Arik Poznanski's Blog : Plug-in

Workaround For Crash In Performance Profiling Tools for WPF

arik — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 15:12:56 GMT

Introduction

Every WPF developer knows the situation where you have a large line-of-business application, you’ve implemented all the features and when you finally run it on real data – it runs s-l-o-w.

Optimization Time!

Optimization for performance is fun since a 1% change of code gets you 99% change in performance. However, finding the one location you should change can be a pain.

This is why we’ve invented performance profilers. Profilers can help you pin-point the problem.

WPF?

WPF applications performance problems can usually be categorized to several kinds, for example, layout related, rendering related, etc.
Following is a nice list of common places to optimize when you work with WPF applications.

Microsoft provides a profiler specifically tuned for finding WPF related issues. You can find the installation guidelines on MSDN.

Note: if this is the first time you use it, and you don’t get the data, try the patch mentioned in this post.

When the profiler does work, it produces very interesting information.
For example, in the following image we can see the visual tree on the left and in it the hot element (painted red) where a lot of CPU cycles went (either due to rendering or layout).

You can also see different categories of WPF (dispatcher related, layout related, rendering related, etc.) on the right and how much they affect the running application.

For more information I suggest you read on MSDN on how to work with this excellent tool, but now I want to discuss a different aspect of it.

Real Life Scenario

On real life applications the visual tree on the left can get quite big and the fact is that when you go too deep with the tree control the WPF profiler crash! Usually with an error similar to this:

The problem is that the tree got too deep and WPF itself doesn’t support it.

Optimal Solution

What I would have liked from MS is a button that lets me set the current element as the new root of the tree so I could continue my search on the visual tree to find the hot element. Or at least provide the code for the WPF profiler, so I could do this myself.

Unfortunately, none of these options are available so I was forced to find a different solution.

My Solution

What I did was a little hacky, but nevertheless provides a solution to the problem.

The WPF profiler works with plugins. In fact the Visual Profiler itself is implemented as a plugin which comes by default.

So I’ve create a new plugin, which I called “My Visual Profiler”. My plugin aggregated the original plugin and adds a button on top of it. Then, using some nasty reflection I modify the tree so that the currently selected item in the tree is added to the root element. This enables me to continue debugging and effectively remove the limitation I previously had.

If you come across the same problem, you can use my plugin, provided here.

That’s it for now,
Arik Poznanski.

Spelling and Grammar Checking Plugin for Windows Live Writer

arik — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 02:04:42 GMT

Introduction

In my previous post I’ve presented “After the Deadline”, a spelling and grammar checking web service and my .NET wrapper library. This library allows you to integrate spell and grammar checking in your .NET application. The library was written in C# using .NET 4.

Also, back in this post, I’ve presented how one can use a .NET 4 DLL from a .NET 2 executable.

All of this was just preparations for writing my own grammar checker plugin for Windows Live Writer.

Now, I know what you’re thinking.. “Doesn’t WLW already have a spell checker?”
Answer: it does, but its grammar checking abilities are quite limited.

Obviously, I’ve used my “After the Deadline” wrapper library for the grammar checking. And since Windows Live Writer plugins must be written in .NET 2, I’ve used the same techniques mentioned in my previous article mentioned above.

Where can I get this awesome plugin?

Well, both the source code and an MSI installer can be downloaded from the downloads section in the new CodePlex project I’ve created.

Using the spelling and grammar checker plugin

Step 1: Select the text you want to check

Step 2: Go to the “Insert” tab and select “Grammar Checker” from the listed plugins

Step 3: Correct the presented errors using the “Spelling and Grammar” dialog

Step 4: Repeat step 3 until a completed message appears

P.S.

Somehow, merely 2 days after I've created the CodePlex project there were three blog posts about it. WOW. I guess this plugin was needed more than I thought.

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.

Live Writer “Share” Plug-in Posted to MSN Gallery

arik — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 21:01:56 GMT

In one of my previous posts I’ve published the code for a Live Writer plug-in that allows you to easily add to your post share buttons for common technological sharing sites, like:

DotNetKicks
DotNetShoutout
CodeProject blog feed
DZone
AddThis (facebook, twitter, mail, etc.)

