This, too, will pass…

Problem with Using SharePoint Lookup Columns in Word Documents

2011-10-09T15:10:00.000+05:30

Document properties give you a rich user experience to maintain SharePoint metadata in word documents. You can create a document content type based word templates and add SharePoint metadata to it through the Quick Parts (in Ribbon go to: Insert ► Quick Parts ► Document Properties) easily.

One of the puzzlepart assignment, I had an issue on maintaining lookup fields in word templates. Lookup fields are displayed as dropdown in word template. The issue was some of the items were missing in the dropdown (which is available in lookup list). When I investigated it I found that the dropdown item count decided based on the default view of the lookup list.

For an example if the default view restricted to display 100 items, then in dropdown shows only 100 items. Same way you can configure the filtering or sorting order in the default view of the lookup list if you want to filter out or sort the items in word template dropdown lookup.

How to Set SharePoint People Picker Default Value to Current User through JavaScript

2011-02-20T13:58:00.004+05:30

With the common SharePoint field types you can specify “[Me]” in the default value property to set the current logged in user. But for the Person or Group field type they haven’t enable this feature. This is a common requirement and I needed to find a good standard approach.

We can achieve this in two scenarios:

After the list item save: We can trigger a workflow and programmatically set the logged in user to the field
Before the list item save: We can modify the list item add new form page to set the current logged in user using JavaScript

In my case, the requirement was second scenario and this blog post is mainly focused on that.

If we are modifying the list item add new form page to achieve this, we need to consider two things:

How to get the current user information in SharePoint context via JavaScript

For this I had to refer SharePoint 2010 - Client Object Model and how to get the logged in user information using SharePoint JavaScript api.

How to set the value to the People Picker control

I found the post on how to manipulate a list form fields using JavaScript but it doesn’t mention how to do it for the People Picker control. Unlike other form fields we can’t uniquely identify the People Picker control in html markup (Other form fields can be identified by the title attribute. Title attribute has set to the field name of list item). Therefore in my approach I had to know the parent element of the People Picker control to identify the People Picker control.

I have bundled this functionality to a JavaScript class and we can reuse it whenever needed. One thing that I learned working with Puzzlepart team was you must simplify your implementation as much as possible and isolate it in a generic manner that we can reuse it other places.

PeoplePicker Class

<script type="text/javascript">

function PeoplePicker(){

    this.context = null;
    this.web = null;
    this.currentUser = null;
    this.parentTagId = null    
    
    this.SetParentTagId = function(id){
        this.parentTagId = id;
    }
    
    this.SetLoggedInUser = function(){
        if(this.parentTagId != null){
            this.getWebUserData();            
        }    
    }
    
    this.getWebUserData = function(){
        this.context = new SP.ClientContext.get_current();
        this.web = this.context.get_web();
        this.currentUser = this.web.get_currentUser();
        this.currentUser.retrieve();
        this.context.load(this.web);
        this.context.executeQueryAsync(Function.createDelegate(this, this.onSuccessMethod), 
                                       Function.createDelegate(this, this.onFailureMethod));
    }    
    
    this.onSuccessMethod = function(){ 
        this.setDefaultValue(this.currentUser.get_title());        
    }

    this.onFailureMethod = function(){
        alert('request failed ' + args.get_message() + '\n' + args.get_stackTrace());
    }    
        
    this.setDefaultValue = function(value){         
        var parentTag = document.getElementById(this.parentTagId);
        if (parentTag != null) {
            var peoplePickerTag = this.getTagFromIdentifierAndTitle(parentTag, 'div', 
                                                    'UserField_upLevelDiv', 'People Picker');
            if (peoplePickerTag) {
                peoplePickerTag.innerHTML = value;
            }            
        }
    }    
    
    this.getTagFromIdentifierAndTitle = function(parentElement, tagName, identifier, title){     
        var len = identifier.length;
        var tags = parentElement.getElementsByTagName(tagName);
        for (var i = 0; i < tags.length; i++) {
            var tempString = tags[i].id;
            if (tags[i].title == title && (identifier == "" || 
                                tempString.indexOf(identifier) == tempString.length - len)) {
                return tags[i];
            }
        }
        return null;
    }
}

</script>

Now you can reuse this in your aspx markup:

<asp:Content ContentPlaceHolderId="PlaceHolderMain" runat="server">

<sharepoint:scriptlink localizable="false" name="SP.js" ondemand="true" runat="server"/>  

<script type="text/javascript">

ExecuteOrDelayUntilScriptLoaded(SetWebUserData, "sp.js");

function SetWebUserData() {
    var pplPicker = new PeoplePicker();
    // Set the parent tag id of the people the picker.
    pplPicker.SetParentTagId('ctl00_UserField_containerCell');
    pplPicker.SetLoggedInUser();
}

</script>

</asp:Content>

Ajahn Brahm's Tour of Sri Lanka - January 2011

2010-12-20T19:09:00.004+05:30

After keeping me waiting for two years, finally Ajahn Brahm is coming to Sri Lanka in mid January. I was waited more than two years for this and really happy that he is coming to Sri Lanka and the same time little bit sad that i'm going to miss his talks.

Ajahn Brahm is scheduled to conduct two meditation sessions and several public talks in Sri Lanka.

Nine-day Advanced Meditation Retreat - "A Gentle Path to Jhana" at Bandarawela from 9th - 17th January 2011.

One Day Meditation Retreat at BMICH - Colombo on 19th January 2011, Duruthu full moon public holiday.

Grant yourself a moment of peace,
      and you will understand
      how foolishly you have scurried about.

Learn to be silent,
     and you will notice that
     you have talked too much

Be kind,
     and you will realize that
     your judgment of others was too severe
- Ancient Chinese Proverb

The Letter

2010-10-04T08:11:00.004+05:30

Dear Clementine,

Hope your program is doing well and still running perfectly. It's been so long since I started to use .Net 1.1 Managed Code to my program. Still I remembered the times we stuck with each other to integrate our applications. Time has passed so quickly and the time has come for me to say goodbye to you. I don’t want to bother you anymore and this will be the last letter I write to you.

