The Mono Loco

ASP Grid View Focus on Text Box in Edit Mode

2009-10-06T21:55:00.007-07:00

I've seen a bunch of examples of how to focus in on a GridView's textbox while in edit mode but every one I saw involved a bunch of code & an item template.

The basic idea I came up with was to acomplish the same thing through javascript. This process takes a little bit of manual work to find out the name of the control that you want.

1st: I added a method for the RowDataBound event so the text box I wanted actually existed when I was looking for it's ID.

protected void GridView_RowDataBound(object sender, GridViewRowEventArgs e)

2nd: I had 12 columns in my grid view and I wanted to focus in on the last column's text box so I used the 11th control in the row to get the generated name of the control i needed.

string controlID = e.Row.Controls[11].ClientID;

3rd: I then had to replace the last two characters in the string with 00. (I'm not sure if this will change for you, thats what makes it a manual process for the first time. After the page loaded, I just did a view source on the HTML to see what changed in the name of the button object.)

controlID = controlID.Substring(0, controlID.Length - 2) + "00";

4th: replace the underscore's with dollar signs.

controlID = controlID.Replace('_', '$');

LAST: Put the following javascript in a label or in the innerHtml of a panel.

lblJavaScriptPOST.Text = "<script type="text\javascript">document.getElementById('" + controlID + "').focus()</script>"

So... here is all of the code for my gridview's row data bound event method.

protected void GridView_RowDataBound(object sender, GridViewRowEventArgs e)
{
//If this current row being bound is in the edit state, set focus to something
if (e.Row.RowState == DataControlRowState.Edit || (e.Row.RowState == (DataControlRowState.Edit |DataControlRowState.Alternate)))
{

string controlID = e.Row.Controls[11].ClientID;
controlID = controlID.Substring(0, controlID.Length - 2) + "00";
controlID = controlID.Replace('_', '$');

lblJavaScriptPOST.Text = "<script type="text\javascript">document.getElementById('" + controlID + "').focus()</script>";
}

}

This is a lot less code than using a template item and if you don't/can't use template items. It's the only way that I know of doing this.

Hope this helps someone!

C#: Saving Application Settings During Runtime

2009-04-23T09:01:00.007-07:00

Normally when you would try to save the application settings during runtime you get an error that the application settings are read only. This is a way that I found around that.

Essentially, you have to remove and re-add the settings.

I should also note that this only works in Visual Studio 2005 as I found out last night when i tried it in 2008.

// Open App.Config of executable
System.Configuration.Configuration config = ConfigurationManager.OpenExeConfiguration
(ConfigurationUserLevel.None);

//SAVE ALL OF THE SETTINGS
config.AppSettings.Settings.Remove("sqlServer");
config.AppSettings.Settings.Add("sqlServer", this.txbServer.Text);

config.AppSettings.Settings.Remove("sqlDatabase");
config.AppSettings.Settings.Add("sqlDatabase", this.txbDatabase.Text);

config.AppSettings.Settings.Remove("sqlUserName");
config.AppSettings.Settings.Add("sqlUserName", this.txbUserName.Text);

config.AppSettings.Settings.Remove("sqlUserPassword");
config.AppSettings.Settings.Add("sqlUserPassword", this.txbPassword.Text);

config.AppSettings.Settings.Remove("sqlSecurity");
config.AppSettings.Settings.Add("sqlSecurity", this.txbSecurity.Text);

config.AppSettings.Settings.Remove("extListCollection");
config.AppSettings.Settings.Add("extListCollection", this.txbExCC.Text);

config.AppSettings.Settings.Remove("sumListCollection");
config.AppSettings.Settings.Add("sumListCollection", this.txbSumCC.Text);

config.AppSettings.Settings.Remove("indListCollection");
config.AppSettings.Settings.Add("indListCollection", this.txbIndAliasCC.Text);

// Save the config file.
config.Save(ConfigurationSaveMode.Full);

// Force a reload of a changed section.
ConfigurationManager.RefreshSection("appSettings");

Remotely start applications with WMI & bypass Code Access Security

2008-07-14T12:43:00.004-07:00

This article assumes that the reader has an understanding of how to make queries to WMI, has administrative rights on the remote machine & can create a windows service. I am not going to contain any code but I will try to include links to sites that can provide help.

