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Posted by on 7th December, 2011

Composite C1 content management system

Composite C1 content management system

I have been recently busy with a couple of projects and had to decide on a new CMS framework to build them on. I had tried Umbraco in the past and found I had some issues with the installation and just never couldn’t quite “get” it right away. I looked at Orchard after seeing it at MIX in Las Vegas and finally also tried Composite C1 from Denmark. I was quite impressed with the last one. It is not so much the features that come with the framework, but more the freedom it gives you to write your code whichever way you want. You can use the provided XSLT extension or provide your own and use them as controls. If you prefer to write your controls in C# code, you can do that to and call them exactly the same as you would the built-in XSLT functions. You can use it with existing MasterPages, MVC or old-school ASP.NET. It is free and comes with a bucket of ready to go plug-ins. Some of these components...

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Posted by on 2nd August, 2011

Screen capture software…

Screen capture software…

I find myself taking screenshots often at mostly portions of the screen; whether it is to show work in progress to others or something else. For those instance, I have been using SnagIt from TechSmith for years. This is a relatively cheap solution for performing these tasks. I loved having the ability to add arrows to the screenshot or a shadowed border that can then be immediately copied and pasted in an email or anywhere else. It is the reason I pay $49 for it. Now, if you just need to take screenshots, without any heavy editing, I have found two alternatives that come quite close. First one is Zscreen, an open-source screen capture program for Microsoft Windows. I find this app powerful and has more option than I have use for. Including automatic uploading to ftp servers, emailing, naming conventions, silent operations and performing custom actions on any images captured. Another, and possibly better one, is GreenShot. Very easy to use, very configurable and...

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Posted by on 17th March, 2011

Hyperlink in RichTextBox

Hyperlink in RichTextBox

Today I learned that the default C# RichTextBox control does not handle hyperlinks out of the box. Wait, it doesn’t..? How is that possible? Yes, hard to believe. So, two hours later, I found a workaround: if you do want to have hyperlinks work, you need to do the following: First, set the DetectUrls property on the RichTextBox control to True. Then, open the Designer.cs file and find the generated code block for the RichTextBlock properties and handlers. Add the following line: Add RichTextBlock handler this.myRichTextBox.LinkClicked += new LinkClickedEventHandler(this.myRichTextBox_LinkClicked); Add the Eventhandler method Add RichTextBlock handler method private void myRichTextBox_LinkClicked(object sender, LinkClickedEventArgs e) { system.Diagnostics.Process.Start(e.LinkText); } That is...

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Posted by on 6th March, 2011

nopCommerce Ecommerce platform

nopCommerce Ecommerce platform

While researching options for a shopping cart module for an ASP.NET application, I came across several packages. Of course, I had already gone through the list of the popular players in this market: dotshoppingcart vevocart znode volusion aspdotnetstorefront Microsoft Commerce Server. And there are likely several more. However, most of these listed carry a hefty price tag and the ones that don’t just didn’t feel like the right choice for the app I am developing, based on reviews of developers who have had to work with them. However, one package, NopCommerce, impressed me out of the box: it is an open source e-commerce solution that is based on ASP.NET 4.0 and installs using Microsoft Web Platform Installer (in my case, on Arvixe Hosting). I was able to use it right away and the list of customizable features and options is vast. The jury is still out until I play with it some more, but from my initial research, this is the one I will be using for this project....

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