Category: Programming

Posted on

Using Canvas in HTML5

multi-color circles overlapping

For my Art History class on Modern Art, I created a work of Conceptual Art. This work of post-modernist theory explores a non-determinist approach to building a unique creation. The method abstracts the input of the artist, who creates a framework for the piece and then sets in motion the process which completes it. This particular work, called “Orbs”, uses the new HTML5 canvas to create a random number of randomly sized and colored circles in the webpage on each page load. Due to the large number of random elements no two views of the art work should repeat.

http://www.rnuckolls.com/concept.html
Continue reading “Using Canvas in HTML5”

Posted on

Column Display of Multiple IDs in RTML

A common method for displaying a long list of products shows thumbnails arranged in rows and columns. It’s pretty easy to do if you hand code each item in each row and column. But what if you want to use a variable number of columns and products, like using the Yahoo! store Columns variable and the Specials homepage variable? This example demonstrates a Yahoo! store template which outputs the thumbnail, name and sale-price of a sequence of IDs in rows and columns using <DIV> tags. The sequence and number of columns are passed to the template. It will also check for the presence of and icon or image in the product and render a global “blank-image” image with name if there are none. Continue reading “Column Display of Multiple IDs in RTML”

Posted on

Populating Excel from Dataset

Exporting a set of data to an Excel spreadsheet is a very common task. Here is an easy method for outputting any dataset with any number of tables to Excel.

Private Sub ExportGenericExcel(ByVal Title As String, ByVal Source As DataSet)
‘Should add reference in Visual Studio to Microsoft Excel
Dim oExcel As Object
Dim oBook As Object
Dim oSheet As Object
Dim r, s, t As Integer
‘Start a new workbook in Excel.
oExcel = CreateObject(“Excel.Application”)
oBook = oExcel.Workbooks.Add
Dim sar As DataSet
sar = Source
For s = 0 To sar.Tables.Count – 1
If s > 2 Then oBook.Worksheets.Add()
oSheet = oBook.Worksheets(s + 1)
oSheet.Name = Title & s.ToString
oSheet.Select()
‘Add Column Names as first row in bold
For t = 0 To sar.Tables(s).Columns.Count – 1
oSheet.Cells(1, t + 1) = sar.Tables(s).Columns.Item(t).ColumnName
oSheet.cells(1, t + 1).font.bold = True
Next
For r = 0 To sar.Tables(s).Rows.Count – 1
For t = 0 To sar.Tables(s).Columns.Count – 1
oSheet.Cells(r + 2, t + 1) = sar.Tables(s).Rows(r).Item(t)
If r = 0 And t = 1 Then
oSheet.cells(r + 2, t + 1).Select()
oExcel.ActiveWindow.FreezePanes = True
End If
Next
Next
Next
‘ Make sure Excel is visible and give the user control of Excel’s lifetime.
oExcel.Visible = True
oExcel.UserControl = True
‘ Make sure that you release object references.
oSheet = Nothing
oBook = Nothing
‘oExcel.Quit() Without this the Excel process will remain open as long as the calling program is running
oExcel = Nothing
End Sub

Privatetheehgjgjfdhj

Private Sub ExportGenericExcel(ByVal Title As String, ByVal Source As DataSet)
‘Should add reference in Visual Studio to Microsoft Excel
Dim oExcel As Object
Dim oBook As Object
Dim oSheet As Object
Dim r, s, t As Integer
‘Start a new workbook in Excel.
oExcel = CreateObject(“Excel.Application”)
oBook = oExcel.Workbooks.Add
Dim sar As DataSet
sar = Source
For s = 0 To sar.Tables.Count – 1
‘oBook.Worksheets.Add()
oSheet = oBook.Worksheets(s + 1)
oSheet.Name = Title & s.ToString
oSheet.Select()
‘MsgBox(oSheet.name)
‘Transfer the array to the worksheet starting at cell A2.
‘oSheet.Range(“A2”).Resize(100, 3).Value = DataArray
For t = 0 To sar.Tables(s).Columns.Count – 1
oSheet.Cells(1, t + 1) = sar.Tables(s).Columns.Item(t).ColumnName
oSheet.cells(1, t + 1).font.bold = True
Next
For r = 0 To sar.Tables(s).Rows.Count – 1
For t = 0 To sar.Tables(s).Columns.Count – 1
oSheet.Cells(r + 2, t + 1) = sar.Tables(s).Rows(r).Item(t)
If r = 0 And t = 1 Then
oSheet.cells(r + 2, t + 1).Select()
oExcel.ActiveWindow.FreezePanes = True
End If
Next
Next
‘oSheet.Cells(2, 2).Select()
‘oExcel.ActiveWindow.FreezePanes = True
Next
‘ Make sure Excel is visible and give the user control
‘ of Excel’s lifetime.
oExcel.Visible = True
oExcel.UserControl = True
‘ Make sure that you release object references.
oSheet = Nothing
oBook = Nothing
oExcel.Quit()
oExcel = Nothing
End Sub