Reasoning (the story)

I needed to install a network monitoring agent on all of our servers. To do this I was using WMI to start a .exe that started and monitored the installation. My application had to check environment variables. Which then caused it to fail because of Code Access Security, even though I had full administrative rights. You can change the systems security policy to allows your program to run if you are allowed, but I figured that it would be more work to get all of the security settings changed. So I came up with a new plan to install a windows service through the Win32_Service Namespace in WMI. So I change the application to a sindows service and it could read the environment variables just fine. Then I removed the windows service through the same WMI Namespace. (I plan on making it a client/server where the server installs, monitors, and uninstalls the client.)

The Steps (super simplified)

Write a windows service. (don't forget the installer)
Use this service to install applications, or start executables. Also, if you leave this on the remote machine for any period of time you greatley consider the security of it.
- Creatinga windows service:
  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa984464(VS.71).aspx
- The Installer:
  http://www.montgomerysoftware.com/CreatingWindowsServiceInCSharp.aspx
Remotley install/remove the service. (I choose WMI)
- WMI Win32_Service Class:
  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa394418(VS.85).aspx
- WMI Win32_Service.Create() method:
  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa389390.aspx
- How to execute a WMI method:
  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms257364(VS.80).aspx

Thats about it, after your service starts on the machine it can do just about anything it wants, read system variables, start other applications, install programs...

Thanks for reading, please leave a comment to let everyone know how this helped you out.

Remotely Debug a Running Process with Visual Studio .Net.

2008-06-19T22:06:00.011-07:00

Here goes my attempt to explain the process of remotely debugging any application written with C#, VB/Visual Basic or C++. In order to do this, all you will need is Visual Studio .Net Pro & an application with source code available to debug. (VS.Net 2008 Express will do c++ but you still need pro for C# or VB...)

Microsoft's Remote Debugging Monitor
The Remote Debugging Monitor is basically a server that Visual Studio connects to for, well, remotely debugging code... This will need to be running on the remote machine that the process you want to debug is on.

If you have Visual Studio installed on the remote machine. You can start the Remote Debugging Monitor from the start menu by going to: Microsoft Visual Studio -> Visual Studio Tools -> Visual Studio Remote Debugger.

Otherwise, you can copy the needed files to the remote machine & start it over there.
The files you will need are located in the Visual Studio file in the "Common\IDE\Remote Debugger" file.
So copy these files over to the remote machine and start msvmon.exe.

mcee.dll
msvb7.dll
msvsmon.exe
msvsmon.exe.config
symsrv.dll
vjscompee.dll

In order to connect to the Remote Debugging Monitor you will need to be an administrator on the remote machine & both firewalls will need to be turned off.

Getting your project Ready
Now open your project with Visual Studio & put all of your breakpoints in. If you need some time to allow you to connect before a break point will be hit, put in a sleep. I gave myself 25 seconds. (System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(25000);)

It doesn't matter how you start your program on the remote machine but it does matter that your .pdb file is in the same location as the .exe when it's run. The .pdb file contains the information about the code in relation to the breakpoints. So copy your projects .pdb file to the same location of your .exe. It can be found in the projects folder under:\bin\Debug.

Attaching Visual Studio to the remote process
Go to the machine you have Visual Studio running on & go to "Debug -> Attach to Process..." on the task bar. Make sure the Qualifier is the name of the remote computer you are attaching to and that you can connect & view the running processes. If you have problems check out: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/910448

Now start the process on the remote machine, click on it in the Attach to Process window, and click Attach. As soon as the process hits a Break Point, assuming you left yourself enough time to attach before the break. All of the code should appear in your debugger and you'll be able to step through & debug as normal.

Reasoning
I was writing an application using WMI to remotely install an enterprise network capture agent on several hundred servers. I ran into a problem where certain operations or lines of code, didn't have enough security privileges. What I found out is that even if you are an admin on the machine, depending on where your code starts & how it is started, each line is subject to Code Access Security. There are ways around this, (another article to come...) but it turns out that my app was failing because I was trying to gain access to an environment variable. Being able to remotely debug this process made it much easier to find out my error.

Thanks for reading and please leave a comment to let everyone know how this helped you out.

Debugging VBScripts with Visual Studio .NET

2008-06-19T00:05:00.009-07:00

How to debug a .vbs or .js file with Visual Studio .Net or Microsoft Script Debugger.

