How to program MSAGL (GLEE) to create hierarchical graph layouts

By admin | Published: July 15, 2011

MSAGL (Microsoft Automatic Graph Layout) is a .NET library and tools created by Microsoft Research for creating hierarchical graphs, viewing them and saving them to bitmaps. MSAGL is built on the principle of the Sugiyama scheme. MSAGL can be used to create layered or hierarchical graph layouts. These layered graphs can be used to represent data with some flow of information in a graphical format. A flow chart graph of a algorithm, a state machine or a C# class or business management tree, manufacturing process or network analysis as well as phylogenetic trees which are used in bioinformatics research can be graphically represented using one of these graphs. The MSAGL library is also called the MS GLEE library.

Automatic Graph Layout includes three integrated components:

  • An automatic layout engine that enables creating hierarchical graphs
  • A drawing layer that helps you modify the attributes of the graphical components, such as the shape of nodes and the style of edges.
  • A Windows-based viewer that uses the engine and drawing layer to create interactive graphs.

Creating a hierarchical graph takes just few steps: Read More »

Posted in ASP.NET, Charting, Windows Forms | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

2 Easy steps to learn ASP.NET Routing, map URLs to aspx and pass variables

By Raja S | Published: April 5, 2011

It is becoming extremely important now a days to use simple URLs  without showing the .aspx extention and also hiding the Query String parameters such as page.aspx?name1=value1&name2=value2. SEO experts swear that simple canonical urls such as mysite.com/CountryName/CityName/CompanyName/ are much better in terms of search engine friendliness than mysite.com/getlisting.aspx?Country=CountryName&City=CityName&ampCompany=CompanyName

We can clearly see that the former URL is much better even for human beings as they are easy to remember and also show that the site is well structured, which is very important for huge sites that contain tens of thousands of pages or page variations.

In this post I am going to show you how to use ASP.NET Routes to map simple canonical form URLs to aspx pages and pass in parameters using ASP.NET 4.0 Routing functionality. Read More »

Posted in ASP.NET, Routing | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

4 Simple steps to learn SqlCeDataAdapater, SqlCeDataSet to modify data in SQL Server CE tables

By Raja S | Published: March 18, 2011

You already know, from my previous blog  Using ADO.NET SqlCeCommand and SqlCeDataReader to select data from SQL Server Compact how to SELECT data for ReadOnly using SqlCeDataReader Object. You can’t update the data using SqlCeDataReader object.  Instead you will need to use SqlCeDataAdapter and SqlCeDataSet objects if you have to make any changes and save the data back to the Database. In this post, I will show you how to use SqlCeDataAdapter and SqlCeDataSet objects  in System.Data.SqlServerCe Namespace to edit/delete/update a SQL Server CE database tables in ASP.NET 4.0 web forms application.

Read More »

Posted in ASP.NET, Data Access, SQL Server Compact | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

How to select data from SQL Server Compact CE using ADO.NET SqlCeCommand and SqlCeDataReader Objects

By Raja S | Published: March 17, 2011

In this post, I will show you how to use some of the classes in System.Data.SqlServerCe Namespace to access a SQL Server CE database from a ASP.NET 4.0 web forms application.

The DLL that contains System.Data.SqlServerCe Namespace and all classes in that namespace is System.Data.SqlServerCe.dll. The System.Data.SqlServerCe namespace is the managed data provider for SQLServer CE. This namespace is a collection of classes that provide access to  SQL Server CE database. By using System.Data.SqlServerCe, you can create, manage, and synchronize  databases from a smart device or a computer. The classes include all the ADO.NET classes such as SqlCeConnection, SqlCeDataAdapter, SqlCeCommand, SqlCeDataReader.