Since I figured this plug-in can be useful to other people as well I’ve published it on the Microsoft Live Gallery, a gallery for Live Writer plug-ins and more.

You can download the plug-in here and find details and source here.

That’s it for now,
Arik Poznanski.

Live Writer Plug-in for Sharing Technical Post

arik — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 00:45:00 GMT

Adding a new post to my blog was always a daunting task.
I had to follow these steps:

Write the post on Windows Live Writer
Publish it and get the post link
Submit to DotNetKicks and get their counter html
Submit to DotNetShoutout and get their counter html
Prepare html for my CodeProject blog feed
Edit the post and add the html I’ve collected in the previous steps
Republish post

Well, no more!

Inspired by Guy Burstein’s post I’ve decided to write my own Live Writer Plug-in that will handle all of this mess for me.

In order to test the plug-in I have to publish something on my blog.
So, this is it. Wish me luck.

How to implement a Windows Live Writer Plug-in that adds sharing buttons to your post

First, credit goes to Guy Burstein for providing a reflectable DLL in his post.
Also, I’ve used guidelines for Windows Live Writer Plug-in written by Scøtt Lovegrove.

The end result is a plug-in that adds to your posts the following share icons:

Since enough information already exists on this subject, I’ll just quickly review the steps I’ve followed:

1. Create new Class Library project, using .NET Framework 2.0 (!)

Not sure why, but Microsoft recommends to use version 2.0 of the .NET Framework when writing a Windows Liver Writer plug-in.

2. Add reference to WindowsLive.Writer.Api.Dll, which resides in the Windows Live Writer folder (e.g. \Program Files\Windows Live\Writer\)

3. Add “using WindowsLive.Writer.Api;”

4. Create a class that inherits HeaderFooterSource

This type of plug-in allows us to add custom generated html in either the header or the footer of the post.

5. Put WriterPlugin attribute on the class

Here is the code for a basic version of the plug-in (only has one button):

using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using WindowsLive.Writer.Api;

namespace ShareTechPost
{
    [WriterPlugin("00407F92-2152-4339-A9A5-B89873EB77A7", 
        "Share Technological Post",
        PublisherUrl = "http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/arik/",
        Description = "A plugin that lets you share a technological" + 
                      " post on numerous sharing sites.",
        ImagePath = "writer.png", 
        HasEditableOptions = true)]
    public class ShareTechPostPlugin : HeaderFooterSource
    {
        private Settings _settings;

        public override bool RequiresPermalink
        {
            get
            {
                return true;
            }
        }

        public override void Initialize(IProperties pluginOptions)
        {
            base.Initialize(pluginOptions);

            _settings = new Settings(pluginOptions);
        }

        public override void EditOptions(IWin32Window dialogOwner)
        {
            SettingsForm settingsForm = new SettingsForm(_settings);
            settingsForm.ShowDialog(dialogOwner);
        }

        public override string GeneratePreviewHtml(
            ISmartContent smartContent, 
            IPublishingContext publishingContext, 
            out Position position)
        {
            position = Position.Footer;

            StringBuilder generatedHtml = new StringBuilder();

            if (_settings.AddDotNetKicks)
            {
                generatedHtml.AppendFormat
                    ("<a href=\"http://www.dotnetkicks.com/kick/" + 
                    "?url={0}\"><img border=\"0\" "+
                    "alt=\"kick it on DotNetKicks.com\" " + 
                    "src=\"http://www.dotnetkicks.com/" + 
                    "Services/Images/KickItImageGenerator.ashx" + 
                    "?url={0}&amp;bgcolor=6600FF\" /></a> ",
                    publishingContext.PostInfo.Permalink);
            }
                        
            return generatedHtml.ToString();
        }

        public override string GeneratePublishHtml(
            IWin32Window dialogOwner, 
            ISmartContent smartContent, 
            IPublishingContext publishingContext, 
            bool publish, 
            out Position position)
        {
            return GeneratePreviewHtml(
                smartContent, 
                publishingContext, 
                out position);
        }
    }
}

The Settings class and SettingsForm just lets you control some of the sharing options.

This is how the settings form look like:

You can find the full source for this plug-in here.

That’s it for now,
Arik Poznanski.