.NET

While retrieving a list of multimedia files, I ended up with a list of files with 4-character names that meant nothing. Grrr…. So I decided to create a small utility to rename the files according to a pattern I already had on my machine based on the artist, album, and song title.

But a problem quickly arose: How to retrieve this metadata (mainly from MP3 files)?

So I did what I often do when I have a question, I did a little search. And I found on this StackOverflow result a link to TagLib# (also working on Mono)! This library from Novell does all the work for me! It allows me to access metadata for many different types of files. Here is the basic example among several provided on their site:

I encountered a situation while developing a WPF application that used the ObservableCollection class. Here is the description:

Problem:

A collection of items that contains several items (which themselves implement the INotifyPropertyChanged interface). I need to perform certain calculations: total items to be completed, total completed items, remaining items, etc. But when one of these items changed status and became completed, it was impossible to push the information (push) to a higher level.

For some time now, I have had the chance to experiment with PRISM and I really like what it brings to the table. But I also use some Telerik controls for WPF, and after doing some research, I noticed that Telerik has included in its documentation some elements about PRISM.

Here are some interesting links:

• Telerik Sales Dashboard White Paper: Example of applications using PRISM and the MVVM pattern
• Introduction to PRISM with the RadControls for WPF on TelerikTV
• PRISM on the WPF forum by Telerik

If you have other interesting articles, let me know via the comments or my contact page

Here is a collection of tools/plugins/utilities that allow you to work even more efficiently with VS2010. Here are the three that I install with VS2010. While you’re at it, take a look at the Visual Studio Gallery, you’re sure to find something interesting!

Visual Studio 2010 Pro Power Tools

Newly arrived, the Pro Power Tools offer better tab management (by project, color coding, scrolling, stacking, …) as well as search in the Add Reference menu, which is quite nice, and I even noticed an improvement in the performance of this dialog.

Éric Moreau wrote an article about an interesting component that I didn’t know about (available since 2.0): the TextFieldParser. It provides methods and objects for parsing structured text files (i.e. .CSV).

Unfortunately, Microsoft included it in the Microsoft.VisualBasic.dll extension. Even though you can add this extension in C#, it is not really specific to VB.

Happy reading

For some time now, I have been experimenting with Silverlight and PRISM. If you are curious like me, here are some links to help you get started:

• The source code on Codeplex
• To evaluate the Composite Application Guidance
• The development activities, a more visual representation of all available modules/functions. In fact, it is a large list of well-explained How-To’s.
• Enterprise Library on Codeplex
• And most importantly: download the Composite Application Guidance, Project Linker, and sources.

Good luck, and if you have other links, feel free to leave a comment!

As I say in a previous post, VS2010 RC won’t last forever, it’s look like all RC version will be expiring on June 30 2010. So make sure to upgrade your version or go get theExpress editions (C#, VB, C++, Web developper and Windows Phone) !

ResourceBlender is a utility that allows you to translate your strings very easily (you can even use Google Translate automatically if you are lazy or do not have high translation quality standards).

It can generate RESX files (.Net), Java, XML, etc. In addition to having import functions and reusing already translated strings. See all features here…

The source code is obviously on Codeplex

The keyboard shortcuts posters (in English only) for Visual Studio 2010 are now available (C++, C#, F#, and VB).

Source of the information

VS2010 is now available (Trial, Express and for MSDN subscribers). Scott Hanselman has written an excellent article summarizing all the new features of this new version, now it’s your turn to play!