Show/hide GuiPlugin in EPiServer

To make a plugin only show on specific pages follow these steps.

1. Create your plugin as usual.
2. Implement the ICustomPluginLoader interface.
3. Return a empty PluginDescriptor[] in the List() function for all pages that you don’t want the plugin to be visible.

In the example below the plugin is only visible for the startpage.

[GuiPlugIn(DisplayName = "Rates & Indexes", 
 Description = "Edit rates and indexes", 
 Area = PlugInArea.EditPanel, 
 Url = "~/RatesAndIndexes/RatesAndIndexes.ascx")]
public partial class RatesAndIndexes : System.Web.UI.UserControl, ICustomPlugInLoader
{
 public PlugInDescriptor[] List()
 {
  EPiServer.UI.Edit.EditPanel editPanel = (EPiServer.UI.Edit.EditPanel) System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Handler;    
  if (EPiServer.Core.PageReference.StartPage.ID != editPanel.CurrentPage.PageLink.ID)
  {
   return new PlugInDescriptor[] { };
  }
  else
  {
   return new PlugInDescriptor[] {  PlugInDescriptor.Load(this.GetType()) }; }
  }
 }
}

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Testing Internet explorer

IETester is a free WebBrowser that allows you to have the rendering and javascript engines of IE8, IE7 IE 6 and IE5.5 on Windows 7, Vista and XP, as well as the installed IE in the same process.

Great tool for testing websites in different versions of Internet Explorer

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Convert old harddrive to VHD

I recently upgraded to Win7 on my laptop, but I still needed my old environment (WinXP).

So I installed Win7 on a fresh new disk that was bigger and better than my old. That way I always could swap disk if I needed my old environment. But I also was hoping for a solution where I could run my old system inside Virtual PC, and now it is.

I used the tool Disk2vhd from Microsoft Sysinternals.

For WinXP remember to set “Fix up HAL for Virtual pc”.

When its finished, you need to create a new Virtual PC and used the newly created vhd file as its harddrive. You also will need to activate windows once more when you startup. At least I had to.

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Remote Desktop Manager

Remote Desktop Manager is a small application used to manage all your remote connections and virtual machines. Add, edit, delete, shared, organize and find your remote connection quickly. Compatible with Microsoft Remote Desktop, Terminal Services, VNC, LogMeIn, Team Viewer, Ftp, SSH, Telnet, Dameware, X Window, VMWare, Virtual PC, PC Anywhere, Hyper-V, Citrix, Radmin, Microsoft Remote Assistance, Sun Virtual Box and more.

http://remotedesktopmanager.com

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WinMerge

WinMerge is an Open Source differencing and merging tool for Windows. WinMerge can compare both folders and files, presenting differences in a visual text format that is easy to understand and handle.

http://winmerge.org/

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C# ?? Operator

The null-coalescing operator is a great way to save space in your code.

// if ObjectThatCouldBeNull is null then print out the default text
// otherwise print the object value

if(ObjectThatCouldBeNull != null)
{
 Console.WriteLine("{0}", ObjectThatCouldBeNull);
}
else
{
 Console.WriteLine("Value is null");
}

// a better way
Console.WriteLine("{0}", ObjectThatCouldBeNull != null ? ObjectThatCouldBeNull : "Value is null");

// a even better way
Console.WriteLine("{0}", ObjectThatCouldBeNull ?? "Value is null");

sweet :-)

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JQuery with maphighlight in IE8

If you have problem using jQuery and maphighlight in Internet Explorer 8, this link explains why:

https://connect.microsoft.com/IE/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=333905&wa=wsignin1.0

The reason is that IE8 have changed it’s support for VML rendering.

A simple solution to get your page to function in IE8 is to use the following tag

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=7" />

This will cause the IE capability mode to kick in and everything should now work fine

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Installing MVC on IIS 6

I needed to get a MVC application installed on a Windows 2003 Server.The following pages helped a lot:

http://www.asp.net/learn/mvc/tutorial-08-cs.aspx

http://blog.codeville.net/2008/07/04/options-for-deploying-aspnet-mvc-to-iis-6/

But still after using the solutions mentioned in these pages the solution would not run. That’s when i realized that asp.net was disabled on the server.

Running the command

aspnet_regiis.exe -i –enable

fixed the problem.. Sometimes you just miss the obvious. :-)

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