Blog of Jason Grimme - Programming and All Things Jason » Programming

Capturing Photo from a MediaCapture Camera Stream metro app / Windows 8

Jason Grimme — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 23:20:41 +0000

I was having some difficulty with saving an image from a MediaCapture webcam stream to the local system for a in a metro app.

Below is what I came up with, I hope it helps.

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///

/// Gets a picture from a MediaCapture object and saves it to a local file. Applies the image to a local Image element.
///

async private void GetPictureFromPreview()
{
try
{
if (null != _mediaCaptureManager)// The MediaCapture object
{
var captureSettings = new ImageEncodingProperties()
{
Height = 240,
Width = 320,
Subtype = "JPEG"
};
// Requires documentsLibrary capability
var folder = ApplicationData.Current.RoamingFolder;
var file = await folder.CreateFileAsync(@"CapturedPhoto.jpg");
await _mediaCaptureManager.CapturePhotoToStorageFileAsync(captureSettings, file);

MyImageElement.Source = new BitmapImage(new Uri(file.Path));
}
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
Messagebox.Text = ex.Message;
}
}

Visual Studio – Test List Not Updating

Jason Grimme — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 16:45:36 +0000

I have been frustrated at the fact that I must rebuild my sollution every time I want a new test method to appear in my test list. Refreshing did not work.

I discovered that there is an option which disables the discovery of new test methods, and that in Visual Studio 2010 it is enabled by default. To disable it:

Tools
Options
Test Tools
Test Project
Disable background discovery of test methods

Visual Studio: Disable Discovery Of Test Methods

Visual Studio 2010 – Cannot Start Test Project

Jason Grimme — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 15:29:34 +0000

I created a test project in Visual Studio with some unit tests in it, but was unable to run any of the tests. The test list was empty, and when I attempted to run it I got the following error:
Cannot start test project so-and-so because the project does not contains any tests.
Uggh I was so frustrated! It took me about an hour to figure out my silly mistake. I have a custom build configuration for the solution, and it was not set to build my test project. After enabling the build, everything worked (except for my test cases, which all failed (Red, Green, Refactor!).

Load All Comments on Reddit

Jason Grimme — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 04:48:19 +0000

I recently wanted to perform a search through all the comments for a Reddit story.
Rather than clicking on all the “Load more comments” links, I figured I would let JavaScript do it for me.

If you try to click them all at once, Reddit tends to freeze. This method allows a one second pause between each additional load.

Paste the following in your address bar while on the page, and watch them load:

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javascript:
function loadMore() {
var id = ($(".button"))[0].id;
if($('#'+ id).html() == 'loading...') {
$('#'+ id).removeClass('button');
}else{
$('#'+ id).click();
}
if(id) {
next();
}
}
function next(){
window.setTimeout(loadMore, 1000);
}
loadMore();

And, if it is of any use, here is the compressed version:

1	javascript:function b(){window.setTimeout(a,1e3)}function a(){var a=$(".button")[0].id;if($("#"+a).html()=="loading..."){$("#"+a).removeClass("button")}else{$("#"+a).click()}if(a){b()}}a()

Reading Google Chrome bookmarks with C# & .net

Jason Grimme — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 21:14:40 +0000

Google Chome stores bookmarks for a given user in JSON format. With Windows, this file (Called Bookmarks) can typically be found located inside C:\Users\[user]\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default .

The bookmarks system contains two roots, the ‘Bookmarks bar’ and ‘Other bookmarks’. Within these roots there can exist a (seemingly) infiniant amount of bookmarks and folders containing bookmarks.
The easiest way to extract the bookmarks is to use a JSON library, but I wanted to avoid adding an extra assembly to my project. The next option is to develop a series of classes which will be used to deserialize the JSON using the .net JavaScriptSerializer class.

A simple bookmark JSON file looks like this:

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{
"checksum": "4136adb9cd06656cfcac7ed910d6c5d9",
"roots": {
"bookmark_bar": {
"children": [ {
"date_added": "12951434934671257",
"id": "3",
"name": "Woot One Day, One Deal",
"type": "url",
"url": "http://www.woot.com/"
} ],
"date_added": "0",
"date_modified": "12951434946783257",
"id": "1",
"name": "Bookmarks bar",
"type": "folder"
},
"other": {
"children": [ {
"date_added": "12951434946783257",
"id": "4",
"name": "Welcome to Facebook - Log In, Sign Up or Learn More",
"type": "url",
"url": "http://www.facebook.com/"
} ],
"date_added": "0",
"date_modified": "12951434950972257",
"id": "2",
"name": "Other bookmarks",
"type": "folder"
}
},
"version": 1
}

