:: { DeVigner } :: » .NET

Silverlight MultiEnvironment Deployment – Setup & Configuration Technique

Nasir Aziz — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 00:05:27 +0000

PROBLEM

Most of us who develop in Silverlight run into atleast one issue one time or another. We start a cool new project, write services, test them, they run – all good! Yay! Then we deploy to production or staging environment and excitement of showing off of our new cool Silverlight application fades away pretty quickly – the dreaded “Service Not Found” error or simply no response to service calls Hello Fiddler!? Where did my services go?

The fix is usually pretty easy if we paid attention to ServiceReferences.Client.Config file and “fixed” or changed the EndPoint addresses to our services , but admit it we all have some level to A.D.D (Attention Deficit Disorder) and among other things we tend to forget this crucial part or change we must do before going live. To remedy this (yep – don’t have a production deployment check list) here is a little technique that I use to solve this problem:

SOLUTION

I typicaly write a Static Helper class, lets say DeploymentEndpoints

 public static class DeploymentEndpoints
 {
        internal static string URIPath
        {
            get
            {
                return
                     HtmlPage.Document.DocumentUri.AbsoluteUri.Substring(0,
                     HtmlPage.Document.DocumentUri.AbsoluteUri.LastIndexOf("/"));
            }
        }

        public static ServiceParams Service1Info
        {
            get
            {
                return
                     new ServiceParams("CustomBinding_Service1",
                            string.Format("{0}/Services/Service1.svc", URIPath));
            }
        }

        public static ServiceParams Service2Info
        {
            get
            {
                return new ServiceParams("CustomBinding_Service2",
                                 string.Format("{0}/Services/Service2.svc", URIPath));
            }
        }
 }

And a ServiceParams class as:

    public class ServiceParams
    {
        private string _binding;
        private string _endPointAddress;

        public ServiceParams(string binding, string endpointAddress)
        {
            _binding = binding;
            _endPointAddress = endpointAddress;
        }
        public string EndpointAddress
        {
            get { return _endPointAddress; }
            private set { _endPointAddress = value; }
        }
        public string BindingInfo
        {
            get { return _binding; }
            private set { _binding = value; }
        }
    }

The CustomBinding_Service1 and CustomBinding_Service2 configurations in DeploymentEnpoints class are picked from the ServiceReferences.Client.Config file. If you have any special Bindings Configurations setup there, they will apply as usual.

Call the service from your app like this:

        private void CallService1()
        {
            ServiceReference1.Service1Client service1Client =
                 new ServiceReference1.Service1Client
                                          (DeploymentEndpoints.Service1Info.BindingInfo,
                                          DeploymentEndpoints.Service1Info.EndpointAddress);
            service1Client.WhoAmICompleted += (s, e) =>
            {
                if (e.Error == null)
                {
                    textBlock1.Text = e.Result;
                    service1Client = null;
                }
            };
            service1Client.WhoAmIAsync();
        }

And thats it!

Anytime you add a new Service, make sure you include a new Static method (like: public static ServiceParams ServiceXXXInfo…) that points to your new service in the DeploymentEndpoints class, and that you have to do only once! After that you can deploy it to any environment without worrying about changing the endpoint configs at all in ServiceReferences.Client.Config file.

To test it out, change the Specific Port in your Web Projects “Web” Settings section and see how it takes effect seamlessly, or better yet deploy it somewhere else with a different domain name etc.

And here is a simple demo project code that shows it all: WCFDeployment.Web.zip

Silverlight Timeline Control

Nasir Aziz — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:26:52 +0000

Last week I was working on Silverlight 3 project where I needed a Timeline Control. As usual I Googled and saw if there was any good useable FREE code out there that someone may already have worked on. After searching for half a day and trying at least one the results were disappointing. First not even close to what I was looking for and then the one I actually found close to my requirements turned out to be buggy and not very well put together. And then there were some overpriced control libraries – Yeah, no thanks.

The decision was clear, make my own. I knew it was a tall order but I did dive into it and churned one that I can use with a goal to keep it simple and customizable for anyone to use. I am attaching a project that uses this control library that you can DOWNLOAD and mess with. I will eventually release the soure code too if there is some interest out there. In the meanwhile, check it out and see what you think. Yes I can improve this a lot but this will do for now.

Below is a data of US States (in yellow) Union join dates and President tenures (in green)

Mouse wheel on bottom timeline will Zoom it In or Out
Grab the notch on Slider to expand or reduce the magnification size
Go Full Screen by clicking on top right corner. Especially if you want to try out MouseWheel without messing with the browser scroll (annoying)

Download the sample app to try it out. I like suggestions or comments if you can spare any

Cheers!

DOWNLOAD Project

I Heart Silverlight 4 + MVVM [now]

Nasir Aziz — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:20:35 +0000

Remember how I used to hate using MVVM for Silverlight 3.0, but now with Silverlight 4.0 improvements announced @ Microsoft PDC 09 today, I have turned into a believer. I am all for it and I HEART SILVERLIGHT 4.0 + MVVM now! Thank you Microsoft for listening and converting me now and thank you John Papa for a great presentation that helped me start loving MVVM/Silverlight for real.

Time to go back and refactor my Silverlight 3.0 apps to Silverlight 4.0 with MVVM!

Below is a must see Microsoft PDC 09 talk by John Papa: Advanced Topics for Building Large-Scale Applications with Microsoft Silverlight

And here is a video where John Papa and Adam Kinney discuss Silverlight 4.0 improvements and new features.

Silverlight MVVM- My opinions…

Nasir Aziz — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 07:08:04 +0000

This post is a follow-up to my previous post “Silverlight MVVM Purist Style…” where I posed the question regarding MVVM and Silverlight:

After extensive googling/binging/researching, following are my views at the moment, as in work-in-progress views:

MVVM looks good in theory and for short half-assed ideal situation demos but due to lack of proper guidance and concrete examples it is more trouble than its worth, ie; if you are going for the purist style.
MVVM hinders speedy development initially. Devil is in the details. We end up fighting to implement the pattern and lose focus from the actual excersize which is developing software and solving some problem.
MVVM doesn’t have clear guidance on UI intensive type applications. Has anyone done a Silverlight game purely based on MVVM yet? I haven’t seen any atleast.
Shawn Wildermuth coined the term “Prism is a Buffet“, I think I am going to say “MVVM is a Buffet” also! I’ll pick and chose what works and throw the rest of the theories out the window.
The reason I chose Silverlight/WPF is because of its graphics capabilities. MVVM is forcing me to think Windows Forms and is trying to make it too easy for the testers. Why do we pay them anyways?
If I want to make sexy LoB apps or the sorts with cool effects and what not, MVVM gets in the way. Limits your creativity and adds more work, hence dev time. Almost sounds like its a conspiracy to hinder your creativity power.
In its defense (somewhat), custom behaviors/triggers etc. can solve some graphics/UI interactivity issues under MVVM but not all of them. There are limitations still – thats where your code gets murky, some behaviors, some triggers, some code behind, and some VM. Oh my readabilty and maintenance just got better! Sure…
MVVM is based on plethra of opinions. There is no standard yet that I can put a finger on. Plus the more I read and view it the more it looks like MVP.
If we like the long acronyms, I’d propse new terminology that actually makes sense: Call it V-VM-M (In View-first situation) and VM-V-M (In VM-First situation) just to be fair and to further identify the implementation. If you have gone hybrid then it means you have committed a sin.
NO code-behind is not a rule. I am sure we will come up with another layer for code behind essentially mimicking it. Why not just use it as it is. Avoid it and move code to VM as much as you can, and anything that justifiably can’t be moved to VM (trust me there are a lot of cases) then go for it. Make sure comment your code in code-behind starting with “Intended Anarchy”.
Never put your code out for MVVM review. No one will agree and it will become a fist fight session. Just make sure you follow best-practises in your code and general architecture otherwise.

CONCLUSION: Keep your data/calls/bindings related items in M and VM layers. Triggers/Behaviors/etc in XAML (VIEW) layer plus any additional programmatic UI/graphics/interactive can go in code-behind. Make good use of commanding and eventing as much as possible through Prism. These are my rules now and I am sticking to it and documenting it here. I may be off base but that’s where I am at today. My opinions may change as I gain more experience in this adventure, and when that happens I’ll’ definitelty report here.

It’s still a discussion but I am banging the gavel… order order!

NOTE: If you happen to be a developer and a designer at the same time, I recommend you get your head completely shaved before you go dive into this mess. This will help you from unintended baldness, serious scalp injuries, lost relationships, and what not. You get the idea.

Improved LCD FTIR

Nasir Aziz — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 07:00:43 +0000

Just improved upon my existing LCD FTIR setup. Fixed LEDs/resistors, replaced the camera from XBOX Live to PS3Eye with AlexP’s drivers. Demo here is from the same exact setup with the new improvements.

Also worth mentioning is that these results are through a NonCompliant surface – just bare Acrylic in a normal well lit room. Performance and response with PS3Eye camera and TBETA For PS3Eye is way better. Video might look a little choppy but in real life the results are super smooth. I’ll see if I can capture it without the chops again. In the meanwhile check it out.

LCD Screen: 17”
8 LEDs on each side(8×4 = 32 LEDs total) – evenly spaced
LED Wavelength: 880nm (SFH485: 5mm)
1 Ohm 1/4 W resistor per 8LEDs
12 VDC 1A Power to light up this array.
Acrylic: 5mm thick (Got it from Home Depot. Its thinner than what others have been using here)
PS3Eye Camera. Removed the IR Blocking Filter. Added an exposed photo negative 1 strip only as a filter.

Also had to grind the PS3Eye lens holder base a little for focus purposes. Once you remove the IR Blocking Filter from the lens, you’ll notice that the camera loses focus. You can either add a new similar thickness filter lens to get the focus back or if you want to go the cheap route like in my case, for that you’ll end up grinding the lens base a little (2mm roughly I guess) for focus.

Microsoft Surface Rio Vegas

Nasir Aziz — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 17:57:12 +0000

Here is a good example of MS Surface in a social setup: