Re: Help files .NET applications - C# Discussion Boards

Re: Saving data in ListView

14-May-04 5:55

As Judah said, you could can easily communicate with both because they do compile to IL (this is the fundamental principal of the CLI). A single compiler can't handle both, though.

If you want to maintain a single DLL with this, however, there is a way (though VS.NET 2002 and 2003 won't be any help). You can compile either the VB.NET or C# source to a module using the command-line compiler and passing the switch /t:module. When you compile the other language source, you can embed this module into your assembly using /addmodule:filename on the command line, along with the rest of the params (like /t:dll). Your assembly now contains two modules that define the IL. Consumers of your assembly won't know the difference (unless they used a disassembler, but that really doesn't matter).

Microsoft MVP, Visual C#
My Articles

Saving data in ListView

mikeyb2514-May-04 5:20

mikeyb25

14-May-04 5:20

How do I save the data in a list view to disk? I have read books and searched the internet. A code sample would be great because I am a begginer. Actually any help would be appreciated.

Judah Gabriel Himango14-May-04 5:50

Judah Gabriel Himango

14-May-04 5:50

Writing to disk is as simple as opening a stream and feeding it bytes. There are special streams available that let you feed in text too. Here's some example code that writes the text of the items of a ListView to a text file on disk:

using System.IO;
...
StreamWriter writer = File.CreateText("c:\\test.txt");
foreach(ListViewItem item in listView1.Items)
{
	writer.WriteLine(item.Text);
}
writer.Flush();
writer.Close();

#include "witty_sig.h"

Help files .NET applications

Sudhakar Pasupunuri14-May-04 4:57

Sudhakar Pasupunuri

14-May-04 4:57

What kind of help files does .NET support?? I am converting my application from java to C#.. In the older case i have a .hlp file for providing help..But i found C# doesnt support .hlp file..so i decided to convert this to .chm file.. So before i do this i want to know whether C# really doesnt support .hlp files or not??? I have tried MSDN and couldnt get any info saying it doesnt support .hlp..instead i found many articles on .chm..

Thanks in advance

Sudhakar

Heath Stewart14-May-04 5:51

14-May-04 5:51

It supports CHM, but you can use whatever help you want if you provide the implementation by handling the HelpRequested event (or overriding OnHelpRequested in derivative controls).

IMO, CHMs are much better anyway. It's a better interface, easier to write for (you can use any HTML too and the HTML Help Workshop, where writing .hlp files is bit more of a pain).

Microsoft MVP, Visual C#
My Articles

Sudhakar Pasupunuri17-May-04 2:20

Sudhakar Pasupunuri

17-May-04 2:20

Thanks Stewart..

I already had the code for the above events.. but i have the problem with the following..

--------
I have my old application in java(Microsoft VJ++) and this application uses winhelp file(.hlp) to provide help for the application. This application has a form and a help control on that..when i clicked it , it displays the help related to the form..Internally the code looks like this..

Help help = new Help();
help.showHelp(string helpfilename.hlp, string topic id);
Ex; helpfilename looks like "x.hlp"
Topic id as "906"

---

I have converted the above application to .NET framework..I am using C# as the language..
So i want to know the equivalent function for the above.. I tried using the following code as a replacement for the above.

HelpNavigator navigator = HelpNavigator.Topic;
System.Windows.Forms.Help.ShowHelp(this, "helpfilename.hlp", navigator, "topic id");

So i used this code:
HelpNavigator navigator = HelpNavigator.Topic;
System.Windows.Forms.Help.ShowHelp(this, "x.hlp", navigator, "906");

But the above code is not poping up anything..

Can anyone plz help me..

Thanks
Sudhakar

Heath Stewart17-May-04 3:31

17-May-04 3:31

As I mentioned before, the help classes in .NET only work with HTML Help 1.x files (.chm). If you want to open a WinHelp file (.hlp), you should P/Invoke the WinHelp[^]:

[DllImport("user32.dll", CharSet=CharSet.Auto)]
private static extern bool WinHelp(
  IntPtr hWndMain, // Handle to main form: use form's Handle property
  string lpszHelp, // .hlp filename
  [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.SysUInt)] IntPtr uCommand, // HELP enum constants
  [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.SysUInt)] IntPtr dwData); // User-defined data

The last two params are processor-dependent types, which is why they are defined each as an IntPtr. To pass these values correctly, you'd use whatever int or long (doesn't really matter) and pass them to the constructor for the IntPtr like so:

IntPtr param1 = new IntPtr(/* some value */ 1);

This doesn't make a pointer to one - just wraps the value 1 in a processor-dependent integer. This is for portability on 32- and 64-bit processors (something a lot of examples fail to take into account).

You can find the enum constants (and what to pass into dwData depending on the constant used for uCommand) in the documentation for the WinHelp function at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/shellcc/platform/shell/reference/functions/winhelp.asp[^]. These constants are defined in WinUser.h in the Platform SDK (installed by default with VS.NET).

Microsoft MVP, Visual C#
My Articles

Re: Add Web Reference Problem

Sudhakar Pasupunuri17-May-04 4:59

Sudhakar Pasupunuri

17-May-04 4:59

Thanks Stewart..

I have tried with the approach u mentioned and i am able to display my help successfully.. Initially i thought we can use .NET classes to display winhelp files.. But with ur comments i realized we have to use windows api's to display these files..

Thanks Once again..

Sudhakar

mjmcinto14-May-04 4:57

mjmcinto

14-May-04 4:57

I'm having problems adding 2 web references to my project.

1) When I go to add the web reference, it shows that there is a service, and it has the method querey(). However, when I add it, I do not see this method any where in the c# file. This problem also occurs when I download the wsdl for the webservice and run wsdl.exe.

