Arik Poznanski's Blog : Blog

Blog Summary

arik — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 05:13:28 GMT

I feel this is a good time for me to present a summary of some of the posts I wrote..

Most Interesting Posts

Following are posts that I'm personally proud of.

Shake Gestures Library – A Windows Phone Recipe
In this post I present an algorithm for detecting shake gestures on a Windows Phone system using the accelerometer sensor. This is by far my favorite post since I actually needed to use some math to solve this one.

How To Use a .NET 4 Based DLL From .NET 2 Based Application?
In this post I explain how can one use COM Interop facilities to load two CLR versions (both 2.0 and 4.0) into the same process, thus enabling code that runs under .NET 2.0 to call code that runs under .NET 4.0

Using Windows Phone As Windows 7 Accelerometer Sensor
In this post I present a cool project I've done: a user-mode driver that enables you to use your Windows Phone device as a standard Windows 7 accelerometer sensor.

Most Popular Posts

Following are posts that are very popular on my blog. Some of them, only god knows why…

Tutorials

Following are some posts that I use as indexes to tutorials I wrote.

Open Source Projects

Following are open source projects I created.

Awards

During the past year I've been awarded several titles:

Conferences

Some posts about conferences that I attended.

Topics

And finally, here are the main topics I wrote about.

That's it for now,
Arik Poznanski.

How To Implement a Windows Live Writer Plug-in That Checks For Missing Tags

arik — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 04:29:30 GMT

This post provides the technical details on how I’ve implemented the Windows Live Writer Plug-in Check For Missing Tags, which was presented here.

What Is This Plug-in Anyway?

This plug-in will remind you to add the proper tags if they are missing.

Trying to post without proper tagging when the plug-in is installed will result with the following dialog:

Clicking on the Cancel button (which is the default) will abort the publish operation and will let you update the categories.

The list of required categories is saved in a simple text file (required_categories.txt) next to the plug-in dll.

How It Was Built?

Following are the full instruction on how to build such a plug-in.
You can find the full source here.

Create new class library project named CheckMissingTagsPlugin. Make sure you use .NET framework 3.5 since .NET 4 plugins are not supported.
Add reference to WindowsLive.Writer.Api, located in C:\Program Files\Windows Live\Writer.
Add reference to System.Windows.Forms, located in the GAC.
Create a class named CheckMissingTags that inherits from PublishNotificationHook.
Apply attribute WriterPluginAttribute to the class.

[WriterPlugin("EF0CAF97-12C2-4446-BDC4-19EE53781351", "Check For Missing Tags")]
public class CheckMissingTags : PublishNotificationHook
{

}
Override the method OnPrePublish. Here we can check for missing categories and notify the user.

public override bool OnPrePublish(IWin32Window dialogOwner, IProperties properties, IPublishingContext publishingContext, bool publish)
{
    // get list of required categories
    string[] requiredCategories;
    if (File.Exists(FileName))
    {
        requiredCategories = File.ReadAllLines(FileName);
    }
    else
    {
        // warn about missing required categories
        string message =
            "Missing categories file: " + FileName + "\n" +
            "Post anyway?";

        DialogResult dialogResult = MessageBox.Show(
            dialogOwner,
            message,
            "Warning",
            MessageBoxButtons.OKCancel,
            MessageBoxIcon.Warning,
            MessageBoxDefaultButton.Button2);

        // allow post only if user selected OK
        return dialogResult == DialogResult.OK;
    }

    // get list of available categories
    IEnumerable<string> availableCategories =
        from category in publishingContext.PostInfo.Categories
        select category.Name;

    // is one of the required categories available?
    bool hasAnyRequestedCategory = availableCategories.Any(
        s => requiredCategories.Contains(s, StringComparer.OrdinalIgnoreCase));

    if (!hasAnyRequestedCategory)
    {
        string allRequiredCategories = string.Join(", ", requiredCategories);
        string message =
            "None of the required categories are available.\n" +
            "(" + allRequiredCategories + ")\n" +
            "Post without required categories?";

        // warn about missing required categories
        DialogResult dialogResult = MessageBox.Show(
            dialogOwner,
            message,
            "Warning",
            MessageBoxButtons.OKCancel,
            MessageBoxIcon.Warning,
            MessageBoxDefaultButton.Button2);

        // allow post only if user selected OK
        return dialogResult == DialogResult.OK;
    }

    return true;
}
Add the following line to the post build event:

XCOPY /D /Y /R "$(TargetPath)" "%ProgramFiles%\Windows Live\Writer\Plugins\"
Build project.

Note: In order for the post build event to work you need to run Visual Studio as Administrator.

That’s it for now,
Arik Poznanski.

Never Forget To Tag Your Post Again!

arik — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 04:26:47 GMT

Background

A few days ago, there was a bloggers meeting at Microsoft Raanana Office.

While I was there I’ve heard some people complain that they sometimes forget to add the proper tags to their blog posts (e.g. DEV, ITPRO, TECH, OFFTOPIC, VIDEO).

Presenting: Check For Missing Tags Plug-in

I’ve decided to pick up the glove and implement a Windows Live Writer plug-in that will remind you to add the proper tags.

Trying to post without proper tagging when the plug-in is installed will result with the following dialog:

Clicking on the Cancel button (which is the default) will abort the publish operation and will let you update the categories.

The list of required categories is saved in a simple text file (required_categories.txt) next to the plug-in dll.

How Do I Install This Cool Plug-in?

Download the following zip file.
Extract it into C:\Program Files\Windows Live\Writer\Plugins\ or the equivalent folder on your system (on 64 bit systems it’s Program Files (x86) ).
Enjoy :)

If you’re interested in the code, check out the following post.

That’s it for now,
Arik Poznanski.

Happy Blog Day #1

arik — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 06:01:19 GMT

It has been a year since I’ve started blogging and I think this is a good point for thinking where I was , where I am and where I’m going.

In this year I’ve written 46 posts. Not bad, but not nearly as much as I want or as much ideas I have for posts. Unfortunately, (or fortunately?) I enjoy my work so much that I often find myself practicing it on my spare time, leaving less time for blogging.

The topics I’ve blogged about where mostly Windows 7 related features (over 70%), the rest is divided between WPF and .NET 4 related posts.

On the coming year I hope I can dedicate more time for blogging.
Regarding the topics I’ll write about, I can’t predict the future, so I won’t commit to nothing. That being said, I think what will interest me in the near future is WPF and Silverlight (both for web and Windows Phone), Windows 7 and .NET internals.

I wish you all a happy new (blogging) year.

That’s it for now,
Arik Poznanski.