Web Developer Blog

An interview with the chief Mozilla Firefox developer. Looks like 0.9 will be very good when it comes out. I wonder if a lot of people will switch when version 1.0 comes out? The future may be looking good for Mozilla. Will Internet Explorer be improved and the competition be renewed like in the Netscape days?

My MyGeneration template, ASP.NET DataGrid has been added to the Template Library at the MyGeneration website.

A way to access your SQL Server MSDE Database via the Web: Microsoft SQL Web Data Administrator . There is also a third party tool that works a bit like Enterprise Manager called ASP.Net Enterprise Manager . Both are probably best only used on development databases rather than production ones, but can be useful if you wish to administrate when you don't have Enterprise Manager installed - i.e. so you can admin the server on any PC.

Template for MyGeneration that generates a project file for SharpDevelop , to be placed in the same directory as the generated dOOdads business entities. Also MyGeneration.dOOdads.dll has to be placed in the bin\Release subfolder - i.e. My Documents\SharpDevelop Projects\My Project\bin\Release Interface Code: Dim cmbDatabases Dim lstTables Sub setup() If Not input.Contains("lstTables") Or Not input.Contains("txtPath") Then ui.Title = "Generate SharpDevelop Project" ui.Width = 330 ui.Height = 400 ' Grab default output path Dim sOutputPath sOutputPath = "" If input.Contains("defaultOutputPath") Then sOutputPath = input.Item("defaultOutputPath") End If ui.AddLabel "lblPath", "Output file path: ", "Select the output path." ui.AddTextBox "txtPath", sOutputPath, "Select the Output Path." ui.AddFilePicker "btnPath", "Select Pat...

SnippetCompiler App - a useful application for compiling .NET code snippets, can import VS.NET projects. Has Intellisense and snippets can be exported to RTF or HTML format. Easier than using the command prompt for compiling. SharpDevelop is a useful Open Source IDE for .NET, so allows you develop without Visual Studio. Unfortunately it is not so good a doing AS.NET projects and is more focused on WinForms development. Currently in Beta 1 status.

Very good tools I have been using for a while. FileZilla is a excellent FTP client which is Open Source. The current version (2.2.6) is for Windows only (may work on Linux via Wine though). Apparently there will be no more development done on this version, but a version 3 is in the works - it should work cross platform when it is release. Progress can be followed on the Development Forum on the site. Notepad2 is a very good Notepad replacement and offers features like syntax highlighting, regular expression search, brace matching, auto indenting and more. The replace Notepad batch file script I posted earlier can be used to replace Notepad with this program. There is another batch file that can do this, but it cannot be use as a generic replacement program for notepad. Here is another method to do it - for XP only. Also mentioned on the PowerToys WebLog .

Let Them Eat Cake: A List Apart - this is an article on making your web pages both accessible AND usable. For it to work you must have a well structured page, with links to various parts of the page at the top. Add in a bit of CSS and DOM compliant JavaScript and your done. The good thing is it works with JavaScript disabled. The code is kept entirely separate from the content so you can have the page in XHTML Strict mode (no inline CSS or JavaScript, the example uses XHTML Strict). There is very little JavaScript involved. For those with older browser (IE4, Netscape 4), the user will just get the basic page - but as very few people use these browsers, most visitors will get the best experience.