2) Another web reference, when I try to add it, I can go to it, and see the documentation and methods for it. However, in the "Web services found at this URL:" box it says "The proxy settings on this computer are not configured correctly for web discovery. Click the Help button for more information." and won't let me add the web reference. I've clicked the help button, but haven't seen anything that tells me what I need to do about the proxy settings.

Does anyone have any idea on either why the method disappears in #1, or what proxy settings need to be for web discovery?

Thanks for your help.

regd creating library

karteek14-May-04 3:38

karteek

14-May-04 3:38

Hi,

I am a beginner to C#.How do I create a library file in C#? And how do I invoke it im my program?

Karteek

Re: regd creating library

Paul Watson14-May-04 4:18

Paul Watson

14-May-04 4:18

This is a fundamental and broad question Karteek. You really need to pick up book or do some C# tutorials to understand the basic concepts.

To get you on the right track you need to learn about classes and instances. In C# a class is normally stored in a .CS file.

regards,
Paul Watson
Bluegrass
South Africa

Chris Maunder wrote:
"I'd rather cover myself in honey and lie on an ant's nest than commit myself to it publicly."

Jon Sagara replied:
"I think we've all been in that situation before."

Crikey! ain't life grand?

Show Color In Datagrid

sreejith ss nair14-May-04 3:37

sreejith ss nair

14-May-04 3:37

I have a unsolved query in my mind. Suppose i have n-number of product which are identified by colors and stored in some table.

ColorName$ProductName( here the ColorName is hexadecimal value)

eg: #ff453787$Shirt

Like this i have lot of data in a table called Colortab.

I want to bind this data to a datagrid. Here datagrid have to show the color and the name.

that is it will convert the hexadecimal to Color + $ + ProductName

Is this possible to show in datagrid?

Sreejith S S Nair

OmegaSupreme14-May-04 4:12

OmegaSupreme

14-May-04 4:12

Is its windows forms or asp.net datagrid ?

There are various ways you could do it, can we see what you've got and then take it from there ?

Try not! Do or do not, there is no try. - Master Yoda

Heath Stewart14-May-04 5:47

14-May-04 5:47

Convert the 32-bit integer (like ff453787) to an int, then call Color.FromArgb(int) to get the color. You can then use Color.ToString. Note that for colors not defined in the KnownColor enumeration, a hex value like you already have will be output:

try
{
  int argb = int.Parse("#ff453787$Shirt".Substring(1, 8));
  Console.WriteLine(Color.FromArgb(argb));
}
catch
{
}

If you want to match these up with colors in your "Colortab" table, then you'll need to perform a separate look-up. I would suggest constructing your SQL query to return these as separate columns to make it easier to bind. You could also in that case use a JOIN or UNION to use the names in "Colortab" instead of the hex values. You can always re-concatenate these on the server or in your client code if you want to.

Microsoft MVP, Visual C#
My Articles

sreejith ss nair16-May-04 17:45

sreejith ss nair

16-May-04 17:45

thanks
i got. let my try that.

Sreejith S S Nair

Getting property value using reflection

sreejith ss nair18-May-04 2:42

sreejith ss nair

18-May-04 2:42

i tried your answer. but i can't see the color and no error. Only i can view the value 0 on the place of color.

Sreejith S S Nair

Uncle Monkey14-May-04 2:57

Uncle Monkey

14-May-04 2:57

I am trying to retrieve a property from the current executing assembly using the following but am getting a TargetException

int MyInt = Convert.ToInt32(Type.GetType(Page.GetType().BaseType.FullName).GetProperty("MyIntProperty").GetValue(null,null));

Anybody know what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks

monkey say, monkey doo
Uncle Monkey

Re: Getting property value using reflection

Heath Stewart14-May-04 3:06

Re: Getting property value using reflection

14-May-04 3:06

Wow! You really should split your lines up into distinct pieces - it greatly helps during debugging your application.

You're doing a few things that aren't necessary and would hamper performance, like Type.GetType(Page.GetType().BaseType.FullName). Instead, you already have your Type using just Page.GetType().BaseType.

Also, when you call GetValue you must pass the instance of the object (presumably Page) otherwise you would get an exception since you're trying to retrieve the value of a null reference.

Also, if you flatten your instance members, you really don't need to refer to the base Type to get the property where it's declared. Unless BindingFlags.DeclaredOnly is specified, all instance properties - both declared and inheritted - are reflected (not so with statics, unless you specify BindingFlags.FlattenHierarchy). In ASP.NET, which I assume you're using since you have a Page object - though this could be anything - there is actually a large hierarchy of pages that extend from the Page class, such as your .aspx file : your code-behind page class : Page.

Type t = Page.GetType();
PropertyInfo prop = t.GetProperty("MyIntProperty", BindingFlags.Instance |
  BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.NonPublic);
int MyInt;
if (prop != null) MyInt = (int)prop.GetValue(Page, null);

Microsoft MVP, Visual C#
My Articles

Uncle Monkey14-May-04 3:53

Uncle Monkey

14-May-04 3:53

Thanks, worked a treat

monkey say, monkey doo
Uncle Monkey

Namespace commenting for comment web page

Michael P14-May-04 2:48

Michael P

14-May-04 2:48

Hi there,

I have one question regarding adding code comments (summary, etc.) to namespaces and assemblies.

If I generate the comment web page I get some html pages which contains my comments for classes and members, but not for namespaces and assemblies.

In java (or at least in Eclipse) there is a choice to have package.html documents to be included as document comment for packages (namespaces). Is there any such feature in .Net, C# or Visual Studio .Net (2003)?

If not, are there other tools to create proper reference manuals from code comments in C#.

Thank you!
Michael

Re: Namespace commenting for comment web page

Heath Stewart14-May-04 2:50