Easily Apply Transactions To ServicesA fundamental problem in programming is error recovery. After an error, your application must restore itself to the state it had before the error took place. Consider an application that tries to perform an operation comprising several smaller operations, potentially concurrently, where each of the individual operations can fail or succeed [...]
Tag Archives: Foundations
Foundations: Writing More Efficient ItemsControls
Posted by james on September 19, 2011
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Writing More Efficient ItemsControlsThere comes a time in the life of every Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) programmer when the true power of the DataTemplate suddenly becomes evident. This epiphany is usually accompanied by the realization, “Hey, I can use a DataTemplate to create a bar chart or a scatter plot with virtually no coding.”A DataTemplate [...]
Foundations: Workflow Communications
Posted by james on September 16, 2011
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Code download available at: Foundations2007_09.exe (165 KB) Browse the Code Online Workflows are meant to coordinate systems and people, and that means communicating beyond the boundaries of the workflow instance itself. Whether sending e-mail or instant messages (IM) or interacting directly with the user interface in a host process such as ASP.NET or with Web [...]
Foundations: Error Handling In Workflows
Posted by james on September 12, 2011
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Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) provides the tools to define rich business processes and a runtime environment to execute and manage those processes. In any business process, exceptions to the expected flow of execution occur, and developers need to be able to write robust application logic to recover from those exceptions. Most samples of any technology [...]
Foundations: 3D Mesh Geometries
Posted by james on September 5, 2011
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Code download available at: Foundations2007_04.exe (165 KB) Browse the Code Online Among the classes that contribute to the Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation, those in the System.Windows.Media.Media3D namespace stand out. These are the classes that are intended to bring three-dimensional graphics to mainstream Windows® applications. As with the Windows Presentation Foundation 2D graphics, 3D graphics are [...]
Foundations: 3D text in WPF
Posted by james on August 30, 2011
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Code download available at: Foundations2007_10.exe (171 KB) Browse the Code Online Outline font technologies such as TrueType primarily provide us with typographical flexibility and accuracy, but they can also serve as graphical playthings. Programmers can get access to the actual outlines that define each text character and treat them as vector graphics objects. The outlines [...]
Foundations: Discover a New WCF with Discovery
Posted by james on August 27, 2011
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Download the Code SampleAll the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) calls possible with the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 share two constraints. First, the port or pipe assigned to the service must be available. The application developer or administrator literally has to guess or have some way of reserving them. Second, the client must apriori know the [...]
Foundations: Workflow Services for Local Communication
Posted by james on August 14, 2011
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In a previous column (see “Workflow Communications” in the September 2007 issue of MSDN Magazine at msdn.microsoft.com/magazine/cc163365.aspx), I wrote about the core communication architecture in Windows Workflow Foundation 3 (WF3). One topic I did not cover is the local communications activities that are one abstraction on top of this communication architecture. If you look at [...]
Foundations: Build a Queued WCF Response Service
Posted by james on August 9, 2011
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Build a Queued WCF Response ServiceCode download available at: Foundations2007_02.exe (188 KB) Browse the Code Online Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) enables disconnected work between clients and services. The client posts messages to a queue and the service processes them later. Such interaction permits a different programming model from the default request/response pattern, enabling possibilities such [...]
Foundations: Unit Testing Workflows And Activities
Posted by james on July 21, 2011
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Unit Testing Workflows And ActivitiesAs an author and instructor, I often get asked questions about how to test Windows Workflow Foundation (Windows WF) components. Part of learning to use a new framework is figuring out how to incorporate the tools and components into your development process. This month I will be discussing some of the [...]