Brian McNamara - MSFT's Q&A profile

• Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc. Rants on XNA 1.0

  This is my first reaction when I installed and tried the 1.0 of XNA. To summarize my feeling: it's still 95% for XBox and no nearer to replace the old MDX 1.0. So I decided not to migrate from MDX to XNA though I want to do that very much. I feel like MDX 2 more; amen to MDX 2. The hardest issue for me is the content pipeline, which is very necessary, but the workflow is fixed and it assumes the contents are only built before the program runs. The helper functions wrapping D3DX can only be used with types in the content pipeline. I have to utilize the full content pipeline just for generating something dynamically, of course with significant performance cost. Or I have to write those D3DX utilities my self. Currently I don't have a good id ...Show All

• Visual Studio Express Editions VB2005Exp-Jet/ADOX

  Hello, Why try to code a small application with an Access (Jet) database  Portability and the simplicity to back up data. Although today's huge HDs allow the installation of a SQL server 2005, the back up/restore of the database and is neither for a causal user nor for a newbie. I wonder, why the Compact Edition is not included in the VB Express How can the hobbyist show up his great "Hello World" program to his friends  After all VB Express is dedicated to the hobbyist. Is it Whatever. After spending a few days trying to figure out how to get Jet and work with ADOX, with  great help from the Forum, got a Jet database into VB Express. Scouring the "H ...Show All

• SQL Server Whats the difference between a dialog and a conversation?

  As above I guessed as much. BOL however uses the two as the same thing and often refers to the one as the other i.e. "a dialog is a conversation". Not sure what can be done, but I have found it confusing, you begin a dialog but end a conversation begin dialog returns a dialog handle, but end conversation takes a conversation_handle. Even though they are the same thing. ...Show All

• SQL Server export PDF under a button click

  How can I realize export PDF under a button click in my ASP.Net 2.0/SQL2005 application Any example will greatly be appreciated. The ASP.NET ReportViewer control will allow you to export a generated report to any of the supported formats, but if you need to do so programatically here is how you can do it. Replace MHTML with PDF in the sample code. ...Show All

• Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc. Retrieving effects and textures

  Assuming that I have a model in 3DS Max that I export into a FBX file, which goes through the content pipeline, and is then loaded into the runtime as a Model, how do I go about getting the 3DS texture and effects bindings from my C# code Looking at the Model class all I can see hanging off it is an Effect class, but no texture references - are the textures supposed to be embedded in the effect files If so, how should I set the effects in 3DS so that they are imported via the content pipeline Sorry if there is an obvious answer to this, but I'm more used to dealing with pure HLSL/ASM files rather than effects files.. Andy. Take a look at the .xnb files produced when you build the model. Can you fi ...Show All

• Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc. Rotating an entity problems - (Not camera)

  Hi, I'm trying to create a rotate(float pitch,float yaw,float roll) function for my entity class, (The camera one works fine) but despite it working sort of, the model locks up at certain angles(I.e becomes very stiff and hard to rotate, like gimble lock but worse) Here's the function in question [code] public void Rotate( Vector3 Rotation) { Matrix m1 = Matrix .CreateRotationX( MathHelper .ToRadians(Rotation.X)); Matrix m2 = Matrix .CreateRotationY( MathHelper .ToRadians(Rotation.Y)); Matrix m3 = Matrix .CreateRotationZ( MathHelper .ToRadians(Rotation.Z)); LocalRotation = m2 * m3 * m1;   Update(); } [/code]   I've tried every order possible, doesn't make any differenc ...Show All

• Windows Forms find RowIndex in DataGrid.Rows

  Hi, I used one pop-up window to choose a value in a list (table A). Back to DataGrid(Bind to table B, but A and B have a same key), how can I find RowIndex of the selected row in the DataGrid instead of using foreach to check one by one. DataView also can't be used for some new DataRows are added. Thanks a lot for your help! sizhen If the rowindex in the DataTable is the same as in the datagrid, just add a PrimaryKey to the datatable. Afterwards, get the index of the row you need by using the methods IndexOf() and Find(), with the key as a parameter for the find-method. Is this what you're looking for Reinout dt.PrimaryKey = new DataColumn [] { dt.Columns[ "ID" ] }; dt.Row ...Show All

• .NET Development Database insert problem

  Hi! I'm attempting to insert records from a tab-delimited text file into a database. I can successfully parse the text file and get the data into a datatable. I verified this by binding the datatable to a gridview - I can see all the rows. My problem is when I try to insert those records into a SQL 2005 table. The error I get is: System.ArgumentException: Input array is longer than the number of columns in this table. My database has 36 columns. When I generate the datatable, I leave out the primary key column because such a column doesn't exist in the text file. Obviously, I'll need a primary key in the database. My goal is to insert the data via stored procedure. Does my stored procedure have to have a parameter for the primar ...Show All

