When a ValidationSummary is used on an asp.net page, the MaintainScrollPositionOnPostback property no longer works as expected when one of the validation controls fails. This is because the ValidationSummary calls "window.scrollTo(0,0)" when the page is not valid.

To work around the problem, overwrite the scrollTo function on the page:

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">

window.scrollTo = function () { }

</script>

Reference: http://forums.asp.net/t/1157863.aspx

One of the ways in which the regional settings applicable to a website can be changed is by using the Session.LCID property. This is especially useful if you do not have direct access to the server where your website resides. Changing this property will change the way variables are formatted (for example dates and currency).

To change the regional settings to South Africa, add this line to your page load event:

Session.LCID = 7177;

Currency values will now be prefixed with a “R” instead of the default “$”.

Unfortunately it doesn’t seem like this setting is preserved throughout postbacks (contrary to what you would expect of the Session object) so I would recommend adding it to your Master Page’s page load event.

Here’s a list of available codes and their respective languages:

source: http://www.123hostnow.com/articles/LCID.asp

Manually checking in a bunch of files in a SharePoint Document Library is a mission. Create a new console application and paste the code below in your Main method:

* You will need to reference Microsoft.SharePoint.dll which can be found on the server where SharePoint is installed.

** Just remember to change the hardcoded site name (“http://myserver/”) and document library name (“MyDocumentLibrary”) to reflect your own settings.

using (SPSite site = new SPSite("http://myserver/"))

{

    SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb();

    foreach (SPList list in web.Lists)

    {

        if (String.Compare(list.Title, "MyDocumentLibrary", true) == 0)

        {

            SPDocumentLibrary docLib = (SPDocumentLibrary)list;

            // Take ownership of all checked out files in the document library

            foreach (SPCheckedOutFile checkedFile in docLib.CheckedOutFiles)

            {

                Console.WriteLine("Taking ownership of " + checkedFile.Url);

                checkedFile.TakeOverCheckOut();

            }

            // Check in all checked out files

            foreach (SPListItem item in list.Items)

            {

                SPFile file = null;

                try

                {

                    file = item.File;

                    if (file != null)

                    {

                        if (file.CheckOutStatus != SPFile.SPCheckOutStatus.None)

                        {

                            file.CheckIn("Checked in after uploading");

                            file.Update();

                            Console.WriteLine("File checked-in = " + file.Name);

                        }

                    }

                }

                catch (Exception ex)

                {

                    Console.WriteLine("Could not check-in file = " +

                                        file.Name + " : " + ex.Message);

                }

            }

        }

    }

}

Console.WriteLine("All documents checked in, press enter to close this application.");

Console.ReadLine();

MVC 1.0 has just been released, download it here.

Since it’s now considered stable and ready for production, I no longer have an excuse to not get my hands dirty :)

The major role players in the Search Engine world (Google, Yahoo and Microsoft) recently announced support for the canonical tag. What this means is you now have a way to *hint* the crawler to the best version of the current page.

Because “http://www.stefanpienaar.co.za”, “http://stefanpienaar.co.za” and “http://www.stefanpienaar.co.za/Default.aspx” are seen as different pages (with duplicate data) by search engine crawlers, we can now add the canonical tag to a page’s head tag to indicate which one should be used.

For example for my blog I could add the following tag between my opening and closing head tags:

<link href="http://www.stefanpienaar.co.za" rel="canonical" />

This way even if someone incorrectly links to “http://stefanpienaar.co.za”, the search crawler will now know that they are in fact the same page and which one I prefer.

To get your asp.net page to work with the canonical tag is really simple:

1. Change your <head> tag to include runat=”server” if it doesn’t already.

<head runat="server">

    <title>My Site</title>

</head>

2. From your page load event, create a new HtmlLink object and add it to the Page’s header:

HtmlLink lnkCanonical = new HtmlLink();

lnkCanonical.Href = "http://www.stefanpienaar.co.za";

lnkCanonical.Attributes["rel"] = "canonical";

Page.Header.Controls.Add(lnkCanonical);

Here’s a list of Visual Studio shortcuts I use quite often.

There are a lot of sites with a lot more shortcuts as well as thorough descriptions (dofactory.com), the few listed above is meant as a personal reminder for my most frequent used shortcuts.

Microsoft just released the first version of Small Basic which is aimed to get kids into programming. They also claim that it's "aimed at brining the fun back to programming".

The syntax has really been simplified from it's ancient predecessor and it comes with a really cool IDE. Here's a few screenshots from the documentation:

The hello world example:

Randomised drawing:

Code:

GraphicsWindow.BackgroundColor = "Black" 

For i = 1 To 1000 

    GraphicsWindow.BrushColor = GraphicsWindow.GetRandomColor() 

    x = Math.GetRandomNumber(640) 

    y = Math.GetRandomNumber(480) 

    GraphicsWindow.FillEllipse(x, y, 10, 10) 

EndFor

Forms:

Code:

GraphicsWindow.MouseDown = OnMouseDown 

Sub OnMouseDown 

    GraphicsWindow.ShowMessage("You Clicked.", "Hello") 

EndSub

It seems like a really cool way to help kids (or even adults) get started with programming and later move on to a more advanced programming language.

Looks like the .net team has decided to update their logo, It looks awesome!

Original Article

Found this awesome tip on Vadim's blog this morning. All you need to do when you want to copy the text inside a MessageBox, is make sure it has focus and press the control+c keys together (normal copy shortcut).

When you paste the text from the clipboard, you get something like this:

---------------------------

curl error

---------------------------

Empty reply from server

---------------------------

OK   

---------------------------

So simple, don't know why I never bothered trying it, no more rewriting an error message in Google!. Here is the link to the original article.

Binding a datetime value is just as straight forward as binding any other data type to your grid, here is a quick reference however on how to properly format it:

When binding to a BoundField:

<asp:BoundField HeaderText="Date Finalised" 

                HtmlEncode="false" 

                DataField="DateAgreementCompleted" 

                DataFormatString="{0:yyyy/MM/dd}" />

The only thing to note here is the DataFormatString and the HtmlEncode property. The DataFormatString works in exactly the same way you would format a datetime when using .ToString (here's a quick reference on string formatting in c#) and the HtmlEncode ensures that the data is displayed properly and not encoded by asp.net.

When binding to a TemplateField:

<asp:TemplateField HeaderText="Date Finalised">

    <ItemTemplate>

        <asp:Label ID="lblDate" runat="server" 

            Text='<%# Bind("DateAgreementCompleted", "{0:yyyy/MM/dd}") %>' />

    </ItemTemplate>

</asp:TemplateField>