Denaes

Like I thought, they're different classes. But you declare a 'childClass' and expose it. the 'internal' prevents it from being instantiated itself. If I'd realized this for my last project... I would have had 1000% nicer code... and probobly shaved off a few days of programming. :D

Like many of my questions, this seems like it should be a standard easy answer, but I don't seem to find an easy answer. I have a few nud's on my form. Nothing fancy, they just go from 0-20, advancing by one each time. What I need to know is if they pushed up, or if they pushed down. I can can store private variables to act like a "last value" and compare the CurrentValue and LastValue to find out if it went up or down. But is there another way?

I'm not sure how to explain it. I'm sure if I knew what it was called I could look it up :D When I make a class, it generally looks like this: public class Warehouse { // member variables private int numberOfItems = 0; private string manifestName = string.Empty; // Public Properties public int NumberOfItems { get { return numberOfItems; } set { numberOfItems = value; } } // Public Methods public void OpenManifest() { } public void CloseManifest() { } public void ClearManifest() { } public void NewManifest() { } } so to access these methods, you have to type: Warehouse wHouse = new Warehouse(); wHouse.ClearManifest; you can see a few methods relating to a Manifests. There might be some related to Items, Deliveries, etc. Each would be their own class and the Warehouse class would be a superclass with code tying multiple other classes together. I want to do this instead: Warehouse wHouse = new Warehouse(); wHouse.Manifest.Clear; I'd really like to learn how to do this, so if anyone can help, I'd appreciate it :)

I agree. If you have it there, you stand to loose nothing, but stand a chance to gain donations. I've made donations to people before for free software that was better than commerical crap (or just as good, but free)

Its complicated to explain, but easy to show. I created a little utility to move files around from my download directories. It reads from an XML file the following attributes: Extension (.avi, .mp3, etc) Action (Copy, Move, Delete, etc) Destination (where to put it if moved or copied) Now this is easy, one record in an XML document per extension. I load the program, it loads this information into a user defined data type and I throw it into a HashTable, using the extension as the key. Then I compare each files extension in the directory. If it's ".avi" then it pulls up ".avi" from the hashtable. I've been getting random files which are harder now: ".001, .005, .050, .R05, .P29", etc. IE, they follow patterns, but there are many different instances of them. For this reason I was thinking of holding Regular Expressions instead of just plain strings. I was thinking of somehow using a string of the Regular Expression as the Key in the HashTable... something like this: (I think this is good) "[.][0-9][0-9][0-9]" This should match up to "." and any three numbers... basically .001 to .999 Something similar could be done with "[.R][0-9][0-9]" for RAR archives. If I can figure out how to do Regular Expressions as the Key and do a comparison of the filename (fullname + extension), I could really get some filtering action going on. Could anyone be of any help on this? The best I can think of logically (I don't know the syntax) would be to cycle through the HashTable for each file and compare each of the Keys to the filename. I'm sure this would be a fairly large performance hit compared to just trying to get the key and either it doesn't exist or it does and has instructions attached.

Thats what this Random Thoughts is. Just anything. I can't see why adding another section to further dilute a slow topic would be a help or improvement in any way. What I DO like that they do over there, is make use of subforums. You go into a category and there are sub categories to further break down a topic. Makes it cleaner for those finding answers and looking to answer, but still keeps all of those posts in the same overall category.

Is that C# only? I remember that one useful thing from my Java class. You could put your curser in between a set of brackets and it enboldened the pair. VERY handy for figuring out which set you're between. I know VB.net doesn't have that featue - of course no brackets, but also not with their End If, End Case, End Class, etc statements. at a few points with large procedures with a few logic statements, I've found myself getting out a ruler to match up where the If was and which Elseif and End If matched up down the screen (often I had to scroll down). Thats usually when you realize a procedure got out of hand and it's time to refactor it down into possibly a few smaller procedures or maybe make a class out of the whole deal and have the logic handled internally.

One is just general Bios Flash, that one is a .exe on the hard drive. the Bios Flash for the video card functions is floppy only. Two distinct updates... maybe updating different devices?

1 is .exe harddrive flash. Another is floppy only. I remember in the past (when my desktop's A: drive went on the fritz) all the bootdisks were in a special format and couldn't be burned to CD, but I found a special app to go into the Floppy image and extract the files, similar to what WinISO does with CD images.

I use a hardware router (either a linksys wired or some other brand wireless) Yeah, I guess anti-virus might help. Any suggestions? I know Norton is good, but they seem to be wads about making you pay extra to keep getting up to date definitions and if you have Norton installed and uninstall it... well lets just say it's reformat time again :) I guess Norton Systemworks 2004 might be an option unless someone has a better idea?

my computer (Dell Inspirion 8500) has a bios update, but it's only available on a Floppy Image. Now, it being a laptop, I don't have a floppy drive and I didn't think they were still a standard. I'd at least like the option to burn it to disk or throw it on my USB Jump Drive and boot from one of those two devices. Anyone know if/how this is possible?