The time that I started to use .Net 1.1 Managed Code to my program, I thought it was a great opportunity to hook-up with your program and getting know you better. But it was a disaster. Due to my own foolishness and stupidity I didn’t follow the advices gave by the seniors who have mastered on this area. Another reason would be, that time I had lack of knowledge on OO Concepts, Design Patterns and the features provided by the .NET Framework Class Library. Sometimes I had to used the delegate feature to get the help from your friends and the events that you have raised from your program were not too friendly. I still didn’t understand why you had such restricted Code Access Policies in your implementation.

Once I upgraded my program to .Net 2.0 realized that your program had a Generic implementation which was common to all the programs like your type. Which means internally you all have the same engine with different body parts exposes to the external. Even though knowing that still I wanted to get in touch with you. So I used some of the new features such as Static Classes, Anonymous Methods, Iterators, and Partial Types which came with .Net 2.0 to improve my program hoping that you will be impressed and allow me to access your interfaces. Especially I had to use Nullable Types to check the null values in your database (with the help of ADO .Net 2.0). But still I had some issues with accessing your COM objects.

After migrating to .Net 3.5, it made my life easier. During that time my implementation was too messy and there were lot of side effects in my code due to the control flow in my program decided by me (execution flow & logic). That was the time everyone was moving to declarative programming from imperative programming paradigm. So I refactored my code by applying new declarative techniques which came with .Net 3.5. The LINQ queries, Lambda Expressions were simplified my code and the flow of control was decided by the compiler based on my hardware and software configuration. This went really went except one time though. Dear Clementine, You should know that my hardware configuration never intend run in such environment during the time your parents tried control my program execution flow. But I tried to change my default program behavior by using Extension Methods and Anonymous Types.

I’m not regret the time that we had each other. I learnt lot from your Exceptions. Although it led to unexpected system errors. From that I introduced new features to my program to make it more stable. One thing that I realized is the impermanence of love. Even though we run our programs in managed code, we would have implement the IDisposable interface for our implementation of love, which might have led to a beautiful ending for our integration. But that's in the past now.

In the last few years my program requirements have been changed drastically and currently I’m in the process of redesigning it. One of the major changes was the introducing dynamic integration to my program. Earlier I was happy with integrating statically typed programs (like you) to my program because it has low risk and more reliability. But recently I realized that I was seeing small part of the sea. There are many programs that I haven’t thought about and sometimes which might be better than you. With having some risk and the help of .Net 4.0 dynamic techniques, in future I might be able to integrate other type of programs to my program. Also Simplicity, Reusability, Maintainability and some best practices that I learned in past will be considered to the new implementation. Further .Net 4.0 parallel techniques will be used to improve the performance of my program. Even though still I’m not having the best hardware configurations, now I’m capable of plugging more processers to my CPU which enables me to do the parallel processing.

So dear Clementine, I think the time has come for me to say goodbye to you. I hope you will find your prefect program and wish you all good. I had a wonderful time being with you!

Love always,

Joel

P.S.

This blog post intended to be a reference reading for the evaluation of C# .net (for the friends who have asked me to help on their .net interviews) and nothing more than that. Each link provides you the detailed description on C# .net features. The names were taken from one of my favorite movie “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”. Happy reading!

Set Styles on Gaia Window Control

2010-09-25T13:31:00.005+05:30

Recently I had to use one of the coolest controls of Gaia, the Window control which mimics the behavior of a normal desktop Window within the web page. I had some issues with that, when it came to set styles on the layout of the window. They haven’t properly documented about that.

Using Firebug I analyzed the html markup, that rendered by the window control and got to know that you need to maintain separate CSS classes with predefined suffixes (defined by Gaia team) for each main content areas in the window.

For an example if you set the Window CssClass property to “update-line”, then you need to create below CSS classes with predefined suffixes to style the Window layout (only the main content areas described here)

Area	Suffix	CSS Class Example
Whole window	"-window"	update-line-window
Content area	"-window-content"	update-line-window-content
Caption area	"-window-top"	update-line-window-top

Outlook 2010 Quick Steps Feature

2010-09-17T20:49:00.004+05:30

Recently I have upgraded my MS Office package to 2010 and it was really cool. The Quick Steps feature that comes with the Outlook 2010 made me easier to manage my mail inbox. This feature allows you to create single-click links to perform tasks that normally require multiple steps. In my case I used this to move my emails to specific folders that I have organized in my mail box. For an example if you need to move your office related emails to the “Office” folder once you have read that. You can setup a single-click link for this and it’ll be visible in Ribbon’s Home tab in your Outlook.

Currently at office I’m using two email accounts. One is for the office related work and the other one for the customer related work. Coolest thing is based on your mail box, the single-click links will be changed on the Ribbon section.

For more Office 2010 features - 10 Things

We Are Not a Rich Nation but Rich at Heart

2010-09-12T21:42:00.006+05:30

Recently the Charities Aid Foundation has released their “World Giving Index” report for 2010 and Sri Lanka was in 8th place in world ranking. This was something that inspired me and if you look at the report, all the countries that ranked one to seven were developed countries and Sri Lanka was the first developing country ranked at 8th place and also the first in Asia. By looking at that report our CEO said “This is excellent news for Sri Lanka and its people… we are not a rich nation but rich at heart…”

It is good to see that majority of Sri Lankans are doing good things while few useless people who fight for politics, race and religion. This was something that made me proud to be a Sri Lankan and increased my personal giving index too. I think this Giving habit is one of the core values of our Sri Lankan culture and it has the influence from ancient tradition and Buddhism. Majority of Sri Lankans are Buddhist and they were encourage to do this starting from their childhood. One occasion in one of the Ajahn Brahm talks, he renamed all the donation boxes in Buddhist temples to letting go boxes. Which means, according to Buddhism: more you give, the more you let go. Another reason that I see is Sri Lanka is a developing country and not all the Sri Lankans are rich. Every Sri Lankan doesn’t own a car and most of them use public transport. Also they don’t have big mansions to live and most of them are live in small compacted houses. This will make them much closer to each other and they can feel others heart beat which naturally force them to help each other whenever they needed.

