SQL Server Guidelines

I saw this out on the SQL Authority blog and thought that I'd pass the link around, seeing as the author doesn't want it printed or even downloaded. It's certainly not a bad thing to have a SQL reference, or change it up, even your style is already ingrained into your brain. Check out this link below for a decent SQL notation reference. I find that I already follow alot of these standards, except for the lookup table notation. I always used "LKP_Tablename" notation when creating those. I think I'm going to change my style.

Let me know what yinz think.


http://www.pinaldave.com/sql-download/SQLServerGuideLines.pdf

list all tables in a database

So I'm documenting a database with 21 tables in it. I wanted A quick way to get them listed. Voila:

SELECT *
FROM information_schema.Tables where table_type = 'base table'



note that I added the WHERE clause. Without it, I also got all of the views.

time tracking tool

I was reading about Toggl, which seems pretty cool, and free.

http://www.toggl.com/public/tour

Don't know how people are tracking their time these days. I liked Allnetic's tracker until they decided to charge for it :P

Since toggl is web based you don't need to be tied to a machine to track your time, although I don't know if the desktop tool syncs up - I would assume so though.

formatting data in a gridview that's auto generating columns

What a long title! Anyway formatting the cell's onrowdatabound is quite well documented but all of the discussion tends to assume that you'll have specified columns, so you'll have BoundColumns and TemplateItems to work with. But I wanted to use short dates in a gridview where I was letting the gridview auto generate the columns (the default unless you set it to false in the gridview properties).

I only found this little reference to it - you need to scroll down to find the relevant code sample underneath Community Content (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.ui.webcontrols.gridview.autogeneratecolumns%28VS.80%29.aspx). I used a free code converter change it to C# but that code still needed work. The original converted code with original comments, and then mine added in below. This code is easily customized for a wide range of formatting output when your gridview is automatically generating columns.

        protected void Gridview1_RowDataBound(object sender, GridViewRowEventArgs e)
        {
            //use syntax to hide baddates
            //maybe also do short date strings?

            //http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.ui.webcontrols.gridview.autogeneratecolumns%28VS.80%29.aspx
            // Routine to display an unknown DateTime column
            // as a short date at runtime
            // By Ken Cox [Microsoft MVP]
            // July 28/06
            //
            // Make sure this is a datarow being bound
            if (e.Row.RowType == DataControlRowType.DataRow)
            {
                // Create variables to hold values
                DataRowView dtview = default(System.Data.DataRowView);
                int intCounter = 0;
                // Get the contents of the current row
                // as a DataRowView
                dtview = (DataRowView)e.Row.DataItem;
                // Loop through the individual values in the
                // DataRowView's ItemArray
                for (intCounter = 0; intCounter <= dtview.Row.ItemArray.Length - 1; intCounter++)
                {
                    // Check if the current value (item - Layla) is
                    // a System.DateTime type
                    if (dtview.Row[intCounter].GetType() == typeof(DateTime))
                    {
                        // If it is a DateTime, cast it as such
                        // into the variable

                        //Layla: cast item to DateTime 
                        DateTime myNewDate = Convert.ToDateTime(dtview.Row[intCounter]);
                        //now test if that date is missing date, then hide it if so
                        if (myNewDate == myConstants.NOTCOMPLETE_DATETIME)
                        {
                            e.Row.Cells[intCounter].Text = "";
                        }
                        else
                        {
                            // Set the text of the current cell
                            // as the short date representation
                            // of the datetime
                            e.Row.Cells[intCounter].Text = myNewDate.ToShortDateString();
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }

If you compare the original code you can see some small differences. Rather than create a DateTime variable holder to place the item into, I just create the variable IF NEEDED (if the item in the row being evaluated is of type DateTime) and populate it with the item cast as a DateTime. Very small, but I prefer that because I think it's easier to read/understand.

If anyone knows of any other ways to accomplish this - namely iterating through the items in a gridview row onrowdatabound, I'd love to compare it, so tell me about it in the comments!

.NET Validators

I have been working a lot with .NET validators recently. I found this article that explains about them quite in depth: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa479045.aspx

There are two new tricks I took out from this:
1. You can fire an individual validator from javascript using this: ValidatorValidate(document.getElementById("yourValidatorId")). I found it useful in this situation: I have a field taking a temperature value and they wanted to enter either in Fahrenheit or in Celsius. I made two text fields, one for Fahrenheit and one for Celsius, and one validator to validate the range of the Celsius field. When one value is entered or changed, javascript calculate and populate the other value. I didn't want to use one validator for each field because there was no room. So if I entered a value in Fahrenheit that was out of range the Celsius validator wouldn't fire until I submit the form. Now I can call the validator right after I convert Fahrenheit to Celsius so the Celsius field gets validated immediately.

2. You can use ValidatorHookupControl(control, val) to link controls to validators. It's helpful when you have a customvalidator. Without the hookup the validator wouldn't fire immediately. For example, you submit a form and then find that some control is not valid. You fix the problem but the error message won't disappear right away. The built-in validators such as requiredvalidator fires when the control is changed. So users will get confused by this inconsistent behavior, they might think they didn't fix the problem correctly.

Solution Items

I recently discovered that you can right click on the solution in Visual Studio in the solution explorer panel, you can add items that will be kept in the root directory. So in my case, I have an application which will consist of a questionnaire and a tracking application. I removed the web.config from each project and instead added one config to the solution items. My directory now has the main Root folder (let's call it ResearchStudyName) inside which is the config, and a generic error page I added called error.htm, and inside ResearchStudyName are 2 directories, Questionnaire and Tracking.

Now in order for the needed files to be there upon publish, I add them as linked files to each project by using Add > Existing Items whereupon I navigate to the files in the root dir, and drop down the Add button to change it to Add as Link.

All done!

Blueprint CSS Framework

I have been hearing a lot of great things about Blueprint and after reading more into, I think we could use it. Basically Blueprint is a CSS grid framework. Layout grids have been primarily used in publishing to help achieve page layout and design but have become very popular in website design, especially WordPress blog themes. Blueprint does not only provide a foundation to build grid layouts, it also includes css for print/screen, typography, and forms.

There are a few areas that I think Blueprint could really help us out.

1) it will cut down dramatically on development time
2) it ensures cross-browser compatibility
3) blueprint has a lot of tutorials and extra plugins that you could use for added design
4) The css files used are relatively small so they wont slow down our page loads

**By default, blueprint is a fixed layout but there is a plugin for liquid.

If this interests anyone, you could download the framework from blueprint's website below and the second link is a pretty good tutorial for beginners.

blueprint website:
http://www.blueprintcss.org/

Tutorial:
http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/html-css-techniques/a-closer-look-at-the-blueprint-css-framework/