A more complex bookmark structure looks more like this:

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{
"checksum": "550dd4d89e2cd11eaf2b87d2aa05eaf6",
"roots": {
"bookmark_bar": {
"children": [ {
"date_added": "12948923695706831",
"id": "3",
"name": "Welcome to Facebook - Log In, Sign Up or Learn More",
"type": "url",
"url": "http://www.facebook.com/"
}, {
"date_added": "12948923744214264",
"id": "7",
"name": "Jason Grimme - Web Developer in Raleigh, NC",
"type": "url",
"url": "http://www.studioshorts.com/"
}, {
"date_added": "12948923703380831",
"id": "4",
"name": "Google",
"type": "url",
"url": "http://www.google.com/"
}, {
"children": [ {
"date_added": "12948923708491831",
"id": "5",
"name": "Woot\u00AE : One Day, One Deal\u2122",
"type": "url",
"url": "http://www.woot.com/"
} ],
"date_added": "12950310189344299",
"date_modified": "12951434337054697",
"id": "10",
"name": "Sub Folder",
"type": "folder"
} ],
"date_added": "0",
"date_modified": "12951434418373129",
"id": "1",
"name": "Bookmarks bar",
"type": "folder"
},
"other": {
"children": [ {
"date_added": "12950114893839849",
"id": "8",
"name": "Yahoo!",
"type": "url",
"url": "http://www.yahoo.com/"
}, {
"children": [ {
"children": [ {
"children": [ {
"children": [ {
"date_added": "12951434418373129",
"id": "18",
"name": "xkcd",
"type": "url",
"url": "http://xkcd.com/"
} ],
"date_added": "12950313354025472",
"date_modified": "12951434422846129",
"id": "15",
"name": "Sub-Sub-Sub Folder",
"type": "folder"
}, {
"date_added": "12950314249325837",
"id": "17",
"name": "Microsoft Corporations",
"type": "url",
"url": "http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx"
} ],
"date_added": "12950313354025472",
"date_modified": "12950314249325837",
"id": "14",
"name": "Sub-Sub folder",
"type": "folder"
} ],
"date_added": "12950310189345299",
"date_modified": "12950310189345299",
"id": "12",
"name": "TestC",
"type": "folder"
} ],
"date_added": "12950310189345299",
"date_modified": "12950313339333472",
"id": "11",
"name": "Sub Folder",
"type": "folder"
} ],
"date_added": "0",
"date_modified": "12950310144811299",
"id": "2",
"name": "Other bookmarks",
"type": "folder"
}
},
"version": 1
}

Deserializing Chrome Bookmarks

I developed a few classes to deserialize the data into, and this is what I came up with.

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///

/// Contains all information about bookmarks in Chrome
///

public class Bookmarks
{
public string Checksum { get; set; }
public Root Roots { get; set; }
public int Version { get; set; }
}

///

/// Contains 'folders' such as 'Bookmarks bar' and 'Other bookmarks'
///

public class Root
{
public RootItem Bookmark_bar { get; set; }
public RootItem Other { get; set; }
}

///

/// A folder of bookmarks
///

public class RootItem
{
public List<Child> Children { get; set; }
public string Date_added { get; set; }
public string Date_modified { get; set; }
public int Id { get; set; }
public String Name { get; set; }
public string Type { get; set; }
}

///

/// Contains information about a specific bookmark
///

public class Child
{
public List<Child> Children { get; set; }
public string date_added { get; set; }
public int ID { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public String Type { get; set; }
public Uri Url { get; set; }
}

static void Main(string[] args)
{
string pathToDB = @"C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Bookmarks";
string pathToCopiedDB = System.IO.Path.GetTempFileName();
System.IO.File.Copy(pathToDB, pathToCopiedDB, true);

string jsonData = string.Empty;
using (StreamReader streamReader = new StreamReader(pathToCopiedDB))
{
jsonData = streamReader.ReadToEnd();
streamReader.Close();
}

JavaScriptSerializer serializer = new JavaScriptSerializer();
Bookmarks bookmarks = serializer.Deserialize<Bookmarks>(jsonData);
}

You will now have a replica of your bookmarks in your project! Have fun.

Visual Studio & XAML – IntelliSense Not Working

Jason Grimme — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 19:16:18 +0000

I’ve been working with a lot of inherited XAML code lately with Visual Studio, and have noticed that IntelliSense was not working with many of the files. It worked for some, but not others. For the files that did not work, cleaning, rebuilding, and restarting did not fix the problem.
In my particular case, somebody had improperly added additional namespaces to the XAML, and this was the cause.