• .NET Development Using Sgen.exe /t for multiple types

  Hi, For an assembly containing only a few classes relevant for the XMLSerializer among lots of other classes I want to generate the XMLSerialzer assembly via the SGen.exe tool: sgen /a:Test.dll /t:TestClassName This works well for one type name given by the argument /t but it does not work for multiple type names: sgen /a:Test.dll /t:TestClassName1 /t:TestClassName2 I consider this an important requirement for the Sgen tool, which seems not to be taken into account. Can someone from Microsoft comment on this Is there a third-party SGen able to do this Thanks a lot. Frank "...contact me directly..." . How I am really interested in getting my hands on the sgenplu ...Show All

• Smart Device Development Panel.BringToFront() covers MainMenu!!!

  Hello, I implement a multiple layer form by means of few Panel objects, I switch between panels by calling BringToFront() on the panel I want to show, every thing worked well untill I had to add a MainMenu to my form, each time I call BringToFront() on one of the panels, it goes over the main menu, hiding all menu items! Anyone has encountered such a problem, who can help me please, knowing that I use the compact framework v1.0 SP3. Regards. Hi, how did you configure the Dock property of the panels You might set them to Full to have them resize to the complete form area without menu bar and/or status bar. -- SvenC ...Show All

• .NET Development The best practice of using DataSet

  Hi all! I'm developing an application under Framework 2.0,  Visual Studio 2005. The business-logic model I'm using is a Table Module using DataSet. I want to do the application in a "classical" style of using DataSet and Table module business-logic and I want to use only standard "Microsoft-recommended" solutions. So I'm doing the following: to handle some use case (for example, to show joined data in a grid from several database tables) I'm creating a DataSet with the tables I want to join. Then I'm creating the big table to be shown on presentation layer. To insert the data into this "supertable" I'm using relations which I'm designing in the DataSet designer and xpression property of columns as ...Show All

• Visual C++ CreateProcess VS2005

  First id like to say i apologise for the repeat post on this topic ive seen quite a few about create process. However ive come accross a problem i havn't seen addressed before... The example works in msdn help... but im having some trouble using a variable.. ill explain... heres the working one... LPTSTR szCmdline=_tcsdup(TEXT("cgi.exe")); now the main problem is getting a variable in place there... ive tried a few things.. one being string cgi="cgi.exe"; LPTSTR szCmdline=(LPTSTR)cgi.c_str(); CreateProcess(NULL, szCmdline, NULL, NULL, TRUE, 0, NULL, NULL, &StartupInfo, &ProcessInformation); The other problem is i need to get the file to load outside the directory of the parent process... which i cant get to wor ...Show All

• Visual Studio Problem using SandCastle with ASP.NET 2.0 WebSite

  Hello, I have all the pre-compiled dlls of the asp.net 2.0 application, I trying to use Eric Woodruff's sandcastle GUI While building the build fails asking for System.Configuration unresolved assembly reference: System.Configuration (System.Configuration, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a) required by App_WebReferences BUILD FAILED: Unexpected error in last build step. See output above for details. Does it necessary that i should include all the namepaces used to build documentation for a project. Can anyone point me who to use sandcastle with asp.net web applications. thanks!! sqlnew I'm not sure which file you are refering to when you say ...Show All

• Windows Live Developer Forums Seamonkey

  Hi I am currently using Seamonkey 1.1 as my default browser (Mozilla) and e-mail client. I am no techie, but when I was using SM 1.0.7, I had no problem being able to use the full version of Live mail and my personalized home at Live.com. After my upgrade to SM 1.1, I am not able to use these features. I have tried asking this question in the feedback section of Live.com, twice. So far there has been no response. I know the website says compatible only with IE 7 and FF 1.5. But since the features were available with an earlier version of Seamonkey, I am kind of surprised to not being able to do so now. Is there a workaround to this issue Thanks Hi, Have you checked with the seamonkey team to find out ...Show All

• Visual Basic refresh labels databound text property

  Hi, I have a form with a combo box... I have a label that is bound to a column that displays info based on whats selected in the combo. It looks fine when I first load the form. When I change the index of the CBO the text of the label stays the same. I know I need to write code to do this in the SelectedIndexChanged event of the CBO but im struggling. Can someone tell me how once the index is changed in the CBO, I can get the label's text property to change appropriately to that of the value it should be Thanks! Pace if I understand correctly, you wish to change the label text property to show the value chosen by the drop down list (combobox) if so try this: on the selectedIndexChanged event of the combobox: ...Show All