Even though I’m not perfect, to me this Giving habit came from my home. I couldn’t remember a one time that a guest came to my home and left without hospitality. At least they will get a cup of tea. Even if my parents specially made something for us, that will also shared with the guest. My parents helped lot to their relatives, neighbors especially for old people when they were having a bad time. These values brought to my life and I really enjoyed them when I was being with my friends and colleagues at office. In my previous work place, couple of months I shared my morning breakfast among the friends and few of them laugh at me by looking at how I eat my breakfast and lunch at the office. But they didn’t know how much I enjoyed that.

One of my favorite explanations for Giving reminds me the one of Newton's laws related to air pressure. The same way that air move from high to low pressure, if we give more, naturally it will create a low pressure area because of giving and it will be fill up by the high pressure. This high pressure we called the outcome of giving, that we get. Which means if you need to get more you have to give more. It could be wealth, power, friendship, happiness or whatever you wanted in your life but first you have to share that with others.

You don’t necessarily have to be a rich or poor person to help others. What does matter is what you do with that. There are many ways that you can help others. For example you can help people while you are traveling in public transport. Help beggars even if they are cheating. Help your colleagues at office when they are having a bad time. You can donate blood at least once a year. Instead of wasting money for cigarettes and alcohol, spend that for charity or corporate social responsibility projects at office. Last year one of my friends organized an event at Cancer hospital which was really nice. These were few and there are lots of ways you can do this. At least smile. That’s the only thing that you can give it to others for free.

Finally I wanted tell you something important that, it will be a note to self too. I have seen many people who contributing so much to others by simply neglecting themselves. Recently I realized that the importance of me as same as others. You have to give something to yourself while you are contributing to others. It’s not about you or the rest of the world. It must be always you and the rest of the world.

Decorator Pattern

2010-09-02T20:55:00.010+05:30

Current project we are working on, they heavily used design patterns in their codebase and when it comes to do the modifications and new enhancements, we must have a good understanding on how the design patterns behave and how we can apply in a real world situation to make it more maintainable and optimizable codebase.

Therefore recently I started to do some research on this and got a clear understanding on the Decorator design pattern initially.This pattern is quite useful when you need to extend an object’s behavior dynamically. This ability to dynamically attach new behavior to objects is done by a Decorator class that wraps itself around the original class.

Following example illustrates the usage of the Decorator pattern and the way I illustrated the example was bit funny and it was an incident recently I experienced.

Let’s take a real world entity called Girl for this example. Every girl has a unique feature Smile. So we can create an interface for the Girl, that specifying we need to implement the Smile:

Now we can create an Office girl (concrete class) using the Girl interface and implement the Smile for the Office girl.

Following creates an instance from OfficeGirl and check the Smile:

The output would be:

Now let’s say there is another office girl who wanted Smile and at the same time she needs to do something else too. Let's say for an example flirting. How she can achieve this?

Now the Decorator pattern is coming to the picture. By using it, we can decorate this office girl to do the flirting thingy at the run time!

Following is how we can achieve this using a Decorator class:

Following creates an instance from OfficeGirl and decorate it via OfficeGirlDecorator and check the Smile:

The output would be:

In this example if you look at the Decorator class, it can invoke just like the original class. In most cases, method calls are delegated to the original class and then the results are acted upon, or decorated, with additional functionality.

Still not got it? For more information visit Gang of Four, Wikipedia

Circular Positioning in ASP .Net

2010-08-24T13:45:00.004+05:30

In Puzzlepart projects several occasions I had to find a good solution for the circular positioning on html markup. There are many ways to do this and the team wanted to tryout using pure css styles that support in cross browsers.

Below sample code illustrates how to achieve this using css positing styles and the bit of mathematics. It’ll rotate the image based on selected angle.

Page View

Code:

using System;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Web.UI;

namespace RotationTest
{
    public partial class Rotation : Page
    {
        private const double Radius = 155;
        private readonly Point Origin = new Point(190, 195);

        protected string PositionStyle
        {
            get
            {
                var style = "visibility:hidden;";
                if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(dropDownAngle.SelectedValue))
                {
                    var angle = Convert.ToDouble(dropDownAngle.SelectedValue);
                    var position = GetPointOnCircle(Origin, Radius, angle);
                    style = string.Format(
                            "left: {0}px; top: {1}px;",
                            position.X, position.Y);
                }
                return style;
            }
        }

        private static Point GetPointOnCircle(Point origin, double radius, double angleInDegrees)
        {
            // Convert from degrees to radians via multiplication by PI/180        
            var x = (int)Math.Round(radius * Math.Cos(angleInDegrees * Math.PI / 180.0), 
                                    MidpointRounding.ToEven) + origin.X;
            
            var y = (int)Math.Round(radius * Math.Sin(angleInDegrees * Math.PI / 180.0), 
                                    MidpointRounding.ToEven) + origin.Y;

            return new Point(x, y);
        }
    }
}

Markup:

<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="Rotation.aspx.cs" 
    Inherits="RotationTest.Rotation" %>
<head runat="server">
    <title>Rotation Test</title>
head>
<body>
    <form id="form" runat="server">
    <div>
        <div style="width: 400px; height: 402px; background-image: url(circular-image.png);
            background-repeat: no-repeat;">            
            <img src="position-image.png" alt="position image" 
                 style="position: absolute; <%= PositionStyle %>" />                 
        </div>
        Select Angle -
        <asp:DropDownList ID="dropDownAngle" runat="server" AutoPostBack="True">
            <asp:ListItem Selected="True">0asp:ListItem>
            <asp:ListItem>60</asp:ListItem>
            <asp:ListItem>90</asp:ListItem>
            <asp:ListItem>150</asp:ListItem>
            <asp:ListItem>240</asp:ListItem>
            <asp:ListItem>320</asp:ListItem>
        asp:DropDownList>
    div>
    </form>
body>
html>

Circular Image

Position Image

Perfect Woman

2010-08-01T19:20:00.003+05:30

Recently I heard a funny story about a man who was searching for a perfect woman. Thought of writing about it, coz it will apply to few of my friends including me. The story was:

There was an Australian man who settled down with a good job after completing his PhD and thought of now it is the best time to get married. So he started to search for a perfect woman in Perth city. After several months, he found a beautiful woman that has matched for him. But it didn’t work out, because she couldn’t cook. So he tried for another few months and found a woman that beautiful and good with cooking. But the only problem was she wasn’t smart. So he gave up again and started to search once more. Finally he met a nice good looking girl that smart and good with cooking and every way she was perfect to him. But unfortunately it didn’t work out too. The reason was she was searching for a perfect man…

For girls, you can change this story by swapping the perfect woman to perfect man.

