Tuesday 19 April 2011

Bring window to front with jQuery and Javascript

If you open a popup window via javascript it often appears behind the current page so the user may not notice it. A simple solution for this problem is to bring the window to the fron when it has finished loading. This can be achieved with a simple bit of jQuery and Javascript.

Wednesday 13 April 2011

Javascript check for undefined or null object/variable

Tuesday 12 April 2011

Disable a button with jQuery and still do postback

If you want to disable a button in a web application to stop it being clicked more than once when a long running process starts this is possible with jQuery.

The one pitfall that comes with disabling a submit button on the client side is that it will cancel the browser’s submit, and thus the postback. Setting the UseSubmitBehavior property to false tells .NET to inject the necessary client script to fire the postback anyway, instead of relying on the browser’s form submission behavior.

for example:
(aspx)


(javascript)

Saturday 9 April 2011

How to install a patch from the command line

msiexec.exe /p YourPatchInstaller.msp

Thursday 7 April 2011

ReportViewer - object datasource, nested objects return #Error

If you are using Visual studio 2010 and Report viewer you may have experienced the problem with using Nested Properties on the report with the fields returning #Error.

This has been fixed in Service Pack 1 for Visual studio 2010 although you must ensure all classes referenced in the report have the [Serializable] attribute for EVERY property that is a user type, they must also be a public class, and also a public constructor with no parameters. Without these you will still get the error. When a class is serialized it cannot be unserialized without the Default constructor as the class is instanitated with that constructor, then the properties set once the class is created. It also seems that if the entire class cannot be serialized the report will not show it.

To use a nested property on the report the following expression should be entered:

=Fields!Supplier.Value.SupplierLocation.Address1

This expression adds a field to the report that is three properties deep from the object the report is bound to.

The report datasource binds to an Order class, the order class contains a Supplier property, and the Supplier class contains a Supplier Location Property.

The Order, Supplier and Supplier Location class must use the [Serializable] attribute, and also any other property of any of the classes referenced. eg, Just make every class in your project Serializable and you should be good to go. ( technically you dont need every class but this was easier than checking every property of each nested object to make sure its serializable.

eg:


UPDATE: 16/06/2011

I tried to do another report with a different object and the #Error problem returned. However, After going though every single property that is a class in my datasource, and adding the serializable attribute to the report started working again. So, Every property of the object needs to be serializable, otherwise it seems the whole object cannot be serialized.

Checklist:
  • ALL classes are serializable (every user type in the class must be serializable, and any user type in a property of a usertype must be serialzable)
  • ALL classes have a public parameterless constructor
  • ALL classes used in the report must have the public modifier
  • If any property of the datasource, or any property of a property cannot be serialized then your will get the #Error. Just make sure everything is serializable
  • Make sure there will be no infinite recursion issues - eg, class A has a property of class B, and class B has a property of class A. Use XMLIgnore / ScriptIgnore attributes

UPDATE: 22/06/2011

Sample project can now be downloaded from

Sample Web Project

MIME Types

<>
Type/sub-typeExtension
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application/fractalsfif
application/futuresplashspl
application/htahta
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application/msworddot
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application/vnd.ms-outlookmsg
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application/vnd.ms-powerpointpot
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application/vnd.ms-workswdb
application/vnd.ms-workswks
application/vnd.ms-workswps
application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.presentationpptx
application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheetxlsx
application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.documentdocx
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application/x-iphoneiii
application/x-javascriptjs
application/x-latexlatex
application/x-msaccessmdb
application/x-mscardfilecrd
application/x-msclipclp
application/x-msdownloaddll
application/x-msmediaviewm13
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application/x-msmetafilewmf
application/x-msmoneymny
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application/x-msterminaltrm
application/x-mswritewri
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application/x-pkcs12p12
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application/x-pkcs7-certificatesp7b
application/x-pkcs7-certificatesspc
application/x-pkcs7-certreqrespp7r
application/x-pkcs7-mimep7c
application/x-pkcs7-mimep7m
application/x-pkcs7-signaturep7s
application/x-shsh
application/x-sharshar
application/x-shockwave-flashswf
application/x-stuffitsit
application/x-sv4cpiosv4cpio
application/x-sv4crcsv4crc
application/x-tartar
application/x-tcltcl
application/x-textex
application/x-texinfotexi
application/x-texinfotexinfo
application/x-troffroff
application/x-trofft
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application/x-troff-manman
application/x-troff-meme
application/x-troff-msms
application/x-ustarustar
application/x-wais-sourcesrc
application/x-x509-ca-certcer
application/x-x509-ca-certcrt
application/x-x509-ca-certder
application/ynd.ms-pkipkopko
application/zipzip
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video/mpegmp2
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video/quicktimemov
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video/x-la-asflsf
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video/x-ms-asfasf
video/x-ms-asfasr
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x-world/x-vrmlwrl
x-world/x-vrmlwrz
x-world/x-vrmlxaf
x-world/x-vrmlxof