The Fix

The fix is to add ;assembly= onto the end of the custom CLR namespace.

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xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
xmlns:foo="clr-namespace:Company.Product.Project.Something"
x:Class="WpfApplication1.MainWindow"
x:Name="Window"
Title="This Will Not Work"
>

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xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
xmlns:foo="clr-namespace:Company.Product.Project.Something;assembly="
x:Class="WpfApplication1.MainWindow"
x:Name="Window"
Title="This Will Work"
>

Update SharePoint List Item(s) with Powershell

Jason Grimme — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 23:51:09 +0000

Today I was attempting to update every item in a SharePoint list with Powershell, which turned out to be quite the adventure. Looping through the list and grabbing the items was easy, but whenever I modified the item and called the Update() method, it either did absolutely nothing or gave me an error: “Object reference not set to an instance of an object“. The frustrating thing was that other methods and properties did work on the object, and some things didn’t.
I got past this once I forcibly cast the SPListItem with it’s full assembly name ([Microsoft.SharePoint.SPListItem]). Below are two code examples.

Updating a Single Item

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$spSite = new-object Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSite("http://SPPortal/SiteCollection")
$spWeb = $spSite.OpenWeb("StudioShorts")
$spList = $spWeb.Lists["Posts"]
$spitems = $splist.items
[Microsoft.SharePoint.SPListItem]$spListItem = $spitems[1]
$spListItem["Title"] = "Updating A SharePoint List Item";
$spListItem.Update()
}

Updating All Items in Multiple Lists

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function Update-FieldForAllListItems(){
param(
$SPSite,
$WebName,
$ListName,
$FieldName,
$FieldValue
)
$spWeb = $spSite.OpenWeb($WebName)
$spList = $spWeb.Lists[$ListName]
$spitems = $splist.items
foreach($item in $spitems){
# Casting avoids "Object reference not set to an instance of an object."
[Microsoft.SharePoint.SPListItem]$spListItem = $item
Write-Host "Updating`t" $spListItem.Name "`t$FieldName to $FieldValue"
$spListItem[$FieldName] = $FieldValue;
$spListItem.Update()
}
}

[void][System.reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.SharePoint")
$spSite = new-object Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSite("http://SPPortal/SPSiteCollection")
$webNames = @("Uno", "Dos", "Tres")
foreach($webName in $webNames){
Update-FieldForAllListItems -SPSite $spSite -WebName $webName -ListName MyList -FieldName Visibility -FieldValue Public
}

Updating SharePoint Database with PowerShell

Jason Grimme — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 23:26:38 +0000

Recently I needed to enable/disable a database while doing a SharePoint deployment. There is no stsadm command and we had been using a small assembly that used C Sharp to connect to the web application, get the database, and toggle the ableness of it. This worked fine, but I wanted to do it all in PowerShell sans a compiled assembly.

The interesting thing about this is that normally you would expect to load the Microsoft.SharePoint assembly and then use the object model as you normally would. However, the SPContentDatabase class is not CLS-Compliant because it contains two methods for the id: id and ID. When attempting to use any method, you get an error. For instance:

1 2	# Attempt to read the Name property $myDatabase.Name

Results in:

The field/property: “Id” for type: “Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPContentDatabase” differs only in case from the field/property: “ID”. Failed to use non CLS compliant type.

In order to get around this, you must create a Invoke delegate sort of variable to contain methods and properties which you want to use with the class.

Using Properties of Non-CLS-Compliant class

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# Get handle on property SPContentDatabase.Name
$db_property_Name = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPContentDatabase].GetProperty("Name")
# Get the value of the property
$current_name = $db_property_Name.GetValue($myDatabase, $null)
# Set the value of the property
$db_property_Name.SetValue($myDatabase, "New Name", $null)

Using Methods of Non-CLS-Compliant class

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# Get handle on method SPContentDatabase.Update(bool)
$db_method_Update = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPContentDatabase].GetMethod("Update", [System.Boolean] )
# Invoke the method SPContentDatabase.Update($true)
$db_method_Update.Invoke($myDatabase, "instance,public", $null, $true, $null)

Bringing It All Together

And with all that said, here is what I brought together to enable/disable a SharePoint database.

