Late night programming fueled by the power of caffeine.

Override WPF app startup

I wanted my app to have a login window as well as a main window.  Default WPF implementation closes the app whenever the main window is closed, which prevented me from closing the window during a logoff/logon procedure.

I found the ‘Startup’ attribute and overrode it to provide the functionality I was looking for.

<Application x:Class="DSI.MobileClient.WPF.App"
             xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
             xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
             Startup="Application_Startup">
    <Application.Resources>

    </Application.Resources>
</Application>

And in app.xaml.cs:

        void Application_Startup(object sender, StartupEventArgs e) {

            Current.ShutdownMode = ShutdownMode.OnExplicitShutdown;

            do {
                if (!Login())
                    break;

                MainWindow window = new MainWindow();

                if (window.ShowDialog() == false)
                    break;

            } while (true);

            Shutdown();
        }

Spanish Verb Conjugation app finished!

I finally got around to converting my Spanish Verb Conjugation app (available on the iPad) into Enyo 2!

Enyo 2 has certainly come a long way since I last saw it, and there were plenty of obstacles to converting it.  It took me a full week to get back up to speed with JavaScript again.  There are a few more optimizations to make for the cell phone compatibility (smaller font, drag area), but it should be fully functional now.

http://www.zombieswithcoffee.com/SpanishVerbs/index.html

An Enyo File Open kind

A reusable kind for Enyo 2.0 to open a JSON file.

enyo.kind({
    name: "FileLoad",
    kind: enyo.WebService,
    jsonp: false,

    published: {
        fileName: "",
        data: []
    },

    events: {
        onSuccess: ""
    },

    handlers:{
        onResponse: "querySuccess",
        onError: "queryFail"
    },

    fileNameChanged: function() {
        this.url = "data/" + this.fileName + ".json";
    },

    querySuccess: function(inSender, inResponse) {
        this.data = inResponse.data;
        this.doSuccess({file: this.fileName, data: inResponse.data});
    },

    queryFail: function(inSender, inResponse){
        enyo.log("Error while loading up the tense.json data file.", inResponse );
        this.data = [];
    }
});

And sample code on how to successfully call it.  You can also set the Url directly and avoid the file name property.

    components: [
        { kind: "FileLoad", onSuccess: "tenseLoaded" },
    ],

    rendered: function( ){
        this.inherited(arguments);
        this.$.tenseData.setFileName("tense");
        this.$.tenseData.send( );
    },

    tenseLoaded : function( inSender, inEvent){
        this.setCount(inEvent.data.length);
        this.reset();
},

How to encapsulate an Enyo 2.0 list into a single kind

All of the samples for Enyo (www.enyojs.com) uses a single file for their entire example. I like to encapsulate each entity into one file.

This is an example of an enyo.List stored as one JS file. The trick here is to use the ‘handlers’ to intercept the onSetupItem event.

enyo.kind(
{
    name: "VerbList", kind: enyo.List, classes: "enyo-unselectable", touch:true,

    events: {
        onVerbSelected: ""
    },

    handlers:{
        onSetupItem: "setupItem"
    },

    components: [{
        kind: "VerbData", onLoadComplete: "loadVerbComplete"
    },{
        kind: "VerbItem", classes: "list-verb-item enyo-border-box"
    }],

    rendered: function( ){
        this.inherited(arguments);
        this.$.verbData.loadData( );
    },

    setupItem: function(inSender, inEvent){

        var item = this.$.verbData.data[inEvent.index];

        this.$.verbItem.setData(item);
        this.$.verbItem.setSelected(this.isSelected(inEvent.index));

        return true;
    },

    loadVerbComplete: function() {
        this.setCount(this.$.verbData.data.length);
        this.reset();
    },

Introducing Zombies with Coffee!

Ok, I just got tired of explaining “Rabid Software” to everyone.  Most of the people thought I said “Rabbit Software“?!  Even my business checks came back as “Rapid Software“!  I just hate having to change the P to a B just to write a check.

The final straw is when after explaining what Rabid meant, his response was “Why would you name it after a disease?!”

Ugh!! Ok, so for the longest time, I have been trying to find a good website/company name.  Here were the domain names that I have acquired over the years.

Irratic.com
EloquentApps.com
EnyoProgrammer.com
TiltTheVote.com
PlumbersNightmare.com
WhereAreEwe.com
WhoAreEwe.com
T9Cryptogram.com

One of my favorites is NextHotApp.com, but I want to save that for some sort of app review website.

The other day, I was talking with my friend Aaron on a monday morning, over a cup of Espresso.  We were having the normal Monday blues and trying to program the best I could.  I really felt like a zombie with coffee.  A quick GoDaddy search later, and I finally had a decent website name.

I tested this out with several friends and I loved the fact that I never had to spell it out once.  After a few hours, I asked them if they remembered the name, and success! The name stuck with them.  So, this week involves going thru all of my address books and getting rid of Rabid Software.  Hopefully Apple will be kind to me and not make me pay the additional $99!