• API documentation: http://incubator.apache.org/lucene.net/docs/ (1.4.3, 1.9.1, 2.0, 2.1)
• Apache Lucene – Java code: http://lucene.apache.org/java/docs/
• Cross-Platform Implementations: http://wiki.apache.org/lucene-java/LuceneImplementation
• Sites that use Lucene/Powered By: http://wiki.apache.org/lucene-java/PoweredBy

Is dotlucene.net content available?

The devoted dotlucene.net fans can download www.dotlucene.net content as a zip archive: www.dotlucene.net.zip (476 kB). DotLucene API Search demo 1.1 (2.38 MB)

Lucene.Net Architecture [ # ]

The lower layer is the data access layer (Storage). Then, the upper layer is about accessing the index files (data access). This layer is used by the indexing system and the searching system. On top of those we find a layer for searching and a search request parser layer used by the searching part of Lucene.Net. Identically we found a parser layer and a document layer used for the indexation part of Lucene.Net.

[ # ] At the heart of the engine is the index (similar to a database table) with fields (like database columns) that contains documents (like database rows). To search one must write a query and give it to the engine to finding matching documents. The query language for a database is SQL and for Lucene it’s a query object (you can construct complex queries by composing an object graph of query instances).

Search engines are super fast for finding text because documents are stored in an inverted index (where the terms of each field is tokenized, hashed and sorted at index time).

In contrast to database queries, search engines can calculate relevance scores when searching. This is because they use a better querying model called the vector space model instead of the classical boolean model. In the vector model, documents and queries are represented as vectors. The similarity between a query and any document can be calculated with simple vector operations. Documents with a higher similarity will appear higher in the results. Conversely, databases only know if rows meets the where criteria or not and cannot compute a relevance score – this true/false classification is how the boolean model got it’s name.

Resources/Reference links

• Introducing Lucene.Net
• Lucene, an introduction
• DotLucene: Full-Text Search for Your Intranet or Website using 37 Lines of Code
• Working with Lucene.Net
• Lucene.Net – Text Analysis
• Indexing and searching business entities using Lucene.Net Framework, part 1
• Indexing and searching business entities using Lucene.Net Framework, part 2
• Indexing and searching business entities using Lucene.Net Framework, part 3
• C# and Lucene to index and search (used VS 2005 and C#)
• Indexing Database Content with dotLucene
• Indexing and Searching Image files (Using Lucene.NET along with open-source libraries)
• Full Text Search with Hibernate Search
• Luke – Lucene Index Toolbox
• LuSql is a simple but powerful tool for building Lucene indexes from relational databases. It is a command-line Java application for the construction of a Lucene index from an arbitrary SQL query of a JDBC-accessible SQL database.
• Tutorial: implementing lucene.NET search
• cs2project
• Lucene in Action book, First and Second Edition
• Lucene Intro and QueryParser Rules by Erik Hatcher (Java version)
• Introducing Lucene.Net: A plunge intro creating a fast, full text index, with advanced searching capabilities.
• LINQ to Lucene: Providing a custom LINQ solution for the Lucene Information Retrieval System, commonly referred to as a search-engine.
  • LINQ & Lambda, Part 4: Lucene.Net.
• NHibernate.Search using Lucene.NET Full Text Index by Simon Green
  • Part 1: How to use Lucene.NET with NHibernate to provide full-text searching.
  • Part 2: Performing Google-like searches of NHibernate-persisted objects using Lucene.NET search engine.
  • Part 3: Using Lucene.NET to find similar items for ‘posts like this’ or ‘related pages’.
• C# and Lucene to index and search: This sample will show you how to use Lucene from your .NET application to index and search content.
• Fun with Lucene.Net for BlogEngine.Net by Jared

Lucene.Net Cross-Platform Implementations: LuceneImplementations

Lucene implementations in languages other than Java:

• CLucene – Lucene implementation in C++
• Lucene.Net – Lucene implementation in .NET
• Lucene4c – Lucene implementation in C
• LuceneKit – Lucene implementation in Objective-C (Cocoa/GNUstep support)
• Lupy – Lucene implementation in Python (RETIRED)
• NLucene – another Lucene implementation in .NET (out of date)
• Zend Search – Lucene implementation in the Zend Framework for PHP 5
• Plucene – Lucene implementation in Perl
• KinoSearch – a new Lucene implementation in Perl
• PyLucene – GCJ-compiled version of Java Lucene integrated with Python
• MUTIS – Lucene implementation in Delphi
• Ferret – Lucene implementation in Ruby

Other Search/Indexing Services

• Searcharoo 4: C# search engine: refactored to search Word, PDF and more
• Searcharoo.Net: http://www.searcharoo.net/
• CastleProject
• C# Parser

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Cannot publish because a project failed to build.
Could not find required file ‘setup.bin’ in ‘C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0A\Bootstrapper\Engine’.

