Well, few weeks ago, I told one of my clients to download "MyMobiler" as he wants to remote control his Windows Mobile Devices. I was surprised that it supports Android now...Thank you very much, "MyMobiler" team...
Um, I haven't touch this Blog for a while... So... just a case study.
Usually, I use FTP to find available files to update my mobile application. However,I have a client who doesn't want to install FTP but they have web server. Therefore, I use the traditional way to update the application, "Make a http query"... It is pretty simple to use HttpWebRequest and HttpWebResponse to validate the version. If the server returns a file link, then I download it and install it.
You can make a HttpWebRequest (http://yourwebsite/?version=1.0.2.0) to find available update. If server redirects you to a cab file, so we have an update.
Once user clicks "Yes", the we start to download and install the cab file.
Have a look the following example in C#. It handles downloading the cab file with progress bar.
Usually, I use FTP to find available files to update my mobile application. However,I have a client who doesn't want to install FTP but they have web server. Therefore, I use the traditional way to update the application, "Make a http query"... It is pretty simple to use HttpWebRequest and HttpWebResponse to validate the version. If the server returns a file link, then I download it and install it.
You can make a HttpWebRequest (http://yourwebsite/?version=1.0.2.0) to find available update. If server redirects you to a cab file, so we have an update.
Once user clicks "Yes", the we start to download and install the cab file.
Have a look the following example in C#. It handles downloading the cab file with progress bar.
private void backgroundWorker1_DoWork(object sender, BCD.ComponentModel.DoWorkEventArgs e)
{
HttpWebRequest myRequest = null;
HttpWebResponse myResponse = null;
string newurl = (string)e.Argument;
string fileName = "", filePath = "";
try
{
bool redirecting = true;
while (redirecting)
{
try
{
myRequest = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(newurl);
// we accept any type of file
myRequest.Accept = "*/*";
// set the timeout to 5 seconds
myRequest.Timeout = 5000;
// casts the response
myResponse = (HttpWebResponse)myRequest.GetResponse();
// if we have redirection
if ((int)myResponse.StatusCode == 301 || (int)myResponse.StatusCode == 302)
{
string uriString = myResponse.Headers["Location"];
newurl = uriString;
// and keep going
}
else
{
// gets the final uri
fileName = Path.GetFileName(myResponse.ResponseUri.LocalPath);
// we only want CAB file
if (fileName.ToLower().EndsWith(".cab"))
{
filePath = Path.Combine(Utils.TempPath, fileName);
// gets the total lenth for progress bar
long fileLength = myResponse.ContentLength;
// start with zero
int byteTotal = 0;
// start writing file
using (FileStream fileStream = File.OpenWrite(filePath))
{
// gets the stream from response object
using (Stream remoteStream = myResponse.GetResponseStream())
{
// we make 4 MB as our buffer
byte[] inBuffer = new byte[4 * 1024];
int nRead = remoteStream.Read(inBuffer, 0,
inBuffer.Length);
// we need to put e.Cancel as user may cancel downloading
while (nRead > 0 && !e.Cancel)
{
if (nRead > 0)
fileStream.Write(inBuffer, 0, nRead);
byteTotal += nRead;
// calculate the progress out of a base "100"
double percentage =
(double)(byteTotal) / (double)fileLength;
// update the progress
backgroundWorker1.ReportProgress(
(int)(percentage * 100));
nRead = remoteStream.Read(inBuffer, 0,
inBuffer.Length);
}
myResponse.Close();
myRequest.Abort();
}
}
// if everything is fine
if (!e.Cancel)
{
// write the file time to be same as the original file time
BCD.IO.FileEx.SetCreationTime(filePath,
myResponse.LastModified);
e.Result = filePath;
}
else
{
if (File.Exists(filePath))
File.Delete(filePath);
}
}
redirecting = false;
}
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
redirecting = false;
Utils.WriteToLog(ex);
}
}
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
// if error happens on retriving map, assign the error image instead
Utils.WriteToLog(ex);
}
finally
{
if (myResponse != null)
myResponse.Close();
myRequest = null;
myResponse = null;
}
}
I remember a while ago that I needed to enable the vibration for a client's application. So I googled a bit and found the similar codes like below... And today, I found some people are looking for this solution on MSDN... So I decided to post it in C# and hope it will give some people a heads up...