Planning Poker Estimation

2010-08-01T09:55:00.001+05:30

Earlier I blogged about one of the technique (Design UI Mockups) we used to improve our development process. Here is another one regarding the estimations that we did for one of our product:

Team get together and pickup a one user story from the planning sprint. If there are UI mockups, wireframes available, consider them too and discuss the user story scenario and the functionality that we need to implement.
After that each team member give his estimation for the functionality (write down the number in a card and show it to the team). If there are major deviations in the individual estimation, need reason out why you gave this effort. There might be missing functionalities that others haven’t thought of and it can be discuss in this stage. Based on that there can be adjustment to the estimation. If there are minor deviations, everyone agreed to the estimation.

By using this, everyone will be satisfied with the estimation and aware about the functionality that we need to implement.

Design UI Mockups

2010-07-16T18:42:00.014+05:30

Presently I’m engaged with Puzzlepart team that one of the best SharePoint solution providers in Norway and working on their SharePoint products, external customers. Working with them reminds me one of the great projects that I worked in Virtusa, that changed my whole thinking pattern of software development.

Few weeks ago we had a workshop for one of their upcoming product and it was mainly focused on sprint planning for that product. The process we are using is Scrum and according to that we picked few user stories from the user story board and create a product back log and did the estimation for that. Each user story represents the main functionalities of the product and based on that, we decided how we are going to design user interfaces for the product. Previously I was only familiar with the RUP development and still new to the Scrum.

The interesting thing was how we done the UI design for this product. Usually this will be done by an UI designer and based on their wireframes we do the actual implementation. But in here everybody was involved and it was a new experience to me.

How we did:

Team is get together and pick up one user story from the planning sprint. Discuss the user story scenario and the functionality that we need to implement.

After that each team member need to present his UI mockup for the functionality (draw it in a paper and show it to the team). Others will discuss if there were missing functionalities in the UI, discuss whether it is implementable.

UI designer will consider all UI mockups given by the team and aware about the technical limitations and the functionality.

Using this approach developers will have a good feeling that they have contributed something for the UI design and they are responsible to implement that. That time this was one of the key thing that we were able deliver the sprint successfully.

One lesson I learned was when design UI mockups it should contains the actual data that relevant to the user story not dummy data.

My Movies

2010-07-14T23:27:00.029+05:30

One year back I started to collect movies and now it has been reached to 500 mark. Thought of adding to a common location and share with my friends. Movie selection was based on my favorites.

