Monthly Archives: May 2006

ASP.net 2.0: CSS Control Adapter Toolkit

May 7, 2006ProgrammingAlistair Lattimore

Anyone that has worked with ASP.net that cares about web standards has no doubt lamented the HTML output of most web controls at some point. Thankfully with ASP.net 2.0, times are changing for the better. Scott Guthrie recently introduced the CSS Control Adapter Toolkit which provides a seamless way to improve the HTML output of your controls without effecting how they are used.

Being able to change the HTML output of a server control isn’t a new idea, you’ve been able to do it since day dot. Unfortunately, each method which allows you to override the HTML output has its own problems. In the case of a custom control, they are a lot of work to develop from the ground up and if you simply inherit a web control you then lose the ability to just ‘drag and drop’ and have it just work. Using CSS Control Adapters would allow you to change the HTML output of a web control, without creating a custom control or changing how you use the standard web controls.

To provide a simple example, consider a treeview style menu control. For the sake of an example, lets assume that the HTML output of that control by default is a convoluted nested mess of <table> tags. Since you’re a standards advocate and you care about the health of your clients browser, you’d really like to clean that up. You could implement a CSS Control Adapter to render you’re favourite treeview menu control using an elegant unordered list (<ul>). Better yet, maybe you don’t get consistent rendering of your fangdangle control on a particular platform/browser (a handheld device might be an excellent example). You could implement a handful of CSS Control Adapters for your web control and then customise which one is used through the use of a .browser file. The .browser files are used to register your adapters and also provides a simple way to define that adapter A is used in browsers H and I while adapter B is used in browsers E, F and G.

The significance of the CSS Control Adapter is that you can change the HTML output of a server control, without changing how the standard object is used. This means you could start implementing adapters for your existing code base, enable them and you haven’t had to change any of your existing code or how you were using the web controls! Pretty neat stuff I think and definitely a positive step in the right direction for ASP.net 2.0!

A Change Is As Good As A Holiday

May 3, 2006ProgrammingAlistair Lattimore

For a while now I’ve felt like learning a new programming language, something different which doesn’t have the very familiar C-style syntax.

In the last year or so, there has been a lot of press around the ‘new’ programming language Python. Python is an interpreted dynamic object oriented language, in fact the language itself is implemented using objects such that a primitive like an integer is in fact an object. Python provides the ability to write command line, network aware, GUI and web based applications.

I’ve decided to give Python a serious look and over the coming weeks and months, I’ll be posting various code snippets and thoughts about it here for you to read and evaluate for yourself. Hopefully we’ll all learn something useful from it, happy hacking.

Farewell Gizmo

May 1, 2006Animals, PhotosAlistair Lattimore

One day about in about 1990, my cousin Rachel turned up at my place with a tiny golden Pomeranian cross Corgi puppy. From memory, mum & dad were not that pleased about the situation since they had no notice what so ever! None the less, the cute fluffy puppy soon became part of the family.

I don’t recall who named her, however she got her name “Gizmo” from the 1984 movie Gremlins. When Gizmo was still very tiny, she hadn’t grown quite into her ears yet. As such, when she was on her back – her ears deflopped and sat up nicely, she looked very cute.

As she was growing up, she was the most beautifully natured dog. About the only problem we ever had with her in that regard was that, at times, she could be a little snappy around little kids. She would never really bite, however if they were patting her too hard or doing something to annoy her – she’d give a little snap in their direction and it soon brought the kids back inline. One of my clearest memories of Gizmo happened regularly in the evening when George (read: Dad) would return home from work. As soon as Dad made any noise as he was pulling into the driveway, Gizmo would bolt flat out from one end of the house to the other. She would arrive at her destination with gusto and excitement, tail wagging furiously just begging to get a pat! Unfortunately, as she was growing up her excitement often got the better of her bladder and she would piddle near the door!

Gizmo also loved riding in cars. Our family owns an old Ford Falcon ute which we restored many moons ago. It doesn’t get used for a lot of stuff these days, mostly heading out to the dump and for convenience. Since it was an old ute, it had a very distinctive sound to the engine and exhaust; Gizmo knew it well. As soon as we’d turn it over, she’d be normally be there in a snap hoping she could come for a drive. She’d sit on the parcel shelf, and stick her head out the window in the wind, she loved it. For those uninitiated, the parcel shelf is the small shelf that is at about shoulder height when sitting in a ute and is immediately behind the seats.

In the last few years, Gizmo’s health has been quietly deteriorating. She has been nearly totally deaf for the last two years and as old age set in, her general mobility has decreased too. In the last year, that has since become more of an issue as her arthritis started to really hinder her movement. Getting up and down steps had become difficult and you could see her back hips and legs had become a little weak. Its really sad to see your family pet get old and its a shame that we outlast them I think, but it is just part of the life cycle.

I’d prefer to remember all of the great times she has brought our family and friends over the years. You’ll be missed Gizzy.