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function Get-WebApplication(){
param(
$Name = $(throw "Web Application name is required")
)
$webApp = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPWebApplication]::Lookup($Name)
if($webApp){
return $webApp
}else{
Write-Error "Error: Cannot find webapp with name $Name"
return $null
}
}

function Get-SPContentDatabase()
{
param(
$WebApp = $(throw "Web Application Required"),
$Name = $(throw "Database Name Required")
)
if($webapp.ContentDatabases.Count -lt 1)
{
Write-Error ("Error: No databases found in " + $webapp.Name)
return $null
}
$db_property_Name = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPContentDatabase].GetProperty("Name")
foreach($database in $WebApp.ContentDatabases.GetEnumerator()){
$current_name = $db_property_Name.GetValue($database, $null)
if($current_name -ieq $Name)
{
return $database
}
}
Write-Error ("Error: No databases named $Name found in " + $webapp.Name)
return $null
}

function Set-SPContentDatabaseStatus()
{
param(
$SPContentDatabase = $(throw "Database object Required"),
$Status = $(throw "Status Required. Disabled, Offline, Online, Provisioning, Unprovisioning, Upgrading"),
$PropogateFarm = $false
)
$db_property_Status = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPContentDatabase].GetProperty("Status")
$db_method_Update = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPContentDatabase].GetMethod("Update", [System.Boolean] )
$enum_status = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPObjectStatus]::$Status;

if($enum_status -eq $null)
{
Write-Error "Error: Provided status invalid"
return $null
}
$currentStatus = $db_property_Status.GetValue($SPContentDatabase, $null)
if($currentStatus -eq $null)
{
Write-Error "Error: Invalid database"
return $null
}

$db_property_Status.SetValue($SPContentDatabase, $enum_status, $null)
$db_method_Update.Invoke($SPContentDatabase, "instance,public", $null, $PropogateFarm, $null)
$post_status = $db_property_Status.GetValue($SPContentDatabase, $null)
if($post_status -eq $enum_status){
return $true
}
Write-Error "Error: Did not successfully update status from to $enum_status, stuck at $post_status"
return $false
}

# Usage
[void][System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.SharePoint")

$webApp = Get-WebApplication -Name "http://Web_Application_Name/"
if($webapp){
$database = Get-SPContentDatabase -WebAPp $webApp -Name "Database_Name"
if($database){
$result = Set-SPContentDatabaseStatus -SPContentDatabase $database -Status "Disabled"
}
}

Quick and Simple SilverLight Media Player from Expression Encoder

Jason Grimme — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 04:00:45 +0000

If you have used Expression Encoder, you have probably seen the XAP files that it comes with to play video files. The sample code they have to embed and play the files seem to be either non existent or too complex.

Below is an example for MediaPlayerTemplate.xap with a Smooth Streaming video file. If you haven’t read about Smooth Streaming, look it up! It is the technology that Netflix uses to stream movies at different quality levels. While undocumented, if you are using Smooth Streaming technology you must have the SmoothStreaming.xap file in the same location as MediaPlayerTemplate.xap as it will reference it.

Example Embed Object Markup

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<div align=center valign=middle>
<object data="data:application/x-silverlight-2," type="application/x-silverlight-2" width="400" height="300">
<param name="source" value="http://server/xap/mediaplayertemplate.xap" />
<param name="autoUpgrade" value="true" />
<param name="enableHtmlAccess" value="true" />
<param name="enableGPUAcceleration" value="true" />
<<param name="initparams" value='playerSettings =

true</AutoLoad>
true</AutoPlay>
false</DisplayTimeCode>
false</EnableOffline>
false</EnablePopOut>
true</EnableCaptions>
true</EnableCachedComposition>
false</StartMuted>

<Title>My Video Test</Title>
My video description</Description>
true</IsAdaptiveStreaming>
http://SmoothStreamingServer/xap/file.ism%5Cmanifest</MediaSource>
</PlaylistItem>
</Items>
</Playlist>'/>
</object>
</div>

IIS, Silverlight cross site / domain requests

Jason Grimme — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 03:46:27 +0000

If you have a SilverLight application that is making requests to a site on IIS and have reached this page, it is likely you have not put into place a client access policy.
IIS by default prevents requests from other domains to prevent cross-site scripting among other malicious things. Microsoft was not too creative when it came up with a solution, which they ironically borrowed from Flash.

You need to create your policy and name it ClientAccessPolicy.xml and you must place it at the root of your site. Virtual directories do not count.

Example policy:

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version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

http-request-headers="*">

uri="*"/>
>

path="/" include-subpaths="true"/>
>
>
>
>

Fun fact

Since the policy must be called ClientAccessPolicy.xml and you know it must be at the root of a site, you might have some fun checking for popular site policies. For example, Microsoft.