Ok, I've got WinXP Home, which came with my laptop. I've been delaying the reformat + Win2k Pro for a while, but after hitting up some questionable sites I have downloads attempting to start randomly, IE popups (even though I use FireFox) and then dozens of shareware programs that didn't do what they promised and half don't uninstall properly. On top of that, I'm clearing my plate and want to get down 'n dirty with some ASP.Net and XP Home doesn't have the IIS (well, I found a hack for it, but I don't trust it with professional software development) I'm preparing my external hard drive (and of course backup CD - Just In Case) with copies of everything I'll Need. My (updated) Dell Drivers, anything windows related, Frequently Used Apps, etc. I guess what I'm looking for is advice. On what I currently use, what I might find helpful, what else might help fill the gaps, what people like/dislike, etc. I think this might be a good thread to air out some "Must-Haves" and things I hadn't heard of. Here is what I've been using: Internet Mozilla Firefox (primarily) IE 6.0 Seconarily Download Accelerator w/IE (doesn't seem to work with FireFox) Development Tools Microsoft Visual Studio 2003 Macromedia Studio 2004 VB.Net Resource Kit (Mostly for Component One Suite) VB Power Pack Multimedia Media Player Classic v6.4 (like the old skool media player, but codecs permitting, can also play RM, Mov and has no problems with wmv/avi files, quick, fast and has a playlist) Cyberlink PowerDVD Gordon Knots DVD Ripping/Encoding tools WinAmp WinISO (converts .Bin to .ISO format and treats both like an archive and lets you extract files without burning) Roxio Easy CD Creator 5 Office/Productivity MS Office 2000 or XP (I think I have xp loaded right now) I think thats about all that I standardly put on my computer. Here is what I plan to do: VB.net software development Learn C# software development Make static websites (normally use Dreamweaver) Learn ASP.Net Learn how to use SQL Server with ASP.Net, VB.Net & C#.Net What I'm actively looking for: Freeware/Shareware Games - You know, the basic stuff... not Diablo or Doom, just solitare and puzzle games. Productivity Tools - Anything to make software development and life easier. I know I"m looking for a scheduler... Utilities - Anything that might help out on the computer in various ways. Software Development - Anything that might make software development easier... must have's, tools, etc. Thank you very much for any advice :)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dv_vstechart/html/vbpowerpack.asp I This isn't the VB.Net Developers Pack (which has tutorials and Component One Suite), but a grouping of about 7 controls: BlendPanel Control UtilityToolbar Control ImageButton Control NotificationWindow Control TaskPane Control FolderViewer and FileViewer Controls Nothing earth shattering I'd assume, but if you download the regular file rather than the installer, the source is included. With the source, you can view how these components are made and how to create them yourself. Also, like the VB.Net Developers Pack, I don't see anything to prevent C# (or other .Net users) from using the controls... but the source seems to be in VB. Just thought I'd throw it out there.

Based on what I've read, one of the main purposes of Dotfuscating your code is if you have passwords. Apparently it reduces your precompiled IL into jibberish, and gives you a slight performance boost. This is the jist of what I got from a few .Net books. I don't have any experience using Dotfuscator or anything.

Perfect. I just added DISTINCT BookingID to my SELECT statement and it pulls out the first of multiple bookingIDs!

Four relevant tables here. Customer Instructor Schedule Area The origional job was that there where X number of locations in a Gym. The client wanted to be able to select an area and a time frame from a visual schedule (ex: You find Weight Room 1 and drag from 8am to 10am). Then you get a screen asking for you to select a customer and instructor for your database and features like repeating the schedule on multiple days. This was easy. 1 table of Customers. 1 table of Instructors. 1 table w/Areas (names of areas and their codes) . 1 table which has a relation to the Area table (which area was chosen), Customer Table (The customer), Instructor Table (the instructor) and then misc info like start-end time, date, etc. Now they want to be able to select two or more areas; instead of selecting a single column, they want to drag across... in case someone wants to reserve in more than one area at once (in the case of a football field dived into halves or quarters). They tell me this after months of working on the logic and database and planning. It would take me a week or more to basically start over and redefine the database table structure and every bit of logic relating to the information I need to pull out... basically for the sake of a few queries. Now what happens is that if someone books in 3 areas, there are 3 records in the same bookingID number and while there are some differences in the record, there is some duplication. in this current instance, I need to pull every related record (I call it a Full Schedule Booking;), grabbing the customer name, instructor name, area name, start time, end time, cost and amount paid. Normally it doesn't matter when information overlaps. The customer name will be the same in all the records of the same booking, as will be the start time and end time. For the sake of accounting, I need to pull up various reports which involve adding the price columns together and paid columns together to get totals. The problem is that if someone books in 4 areas (say the entire football field; Quarter1, Quarter 2, Quarter 3 and Quarter 4), the price will be in each of the 4 records. On a query selecting all of the bookings for the day, this will show up as 4 bookings and total the price x4. I'm looking for a way to specify a datacolumn which only allows one result, the first one, then ignores the rest. Ex: This is the booking ID's that would normally be brought up on a simple query: 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7. I just want to bring up 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7. I don't want to get the other records. Only the first with a particular field value in a specified column. I know I could do this in VB just fine. My reports are supposed to be in SQL though. I really just want to get these reports finished and end this program.

