Tools we use - 2013 edition
As another year enters its final stages, I decided I would log the primary tools I use for my developer role, should be an interesting experiment to compare with each year, if I don't get distracted by something shiny.
Archived posts for all of 2013
How to be notified when your application is activated and deactivated
I recently had a requirement where a user was able to perform an action externally to my application, and my application then had to detect this for processing. I could of course just had a poller running away in the background to check, but as the requirement also needed user input, why not just wait until the user switched back to my application, then check and deal with accordingly? This article describes how to intercept the `WM_ACTIVATEAPP` message from your C# application and put it to good use.
Richard Moss
Extending the LabelEdit functionality of a TreeView to include validation
An article which describes how to add validation support to a `TreeView` control that is using custom label edit functionality.
Richard Moss
Specifying custom text when using the LabelEdit functionality of a TreeView
An article which describes a robust yet simple way to have custom text when using the `LabelEdit` functionality of a `TreeView` and working around the limitations of Windows Forms using C# along with the `TVM_GETEDITCONTROL` and `WM_SETTEXT` messages.
Richard Moss
Cyotek Add Projects Extension updated for Visual Studio 2013 RTM
A quick note about Visual Studio 2013 support.
Richard Moss
Visual Studio Extension for adding multiple projects to a solution
This article describes a simple extension that can be used to add multiple projects at once to a Visual Studio solution.
Richard Moss
Getting the hWnd of the edit component within a ComboBox control
A short tip which describes how to access the hWnd of the edit component contained within a `ComboBox` control via the Win32 API using `GetComboBoxInfo` and `COMBOBOXINFO`.
Richard Moss
Downloading new and changed Azure storage blobs at scheduled intervals
A sample project which downloads new and changed blobs from Azure storage, and optionally uploads new and changed local files.
Richard Moss
Creating long running Windows Forms applications without a start-up form
Sometimes you may wish to create an application that sits running in the background but doesn't actually display an initial user interface. However, the user can interact with the application and so therefore its not appropriate to be a service. Often such applications are accessible from a system tray icon. Another viable requirement might be for multiple top level windows, for example recent versions of Microsoft Word, where each document has its own application window. By default however, a normal Windows Form application displays the start-up form which definitely isn't desirable, especially as hiding this form isn't as straightforward as you might expect. Fortunately however, the framework provides us with the `ApplicationContext` class that can be used by `Application.Run`. This article describes how to use application contexts to create an application that initially has only a system tray icon to which further functionality can be accessed.
Richard Moss
ImageBox 1.1.4.0 update
Update 1.1.4.0 of the ImageBox control is now available, with a large number of new features and bug fixes.
Richard Moss
Using alternate descriptions for enumeration members
Enums are useful language features. But what happens when you want to display a string version of an enum member rather than just casting the member to a string? You could manually create a switch statement for conversion, and periodically update such functions when extending the source enum. Or you could use the power of reflection and attributes to do it automatically.
Richard Moss
Creating a custom TypeConverter part 2 - Instance descriptors, expandable properties and standard values
This article describes extending a custom `TypeConverter` created previously to support better code generation, expandable properties, and dropdown lists containing standard values.