All Time Favorites

The Matrix
The Departed
The Godfather
The Dark Knight
Dil Chahta Hai

Index	Name	DVD	Genre	Year
1	Blood Diamond	1	Action/Adventure	2006
2	Fantastic Four II	1	Superhero	2007
3	Fearless	1	Biography	2006
4	Fearless	1	Action/Thriller	2005
5	Next	1	Science Fiction	2007
6	Stormbreaker	1	Spy	2006
7	Hercules (Walt Disney)	2	Animation	1997
8	Ice Age II -The Meltdown	2	Animation	2006
9	Madagascar	2	Animation	2005
10	Open Season	2	Animation	2006
11	Mr Beans Holiday	2	Comedy	2007
12	The Pink Panther	2	Comedy	2006
13	Black Hawk Down	3	War	2001
14	Pathfinder	3	Action	2007
15	Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End	3	Adventure	2007
16	Apocalypto	4	Epic	2006
17	Eragon	4	Fantasy/Adventure	2006
18	Hitch	4	Romantic/Comedy	2005
19	Robin Hood: Men In Tights	4	Comedy	1993
20	Shooter	4	Action/Conspiracy	2007
21	War Of The Worlds	4	Science Fiction/Disaster	2005
22	Harry Potter and the Order of The Phoenix	5	Fantasy/Adventure	2007
23	Arthur and the Invisibles	5	Animation	2007
24	Evan Almighty	5	Comedy	2007
25	Hoodwinked	5	Animation	2005
26	Jimmy Neutron	5	Animation	2002
27	Alien vs. Predator	6	Science Fiction	2007
28	Antitrust	6	Thriller	2001
29	The Departed	6	Action/Drama	2006
30	Knocked Up	6	Comedy	2007
31	The Longest Yard	6	Comedy	2005
32	The Rundown	6	Action/Comedy	2003
33	Adam And Eve	7	Comedy/Drama/Romance	2005
34	King Arthur	7	Action/Adventure	2004
35	Malena	7	Drama/Romance	2000
36	School of Rock	7	Comedy	2003
37	The Holiday	7	Comedy/Romance	2006
38	Atonement	8	Drama/Mystery	2008
39	Black Irish	8	Drama	2007
40	Hitman	8	Action	2007
41	I am legend	8	Science Fiction/Drama	2007
42	Rambo IV	8	Action	2008
43	Resident Evil I	8	Action	2002
44	The Usual Suspects	9	Crime	1995
45	Chronicles Of Riddick	9	Action/Adventure	2004
46	Crank	9	Action	2006
47	She's The Man	9	Comedy/Romance	2006
48	A Walk to Remember	10	Drama/Romance	2002
49	American Gangster	10	Crime	2007
50	License To Wedding	10	Comedy/Romance	2007
51	Stranger Than Fiction	10	Comedy/Drama	2006
52	Thank You For Smoking	10	Comedy/Drama	2006
53	Alpha Dog	11	Crime	2006
54	Doom	11	Action/Adventure	2005
55	Predator I	11	Action/Adventure	1987
56	The Bourne Identity	11	Action/Adventure	2002
57	The Bourne Supremacy	11	Action/Adventure	2004
58	Tristan And Isolde	11	Action/Adventure	2006
59	Underdog	12	Action/Adventure	2007
60	Accepted	12	Comedy	2006
61	A Knight's Tale	12	Action	2001
62	Asterix and The Vikings	12	Animation	2006
63	Ratatouille	12	Animation	2007
64	Stardust	12	Fantasy/Adventure	2007
65	Click	13	Comedy	2006
66	Lord of War	13	Crime	2005
67	The Contractor	13	Action	2007
68	The Island	13	Science Fiction	2005
69	The Number 23	13	Mystery	2007
70	Wedding Crashers	13	Comedy/Romance	2005
71	John Tucker Must Die	14	Comedy/Romance	2006
72	The Eye	14	Horror	2008
73	Beowulf	14	Animation	2007
74	Good Luck Chuck	14	Comedy	2007
75	The Fog	14	Mystery	2005
76	10,000 BC	15	Adventure	2008
77	Delta Farce	15	Adventure	2007
78	Eastern Promises	15	Crime	2007
79	Flags Of Our Fathers	15	War	2006
80	Fly Boys	15	War	2006
81	Little Man	15	Comedy	2006
82	The Lives Of Others	16	Drama	2006
83	88 Minutes	16	Crime	2007
84	One Missed Call	16	Horror	2008
85	Rendition	16	Drama	2007
86	The Mist	16	Science Fiction	2007
87	Untraceable	16	Crime	2008
88	Michael Clayton	17	Crime	2007
89	The Bank Job	17	Crime	2008
90	Looney Tunes: Back in Action	17	Animation	2003
91	The Marks Man	17	Action	2005
92	Vantage Point	17	Action	2008
93	Wild Wild West	17	Action	1999
94	Cloverfield	18	Action	2008
95	American History X	18	Crime	1998
96	Into The Wild	18	Adventure	2007
97	Reservation Road	18	Drama	2007
98	Spider Man III	18	Superhero	2007
99	Step Up To The Streets	18	Drama	2008
100	In The Name Of The King A Dungeon Siege Tale	19	Action/Adventure	2007
101	No Country For Old Men	19	Crime	2007
102	The Brave One	19	Crime	2007
103	The Invasion	19	Science Fiction	2007
104	Pineapple Express	20	Comedy	2008
105	Quantum of Solace	20	Action	2008
106	Righteous Kill	20	Crime	2008
107	Space Jam	20	Animation	1996
108	The Machinist	20	Mystery	2004
109	Traitor	20	Crime	2008
110	Bangkok Dangerous	21	Action	2008
111	Death Race	21	Action	2008
112	Hidden Cam	21	Thriller	2007
113	Mamma Mia	21	Comedy	2008
114	Max Payne	21	Action	2008
115	Minority Report	21	Science Fiction	2002
116	College	22	Comedy	2008
117	Firewall	22	Crime	2006
118	Hot Rod	22	Comedy	2007
119	Inbruges	22	Crime	2008
120	The Bourne Ultimatum	22	Action	2007
121	Zack And Miri Make A Porno	22	Comedy/Romance	2008
122	August Rush	23	Drama	2007
123	Babylon A.D.	23	Action	2008
124	Man on Fire	23	Action	2004
125	Transsiberian	23	Crime	2008
126	Tropic Thunder	23	Comedy	2008
127	Wall-E	23	Animation	2008
128	Are We There Yet	24	Comedy	2005
129	Around The World in 80 Days	24	Adventure	2004
130	Awake	24	Crime	2007
131	Failure To Launch	24	Comedy	2006
132	Horton Hears a Who!	24	Animation	2008
133	Journey To The Center Of The Earth	24	Adventure	2008
134	Gangs of New York	25	Crime	2002
135	Alien Raiders	25	Science Fiction	2008
136	Alvin and the Chipmunks	25	Comedy	2007
137	Behind Enemy Lines - Colombia	25	War	2009
138	Death Defying Acts	25	Drama	2007
139	Man on The Moon	26	Biography	1999
140	Miracle at St. Anna	26	War	2008
141	My Best Friends Girl	26	Comedy/Romance	2008
142	My Sassy Girl	26	Drama	2008
143	Punisher - War Zone	26	Action	2008
144	Resident Evil - Degeneration	26	Animation	2008
145	Rigged	27	Action	2008
146	Scorched	27	Drama	2008
147	Speed Racer	27	Action	2008
148	SWAT	27	Action	2003
149	The Good The Bad And The Ugly	27	Action/Adventure	1966
150	Dooms Day	28	Action	2008
151	Get Smart	28	Comedy	2008
152	Independence Day	28	Action	1996
153	Living Hell	28	Action	2008
154	Never Back Down	28	Action	2008
155	Office Space	28	Comedy	1999
156	The Aviator	29	Biography	2004
157	A Tale of Two kitties	29	Comedy	2006
158	Are We Done Yet	29	Comedy	2007
159	Christmas In Wonderland	29	Comedy	2007
160	The Ringer	29	Comedy	2005
161	The Sleeping Dictionary	30	Drama	2003
162	Eagle Eye	30	Action	2008
163	Lost City Raiders	30	Adventure	2008
164	Prom Night	30	Horror	2008
165	RocknRolla	30	Action	2008
166	Before Sunset	31	Romance	2004
167	Death Sentence	31	Action	2007