My first reaction was oh damn, I don’t want to reinstall whatever it is that’s broken.
My second smarter reaction was to google the error
Found this post on MSDN forums.

Basically, it was AVG Antivirus 8.0 that incorrectly identified and quarantined a required file as a Trojan.
AVG Free marked the file C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0A\Bootstrapper\Engine\setup.bin as a Trojan horse BackDoor.VB.DIY

Simply select the file and click the ‘Restore’ button from AVG’s Virus Vault. (So glad I havn’t been emptying my vault!)

Once that little error was corrected, it was a simple matter to click ‘Publish Now’ again and I was happily on my way to my first ever ClickOnce Deployment!
I’m glad it wasn’t a serious problem requiring reinstalls.

Some days, I wonder if I want to keep an antivirus program running on my computer.
I don’t need much protection as I am careful in my mail box and I rarely visit websites out of google’s domain.
Google Reader gets me everything I want to read anyway.
Scratch that thought I lend my flash drive out to other people sometimes so it wouldn’t be a good idea to have no protection.
I trust myself but you just can’t trust people’s machines.

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Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework 4.0 mark the next generation of developer tools from Microsoft. Designed to address the latest needs of developers, Visual Studio and the .NET Framework deliver key innovations in the following pillars:

• Democratizing Application Lifecycle Management
  Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) crosses many roles within an organization and traditionally not every one of the roles has been an equal player in the process. Visual Studio Team System 2010 continues to build the platform for functional equality and shared commitment across an organization’s ALM process.
• Enabling emerging trends
  Every year the industry develops new technologies and new trends. With Visual Studio 2010, Microsoft delivers tooling and framework support for the latest innovations in application architecture, development and deployment.
• Inspiring developer delight
  Ever since the first release of Visual Studio, Microsoft has set the bar for developer productivity and flexibility. Visual Studio 2010 continues to deliver on the core developer experience by significantly improving upon it for roles involved with the software development process.
• Riding the next generation platform wave
  Microsoft continues to invest in the market leading operating system, productivity application and server platforms to deliver increased customer value in these offerings. With Visual Studio 2010 customers will have the tooling support needed to create amazing solutions around these technologies.
• Breakthrough Departmental Applications
  Customers continue to build applications that span from department to the enterprise. Visual Studio 2010 will ensure development is supported across this wide spectrum of applications.

Here is a full overview of Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 and some more reading on vSTS 2010 (code-name “Rosario”): What’s new in Visual Studio Team System 2010. Read some more detail announcement on Somasegar’s (senior vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft) post: What’s next for Visual Studio and .NET FX?

Ok, that’s about it for now.

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Visual Studio Gallery
A place where all developers can go to find extensions to Visual Studio. The site has everything from community built power toys for VS to industry partner solutions for enterprise development.

MSDN Code Gallery
MSDN Code Gallery is your destination for downloading sample applications and code snippets , as well as sharing your own resources.

Via: (#) | (#)

Updated: New Features. Thx Anthony.

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Professional-series certifications (MCITP and MCPD) require an update every three years from the date that you earned the certification, or your certification will lapse.

More info: New Generation Certification Lifecycle Policies

So like, I recently done 5 exams and become MCPD – Enterprise Application Developer or whatever. I still haven’t receive the certificates yet, must have been lost along with the Cyclone Gene. I entered my home address for mailing; should have use P.O.Box or work address.

Anyhow, according to that certification lifecycle policies, those papers prove their worth for 3years; after that you can throw them away and start pursuing new set of papers. So mine will last till 2011, then what – I don’t know.

PS: The Second Shot offer extended till June 30, 2008 so you might as well take that chance and finish as much as you can.

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The followings can be used in search functions where you search by date range or by datepart such as by Day or Month or Year.

For my first scenario, I want to search records by “Date” ie. “dd/MM/yyyy” only and not considering the Time part.

By default when you insert a Date using WinForm DateTimePicker or Infragistic ultraDatePicker, the Time part goes in as 0s. eg. “10/01/2008 12:00:00″. But sometimes there are cases where you have to record the Time as well. My saved records include default Date values as well as DateTime values.

