Apr
29
2006

Flicker Fix

If you read my last post "First experience with CSS friendly control adapters beta" you might have realized that I am referencing in my CSS file a http handler:

background: url(../../PersistantImage.ashx?theme=Default&file=Rounded.gif)

This is a gem coming with the adapters project. It avoids the flickering you might have with pure CSS menu using images. This flickering is caused by the client browser failing to cache images used in hover styles (CSS).

[ Currently Playing : Upside Down - Jack Johnson and Friends - Sing-A-Longs and Lullabies for the film Curious George (03:29) ]

Apr
29
2006

First experience with CSS friendly control adapters beta

I had the chance to realize that CSS friendly control adapters beta from the ASP.NET Team was online for a short time and downloaded it, so I had the pleasure to experience it a bit this evening.

By the way I recommend the reading of the White Paper, that is well written.

So my first idea was to integrate the Menu on Tech Head Brothers. IMHO this new menu is far better than the one delivered with ASP.NET because it uses a pure CSS approach.

After copying the set of needed files to my project, I was able to start changing all the CSS to meet my needs. I did not faced any real issue to change the whole thing, but then I realized that I missed the possibility to know the selected item of my menu. I started to look at the code and in 2 minutes it was changed. Nice.

So I render this:

<div class="THBMenu">
 <div class="AspNet-Menu-Horizontal">
  <ul class="AspNet-Menu">
   <li class="AspNet-Menu-Leaf">
    <a href="/Website/Default.aspx" class="AspNet-Menu-Link">
     Accueil
    </a>
   </li>
   <li class="AspNet-Menu-Leaf">
    <a href="/Website/Articles.aspx" class="AspNet-Menu-Link">
     Articles
    </a>
   </li>
   <li class="AspNet-Menu-Leaf">
    <a href="/Website/Astuces.aspx" class="AspNet-Menu-Link-Selected">
     Astuces
    </a>
   </li>

To achieve this I modified the method BuildItem in the file MenuAdapter.cs like this:

if (item != Control.SelectedItem)
    writer.WriteAttribute("class", "AspNet-Menu-Link");
else
    writer.WriteAttribute("class", "AspNet-Menu-Link-Selected");

And then I added the new thing in the CSS, MenuExample.css:

.THBMenu ul.AspNet-Menu li.AspNet-Menu-Leaf a.AspNet-Menu-Link-Selected
{
    color: #1A2633;
    background: url(../../PersistantImage.ashx?theme=Default&file=Rounded.gif) no-repeat bottom center;
}

For such a result:

[ Currently Playing : Because I Want You - Placebo - Meds (03:22) ]

Apr
29
2006

CSS friendly control adapters beta published, then removed

At last TechEd in Amsterdam I was convinced by Aurel to switch the whole design of my community website Tech Head Brothers from tables formating to CSS. Aurelien shown me crazy stuff they are building in Wygwam using CSS and in 5 minutes I was convinced for that change. Now Aurel is kind of my mentor on that and also decided me to go the Atlas way. As I had decided to rewrite the site in ASP.NET 2, I also decided to switch to CSS.

My first experience with CSS was that it is really difficult to get it running on all browsers, but at the time of table I remember that I also had issues. The second problem I had was that lots of the ASP.NET controls are rendering with tables and the mix was not always good and even sometimes difficult to hack.

So when I first heard of the CSS friendly control adapters I thought that's my man. This morning I was able to download it and I don't know why they removed the site now, but as I have the setup I will try it over the long weekend.

CSS Rocks !!! Thanks Aurel.

Apr
22
2006

Technologies used on the new version of Tech Head Brothers

The application is written as a n-tier web application and modeled with domain objects.

It uses those differents technologies:

[ Currently Playing : Temporary Remedy - Ben Harper - Diamonds On The Inside (03:11) ]

Apr
15
2006

Atlas is now part of the new Tech Head Brothers site

This morning I was able to integrate Atlas in the new release under development of Tech Head Brothers. In less than a hour I had an UpdatePanel in the page that describes the differents authors of the site. Now when you click on the picture of an author the biography is shown without the full post back. And it is really really easy. I am also adding a tab to show all publication of the auhtor.

Congratulations to the Atlas Team!!! Great work.

Apr
10
2006

New milestone reached in Tech Head Brothers publishing tool

As said in a past post: Yeah!!! :-) Publications are working, I am working on the new publishing tool for my website Tech Head Brothers, and today I reached another milestone: The tool is now installed on Laurent Duveau notebook and he is able to post directly from Word 2003.

Currently the tool let the author

  • choose images to insert using a Document Action Pane

  • copy source code from Visual Studio and paste it into Word 2003, generating an external source code colorized XHTML file

  • have a local disconnected preview of there content through a XSLT rendering
  • post there content on the website using Web Services

And finally here is a picture of what you can get (the design is not finished and still a bit buggy) with the tool when the content is published:

Apr
10
2006

Tech Head Brothers and the DevDays 2006 in Toulouse, France

This year edition of the French DevDays held in Toulouse the 30th March, 2006 was marked by the presence of 6 Tech Head Brothers authors as speakers !!! Nice :-)

David Catuhe

Pierre Lagarde

 Frederic Colin

Mitsuru Furuta 

 Laurent Duveau

Sebastien Pertus

And a picture of the audience

Apr
8
2006

Wonderful Gadget from Aurelien

Incredible what you might do with javascript, I cannot believe it. You made an awesome work Aurel.

You might see this gadget here.

Othello

First of all, I want to say that this gadget is not a Flash or Java applet one. It has been thoroughly coded with Javascript using various tips and tricks as Fade In/Out, Clip In/Out, Sprites animation and so on.

Option pannel will enable you to set the difficulty of the computer and also see the playable squares. The computer is an artificial intelligence hosted on my server.

Moreover, this gadget is localized on your Live.com settings. At present, only french and english versions are available, for other ones, english is set by default. I'm looking for sympathetic translators for the remaining ones.

Enjoy !

Apr
5
2006

MVP for one more year!!!

I was renewed as Microsoft MVP in the category Visual Developer - ASP/ASP.NET. Great!!!

Congratulations to Michel Perfetti, that is now MVP Dev C#, and to all the other authors of Tech Head Brothers that get renewed:

Now we are 11 MVP on Tech Head Brothers. Nice :-) Who's next?

About Laurent

Laurent Kempé

Laurent Kempé is the editor, founder, and primary contributor of Tech Head Brothers, a French portal about Microsoft .NET technologies.

He is currently employed by Innoveo Solutions since 10/2007 as a Senior Solution Architect and certified Scrum Master.

Founder, owner and Managing Partner of Jobping, which provides a unique and efficient platform for connecting Microsoft skilled job seekers with employers using Microsoft technologies.

Laurent was awarded Most Valuable Professional (MVP) by Microsoft from April 2002 to April 2012.

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