////// This function plays the specified vibration. /// /// Must be 0 /// Must be NULL /// A Boolean value that indicates whether the song /// should be repeated. If this parameter is equal to TRUE, it will refer to dwTimeout /// to determine how long the vibration song should play. /// Must be INFINITE ////// This API is not supported by Windows Mobile 6 Professional. [DllImport("aygshell.dll", EntryPoint = "Vibrate")] private static extern int VibrateStart(int cvn, IntPtr rgvn, bool fRepeat, uint dwTimeout); ////// Stops all current vibration songs. /// ////// /// This API not supported by Windows Mobile 6 Professional. /// [DllImport("aygshell.dll")] private static extern int VibrateStop(); private const uint INFINITE = 0xffffffff; ////// Start the mobile vibration. /// ///This is not supported by Windows Mobile 6 Professional. ///public static int StartVibrate() { return VibrateStart(0, IntPtr.Zero, true, INFINITE); } /// /// Stops all current vibration. /// public static void StopVibrate() { VibrateStop(); }This is not supported by Windows Mobile 6 Professional. ///
Pooh~~~ I haven't organised the blog page for ages... Well, not many clicks~~~
Anyway, I tried to check emails at home with Ubuntu and found out the Evolution could not connect to our Exchange 2007 server. I found out it works well when I am in the office or VPN connection is on. Um... I think that will be my new task to find out what causes this... Or... If any one reads this post, I would appreciated some comments or suggestions for this issue.
Anyway, I tried to check emails at home with Ubuntu and found out the Evolution could not connect to our Exchange 2007 server. I found out it works well when I am in the office or VPN connection is on. Um... I think that will be my new task to find out what causes this... Or... If any one reads this post, I would appreciated some comments or suggestions for this issue.
/**
* Ext.ux.grid.PageSize
*/
Ext.define('Ext.ux.grid.PageSize', {
extend : 'Ext.form.field.ComboBox',
alias : 'plugin.pagesize',
beforeText : 'Show',
afterText : 'rows/page',
mode : 'local',
displayField: 'text',
valueField : 'value',
allowBlank : false,
triggerAction: 'all',
width : 50,
maskRe : /[0-9]/,
/**
* initialize the paging combo after the pagebar is randered
*/
init: function(paging) {
paging.on('afterrender', this.onInitView, this);
},
/**
* create a local store for availabe range of pages
*/
store: new Ext.data.SimpleStore({
fields: ['text', 'value'],
data: [['5', 5], ['10', 10], ['15', 15], ['20', 20], ['25', 25], ['50', 50], ['100', 100], ['200', 200], ['500', 500]]
}),
/**
* assing the select and specialkey events for the combobox
* after the pagebar is rendered.
*/
onInitView: function(paging) {
this.setValue(paging.store.pageSize);
paging.add('-', this.beforeText, this, this.afterText);
this.on('select', this.onPageSizeChanged, paging);
this.on('specialkey', function(combo, e) {
if(13 === e.getKey()) {
this.onPageSizeChanged.call(paging, this);
}
});
},
/**
* refresh the page when the value is changed
*/
onPageSizeChanged: function(combo) {
this.store.pageSize = parseInt(combo.getRawValue(), 10);
this.doRefresh();
}
});
/**
* Ext.ux.grid.DynamicGridPanel
*/
Ext.define('Ext.ux.grid.DynamicGridPanel', {
extend: 'Ext.grid.GridPanel',
alias: 'widget.dynamicgrid',
/**
* initialising the components
*/
initComponent: function(){
/**
* set the config we want
*/
var config = {
columns:[],
rowNumberer: false
};
// appy to this config
Ext.apply(this, config);
// apply to the initialConfig
Ext.apply(this.initialConfig, config);
// call the arguments
this.callParent(arguments);
},
/**
* When the store is loading then reconfigure the column model of the grid
*/
storeLoad: function()
{
/**
* JSON data returned from server has the column definitions
*/
if(typeof(this.store.proxy.reader.jsonData.columns) === 'object') {
var columns = [];
/**
* adding RowNumberer as we need to add them
* before other columns to display first
*/
if(this.rowNumberer) { columns.push(Ext.create('Ext.grid.RowNumberer')); }
/**
* assign new columns from the json data columns
*/
Ext.each(this.store.proxy.reader.jsonData.columns, function(column){
columns.push(column);
});
/**
* reconfigure the column model of the grid
*/
this.reconfigure(this.store, columns);
}
},
/**
* assign the event to itself when the object is initialising
*/
onRender: function(ct, position){
/**
* well, old fashion way, but works well.
