Browser Bookmark Archive
Paint.NET
A free download: “Paint.NET is image and photo manipulation software designed to be used on computers that run Windows 2000, XP, or Server 2003.”
Adobe Acrobat Command-Line Printing
Someone at planetpdf.com, in the throes of command-line printing, reveals the /t switch in their command with the form acrord32.exe with /t [filename] [printer] [driver] [port]. Meanwhile sourceforge.net hosts the Ghostscript project, which satisfies PDF printing needs on Linux but, for the Win32 platform, remains to be seen—and run. Simultaneously there is a relevant article by Jonathan de Halleux, “Crossing the bridge between Ghostscript and GDI+” at CodeProject.com. Unfortunately, it is not featuring managed code.
The Official Word on MyXaml
Shortly before I became aware of XAML there was MyXaml. Because I was willing to wait for Microsoft’s XAML, I saw no immediate need to think about MyXaml. But then the problem of using the Microsoft.mshtml namespace was recognized and this reintroduces the need for declarative, angle-bracket programming in Windows Forms 1.x. MyXaml may be an alternative to sticking an unmanaged web browser in a Windows Form. This possibility demands that this paragraph exists.
EndInvoke Not Optional
IanG on Tap pontificates about asynchronous calls, declaring that EndInvoke() is not optional. I am using asynchronous calls in Windows forms and got a little concerned until I read this, “The only documented exception to the rule that I’m aware of is in Windows Forms, where you are officially allowed to call Control.BeginInvoke without bothering to call Control.EndInvoke.”
VSTO 2 and VBA News
I still use VBA for my Microsoft Word jaunts. And, as Microsoft’s Catherine Heller suggests on Channel9.msdn.com, the next version of VSTO will not radically revisit the extremely complex, application object model covered by VBA. It appears that the next version of VSTO is preoccupied with all the stuff shown on Channel9 and the ‘boring’ task of making sure that managed code safely and completely replaces VBA appears to be an obscure edge case that about which ‘our’ Mort cares little. I do not find it impossible that Microsoft will abandon VBA (and VBA-replication) entirely and force us to wait several years before there is a suitable replacement—an equivalent to what we now call “managed.” One possible path is that Office 14 (or maybe Office 12) will run entirely on managed code and Microsoft will simply say, “Upgrade your documents to the new file format and write your new managed code against the new managed object model.” Microsoft will be successful in file-format backwards compatibility but the code will have to be rewritten—even code written in C# or VB.NET for VSTO 1.x.
I said I would never write code for InfoPath…
I did mention this is a previous entry (see “Use Rules never code”). However the InfoPath team provides a compelling exception in “Creating an InfoPath Custom Control using C# and .NET.” I am generally not impressed with VSTO and similar stuff for InfoPath—the distance between the managed code and the unmanaged office application is quite noticeable (especially in Visual Studio 2003 solutions for InfoPath). This Custom control deal may be a suitable Interop alternative.
Rolling Your Own UITypeEditor for VS.NET 2003
I assumed that every UI Type Editor available in Visual Studio.NET 2003 by default can be called from user-defined code with a few, bracketed meta-data declarations. The very existence of this article “UITypeEditor for the ConnectionString” proves me wrong.