168	Slumdog Millionaire	31	Drama	2008
169	Starship Troopers I	31	Action/Adventure	1997
170	The Truman Show	31	Drama	1998
171	Yes Man	31	Comedy	2008
172	24 Redemption	32	Action/Adventure	2008
173	Body Of Lies	32	Action	2008
174	Catch Me If You Can	32	Biography	2002
175	City Of Ember	32	Adventure	2008
176	Gone Baby Gone	32	Crime	2007
177	Swing Vote	32	Comedy	2008
178	8 Mile	33	Drama	2002
179	Aeon Flux	33	Action	2005
180	Ballistic - Ecks vs. Sever	33	Action	2002
181	Clubbed	33	Crime	2008
182	Con Air	33	Action	1997
183	End of Days	33	Action	1999
184	Machan	34	Sinhala	2008
185	Madagascar II	34	Animation	2008
186	Memento	34	Mystery	2000
187	New Police Story	34	Action	2004
188	The Eleventh Hour	34	Action	2008
189	The Net 2.0	34	Action	2006
190	Passengers	35	Drama	2008
191	The Chronicles of Narnia Prince Caspian	35	Action/Adventure	2008
192	The Red Baron	35	War	2008
193	The Rocker	35	Comedy	2008
194	Thick As Thieves	35	Crime	2009
195	Bedtime Stories	36	Comedy	2008
196	RV	36	Comedy	2006
197	Seven Pounds	36	Drama	2008
198	The Motorcycle Diaries	36	Biography	2004
199	The Siege	36	Action	1998
200	Valkyrie	36	War	2008
201	Sunshine	37	Science Fiction	2007
202	The Children of Huang Shi	37	War	2008
203	The Curious Case of Benjamin Button	37	Drama	2008
204	The Pacifier	37	Comedy	2005
205	The Rock	37	Action	1996
206	51st State	38	Action	2002
207	300	38	Action	2007
208	Never Back Down	38	Action	2008
209	Perfect Stranger	38	Crime	2007
210	Rocket Science	38	Drama	2007
211	Street Kings	38	Crime	2008
212	Iron Man	39	Action	2008
213	Semi-Pro	39	Comedy	2008
214	Solstice	39	Horror	2008
215	Taken	39	Action	2009
216	The Incredible Hulk	39	Science Fiction	2008
217	The New Guy	39	Comedy	2002
218	Cleaner	40	Crime	2008
219	Dodgeball	40	Comedy	2004
220	Dr. Dolittle - Tail To The Chief	40	Comedy	2008
221	Rat Race	40	Comedy	2001
222	Superhero Movie	40	Comedy	2008
223	Wanted	40	Action	2008
224	50 First Dates	41	Comedy	2004
225	A Walk In The Clouds	41	Drama	1995
226	P.S. I Love You	41	Drama	2007
227	The Gods Must Be Crazy	41	Comedy	1980
228	The Princess Diaries	41	Comedy	2001
229	The X Files - I Want to Believe	41	Crime	2008
230	Pearl Harbor	42	Action	2001
231	Code Name - The Cleaner	42	Comedy	2007
232	Fracture	42	Crime	2007
233	Ghostrider	42	Action	2007
234	Saving Private Ryan	42	War	1998
235	Dark knight	43	Superhero	2008
236	Notting Hill	43	Comedy	1999
237	Batman Begins	43	Superhero	2005
238	Hancock	44	Action	2008
239	Shatter	44	Horror	2008
240	Sikuru7	44	Sinhala	2008
241	Stomp The Yard	44	Drama	2007
242	The Legend Of Zorro	44	Action	2005
243	The Mask Of Zorro	44	Action	1998
244	The Condemned	45	Action	2007
245	War	45	Action	2007
246	3.10 to Yuma	45	Action	2007
247	Bone Dry	45	Drama	2007
248	Stop Loss	45	War	2008
249	The Other Boleyn Girl	45	Biography	2008
250	Art Of War - The Betrayal	46	Action	2008
251	The Mummy III	46	Action	2008
252	The Mummy II	46	Action	2001
253	The Mummy I	46	Action	1999
254	Hellboy I	46	Action	2004
255	Hellboy II	46	Action	2008
256	Capivity	47	Crime	2007
257	Hannibal Rising	47	Drama	2007
258	Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull	47	Action	2008
259	National Treasure	47	Action	2004
260	The Ex	47	Comedy	2007
261	Deception	48	Crime	2008
262	Deja Vu	48	Action	2006
263	Desperado	48	Action	1995
264	Fool's Gold	48	Comedy	2008
265	Meet Dave	48	Comedy	2008
266	The Mutant Chronicles	48	Action	2008
267	Bend It Like Beckham	49	Comedy	2002
268	Donkey Xote	49	Animation	2007
269	I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry	49	Comedy	2007
270	Shrek The Third	49	Animation	2007
271	The Forbidden Kingdom	49	Action	2008
272	The Spiderwick Chronicles	49	Adventure	2008
273	Death At A Funeral	50	Comedy	2007
274	Defiance	50	Drama	2008
275	Never Been Kissed	50	Comedy	1999
276	The Last Kiss	50	Drama	2006
277	Tinker Bell	50	Animation	2008
278	Angels & Demons	51	Mystery	2009
279	Ghost Town	51	Comedy	2008
280	Last Action Hero	51	Action	1993
281	Night At The Museum II	51	Adventure	2009
282	13th Floor	52	Science Fiction	1999
283	Blue Streak	52	Comedy	1999
284	Conan the Barbarian	52	Action	1982
285	The Lake House	52	Drama	2006
286	The Prestige	52	Drama	2006
287	X-Men Origins Wolverine	52	Action	2009
288	Agent Cody Banks 2	53	Action	2004
289	Pink Panther 2	53	Comedy	2009
290	Stargate - Ark of the Truth	53	Science Fiction	2008
291	Stargate - Continuum	53	Science Fiction	2008
292	The International	53	Crime	2009
293	The Shawshank Redemption	53	Crime	1994
294	A Beautiful Mind	54	Biography	2001
295	Echelon Conspiracy	54	Action	2009
296	Watchmen	54	Action	2009
297	17 Again	54	Comedy	2009
298	Kung Fu Panda	54	Animation	2008
299	Windtalkers	54	War	2002
300	Finding Nemo	55	Animation	2003
301	Meet the Parents	55	Comedy	2000
302	Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs	55	Animation	2009
303	Management	55	Comedy	2008
304	Terminator Salvation	55	Action	2009
305	The Notebook	55	Romantic	2004
306	The Weather Man	56	Comedy	2005
307	District 9	56	Science Fiction	2009
308	Inkheart	56	Adventure	2008
309	Planet of the Apes	56	Adventure	2001
310	Se7en	56	Crime	1995
311	The Hangover	56	Comedy	2009
312	Paycheck	57	Science Fiction	2003
313	Kiss of the Dragon	57	Action	2001
314	Pinocchio	57	Animation	1940
315	Snow White and the Seven Dwarves	57	Animation	1937
316	The Illusionist	57	Drama	2006
317	9	57	Animation	2009
318	The Proposal	58	Comedy	2009
319	The Taking Of Pelham 123	58	Crime	2009
320	Braveheart	58	Biography	1995
321	GI Joe - The Rise of Cobra	58	Action	2009
322	Ocean 11	58	Crime	2001
323	Underworld - Rise of the Lycans	58	Action	2009
324	Aliens in the Attic	59	Adventure	2009
325	Bolt	59	Animation	2008
326	G-Force	59	Adventure	2009
327	Monsters vs Aliens	59	Animation	2009
328	Race to Witch Mountain	59	Adventure	2009
329	The Water Horse	59	Adventure	2007
330	Becoming Jane	60	Biography	2007
331	Duplicity	60	Crime	2009
332	Flame And Citron	60	Crime	2008
333	Ghosts of Girlfriends Past	60	Comedy	2009
334	The Duchess	60	Biography	2008
335	Gamer	61	Action	2009
336	Perfume -The Story of a Murderer	61	Crime	2006
337	Public Enemies	61	Biography	2009
338	Push	61	Action	2009
339	Star Trek	61	Science Fiction	2009
340	Mr & Mrs Smith	61	Action	2005
