Infragistics

Infragistics support with SCSF -- April 2008

Anthony Trudeau — Fri, 23 May 2008 08:03:25 GMT

I just recently installed the new version of the Smart Client Software Factory (SCSF) and wanted to utilize the Composite UI Application Block (CAB) support within my Infragistics components with it within Visual Studio 2008. Luckily, the process is easy and these steps are all you have to do:

Open Visual Studio 2008
Open the Infragistics.CompositeUI.WinForms solution and allow the conversion
Add references to the following Microsoft libraries from the SCSF installation:
- Microsoft.Practices.CompositeUI.dll
- Microsoft.Practices.CompositeUI.Winforms.dll
- Microsoft.Practices.ObjectBuilder.dll
Specify a key file for signing in the project settings if desired
Build the solution

The Infragistics composite UI solution is located in the C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Shared Documents\Infragistics\NetAdvantage for .NET 2008 Vol. 1 CLR 2.0\CAB Extensibility Kit folder (folder may vary based on the version of the Infragistics controls). You must have at least 2008 Vol 1. controls.

WPF controls from Infragistics

Anthony Trudeau — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 18:29:00 GMT

Yesterday Infragistics released the 2007 Volume 1 Beta 1 of the NetAdvantage control suite for Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). I really like the look of the data presenter (carousel view), but then I like shiny things.

I'm hoping they put the data presenter in their .NET 2.0 version of the control suite, because I will not being doing WPF for awhile. And for that matter I'm hoping they release 2007 Volume 1 soon for the .NET 2.0 controls. The new version will have a beta of some new gauge controls. (The beta is currently available.)

CAB and Infragistics

Anthony Trudeau — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 23:45:00 GMT

It's my first post of the new year. I was hoping to do better at posting this year, but it's just not happening yet. It's been an eventful year so far, first my wife has given birth to our first child, second we're in the process of having a house built in Georgia, and third we're trying to sell our current home in Virginia.

I just recently finished a project involving allot of legacy VB script within a workflow application (VisiWatch) that I hope to sometime in the future roll into Windows Workflow Foundation or other services. I get a little diversion involving .NET to create a configuration tool for our VisiWatch solution. It has been months since I've been able to do anything appreciable in .NET. (My next project will probably be in a scripted barcoding software that can only barely be called a programming language.) The good news is that there is a plethora of projects on the horizon that will all be .NET -- first the old stuff has to be firmed up.

I was going to create the configuration tool I mentioned using the smart client software factory (SCSF) which uses the composite application block (CAB). However, my boss wants the tool quicker than I can deliver it if I were to add the learning curve for SCSF. But, this evening I took some time to get a feeling of the basic project infrastructure created from the Smart Client project type and see what it would take to get it to work with the Infragistics NetAdvantage control set.

I initially suspected that the implementation would be quite involved. But, it turned out that only a few simple if not monotonous steps are required. The first step is to either build or add the Infragistics CAB project to your project. The library in question is Infragistics.Practices.CompositeUI.WinForms.dll. After the project is built or added you need to add a reference to it in the Shell and Infrastructure.Library projects.

Only the SmartClientApplication class needs to be changed in order to get your project to build successfully. The first step is to add a using statement (Imports for VB) that references Infragistics.Practices.CompositeUI.WinForms. The second is to change the class so that it inherits from IGFormShellApplication instead of the standard FormShellApplication.

At this point your project will build. But, you'll have a bit to do in order to use the controls. The first will be to create your own ShellLayoutView and ShellLayoutPresenter in the Infrastructure.Layout project which you will reference in the Module class instead. Afer that you will need to register your UI extension sites as applicable (you can use the default classes and the Infragistics examples as guides).

Here is a summary of what you need to do:

Add a reference to Infragistics.Practices.CompositeUI.WinForms to the following projects:

Shell
Infrastructure.Library

Change the SmartClientApplication class as follows:

Add a using statement for Infragistics.Practices.CompositeUI.WinForms
Inherit from IGFormShellApplication

Create a new pair or edit the ShellLayoutView and ShellLayoutViewPresenter classes in the Infrastructure.Layout project

Register the UI extension sites as needed
Refer to Infragistics documentation for examples of specific workspace setup

Weekly update

Anthony Trudeau — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 18:22:00 GMT

Sorry I've been light on content lately. I've been busy with a lot of administrative, boring stuff. I was finally able to spend some time on my RFID projects this week -- I pretty much haven't had time all year. I'd say I'm a little annoyed at that, but what are you going to do?

I just got the e-mail today from GlobeRanger and the beta for iMotion Edgeware 5.1 with CLR 2.0 compatibility should be available Monday. I'll be jumping on that.

GlobeRanger is a good company with great people. I've had the opportunity to meet a lot of people (admittedly too many to remember from my two visits) and work with some. I've never had anything but great experiences. It's everything you'd expect in a professional organization, but all too often find lacking.

In other news, a new version of the Infragistics Netadvantage suite is available. The appearance of the charts has dramatically been improved. In addition, there's a new list view control. Oddly, I was saying several months ago, “Why isn't there a list view?” I ended up cramming the common, feature poor list view control into a solution surrounded by the pretty Infragistics controls. Do I upgrade it? Maybe someday.

I want to end by saying that my wife and I just celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary, and that I have the best wife in the world. I'm a lucky man! Both of us cannot wait to truly celebrate our anniversary in Hawaii next month.

Infragistics NetAdvantage 2005 Volume 3 (CLR 2.0)

Anthony Trudeau — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 16:56:00 GMT

I got the notification yesterday afternoon about the release of the Infragistics NetAdvantage 2005 Volume 3 for Visual Studio 2005 (CLR 2.0). Of course the servers were taxed, so I couldn't download it until later in the evening.

I got it installed today and took a quick look at some of the Windows Forms samples (I'm not involved with web development at this point). There's nothing really exciting that I see -- that is above and beyond the CLR 1.0 release of Volume 3. The release notes indicates the following changes:

Theme rendering in low-trust environments
GDI text support
UltraWinEditors in DataGridView
Support for snaplines

On another, but related note, it looks like Infragistics site is starting to look nice.

Tip on binding to hierarchical data in UltraGrid

Anthony Trudeau — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 15:53:00 GMT

The Infragistics UltraGrid allows you to bind to hierarchical data. However, I didn't get the results I was expecting when I called SetBinding with a band collection that I created at design time. In my particular case the results of the child band included all of the columns from the child table. I had expected only a small subset based on the child band I had defined.

The problem is that the Key property for the child band needs to be the name of the Relation and not the name of the DataTable. Hopefully, this will help someone else out.