Visual Basic for application does not have function to test, whether a string starts with or ends with another string like it is included in the .NET Framework
Approach
Those function can easily created by using the existing string functions
Solution
The following code can be pasted to a VBA project:
Public Function EndsWith(str As String, ending As String) As Boolean
Dim endingLen As Integer
endingLen = Len(ending)
EndsWith = (Right(Trim(UCase(str)), endingLen) = UCase(ending))
End Function
Public Function StartsWith(str As String, start As String) As Boolean
Dim startLen As Integer
startLen = Len(start)
StartsWith = (Left(Trim(UCase(str)), startLen) = UCase(start))
End Function
Example usage:
If StartsWith(„My string has something in it“, „My string“) Then Msg Box „It is in it!“ If EndsWith(„My string has something in it“, „in it“) Then Msg Box „It is in it!“
Sometimes it happens, that you have created folders in Visual Studio for your application and had put some *.cs C# Source Code files that suddenly disappeard in the solution explorer.
Analysis
I.e. that can happen when you have forgotten to save your Visual Studio application project, berfore you have closed the IDE.
Solution
Use the file explorer and navigate to your Visual Studio solution (alternatively you can right-click a source code file in your folder and select „Open contained folder“ from the context menu).
Open the .csproj file in your solution in a text editor of your choice:
.csproj files store the project structure of the solution explorer
Go to the section where the <ItemGroup /> tags are declared and add a new section with the folders and source code files you want to show in your solution like in the screenshot below
My folders Command, ViewModelBase, ViewModel and Model disappeard over night, so i readded the marked group
You can add all cs-files with a wildcard star like it is shown in the screenshot above.
According to the .NET documentation the Ribbon Control should be available since WPF 4.5, what means is available since .NET Framework 4.5 . But you can not find it? Are you even thinking about the download of the Ribbon control for older versions? Not necessary, please see the following points…
Approach
We have to find out the right moment when it is generally possible to use the Ribbon control.
The following table shows, that the first version of WPF (3.0) was released with the .NET Framework 3.0. As you can see the version number of WPF is maintained synchron with the version number of the .NET framework.
WPF Version
Release (YYYY-MM)
.NET Version
Visual Studio Version
Major Features
3.0
2006-11
3.0
N/A
Initial Release. WPF development can be done with VS 2005 (released in Nov 2005) too with few additions as described here.
3.5
2007-11
3.5
VS 2008
Changes and improvements in: Application model, data binding, controls, documents, annotations, and 3-D UI elements.
3.5 SP1
2008-08
3.5 SP1
N/A
Native splash screen support, New WebBrowser control, DirectX pixel shader support. Faster startup time and improved performance for Bitmap effects.
4.0
2010-04
4.0
VS 2010
New controls: Calendar, DataGrid, and DatePicker. Multi-Touch and Manipulation
4.5
2012-08
4.5
VS 2012
New Ribbon control New INotifyDataErrorInfo interface
4.5.1
2013-10
4.5.1
VS 2013
No Major Change
4.5.2
2014-05
4.5.2
N/A
No Major Change
4.6
2015-07
4.6
VS 2015
Transparent child window support HDPI and Touch improvements
Which WPF Version is included in which version of the .NET Framework?
Solution
When you have installed at least .NET Framework 4.5 you can Add the Reference „System.Windows.Control.Ribbon“ as follows:
1.) Expand the tree in in your Solution Explorer of you WPF application
2.) Right-click the „Add References“ entry and choose „Add Reference“
In the Solution Explorer of your WPF Application right-click the References entry and choose „Add Reference“
3.) In the following dialog search for „Ribbon“ in the search field on the upper right
Search for Ribbon in the Dialog that appears by using the textbox on the upper right corner
4.) After that you should be able to add the reference by using the checkbox
5.) In your XAML Code you are now able to use the <Ribbon/> Tag
Optional: 6.) If you want to use a RibbonWindow instead of a WPF Window which allows you to have the Quick Access Controls at the top of the window, you have to do the declaration in the head of MainWindow.xaml as follows:
<ribbon:RibbonWindow x:Class="WPFTutorial.MainWindow"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
xmlns:ribbon="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Controls.Ribbon;assembly=System.Windows.Controls.Ribbon"
Title="WPF Layoutmanager" Height="399" Width="763">
<DockPanel LastChildFill="True">
<Ribbon DockPanel.Dock="Top" >
</Ribbon>
<!-- Put the last Child here -->
</DockPanel>
</ribbon:RibbonWindow>
Additionally you have to change the base class name in the code behind window and add the using System.Windows.Controls.Ribbon :
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using System.Windows;
using System.Windows.Controls;
using System.Windows.Controls.Ribbon;
using System.Windows.Data;
using System.Windows.Documents;
using System.Windows.Input;
using System.Windows.Media;
using System.Windows.Media.Imaging;
using System.Windows.Navigation;
using System.Windows.Shapes;
namespace WPFTutorial
{
/// <summary>
/// Interaction logic for MainWindow.xaml
/// </summary>
public partial class MainWindow : RibbonWindow
{
public MainWindow()
{
InitializeComponent();
}
private void Button_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
MessageBox.Show("Test");
}
}
}
Like in HTML/CSS there are different source code locations where it is possible to apply appearance styles to WPF controls. In this article i want to make a really short summary of those points.
Approach
The following examples are showing the declaration places for styles in the order from local control styles to global application styles
Eines der wichtigsten .NET Elemente zum Verwalten vom Datenbeständen im Speicher sind Collections (Auflistungen). Im Vergleich zu normalen Array-Typen bieten diese die Möglichkeit zur Laufzeit Objekte hinzuzufügen, ohne vorher die Größe/die Anzahl der Objekte in der Collection zu kennen. Collections bieten Funktionen zum Hinzufügen, Entfernen und Suchen/Finden von Objekten. Ist ein Objekt in einer Auflistung erstmal gefunden, kann dieses über die Objektreferenz auch direkt in der Auflistung geändert werden.
Auflistungen implementieren das Interface „IEnumerable“, um das Iterieren durch die Objekte in der Liste zu ermöglichen. Die foreach-Schleife nutzt beispielsweise dieses Interface um durch alle Objekte einer Collection zu iterieren.
Über die Abfragesprache LINQ (Language Integrated Query) lassen sich SQL-ähnliche Abfragen auf Collections durchführen,
Namespaces / Namensräume
Der Namensraum für .NET Framework Collections liegt unter System.Collections.*, wobei weitere Sub-Namensräume existieren.
System.Collections.Concurrent (mehrere Threads / Tasks können parallel auf diesen Collections im Speicher operieren)
System.Collections.Immutable (man arbeitet hierbei nur auf Kopien / die ursprünglichen Daten werden nicht geändert – muss zusätzlich über NuGet-Paket installiert werden)
System.Collections.Generic
Dynamische Strukturen/Collections allokieren immer 2^n Speicher-Plätze
Die Property „Capacity“, welche an jeder Collection anhängt, zeigt die Anzahl der Speicherplätze, die die Collection intern als Array alloziert hat. Bei 1025 Elementen werden intern 2048 Plätze vorbereitet. Bei 2049 Elementen werden intern 4096 Plätze vorbereitet.
A change request (field „pcr“) only can have one unique assigned user that shall be informed about the assignment every night.
The assigned user (field „created_by“) of a change requests (field „pcr“) is changing several times a day. Every time the user (field „created_by“) changes to another user, a table entry with the actual time stamp (field „created_on“) is inserted to a SQL table.
At the end of the day, the system shall report via email the users that have been assigned to a PCR (only one user per change request).
The following table contains entries with people wo shall be informed every evening.
id
pcr
created_on
created_by
1
PCR-1
2020-02-26 09:20:52.977
user1
2
PCR-1
2020-02-26 09:20:54.667
user1
3
PCR-2
2020-02-26 09:20:57.137
user1
4
PCR-2
2020-02-26 09:20:59.003
user1
5
PCR-2
2020-02-26 09:21:07.540
user3
6
PCR-3
2020-02-26 09:21:09.850
user3
7
PCR-4
2020-02-26 09:21:12.850
user3
8
PCR-4
2020-02-26 09:21:15.100
user3
9
PCR-5
2020-02-26 09:21:55.323
user3
10
PCR-2
2020-02-26 09:22:06.037
user2
11
PCR-5
2020-02-26 09:22:07.037
user2
12
PCR-7
2020-02-26 09:22:08.760
user2
13
PCR-7
2020-02-26 10:20:07.233
user2
14
PCR-8
2020-02-26 10:20:08.967
user2
15
PCR-8
2020-02-26 10:20:13.393
user1
16
PCR-9
2020-02-26 10:20:15.020
user1
17
PCR-7
2020-02-26 10:20:19.497
user3
18
PCR-9
2020-02-26 10:20:20.163
user3
A nightly executed batch job (at 23:59h every evening) shall provide the possibility to inform user1, user2 or user3 about their assigned PCR’s. Only the latest entry per PCR, that can be recognized by the timestamp (field „created_on“) represent the user assigned user at the end of the day
Problem
The SQL Statement shall output the latest entry per assigned user of each PCR. With a standard aggregate function this is not possible because the whole row entry has to be retrieved.
Approach
The Microsoft SQL Server has a proprietary function RANK(), that prints out the ranking of the PCR entry in connection with PARTITION BY and ORDER BY. The ORDER BY has to be used DESC, so that the latest entry always is on rank 1.
Because this methods only can be used within the SELECT statements fields and not withing WHERE, we need a second parent query to select everything with rank 1.
Solution
SELECT *
FROM (
SELECT id,
pcr,
created_on,
created_by,
RANK () OVER (
PARTITION BY pcr
ORDER BY created_on DESC
) as biggestHasRangOne
FROM nightly_email
)tab
WHERE biggestHasRangOne=1
AND CONVERT(date, GETDATE())=CONVERT (date, created_on)
Only the latest PCR assignment has been selected for that day.
To get the smallest one (minimum) in for that day you have to use
Since JAVA has been overtaken by Oracle, it can’t be mistaken to get skilled with the basic concepts of Python. So this is my short Getting Started tutorial with my personal conclusion.
Instead of getting annoyed about the glorification of Python, it would be better to spend some time to have a short look at this programming framework.
In the most cases a language itself is not the crucial point, but it’s what it’s framework is providing for the developer.
So the most popular thing we hear about is the capabiliy that Python is good for…
Data Science
Arteficial Intelligence (especially the library Tensor flow)
Installation
To install Python, you have to go to https://www.python.org/downloads/ and download and install Python. The website is clearly arranged and you don’t have to spend much time to search for the correct runtime according to your needs.
After you have downloaded Python, a installation wizard guides you through the installation process in two steps. It catches to my eye that there are not so much options to choose except for the folder where you want to install it.
Getting started
So what do we need now… a development environment? Hmm… well because I have installed a Visual Studio 2013, i want to test the free „Python support for Visual Studio 2013), which can be found for different Visual Studio versions here:
Python Tools for Visual Studio 2013 can be downloaded from GitHub
After the installation, there is a new Project Type available, when choosing
Visual Studio 2013 menu: File –> New Project
A new Python menu appears on the left side and we can choose to create a console application
After that you can immediatly start to code Python and press the Start-Button. Here is the „Hello World!“-Program:
A „Hello World!“-Program just consists one command.
What is a little bit weird is, that it doesn’t seems to matter if you use the following Syntax instead of the function-based print:
# This Python comment is like a UNIX Shellscript comment
print "Hello world!" # Is it possible to append a comment to the end?
# Is this really clean code if it doesn't matter how you write it?
print ("Hello world!")
# How do you write multi line?
print ("Hello "
"world!") # this works without line break
print "Hello "
"world!" #this not
print """Hello
world!""" #this works but shows the line break
# without declarion of a variable
print "Number 1:";
x = input(); # My first Input
print "Number 2:";
y = input("Here you can enter the input prompt:"); # My next Input
print """
The result is:
==============
"""
print "The result is " + str(x + y) # working
# Python is not converting
#automatically like C# when concatenating an Int to a String
print x #works
print y #works
print "A string for x: " + str(x) +"" #working
print "A string for y: " + y +"" #not working
#because he thinks that y is an Integer
In console applications it is possible to work simply with input and print. By experimenting a while you can find out what is working and what is not… An input like „2“ will be automatically converted as an integer type (when it only contains an integer). It is possible to print the integers using the function (or command) „print“, but it is not possible to print an integer concatenated to a string.
My first conclusion
„Wenn Sie Python sehen wollen, dann gehen sie doch ins Dschungelcamp!“
Nico Gerbig in WhatsApp
For non programmers it seems to be really easy to write small console programs, but the language itself allows much syntax variants that i don’t would expect as clear readable code (especially in Python 2.7 what i have been used ).
But as shown in the following Screenshot newer python versions are a little bit more strict concerning procedure-based-programming.
In newer Python versions the BASIC-like command syntax is replaced by a real procedure syntax.
As you can see above, there is a small onboard IDE shipping with python that has a console in which it is possible to execute python code directly. Additionally it allows you to write programs in whole Python files by selecting the „File->New File“ in the menu.
The IDE can be found in the Start menu after installing a Python package
One thing that makes me muse about the language concept is the missing option for variable declaration. Learing tutorials and guides are always promoting the omission of type-safe variable declaration as innovative concept and benefit in comparison to other common programming languages. I think it would be eligable to ask the question: „Why do non type-safe languages like JavaScript need a type-safe extension like TypeScript?“. Languages like Visual Basic (for applications) have introducted the „option explicit“ command to force the developer to do this … why? 🙂
Next steps
In further steps i want to find out how to point my Visual Studio to the newer Python framework. Python 3.8 is already installed but i do not have the choice to change it in Visual Studio. So i guess there must be a seperate configuration for this.
I am looking forward to evaluate the Tensorflow AI library and what benefit i can get from it.
Sometimes it is eligible to have a way to easily create a browser prompt / confirm dialog / Textinput without defining a Popup DIV and catch those inputs.
Premise
The code thread will be interrupted and a modal browser window dialog will be shown