ReportViewer - Prints Extra blank pages or splits accross multiple pages

If you are using report viewer and find that when you export to PDF or print the report blank pages are coming out, or some fields are on the page on there own. This is to do with page size and margins.

When you are editing the rdlc file in design mode, firstly click on an empty part of the BODY area of your design. Hit F4 to see the properties tab. Here, you will see a "Size" property. This can be expanded for the width and height. The width you see here represents the width that the body of your report requires as printable area. Even if you have white space all over, the page knows that it needs to keep it as a printable area. It reserves the space, in some sense. As for the height, the system generally knows that it can grow or shrink as necessary, unless you have specified otherwise within your controls therein. So the width is what will, usually, play the most important role.

Next, click on an empty area of the report (outside the header, body, and footer; basically the gray area around the design), then hit F4 to view the properties panel. Under the "Layout" category of the properties, you will see 3 different options: InteractiveSize, Margins, PageSize. Each of those Size attributes can be expanded to show the Width and Height. The Margins attribute can be expanded for the left/right/top/bottom.

Basically, the pdf export works out of the PageSize (though I generally try to keep Interactive and Page size equal). When the pdf file is rendered via the ReportViewer's built-in export function, the width and height of each "page" within the pdf will be determined by the width and height in the report's PageSize attribute (you could override this if you used your own custom code for the pdf rendering). As for the margins, they specify how much space MUST be left blank and unprintable between the printable area reserved for your report and the edge of the page.

In other words: Your report's Body's Width, Plus the Report's Left Margin, Plus the Report's Right Margin, MUST be smaller than or equal to the Report's PageSize's Width!

So...if your margins are too wide, or if your report's body is too wide, or if the PageSize's width is too narrow, the rendered result is forced to be broken down to multiple pages in order to fit!

For example: If my report's body has width 7.75", my Left margin is 0.5", my right margin is 0.5", and the width specified in the PageSize is 8.5", my report will always use 2 pages for each 1 page of data. The 7.75" width of the body, plus 0.5"+0.5" for the margins add up to 8.75", which is larger than the 8.5" available in my page. So the first 7.5" (or so) of each page of my report's body will be shown in the first page, and the rest will be split down to the next page. This will not be done inside the report viewer, as it allows for the report to grow beyond the page size by just adding a scrollbar, but it will be annoyingly noticeable in the pdf export. In order to make my example report fit in 1 page, I can either try and reduce the body of my report to 7.5" or less, or I can reduce the left and right margins by a total of 0.25" or more (for example, set them to 0.3" for a total reduction of 0.4"), or I can increase the PageSize to something larger than 8.75". Note: Acrobat Reader is pretty smart and knows about various paper sizes. Therefore, while arbitrary PageSizes will work, it is typically best to use real page sizes. As such, in my last example I would rather set the PageSize to have Width = 11" and Height = 8.5", which is a real letter-size in landscape! Adobe will typically understand this and print properly. Also Note: Some printers, especially older ones, have trouble printing with less than 0.3" margins. If you want to be nice to your users, you should best keep the margins large enough for those older printers ;)