Read More »

Posted in ASP.NET, Data Access, SQL Server Compact | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

4 Easy steps to use SQL Server Compact (CE) in Visual Studio 2010 Express SP1

By Raja S | Published: March 17, 2011

SQL Server Compact Edition is an embedded database that enables all functionality of SQL Server yet it is a simple and single file based. That means you don’t have to install the SQL Server. Simply copy the database file with .sdf extension and easily distribute it where ever you want to. Very useful in development environments where you can do all development, debug, test the application before moving to production where you are using SQL Server. If your data is not so big you can also use it in production environment instead of using MS Access.  Currently each sdf file can be up to 4Gb. Plenty of space to save tons of data. You can even run a real eCommerce store with 4Gb data. This will give easy entry point into SQL Server technologies and provide you with easy path to future upgrade to a full blown version of

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Posted in ASP.NET, Data Access, SQL Server Compact, Visual Studio 2010 SP1 | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Top 8 new features in Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 for the ASP.NET developers

By Raja S | Published: March 9, 2011

Microsoft today released the latest version of its Visual Studio, Visual Studio Express and Visual Web Developer products. Its called Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 (SP1). We at Chalaki have evaluated this product and very happy with the new enhancements. I am listing all the new features available for a web developer in this release.

IIS Express support

Visual Studio 2010 SP1 enables you to use the Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.5 Express as the local hosting server for the website and Web Application Projects.  IIS 7 Express can run with minimal resources and

Read More »

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4 Easy steps to create and consume .ACX web user controls in ASP.NET 4.0, Visual Studio 2010 SP1

By Raja S | Published: February 2, 2011

What are ASP.NET Web User Controls?

Web User Controls are re-usable controls that you can create and use across multiple ASPX pages. When you need functionality in a control that is not provided by the built-in ASP.NET Web server controls such as
<asp:TextArea>, you can create your own controls.

User controls are containers into which you can put html markup and/or Web server controls such as <asp:textbox>. You can then treat the user control as a single unit and define properties and methods for it. These controls are visible to the user and typically are added to a asp web form.

In this post I’ll show you how to create simple user control that has three <asp:textbox> controls, one <asp:button> control and one <asp:Label> control. Also I’ll show you how to write the button_click event handler for this

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5 Easy steps to install IIS 5.1 on Windows XP Professional SP3 and setup/run my CGI Program

By Raja S | Published: July 30, 2010

IIS is the web server on the windows platform, similar to UNIX’s Apache server. Windows XP Professional SP3 has built in support for Internet Information Services or IIS. The built in version of IIS is 5.1.  When you install windows XP, IIS is not automatically installed and enabled. You need to go to Control Panel to “Add Remove Programs” to setup IIS 5.1. In this post, I am going to show you how to install IIS 5.1 on Windows XP Professional step by step.

Step 1: Open up Control Panel

You will see many icons and one of them is  ”Add or Remove Programs”

Add-Remove-Programs-Control-Panel-Windows-XP

Click on ”Add or Remove Programs”

You will see the following “Add or Remove Programs” window

Read More »

Posted in IIS | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

How to maintain HTTP session state with cookies in C# CGI program in Visual C# 2010 Express and IIS

By Raja S | Published: June 20, 2010

In my previous post 8 steps to develop, setup and call c# cgi programs in IIS 7, we learned how to create a CGI program in C#, install it as a website and call it using GET and POST.

In this article, I am going to modify that C# program to include code to read and write cookies. We will create the cookies and also read the previously set cookie values. We will also learn how to use the cookies to maintain state across requests. Read More »

Posted in Web Development Fundamentals | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

8 Quick steps to develop and setup C# CGI program in IIS 7

By Raja S | Published: May 20, 2010

CGI or common Gateway Interface is the protocol used by classic web forms to exchange data between the user and the web server. CGI uses HTTP protocol, which is a simple text exchange protocol on top of TCP/IP. In the HTTP protocol, environment variables of the OS and input from standard input devise such as console or stdin are used by the CGI program to retrieve the data that was sent from the HTML forms.

In this post I am going to show you how to create a simple console application in C# and use it as my CGI program in IIS. I’ll show you step by step how to setup a website using IIS7, enable CGI-Exe Handler Mappings and create a C# application to handle the CGI requests when a user inputs the data into text fields of a HTML form. Both HTTP GET and POST methods will be

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Posted in IIS, Web Development Fundamentals | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments