Food

I found out this site that contains a lot of useful information for who cooks rarely (like me).

Indesign SDK - plugin ID

Don't forget to register you plugin with Adobe in order to have an unique Plugin ID. Adobe provided an How to explaining all the necessary steps. The registration page is here.

Indesign SDK - Front Document

When you want to obtain a pointer to the current front document (the one the user is editing) you could use

InterfacePtr doc(Utils()->GetFrontDocument(), UseDefaultIID());

but when you are inside an action component it may not work, instead you should use

InterfacePtr doc(ac->GetContextDocument(), UseDefaultIID());

where ac is the IActiveContext* passed in the DoAction.

Source code mismatch during debugging

When you are debugging an application, if the source executed by the debugger is different than the actual source code (i.e. the code executed is not the code showed in the source code) and you are sure the pdb is absolutely right for that dll/exe, it means one of these 2 things:

1. your source code is not up to date;

2. you may have non-dos line ending mixed in the file.

I did have this problem in the past days with code I've written pretty much from scratch, it turned up to be case number 2. Probably I copy-pasted a small portion from a mac code. A full conversion to DOS endings of the source file solved the problem. I was plagued by it since two weeks ago, but only in two files, that I didn't change very much in the last days, so I let the problem remain, but today I decided I had to solve the problem because there weren't any reasonable explanation of this weird problem. Fortunately I had the idea of checking the line endings of the file and that solved my problems.

Indesign SDK - Query story metadata

How to query for story's metadata?

Simple, assuming storyRef is the UIDRef of the story:

    Utils inCopyWorkFlowUtils;

    InterfacePtr model(storyRef, IID_ITEXTMODEL);

    ASSERT(model);

    InterfacePtr iMetaData(inCopyWorkFlowUtils->QueryTextMetaDataBoss(model, kTrue));

    if (iMetaData) {

        InterfacePtr mdAcc(iMetaData, UseDefaultIID());

        if (mdAcc) {

            InterfacePtr mdPaths(mdAcc->Enumerate(0));

            if (mdPaths) {

                // iterate thru all paths

                while (mdPaths->HasMorePaths()) {

                    PMString nspace, path;

                    // get the next path (by namespace and path)

                    mdPaths->GetNextPath(nspace, path);

                    PMString value;

                    MetaDataFeatures metaDataFeatures;

                    // inspect the node

                    if (mdAcc->Get(nspace, path, value, metaDataFeatures))

                    {

                    }

                }

            }

        }

    }

 

Indesign SDK: How to get the SysFile of a doc

very useful: How to get the SysFile of a doc

Indesign menus

It took me a while to figure it out how to add a submenu in the main File menu and position it whereever I want. The solution came from a Ken Sadahiro answer to a forum post, which point out to a Q & A session (login ASN web account required) on user interface.

I tried to do something similar, but the culprit is the 0 as the actionID for the sub-menu and the use of the delimiter ":" when adding the submenu.

NEP

I used to work for Tera until March 2003, recently I discovered a guy, Derek Lakin, who worked for NEP.

Nep (or I should say Nep's "this is" project) is a fantastic project that delivers all the regional news trough one big site, I was in charge of the part of the project that allow to transfer editorial content (pics and stories) from the editorial system to Nep's CMS.

Indesign SDK - custom draw palette

Indesign doesn't use windows to put together many panels into a palette or to draw the tab of a palette. It uses GDI (or the equivalent on the Mac) to draw everything on screen. IControlView is the interface for a "control", you can navigate the controls tree trough IWidgetParent interface (and GetParent method) and IPanelControlData or IPaletteControlData.

Suppose you have a panel that is subclassed by you, you can ask for the IPaletteControlData, this way:

IPaletteControlData* ppcd = nil;
InterfacePtr<IWidgetParent> parent(this, UseDefaultIID());
if( parent ) {
    ppcd = static_cast<IPaletteControlData*>(parent->QueryParentFor(IID_IPALETTECONTROLDATA));
}
InterfacePtr<IPaletteControlData> pcd(ppcd);
ASSERT(pcd);

Now you can use GetSectionCount and GetSection to retrieve the interface for the wanted control, the first one is the tab, the other is the entire panel. Suppose you want to enumerate the tabs in the palette, you need the PanelControlData for the tabs so:

InterfacePtr<IControlView> tabAreaView(pcd->GetSection(0), UseDefaultIID());
ASSERT(tabAreaView);
InterfacePtr<IPanelControlData> tabAreaCD(tabAreaView, UseDefaultIID());
ASSERT(tabAreaCD);
 
for(int32 idx = 0; idx < tabAreaCD->Length(); idx++) {
	InterfacePtr<IControlView> tabWidget(tabAreaCD->GetWidget(idx), UseDefaultIID());
}

And there you can draw whatever you want on the tab.

Indesign strikes back

This is related to incopy but I think indesign will behave the same because the plugins are cross-application ('till a certain point. i.e. you use specific custom functions).

The problem is another interface leak. The culprit is IWidgetUtils->QueryRelatedWidget, the documentation doesn't say anything particular about it but it looks to me that this method is returning an interface with the reference counter incremented.

I tried to look at the adobe samples but it is never used so I cannot say if I'm doing it wrong or the documentation (both help files and include files) is wrong. Anyway using the static_cast trick explained before solved my problem.

Pay attention to those leaks as soon as you got it, or you will have hard days finding the guilty.

InDesign newbiee problems

I was having an interface leak with InDesign, such leak caused all sort of others leaks that they had the potential to drive me to look at others places, fortunately I've got quite a lot experience with COM interface leaks.

After all the suspecting function was this one:

IPMUnknown* getPanelView(){

    InterfacePtr parent(this, UseDefaultIID());

    if( parent ) {

        InterfacePtr parentPanel(parent->GetParent(), UseDefaultIID());

        if( parentPanel )

            return parentPanel->QueryParentFor(IID_ICONTROLVIEW);

    }

    return nil;

} // getPanelView

In particular I was using such function with an InterfacePtr like this:

InterfacePtr<IControlView> panel(getPanelView(), UseDefaultIID());

However if you look at the include file for IWidgetParent, you will find that QueryParentFor will return a reference incremented ptr to interface this means I will leak a reference to that interface. InterfacePtr have a constructor that doesn't call AddRef on the interface and it's the one that didn't do the QueryInterface. So the correct InterfacePtr is:

InterfacePtr<IControlView> panel(getPanelView());

But getPanelView must return an IControlView* or we should cast it here, I prefer the first solution, so I'll have:

IControlView* getPanelView(){

    InterfacePtr parent(this, UseDefaultIID());

    if( parent ) {

        InterfacePtr parentPanel(parent->GetParent(), UseDefaultIID());

        if( parentPanel )

            return static_cast<IControlView*>(parentPanel->QueryParentFor(IID_ICONTROLVIEW));

    }

    return nil;

} // getPanelView

Moral of the story: read carefully documentation *and* include files before using any complex sdk.

incredible video

A friend of mine sent me a link to this really funny video I can't understand what they say but it is really really funny.

http://www.hugi.is/hahradi/bigboxes.php?box_id=51208&f_id=1000

Indesign UI

If you are developing a dynamic palette in which you want to host a custom panel, you must be sure that the WidgetID that you will set for the panel must not clash with any of the IDs defined elsewhere.

If they clash you will have some really strange behaviour, for example I aggregated a simple interface to the panel (interface that will give me access to panel's options) but when I assign a conflicting widgetID everyone seems to work except the aggregated interface was not created at all.

I'm not that smart....it took me a couple of days to figure it out.

PNG in Windows IE

PNG in Windows IE

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/bobosola/index.htm

 

How to solve the PNG transparency problem with Ie 5.5 and 6.

INTERNAL COMPILER ERROR vc7.1

I was porting some code from vc6 to vc7.1 and I got stuck in:

 

c:\build\main\.......\inc.h(27) : fatal error C1001: INTERNAL COMPILER ERROR

(compiler file 'msc1.cpp', line 2701)

Please choose the Technical Support command on the Visual C++

Help menu, or open the Technical Support help file for more information

 

Looking trough newsgroups microsoft.public.dotnet.languages.vc gave me a good hint:

"I spoke with Microsoft incident support for my MSDN licence and the fix is:

#if _MFC_VER < 0x0700
class CString;
#endif

CString is not a class in MFC anymore. It is a template in ATL so forward
declarations are invalid."

So I searched for CString forward declarations and I solved - quickly - my problem.

PInvoke.net

from www.pinvoke.net:

PINVOKE.NET attempts to address the difficulty of calling Win32 or other unmanaged APIs in managed code (languages such as C# and VB .NET).   Manually defining and using PInvoke signatures (also known as Declare statements in VB .NET) is an error-prone process that can introduce extremely subtle bugs.  The rules are complex, and if you make a mistake, you’ll probably corrupt memory.

 Therefore, this site is a repository where you can find, edit, and add PInvoke signatures, user-defined types, and any other information that helps us leverage each other’s efforts.  Think of this as the 21^st century version of VB6’s "API Text Viewer," a standalone application which used static files such as WIN32API.TXT as input.  Did you spend hours figuring out how to successfully define & call a given unmanaged API in managed code?  Share (and get credit for) your discovery here!  Is there an error on this site?  Go ahead and fix it!

 

randomness

Very interesting thoughts on random numbers. link: http://weblogs.asp.net/oldnewthing/archive/2004/04/12/111596.aspx

Visited Countries

This is the map of visited country 'till now.

 

Look at this to create your own visited country map.

Windows Forms FAQ

Windows Forms FAQ

the complete FAQ for c# newbies.

How to enable sound on a Virtual PC running Linux

Configure Sound in Red Hat Linux
1. Log into Red Hat Linux.
2. Start a terminal session, click the ‘Red Hat’, System Tools, then Terminal.
3. Type su and press Enter.
4. Enter the root password and press Enter.
5. Type cd /sbin and press Enter
6. Type ./sndconfig and press Enter.
7. Introduction: Press Enter.
8. Probe Results: Press Enter.
9. Card Type: Select Sound Blaster 16 and press Enter.
10. Card Settings:
a. I/O Port: Select 0x220 and press Tab.
b. IRQ: Select 5 and press Tab.
c. DMA 1: Select 1 and press Tab.
d. DMA 2: Select 5 and press Tab.
e. MPU I/O: Select 0x330 and press Tab.
f. Press Enter
11. Sound Card Test: Press Enter
NOTE Sound volume may be very low, adjust speakers accordingly.
12. Test Result: Press Enter if sound was heard, if not, Tab to select No and press Enter.
NOTE If no sound was heard, the most likely cause is lack of volume
13. File Exists: press Enter to overwrite the existing config file.
14. Type exit and press Enter to exit the root console.
15. Type exit and press Enter to exit the standard console.