341	Superman Batman Public Enemies	62	Animation	2009
342	The Other End of the Line	62	Romance	2008
343	Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade	62	Adventure	1989
344	Indiana Jones and The Raiders of The Lost Ark	62	Adventure	1981
345	Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom	62	Adventure	1984
346	What Happens in Vegas	62	Comedy	2008
347	Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince	63	Fantasy/Adventure	2009
348	New York	63	Drama	2009
349	The Game Plan	63	Comedy	2008
350	ScoobyDoo - The Mystery Begins	63	Comedy	2009
351	The Count of Monte Cristo	63	Adventure	2002
352	Men In Black I	64	Action	1997
353	Men In Black II	64	Action	2002
354	Planet 51	64	Animation	2009
355	2001 - A Space Odyssey	64	Science Fiction	1968
356	2010 - The Year We Make Contact	64	Science Fiction	1984
357	2012	64	Science Fiction	2009
358	The Day After Tomorrow	64	Science Fiction	2004
359	The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy	64	Comedy	2005
360	Rambo I	65	Action	1982
361	Rambo II	65	Action	1985
362	Rambo III	65	Action	1988
363	Air Force One	65	Action	1997
364	Desperado	65	Action	1995
365	Hot Fuzz	65	Comedy	2007
366	Phone Booth	65	Mystery	2002
367	Sherlock Holmes	65	Adventure	2009
368	Water World	65	Adventure	1995
369	The Perfect Holiday	66	Comedy	2007
370	3 Idiots	66	Comedy	2009
371	Baby Mama	66	Comedy	2008
372	The Invention of Lying	66	Comedy	2009
373	The Time Travelers Wife	66	Romance	2009
374	Under the Tuscan Sun	66	Comedy	2003
375	Up In The Air	66	Comedy	2009
376	Adam	67	Romance	2009
377	Alvin and the Chipmunks II	67	Comedy	2009
378	Assassination of a High School President	67	Crime	2009
379	Kingdom of Heaven	67	Adventure	2005
380	The Fugitive	67	Crime	1993
381	The Pursuit of Happyness	67	Biography	2006
382	The River Wild	67	Adventure	1994
383	The Silence of the Lambs	67	Crime	1991
384	Couples Retreat	68	Comedy	2009
385	Dorian Gray	68	Drama	2009
386	Finding Neverland	68	Biography	2004
387	Four Weddings and a Funeral	68	Comedy	1994
388	Inglourious Basterds	68	War	2009
389	Land of the Lost	68	Comedy	2009
390	Rain Man	68	Comedy	1988
391	The Goonies	68	Adventure	1985
392	Tinker Bell The Lost Treasure	68	Animation	2009
393	Cheaper by the Dozen	69	Comedy	2003
394	Contact	69	Science Fiction	1997
395	Gosht Busters	69
396	Hackers	69	Crime	1995
397	Hotshot I	69
398	Hotshot II	69
399	The Net	69	Crime	1995
400	The Rebound	69	Comedy	2009
401	State Of Play	70	Drama	2009
402	Cairo Time	70	Drama	2009
403	Forrest Gump	70	Comedy	1994
404	Keeping Mum	70	Comedy	2005
405	Law Abiding Citizen	70	Crime	2009
406	Naked Wepon	70	Action	2002
407	13 Going on 30	71	Comedy	2004
408	500 Days Of Summer	71	Comedy	2009
409	Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind	71	Drama	2004
410	The Time Machine	71	Science Fiction	2002
411	Frequency	71	Drama	2002
412	Stargate	71	Science Fiction	1994
413	Crossing Over	72	Drama	2009
414	Flushed Away	72	Animation	2006
415	Love Actually	72	Drama	2003
416	New York, I Love You	72	Drama	2009
417	Oliver Twist	72	Drama	2005
418	The Merchant of Venice	72	Drama	2004
419	The Ugly Truth	72	Comedy	2009
420	Avatar	73	Adventure	2009
421	The Golden Compass	73	Adventure	2007
422	The Da Vinci Code	73	Mystery	2006
423	The Penguins of Madagascar	73	Animation \ TV series	2008
424	Troy	73	Action	2004
425	Twilight	73	Drama	2008
426	Equilibrium	74	Action	2002
427	Happily Never After II	74	Animation	2009
428	Matchstick Men	74	Crime	2003
429	The Mask	74	Comedy	1994
430	The Polar Express	74	Animation	2004
431	Deception	75	Crime	2000
432	Imagine Me and You	75	Romance	2005
433	Kolomba Sanniya	75	Sinhala	1976
434	Meet the Fockers	75	Comedy	2004
435	Shutter Island	75	Mystery	2010
436	Signs	75	Drama	2002
437	The Hurt Locker	75	War	2008
438	A Christmas Carol	76	Animation	2009
439	A Serious Man	76	Drama	2009
440	An Education	76	Drama	2009
441	Beauity and the Best	76	Fantasy	2009
442	Edge of Darkness	76	Drama	2010
443	Happy Feet	76	Animation	2006
444	Phantom	76	Adventure	1996
445	City of God	77	Crime	2002
446	The Animatrix	77	Animation	2003
447	Fist Of Legend	77	Action	1994
448	IP Man I	77	Biography	2008
449	IP Man II	77	Biography	2010
450	Rocky	77	Drama	1976
451	Van Helsing	77	Adventure	2004
452	Bright Star	78	Biography	2009
453	Cinderella Man	78	Biography	2005
454	Ace Ventura I	78	Comedy	1994
455	Ace Ventura II	78	Comedy	1995
456	Flash Of Genius	79	Biography	2008
457	My Left Foot	79	Biography	1989
458	The Blind Side	79	Biography	2009
459	Good Will Hunting	79	Drama	1997
460	Hotel Rwanda	79	Drama	2004
461	The Good Shepherd	79	Drama	2006
462	Dragonball Evolution	80	Adventure	2009
463	The Recruit	80	Action	2003
464	Valentine's Day	80	Romance	2010
465	Walk The Line	80	Biography	2005
466	While You Were Sleeping	80	Comedy	1995
467	World's, Greatest Dad	80	Drama	2009
468	Armageddon	81	Adventure	1998
469	From Paris with Love	81	Action	2010
470	Hachiko - A Dog's Story	81	Drama	2009
471	My Name Is Khan	81	Drama	2010
472	The Bounty Hunter	81	Comedy	2010
473	The Bucket List	81	Comedy	2007
474	The Jackal	81	Crime	1997
475	The Man In The Iron Mask	81	Adventure	1998
476	Elf	82	Comedy	2003
477	Alice in Wonderland	82	Adventure	2010
478	Die Hard II	82	Action	1990
479	Little Buddha	82	Drama	1993
480	The Book Of Eli	82	Adventure	2010
481	Unthinkable	82	Crime	2010
482	The Day the Earth Stood Still	83	Science Fiction	2008
483	The Losers	83	Action	2010
484	The Pirates of Silicon Valley	83	Biography	1999
485	The Wolfman	83	Thriller	2010
486	V for Vendetta	83	Science Fiction	2005
487	How to Lose Friends & Alienate People	84	Comedy	2008
488	Juno	84	Comedy	2007
489	Once	84	Drama	2006
490	Percy Jackson & the Olympians - The Lightning Thief	84	Adventure	2010
491	Sex And The City	84	Drama	2008
492	Starsky And Hutch	84	Comedy	2004
493	Julie & Julia	85	Biography	2009
494	The Men Who Stare at Goats	85	Comedy	2009
495	27 Dresses	85	Comedy	2008
496	A Single Man	85	Drama	2009
497	About A Boy	85	Comedy	2002
498	Cop Out	85	Action	2010
499	Green Zone	85	War	2010
500	12 Rounds	86	Action	2009
501	Anger Management	86	Comedy	2003
502	Clash of the Titans	86	Adventure	2010
503	Enemy at the Gates	86	War	2001
504	Forever Strong	86	Drama	2008

Enum to Description

2010-07-03T14:07:00.001+05:30

Recently we had an issue with maintaining enum descriptions in our project. The problem was descriptions duplicated several places in codebase and when it came to modify descriptions we had to modify the description everywhere. From the maintainability perspective this not a good practice and we came up with a solution by using the coolest feature Extensions methods that comes with the .NET 3.5. Following is the sample code of the solution.

using System;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Reflection;

namespace EnumToDescriptionTest
{
    public static class EnumExtensions
    {
        // Extension method to get the enum description.
        public static string ToDescription(this Enum val)
        {
            Type type = val.GetType();

            string name = Enum.GetName(type, val);
            FieldInfo field = type.GetField(name);

            // Check for the Description Attribute.
            DescriptionAttribute[] attributes = (DescriptionAttribute[])field.GetCustomAttributes(
                                                typeof(DescriptionAttribute), false);

            return attributes.Length > 0 ? attributes[0].Description : name;
        }
    }

    class Program
    {
        // Define the enum with description.
        public enum UserMode
        {
            [Description("Add User")]
            Add = 0,
            [Description("Update User")]
            Update = 1,
            [Description("Delete User")]
            Delete = 2
        }

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            // Get the enum description.
            Console.WriteLine(UserMode.Add.ToDescription());
            Console.ReadLine();
        }
    }
}

Maintain Session Variables in ASP .Net Projects

2008-10-18T10:38:00.029+05:30

Most of the ASP .net web projects maintain their session variables in an inconsistent way. Sometimes it’s harder to read and maintain. Here is a best way to maintain session variables in your web project. This will increase the maintainability and readability.

Approach: Add a new class to the web project and expose session objects as static properties.

1: using System;

2: using System.Web;

3:

4: namespace SessionTest

5: {

6:     ///

7:     /// Hold all session variables

8:     ///

9:     public static class ApplicationSession

10:     {

11:         ///

12:         /// Hold the search key

13:         ///

14:         public static string SearchKey

15:         {

16:             get

17:             {

18:                 return Convert.ToString(HttpContext.Current.Session["SearchKey"]);

19:             }

20:             set

21:             {

22:                 HttpContext.Current.Session["SearchKey"] = value;

23:             }

24:         }

25:     }

26: }

Web Page

1: using System;

2: using System.Web.UI;

3:

4: namespace SessionTest

5: {

6:     ///

7:     /// Code behind for the page

8:     ///

9:     public partial class SessionTest : Page

10:     {

11:         protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

12:         {

13:             if (!IsPostBack)

14:             {

15:                 // Access the session

16:                 string currentSearchKey = ApplicationSession.SearchKey;

17:

18:                 // Set new value

19:                 ApplicationSession.SearchKey = "Customer";

20:             }

21:         }

22:     }

23: }