First off, your going to need a debugger... I prefer Visual Studio .NET but you can also use the MS Script Debugger.

First, you'll need a script to debug, so stick this code in notepad & save it to "c:\foo.vbs". Unless you already have your own of course.

'c:\foo.vbs
WScript.Echo "To Debut: Run -> cscript //d c:\foo.vbs"
WScript.Echo

num1 = 5
num2 = 13

'Here's your break point which will send this to the debugger.
STOP

WScript.Echo "num1: " & num1
WScript.Echo "num2: " & num2
WScript.Echo "num1 + num2: " & num1 + num2

WScript.Echo
Set oShell = CreateObject( "WScript.Shell" )
user=oShell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings("%UserName%")
comp=oShell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings("%ComputerName%")
WScript.Echo comp & "\" & user[/code]

Now you can start debugging the .vbs or.js file from Start -> Run or the Command Prompt.

Type:
cscript //d c:\foo.vbs (To use STOP as a breakpoint)
cscript //x c:\foo.vbs (To starting debugging immediately)

As soon as the Windows Script Host hits the STOP that is located after the first few lines, Windows will prompt you to select a debugger. Alternately, you can stick a //x to start the debugger at the start.

I just want to say how happy I was when I found this because manually debugging scripts was a really big PITA. If you have any problems, check out Microsoft's KB article #308364 because it just may help...

Thanks for reading and please leave a comment to let everyone know how this helped you out.

Setting a Priority to Your Processes

2007-05-11T08:46:00.000-07:00

If you have a process, application or program that is resource intensive and you would like it to run faster. Windows will allow you to set the priority of that process. By default, the majority of the common windows applications are set to Normal. If you compose an application that sorts through huge amounts of data, takes up tons of memory, is very processor oriented, or you would just like it to run faster. You may want to give it higher priority among the other processes.

Programs with higher priority will always win the fight for the processor. As soon as a program with high priority gets done using some resource and needs the processor again, it will get it. You can think of a high priority process as the fast pass at Disney Land, instead of waiting in line for "hours" you get to jump right onto the ride.

Setting a processes' priority:

Hit Ctrl+Alt+Delete (To go to your Task Manager)
Select the Processes tab at the top
Locate & right click on the desired running process
Set Priority

This will permanently change this processes priority.

Irrelevant Google AdSense Ads

2007-05-08T19:36:00.000-07:00

Over the past few months I have noticed that some of the ads I have been receiving on this blog and my web page http://www.monoloc.net are completely irrelevant to my content. Up until recently I didn't care enough about it to research what was happening; until I had the same ad come up for about a week.
Irrelevant Advertisement
All of my pages were receiving these ads and I couldn't figure out what content I had that brought them. After a while I figured out that the people behind these Adwords are using "Are", "Am"... and other all-encompassing words that would be everywhere. I don't see how this is an effective use of the Google Adwords program since it does not target anything.

After some research I found http://kylescove.com that explained how to ban ads. It also explained how to direct the AdSense bot directly to the content you would like it to search for keywords.

Blocking an Ad:

Access your Google AdSense account
Click the AdSense Setup tab at the top
Select the Competitive Ad Filter section of this tab
Enter the ad's url in the textarea

Targeting your content:
This is done by inserting comments into the HTML of your page.

Start of targeted area:

End of targeted area:

Start of un-targeted area:

Now that I have this information I should no longer be receiving irrelevant advertisements as well as hopefully increasing my revenue.

Skip directly to the movie with out a remote on any DVD player.

2007-04-28T20:11:00.000-07:00

Quite a while ago I was trying to watch a DVD, and the only problem was, I couldn't find my remote. Everybody knows how difficult it is to navigate the DVD menus without a remote, especially when your DVD player doesn't have directional buttons directly on it. After a bit of tampering I found that the movie would play if I pressed stop-stop-play. Since then, the first thing I do after I put in any DVD is press stop-stop-play. This makes the DVD player skip directly to the movie, no previews, no menu. I have tried this on many different DVD players and it has worked on every single one of them.

So remember, whether you want to skip the previews & menu or especially if you have lost your remote. Put the DVD in, wait for something to come up on the screen, and press STOP-STOP-PLAY.