I need to search by name and return all of the records by that person. If there are duplicate fields, say bookingID, I only want to keep the first one I come across and disregard the others. I know this is ghetto, but my clients changed what information they wanted stored at the last minute (I was like 98% done) and they don't realize why this is an issue. I should just make the change and move on. To make the change I need to split a table into two related tables (thus the repeated data) and reflect those changes in 30 stored procedures and in the logic by which my program pulls the information out of the database... which would account for about a weeks worth of work. This change is really only needed for reports, so if I could make a new SQL select statement that ignored duplicates in a given field, I'd be set.

Its really easy: If e.Button = MouseButtons.Right Then ClickFlag = True end if Just declare ClickFlag as a boolean in your form level declarations: dim ClickFlag as Boolean = False If MouseDown's e.Button = MouseButtons.Right, then it sets ClickFlag to true. In your event for chartClicked do a check for ClickFlag: If ClickFlag = True 'Reset the variable for future use ClickFlag = False 'Do other things you want to do when the chart is right clicked End If Of course after writing that, I think RightClickFlag or bRightClick might be a better name, but thats the gist of it.

First, They're probobly extending the Mouse Down event into their own custom event. I'd think that something like this would still work. Second, if it doesn't work (they didn't pass through the mouse down arguments, making their own custom arguments or created their own mouse down event from scratch) with their component, in runtime, a mousedown is still happening. I'm not a pro, I don't know which is happening first, the Mouse Down or chartDataClicked, but my money is on MouseDown. Just use the MouseDown, do some logic to make sure it's over the chart and send the mousedown information into a delegate or variable where your other event can take advantage of that knowledge.

I know a little C++. When learning something that broad, I'd hesitate to look to any free online source. The chances of finding a complete tutorial (or set of them) that goes from A-Z in the correct order without jumping around and without leaving gaps is near impossible. Normally tutorials teach a focused topic in a given language... just to get the basics, ie, loops, variables, logic and various compilation specific deals, you could run through 3-5+ tutorials and still get gaps... just in the basics. Personally I'd just plop down 10 bucks for a good used "Learn C++ In 30 days/While You Sleep/Before Your Boss Kills You/Whatever" book. You know the fundamentals already. You don't need to be told what a loop is, just how it's done in C++. Really, a year old book you can get on Amazon for cheap. C++ has books that have been around for 5+ years. As for C++.Net, I'd say not to really bother based on the logic of it. C++.Net is basically C++ that uses .Net code. You already know .Net, if you learn C++, you're like 98% (or more) towards C++.Net. I think everyone should know at least a little something of C/C++. It's more powerful than .Net at lower levels and doesn't require the framework, but also more complex. I'd like to learn more C++... But I'd also want to learn C# and Java as well. What a wishlist :rolleyes:

Not in 2002 or 2003. I think in 2005 it might be available. There are numerous 3rd party versions... If you use vb.net, pick this up: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/vbrkit/default.aspx It's got ComponentOne's set of vs.net controls, which includes two versions of flexgrid for windows forms and aspx. I've been using them heavily in some of my projects.

I've noticed every event in .Net has something akin to "Sender as Object" as an event argument. I'm making use of my own custom events in controls and wondering if there is a reason to follow this convention? if I'm creating an event on a control that is raised whenever one of 12 panels backcolor is changed by a user (via color dialogue), an event is raised to tell the host that the user has made a change. I'm guessing that many of these events have been inherited back and forth which is why they use object. I'm not even sure how to enable "e as System.EventArgs" other than just passing it through the event which raised my event (Panel_Click event).

Only thing I can spot with J# is that, just like with C++.Net, you can have it .Net or without. I'm not sure which version of Java it supports though

I understand many of the basic mechanics of OOP. The how to... Do you have any advice or know of any books dealing more with the theory and common practices? More of WHY you do it a certain way, HOW you come up with OOP designs, but less of the mechanics on how to impliment it. Most of what I've been doing recently has been quasi OOP after a fashion... seems to be more Component Oriented. If I use a group of controls more than once, or the controls share a common function (like the navigation controls for a database; next, prev, first, last, etc) I seem to be making Controls out of them. I make a single control out of all of the textboxes on a form that deals with Database issues, that way it's easier to Black Box the processes of databinding, rendering all the controls inert (view only), allowing input (edit), clearing & allowing input (new record) and sometimes swapping out text for combo boxes (where selections can be made). I'm sure it's not nearly proper OOP, but I try to do a base class that contains much of the functionality - then inheriting it with more specific controls.