In such case, to search by Date (passing DateTime variable), we cannot use the normal PredicateExpression to filter records. If you’re using normal expression ie. filter.PredicateExpression.Add(EntityField.Field == _searchDate) while EntityField has Time value, that compare expression will never retrieve proper search result for _searchDate is passing as Date value with default Time value ie. 12:00:00/0s. To solve it, we have to choose either FieldCompareRangePredicate or FieldBetweenPredicate and split the date into StartDate and EndDate as in the following function.

public EntityCollection<actualflightentity> SelectFlightsByDate(DateTime arrDate)
    {
        // Declare Flight EntityCollection
        EntityCollection<actualflightentity> _flightCollection = new EntityCollection<actualflightentity>(new ActualFlightEntityFactory());

        // Create RelationPredicateBucket named "filter"
        IRelationPredicateBucket filter = new RelationPredicateBucket();

        // Split passed variable ie. arrDate into startDate and endDate
        DateTime startDate = Convert.ToDateTime(arrDate.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd") + " 00:00:00");
        DateTime endDate = Convert.ToDateTime(arrDate.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd") + " 23:59:59");

        // Add FieldBetweenPredicate expression to the filter.
        filter.PredicateExpression.Add((new FieldBetweenPredicate(ActualFlightFields.ScheduledDateTime, null, startDate, endDate)));

        // Fetch the filtered EntityCollection and return it.
        using (DataAccessAdapter adapter = new DataAccessAdapter())
        {
            adapter.FetchEntityCollection(_flightCollection, filter);
            return _flightCollection;
        }
    }

For the second scenario, I need to search by “Year” part, where you pass “Integer” instead of “DateTime” property. Say, you are searching “Public Holidays” by “Year”. This function took me ages to figure it out. I tried using many predicates and even thought of creating a storeprocedure and use the “RetrievalProcedures” call. Finally after a long search in the documentation and the forum, got the solution. Have to set the field with DbFunctionCallexpression. Pheeeewwh! Check the following code and compare with the above.

// Select All Public Holidays by Year
    public EntityCollection<publicholidayentity> SelectAllPublicHolidayByYear(int _year)
    {
        // Declaring Public Holiday EntityCollection
        EntityCollection<publicholidayentity> _publicHolidays = new EntityCollection<publicholidayentity>(new PublicHolidayEntityFactory());

        // Create RelationRedicateBucket for filter
        IRelationPredicateBucket filter = new RelationPredicateBucket();

        // Create a new PublicHoliday Date field and set the expression on that field.
        EntityField2 field = PublicHolidayFields.Date;
        field.SetExpression(new DbFunctionCall("YEAR", new object[] { PublicHolidayFields.Date }));

        // Apply the expression with value passed ie. _year and at to the filter.
        IPredicateExpression phExpression = new PredicateExpression(field == _year);
        filter.PredicateExpression.Add(phExpression);

        // Fetch the filtered EntityCollection and return it.
        using (DataAccessAdapter adapter = new DataAccessAdapter())
        {
            adapter.FetchEntityCollection(_publicHolidays, filter);
            return _publicHolidays;
        }
    }

There you have it.
Refer to this section of LLBLGen documentation for further information on Predicate Expressions.

Generated code – The predicate system, Adapter
Generated code – Field expressions and aggregates

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Have been said, it’s way too advance for me to dig through those source code as I’m still struggling to learn the efficient use of the libraries itself. But hey, it’s all good that you get the source too. Cool!

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In VS2005 WinForm IDE, it adds or writes to the licenses.licx file whenever you use custom controls/third party controls such as Infragistic in your form. Though I’m not so sure, I observe that the licenses.licx file is not needed if you work entirely with normal winform controls, but with third party controls, it acts as a config file storing the references of the controls.

Once you add a project to VSS DB, the licenses.licx file is always binded since it’s part of the project property. You can check out the code just fine but when you work with the form design, you’re forced to check out the licenses file. If you don’t/can’t check it out, you can’t do anything to the form design. With VSS, it’s really a pain if one developer checked out the licenses file exclusively, others can’t do any design work on any of the forms. To solve the exclusive checkout on licenses file, we tried to exclude the licenses.licx from the project and let it stay in local folder. Unfortunately, the file itself is part of project property and once it’s excluded, it loses the references as well. For that little experiment, I’ve lost two of my form designs and have to start all over; thank god, they were just small forms. With that failed experiment and out of ideas, we searched for the solution on the web. Found out that it was a known issue for VS2005 IDE and the fix would only available with the next release of Visual Studio. The only work around they suggest so far is to use VSS multiple check out mode.

We don’t want to use Multiple check out mode in our VSS DB for:

1. VSS doesn’t provide individual file multiple check out mode but for the whole DB,
2. There are a few careful steps to take before checking back in the multiple check out file. (You cannot check in directly. You must get latest on that file to ensure you get different versions from other developers to merge the file then only you can successfully check it back in.)
3. VSS merge is a real pain and should I would never trust it. Unless ofcos’ you don’t care about losing some of your codes or have a separate backup, go a head and try it out.
4. There is the need of source control administrator for merging files.
5. And again, don’t trust VSS Merge and can’t rely on it.

But untill the next VS release, it’s the only possible way so we don’t have a choice but to use that method. Don’t have time to dig up properly either. So gonna stuck with this problem for the whole project. It’s just making my life miserable. *sign*

Readings: MS Feedback | Forum Q&A

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