I am supposed to do a IVR project using Pronexus. After downloading their DLLs, my code hit COMExceptions regularly. I have searched the net and learned about Component Object Model. Now I am in trouble as I do not know how should I write my codes to extend from the DLLs that is accessing unmanaged codes.
So my question is, can someone point me to a direction how can I proceed from here? Should I learn how to code with COM libraries? Any good sources to recommend?
Found a clue from msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms973872.aspx (good read for developer new to Component Object Model)
I'll admit up front that I'm still learning good methods of deployment and that I don't have a size 12 brain to accomplish the following task. Now with that being said...
We have around 8 exe's that exist on a network drive that reference a dll that is in the same share/folder. We'd like to have a common network share in a different location that would contain this dll and any future dll's that we create so we'd have only one place to make changes (presuming the apps do not need to be recompiled). I've not found a satisfactory answer for why a dll should not be shared on a network so I'm wondering what the best practice would be for doing this. If this is something that is acceptable and routinely done then what steps are necessary to accomplish this? Thanks in advance for any help you can give.
If this shared DLL has any chance of being updated during a future release, what you have now, a local copy stored against each application, is far better.
You say your stated objective is to be able to make one change to the DLL and have all apps update. I've heard the positive side of this case made before.
"We get to roll out improvements to all our apps"
Which, seen from a half-empty glass is :-
"We get to introduce common bugs to all our apps".
Even at eight projects, imagine what your launches will be like.
"Er, hello QA. Can you test this one new app? (plus the seven others that we've done nothing to but might be broken as a result)".
Libraries should only be shared if they are mature and unlikely to change. Sorry to be so up-front about it, but I've faced a zealot who absolutely believed as you do. It was only when our bottom-line (predictably) nose-dived that my concerns were listened to. Dragons ahead. Be warned!
I'm having a number of issues, and the current one is overcoming a security exception when using iTextSharp.
This article
http://www.junlu.com/list/27/763977.html
To which I was directed following this question I posted yesterday:
Displaying a bar code with iTextSharp using Chris Love's Barcode Handler (2 part)
Seems to be what is required to overcome my problem. But I have searched and searched and cannot find a definitive and simple answer to the question "How do I compile a DLL"
So, having made the suggested modification to iTextSharp, I need to make it into a single DLL.
I have absolutely no idea how to do this, despite an hour of Googling!
I'm using Visual Web Developer 2010 Express. Which according to my searches does not have any built in capability to do this. So... how do I?!
Do I NEED to download Visual Web Developer Pro? I can surely download the free trial and use that, but going forward, I don't especially want to have to download a pay-for program to do this as it's a rare occurrence for my needs.
I'm using VB.net so keep that in mind.
I'm trying to create a program that is highly edible. Users will be able to change multiple things by just replacing the existing dlls. Kind of like a modding ability.
The new DLL shouldn't have to recreate every function though, it should only include the ones that it changes and then hook to the old dll for anything that it doesn't have. Is there a way to dynamically do this? Reference another dll (like a proxy) through yourself for anything that doesn't exist in its self?
Sorry if that is confusing. If it still confuses people, I'll draw a picture later =)
I'm Sorry, but it must be done this way. I have already set up everything in the manor and told clients (they have already started developing).
Sounds like you want to write a plugin architecture into your application, why re-invent the wheel, take a look at the Managed Extensibility Framework
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Currently the documentation where I work is in a bit of a state. There isn't anywhere near enough of it, and the documentation that does exist is spread out over many word documents making it hard to find anything.
I'm trying to take some initiative and get it improved, and I figure the first thing is to find a better format to write the documentation in:
My thoughts are that the documentation should be structured in a series of short articles (MSDN / Html Help style) and structured in a suitable tree:
It would be good to be able to produce a standalone Html-Help style package to be shipped with the application
As well as being able to produce a MSDN-style website as a reference for those who are too lazy to look at the CD.
Search is of course a must-have
It needs to be at least reasonably easy to update - if there is a 17 step process to update the published documentation then it makes it seem like too much work to do simple changes, and nobody can ever be bothered to update it.
The documentation is technical in nature, and so ideally it would be nice to be able to include generated documentation from things like the Xml documentation embedded in C# code. This is however definitely a side-requirement - currently very little useful Xml documentation exists, its just that in the future I plan to fix that.
For the same reason it is often good to be able to handle things like attachments (code samples etc...) I'm not expecting anything fancy, but this is something I need to bear in mind to make sure that its at least not handled badly.
Are there any projects or languages that are suited to this sort of documentation?
I've had good results with doxygen on my C and C++ projects although it supports many other languages as well. You put the documentation in comments in the code that can be simple or complex HTML markup. It is very easy to update as it is part of the code. You can make building the documents part of your build process. Additional topic that are not strictly API related can be added as separate HTML documents. The version I'm using doesn't support search so you would have to add another product to search these pages. Because it is HTML you can add in code samples, diagrams, etc.
If you use LaTeX you can get all your documentation in great looking PDFs and printed copies, as well as being able to generate html (via latex2html). TeX has the advantage of being all plaintext, too, so you can track/merge it reliably with your favourite revision control system.
We use confluence as our documentation repository. It is fairly easy to have public and private sections, and has a nice WYSIWYG editor. It can handle attachments and can be saved off as PDF documents if you like.
I've used robohelp with good results. it is plain html, but has a generation process that keeps everthing looking consistent. It can be packaged as a .hlp file with the app, or published to the website. Check it out, it is simple so you can get back to doing your job :)
A clean way is to use DocBook. It is easy write and undetstand. It is also easy to parse as XML parsers are standard and other forms of documentation (e.g. from the embedded documentation in comments) can be easily be transformed to this format.
It is straightforward to generate PDF, HTML og other formats from the DocBook source (tools exist for this purpose).
I've started using DokuWiki. Its not exactly what I was originally looking for (I think I was really looking for a CMS), but it does the job and some respects its better than what I originally had in mind (in particular its a wiki - I've not yet gotten as far as publishing this to our customers however so I'm not sure how well thats going to work out)
I'm using the IndexMenu plugin and the Arctic template to get a navigation tree on the left, and if I publish the wiki itself I'll use the discussion plugin to allow users to post feedback.
Currently my method of handling generated content is to use xslt templates to produce dokuwiki syntax, and write that output directrly to files / folders in the "data/pages" folder.