Channel 9 - Discussions by philjay

Tech Off - Dynamic Binding for TextBlock inside of DataTemplate in ComboBox

philjay — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 07:19:10 GMT

Like when you say, PatientName will always be PatientName, your approach makes no sense, why would you store bindings in a database? I have never seen this before. You store the data in the database, access it using a webservice, then the client application's job is to display this data.

If you'd store binding-declarations in the db, you could very easily break your application, without any additional gain, but only problems and difficulities, starting at you essentially giving up all the tooling and debugging related to bindings, not even having any additional flexibility, since bindings cannot really change.

One approach, that if the source can change, eg. different table, I recommend creating a ViewModel representing for example the patient, that has always the same properties, and when loading your data you can just map from whichever table to the properties of that viewmodel. And then you just bind to it.

But I would not store specific mappings in the db, you should keep the schema clean and consistent, so if you have different tables being displayed by the same view, they should have the same column names. If you need to be really dynamic, you could theoretically store the whole XAML files in the db or the formulars and their fields that will generate a XAML.

Tech Off - Dynamic Binding for TextBlock inside of DataTemplate in ComboBox

philjay — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 13:58:44 GMT

So in this case, the user HAS control over the databinding? At least the database admin. Is it a requirement, that controls can dynamically change bindings to different column names, even though the properties seem clearly specified(PatientName will always be PatientName and nothing else)?

A silverlight application gets packaged down to .XAP, and I think the XAML files get compiled as resources into the dll, so a user can't control the bindings anyways.

Are you sure this is the right approach? Is the database schema given and you basically have to conform to it? You could do it, but I absolutely see no reason to do it(Unless you would want to create something like dynamic formulars, where controls could be dynamically added or removed based on database).

Coffeehouse - Developer story for Win8/WP8

philjay — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 06:31:30 GMT

@AndyC: How much does this subset include? Is there ability to use and write WinRT components from C++ and .Net(Which would be quite essential for some apps)?

Coffeehouse - Wednesday's Big Announcement

philjay — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 06:23:43 GMT

What about WinRT? Can C++/.Net use it? What is XAML in WP8? Silverlight or WinRT based? What about html metro apps? I thought this was the main benefit of a common kernel, write once, run anywhere, not 'just a few tweaks' and two builds of your app.

Site Feedback - No full screen on HTML5 play back?

philjay — Thu, 03 May 2012 13:54:40 GMT

Metro IE 10 supports full screen since the webpage is fullscreen. No api needed for that. All browsing should be just fullscreen

Tech Off - [Ask] Clues on Developing WP App

philjay — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 14:55:59 GMT

There are so many tutorials out there. Just search the internets for whatever webapi you want to get informations from, the most important ones are already done. If you want to have clean code that can be reused across platforms, look for the MVVM pattern.

Coffeehouse - Facebook complaints

philjay — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 16:24:00 GMT

I like the changes, one of the best changes in the last time. People don't like change... Facebook UI still is a little confusing at times. The problem is, that those things need your behavior to adapt to the new UI, even if better, it's not welcomed.

Coffeehouse - Quantitative analysis of Office Ribbon UI productivity and Windows 8 predictions

philjay — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 12:40:27 GMT

I mostly didn't even use the toolbar buttons like print and stuff, because I wasn't always sure what the icons meant and probably often made bad experience with toolbar buttons not doing what they look like they do, so instead I printed via File -> Print... (never without the 3 dots, because this could mean that it would quick print without configuration).

Today I prefer keyboard shortcuts and love the ribbon, although I'm not exactly sure how that would incorporate with the metro ui.

Coffeehouse - Windows Phone Apps to run on Windows 8?

philjay — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 20:40:09 GMT

Are you sure WP7 controls are implementend twice once native for native apps and one version managed for managed apps? I thought (don't you think?) all UI is completely managed, while there are some native controls and logic all wrapped for the managed presentation and ui layer?

Coffeehouse - BING Windows 8 App

philjay — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 20:29:31 GMT

Does it still work? By visiting the link I get:

Ref A: 129641AE0B284EE8B7F7413D6ADB1BC0 Ref B: C89A8870965C180BF4E1E52D7E1916E2 Ref C: Thu Sep 08 13:28:17 2011 PST

Coffeehouse - Adobe Edge ... May be this is how Blend.next (Win 8 ) will work ?

philjay — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 17:03:18 GMT

Man how can one still do such kind js code generation while not solving any actual problems of web development? I don't need a animation tool that spits out a js file(I can do that myself). I want a complete solution that can abstract away things missing or being badly designed in the javascript language.

I could do without choice of library if the tools offer would be really nice. Some little declarative animation framework, some knockout like bindings, some razor syntax templates that render both server and client side, and view models written server side and then passed to the client(including commands, compiled to js using expression tree magic or something...), THATs what I'm expecting from the HTML5 tooling story. =)