*/
Ext.ux.grid.DynamicGridPanel.superclass.onRender.call(this, ct, position);
/**
* hook the store load event to our function
*/
this.store.on('load', this.storeLoad, this);
}
});
Client Side Example: (Tested on ExtJs 4.0.7 and 4.1.1)
// Start loading the page
Ext.onReady(function(){
// we need to define the model but the field values will be parsed
// automatically since we provided fields in the metaData from server
Ext.define('dynamicModel', {
extend: 'Ext.data.Model',
//set the proxy
proxy: {
type: 'rest',
url: 'data.php' // the sample server address
}
});
// create a data store
var myStore = Ext.create('Ext.data.Store', {
model:'dynamicModel',
autoLoad:true,
});
// create dynamic grid
var myGrid = {
title:'Dynamic Grid',
xtype:'dynamicgrid',
forceFit:true,
region:'center',
store:myStore,
dockedItems: [{
xtype: 'pagingtoolbar',
store: myStore,
dock: 'bottom',
displayInfo: true
}]
};
// finally, build the main layout once all the pieces are ready.
Ext.create('Ext.container.Viewport', {
layout:'border',
items:[myGrid]
});
});
Server Side Example: (data.php)
$total = 100;
// you can pre-define the required property parameters
$output["metaData"]["idProperty"]="id";
$output["metaData"]["totalProperty"]="total";
$output["metaData"]["successProperty"]="success";
$output["metaData"]["root"]="data";
// you can parse field values via your database schema
$output["metaData"]["fields"][]=array("name"=>"id","type"=>"int");
$output["metaData"]["fields"][]=array("name"=>"name","type"=>"string");
$output["metaData"]["fields"][]=array("name"=>"firstName","type"=>"string");
$output["metaData"]["fields"][]=array("name"=>"lastName","type"=>"string");
// you can parse column values via your database schema
$output["columns"][]=array("dataIndex"=>"id","header"=>"ID", "width"=>10);
$output["columns"][]=array("dataIndex"=>"name","header"=>"User Name","width"=>20);
$output["columns"][]=array("dataIndex"=>"firstName","header"=>"First Name");
$output["columns"][]=array("dataIndex"=>"lastName","header"=>"Last Name");
// the misc properties
$output["total"]=$total;
$output["success"]=true;
$output["message"]="success";
// parse pages
$start = $_GET['start'] + 1;
$max = $_GET['start'] + $_GET['limit'];
// make sample data
for($i = $start; $i <= $max; $i++ ){
$output["data"][]= array(
"id"=>$i,
"name"=>"UserName-". $i,
"firstName"=>"My First Name No. ". $i,
"lastName"=>"My Last Name No. ". $i);
}
// output the value
echo json_encode($output);
- Username should be domain\username.
- Do not fill out domain in the VPN configuration.
- Under the advanced option make sure you tick "Use Point-to-Point encryption (MPPE)" option. (see above screenshot)
First of all, I found this link and installed the pavucontrol and changed the settings to Microphone 2. Well, it works with Skype but not with Gmail Chat. The Gmail Chat driver auto adjusts volume so it all went back to the default settings again... WTF...
Anyway... keep fighting on it at the moment... Has anyone had this problem and resolved it?
I believe there are some people want to sync the device date/time with their web server as the device date/time somehow doesn't tick correctly after certain days. So first of all, you should have a look the SetSystemTime function as you need a SYSTEMTIME structure to pass the value to SetSystemTime function.
We start to P/Invoke the SetSystemTime method.
[DllImport("coredll.dll", SetLastError = true)]
private static extern bool SetSystemTime(ref SYSTEMTIME time);
Create the SYSTEMTIME structure.
public struct SYSTEMTIME
{
public short year;
public short month;
public short dayOfWeek;
public short day;
public short hour;
public short minute;
public short second;
public short milliseconds;
}
Create a simple function to convert DateTime to SYSTEMTIME and also calls the SetSystemTime function.
public void SetSystemDateTime(DateTime time)
{
SYSTEMTIME s = new SYSTEMTIME();
s.Year = (short)time.Year;
s.Month = (short)time.Month;
s.DayOfWeek = (short)time.DayOfWeek;
s.Day = (short)time.Day;
s.Hour = (short)time.Hour;
s.Minute = (short)time.Minute;
s.Second = (short)time.Second;
s.Milliseconds = (short)time.Millisecond;
SetSystemTime(ref s);
}
As most http web pages contains "Date" part of the document header and the "Date" part usually is the server time. So we gets the date/time and sync with our device. We use HttpWebRequest and HttpWebResponse to get the web page header.
public bool SyncDateTime(string url)
{
HttpWebRequest myRequest = null;
HttpWebResponse myResponse = null;
try
{
//create a HTTP request of the file and capture the response
myRequest = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(url);
myRequest.Accept = "*/*";
myRequest.KeepAlive = false;
// Assign the response object of 'HttpWebRequest' to a 'HttpWebResponse' variable.
myResponse = (HttpWebResponse)myRequest.GetResponse();
if (myResponse != null)
{
if (myResponse.Headers["Date"] != null)
{
DateTime dt = DateTime.Parse(myResponse.Headers["Date"], CultureInfo.CurrentCulture);
// Sets the parsed time to device.
SetSystemDateTime(dt.ToUniversalTime());
return true;
}
}
}
finally
{
// Releases the resources of the response.
if (myResponse != null)
myResponse.Close();
myRequest = null;
myResponse = null;
}
return false;
}
Above method has few millisecond or event seconds inaccuracy as we doesn't calculate the time difference from request to response. However, it is quite good enough for many customers. Ha... I am lazy again...
/**
* Query the installation files
*
* @param LPTSTR xmlDoc The xml document
* @param appName The application name
* @return Returns true if installed
*/
BOOL Utils::QueryInstalledByCSP(LPTSTR xmlDoc, const TCHAR *appName)
{
BOOL szResult = FALSE;
if(xmlDoc == NULL)
return FALSE;
IXMLDOMDocument *pDOM = NULL;
// Load the XML DOM
if(SUCCEEDED(CoInitializeEx(NULL,COINIT_MULTITHREADED)))
{
if(SUCCEEDED(CoCreateInstance(CLSID_DOMDocument, NULL,
CLSCTX_INPROC_SERVER | CLSCTX_LOCAL_SERVER,
IID_IXMLDOMDocument, (LPVOID *) &pDOM)))
{
// Tell the "doc" that we're not going to load asynchronously.
if (SUCCEEDED(pDOM->put_async(VARIANT_FALSE)))
{
VARIANT_BOOL vBool;
pDOM->loadXML(xmlDoc,&vBool);
if (vBool == VARIANT_TRUE)
{
IXMLDOMNode *pNode;
if (SUCCEEDED(pDOM->selectSingleNode(_T("wap-provisioningdoc"), &pNode)))
{
IXMLDOMNodeList *pNodeList;
IXMLDOMNode *pNodeChild;
IXMLDOMNode *pNodeValue;
IXMLDOMNamedNodeMap *pXMLNamedNodeMap;
if (SUCCEEDED(pNode->selectSingleNode(_T("characteristic"), &pNode)))
{
if(SUCCEEDED(pNode->selectNodes(_T("characteristic"), &pNodeList)))
{
long length = 0;
pNodeList->get_length(&length);
if(length > 0)
{
HRESULT hr = pNodeList->nextNode(&pNodeChild);
while(hr == S_OK)
{
if(SUCCEEDED(pNodeChild->get_attributes(&pXMLNamedNodeMap)))
{
if(SUCCEEDED(pXMLNamedNodeMap->getNamedItem(_T("type"), &pNodeValue)))
{
VARIANT varNodeValue;
if(SUCCEEDED(pNodeValue->get_nodeValue(&varNodeValue)))
{
if(lstrcmpi(varNodeValue.bstrVal, appName) == 0)
{
szResult = TRUE;
break;
}
}
pNodeValue->Release();
}
}
hr = pNodeList->nextNode(&pNodeChild);
}
pXMLNamedNodeMap->Release();
}
pNodeList->Release();
}
}
}
pNode->Release();
pNode = NULL;
}
}
pDOM->Release();
// release COM
CoUninitialize();
}
}
return szResult;
}
So now what you have to do is add another method to check name of the cabs.
So far, it works all fine on all Motorola (Symbol) devices.
/**
* Check the installed application name with related cab file
*/
BOOL Utils::CheckCabInstalled(LPTSTR xmlDoc, const TCHAR *cabName)
{
if(lstrcmpi(cabName, _T("NETCFv35.wm.armv4i.cab")) == 0)
return QueryInstalledByCSP(xmlDoc, _T("Microsoft .NET CF 3.5"));
else if(lstrcmpi(cabName, _T("NETCFv35.Messages.EN.wm.cab")) == 0)
return QueryInstalledByCSP(xmlDoc, _T("Microsoft .NET CF 3.5 EN-String Resource"));
else if(lstrcmpi(cabName, _T("sqlce.ppc.wce5.armv4i.CAB")) == 0)
return QueryInstalledByCSP(xmlDoc, _T("SQLServerCompact 3.5 Core"));
else if(lstrcmpi(cabName, _T("sqlce.repl.ppc.wce5.armv4i.CAB")) == 0)
return QueryInstalledByCSP(xmlDoc, _T("SQLServerCompact 3.5 Repl"));
else if(lstrcmpi(cabName, _T("sqlce.dev.ENU.ppc.wce5.armv4i.CAB")) == 0)
return QueryInstalledByCSP(xmlDoc, _T("SQLServerCompact 3.5 Tools EN"));
else
return FALSE;
}
It was a while ago to play the colours in .NETCF. The case was drawing darker or lighter colour when user clicks my custom design buttons. Well, I believe it would be much easier to change the colour by its original colour. So I came up with two methods to extend the existing System.Drawing.Color object. These two methods can be found similar over the Internet. So, I have to thank all the developers in the Internet...
public static Color GetColorDarker(this Color color, double factor)
{
// The factor value value cannot be greater than 1 or smaller than 0.
// Otherwise return the original colour
if (factor < 0 || factor > 1)
return color;
int r = (int)(factor * color.R);
int g = (int)(factor * color.G);
int b = (int)(factor * color.B);
return Color.FromArgb(r, g, b);
}
public static Color GetColorLighter(this Color color, double factor)
{
// The factor value value cannot be greater than 1 or smaller than 0.
// Otherwise return the original colour
if (factor < 0 || factor > 1)
return color;
int r = (int)(factor * color.R + (1 - factor) * 255);
int g = (int)(factor * color.G + (1 - factor) * 255);
int b = (int)(factor * color.B + (1 - factor) * 255);
return Color.FromArgb(r, g, b);
}
So, I decided to google it. Most of results are for 64bit OS but I use 32bit Windows 7. Well, then I pressed "Back" button and then pressed "Next" again in the initialization page. Ha... It allows me to install it then...
I believe the installer caches the previous data if you haven't installed the JDK. Well, good to know that is easy to fix this installation issue...
public static bool IsValidUrl(this string url)
{
string strRegex = "^(https?://)"
+ "?(([0-9a-z_!~*'().&=+$%-]+: )?[0-9a-z_!~*'().&=+$%-]+@)?" // user@
+ @"(([0-9]{1,3}\.){3}[0-9]{1,3}" // IP- 10.0.0.1
+ "|" // allows either IP or domain
+ @"([0-9a-z_!~*'()-]+\.)*" // tertiary domain(s)- www.
+ @"([0-9a-z][0-9a-z-]{0,61})?[0-9a-z]" // second level domain
+ @"(\.[a-z]{2,6})?)" // first level domain- .com or .museum is optional
+ "(:[0-9]{1,5})?" // port number- :80
+ "((/?)|" // a slash isn't required if there is no file name
+ "(/[0-9a-z_!~*'().;?:@&=+$,%#-]+)+/?)$";
return new Regex(strRegex).IsMatch(url);
}
Today I was think how to optimize the drawing string method on my library... so far I worked out this... However I still couldn't workout how to really wrap long string within the sentence...
Any help?
public static string[] WrapString(this Graphics gx, Font font, string text, float maxWidth, bool wrap)
{
// find if actual max text width is smaller than max width or maxWidth is smaller than zero or wrap is set to false
if (gx.MeasureString(text, font).Width < maxWidth || maxWidth <= 0 || !wrap)
{
return text.Split(new char[] { '\n' });
}
int maxChars = (int)(maxWidth / (gx.MeasureString("ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ.0123456789", font).Width / 37));
//text = text.BreakLongString(maxChars);
text = text.Replace(Environment.NewLine, "\n");
text = text.Replace("\r", "");
text = text.Replace("\t", " ");
string[] words = text.Split(new char[] { ' ' });
List lines = new List((int)(text.Length / maxChars));
string currentLine = "";
for (int i = 0; i < words.Length; i++)
{
// if the word is empty, then repace it to one space
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(words[i]))
words[i] = " ";
float currWidth = gx.MeasureString(currentLine + " " + words[i], font).Width;
// check if the current width is greater than max length
if (currWidth < maxWidth)
{
// if first entry, then put current line to the first word
if ((lines.Count == 0) && string.IsNullOrEmpty(currentLine))
currentLine = words[i];
else
{
// if not, append each word to current line
currentLine += " " + words[i];
// check if the currentline has \n in there.
string[] newLines = currentLine.Split('\n');
// if it does, then add a new line
if (newLines.Length > 1)
{
// do not loop to last as it will be the new currentline
for (int j = 0; j < newLines.Length - 1; j++)
lines.Add(newLines[j]);
// the current line is the last line of the new lines
currentLine = newLines[newLines.Length - 1];
}
}
}
else
{
// if the currentline width is greater than max width
// then add a new line to the list
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(currentLine))
lines.Add(currentLine);
// make the current line to the last word
currentLine = words[i];
}
}
// if still has word, add it to the list
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(currentLine))
lines.Add(currentLine);
return lines.ToArray();
}
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