Microsoft Internet Explorer 8

Microsoft announced the release of Internet Explorer 8 this morning, it is available at http://www.microsoft.com/ie8. With this new browser release Microsoft will position themselves on the top of the browser stack again. They have incorporated a lot of safe browsing and ease of browsing features into the new version that will make it the paramount browser for the normal everyday web surfer.

 EDIT: And then I started using it and now am back to using Chrome... 

3/19/2009


Heading to MIX

I am flying out to MIX in a few hours and I am really excited. This will be my first time at MIX and I am looking forward to all the great sessions regarding Silverlight 3, mixing it up with other industry professionals and just hanging out in Las Vegas. :)

3/17/2009


Working on a Silverlight Multi-Player Library

I have been porting out the multi-player aspects of Perenthia into a separate library I hope to get up on CodePlex before too long. What the library will provide is some interfaces and classes related to handling multi-player environments. A central static class will manage connected clients and three protocol classes for HTTP, Polling Duplex and Sockets will use the static class to retrieve connected clients and push information down to them. A simple set of "tags" are used to send information back and forth and some providers allow for defining your own implementation of handling commands and encrypting data.

The library will be focused on providing an easy way to get setup and implement a multi-player structure. You will still need our own game engine and associated components.

As soon as I get it cleaned up a little and tested out I will put it up on CodePlex and provide a tutorial and sample application showing how to implement and use the component.

3/12/2009


Silverlight Dependency Property Snippet

I created this snippet for Dependency Properties in Silverlight. If you are creating custom Silverlight controls you might find this snippet useful. I stored my code snippets here "My DocumentsVisual Studio 2008Code SnippetsVisual C#My Code Snippets" so all you need to do is copy the file to this location. Visual Studio should load the snippet the next time you start it up. If it does not then you can go into "Tools", "Code Snippets Manager" and load it up manually.

Now when you type "propsl" and hit tab you will get a stubbed out property like below, where tabbing through the items allows you to change the type and name of the property, set the owning class and provide a default value.

public int MyProperty
{
	get { return (int)GetValue(MyPropertyProperty); }
	set { SetValue(MyPropertyProperty, value); }
}
public static readonly DependencyProperty MyPropertyProperty = 
     DependencyProperty.Register("MyProperty", typeof(int), typeof(MyClass), 
     new PropertyMetadata(null, new PropertyChangedCallback(MyClass.OnMyPropertyPropertyChanged)));
private static void OnMyPropertyPropertyChanged(DependencyObject obj, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
{

Here is the code for the snippet and a link to the file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<CodeSnippets  xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/2005/CodeSnippet">
    <CodeSnippet Format="1.0.0">
        <Header>
            <Title>propsl</Title>
            <Shortcut>propsl</Shortcut>
            <Description>Code snippet for an automatically implemented dependency property in Silverlight.</Description>
            <Author>Cameron Albert</Author>
            <SnippetTypes>
                <SnippetType>Expansion</SnippetType>
            </SnippetTypes>
        </Header>
        <Snippet>
            <Declarations>
                <Literal>
                    <ID>type</ID>
                    <ToolTip>Property type</ToolTip>
                    <Default>int</Default>
                </Literal>
                <Literal>
                    <ID>property</ID>
                    <ToolTip>Property name</ToolTip>
                    <Default>MyProperty</Default>
                </Literal>
                <Literal>
                    <ID>ownerClass</ID>
                    <ToolTip>Owner Class</ToolTip>
                    <Default>MyClass</Default>
                </Literal>
                <Literal>
                    <ID>defaultValue</ID>
                    <ToolTip>Default Value</ToolTip>
                    <Default>null</Default>
                </Literal>
            </Declarations>
            <Code Language="csharp">
                <![CDATA[public $type$ $property$
            {
                get { return ($type$)GetValue($property$Property); }
                set { SetValue($property$Property, value); }
            }
            public static readonly DependencyProperty $property$Property = DependencyProperty.Register("$property$", typeof($type$), typeof($ownerClass$), new PropertyMetadata($defaultValue$, new PropertyChangedCallback($ownerClass$.On$property$PropertyChanged)));
            private static void On$property$PropertyChanged(DependencyObject obj, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
            {
            }
            $end$]]>
            </Code>
        </Snippet>
    </CodeSnippet>
</CodeSnippets>

Silverlight Dependency Property Snippet

 

3/9/2009