Sub ExportGenericExcel(ByVal Title As String, ByVal Source As DataSet)

‘Should add reference in Visual Studio to Microsoft Excel
Dim oExcel As Object
Dim oBook As Object
Dim oSheet As Object
Dim r, s, t As Integer
‘Start a new workbook in Excel.
oExcel = CreateObject(“Excel.Application”)
oBook = oExcel.Workbooks.Add
Dim sar As DataSet
sar = Source
For s = 0 To sar.Tables.Count – 1
‘oBook.Worksheets.Add()
oSheet = oBook.Worksheets(s + 1)
oSheet.Name = Title & s.ToString
oSheet.Select()
‘MsgBox(oSheet.name)
‘Transfer the array to the worksheet starting at cell A2.
‘oSheet.Range(“A2”).Resize(100, 3).Value = DataArray
For t = 0 To sar.Tables(s).Columns.Count – 1
oSheet.Cells(1, t + 1) = sar.Tables(s).Columns.Item(t).ColumnName
oSheet.cells(1, t + 1).font.bold = True
Next
For r = 0 To sar.Tables(s).Rows.Count – 1
For t = 0 To sar.Tables(s).Columns.Count – 1
oSheet.Cells(r + 2, t + 1) = sar.Tables(s).Rows(r).Item(t)
If r = 0 And t = 1 Then
oSheet.cells(r + 2, t + 1).Select()
oExcel.ActiveWindow.FreezePanes = True
End If
Next
Next
‘oSheet.Cells(2, 2).Select()
‘oExcel.ActiveWindow.FreezePanes = True
Next
‘ Make sure Excel is visible and give the user control
‘ of Excel’s lifetime.
oExcel.Visible = True
oExcel.UserControl = True
‘ Make sure that you release object references.
oSheet = Nothing
oBook = Nothing
oExcel.Quit()
oExcel = Nothing
End Private Sub ExportGenericExcel(ByVal Title As String, ByVal Source As DataSet)
‘Should add reference in Visual Studio to Microsoft Excel
Dim oExcel As Object
Dim oBook As Object
Dim oSheet As Object
Dim r, s, t As Integer
‘Start a new workbook in Excel.
oExcel = CreateObject(“Excel.Application”)
oBook = oExcel.Workbooks.Add
Dim sar As DataSet
sar = Source
For s = 0 To sar.Tables.Count – 1
‘oBook.Worksheets.Add()
oSheet = oBook.Worksheets(s + 1)
oSheet.Name = Title & s.ToString
oSheet.Select()
‘MsgBox(oSheet.name)
‘Transfer the array to the worksheet starting at cell A2.
‘oSheet.Range(“A2”).Resize(100, 3).Value = DataArray
For t = 0 To sar.Tables(s).Columns.Count – 1
oSheet.Cells(1, t + 1) = sar.Tables(s).Columns.Item(t).ColumnName
oSheet.cells(1, t + 1).font.bold = True
Next
For r = 0 To sar.Tables(s).Rows.Count – 1
For t = 0 To sar.Tables(s).Columns.Count – 1
oSheet.Cells(r + 2, t + 1) = sar.Tables(s).Rows(r).Item(t)
If r = 0 And t = 1 Then
oSheet.cells(r + 2, t + 1).Select()
oExcel.ActiveWindow.FreezePanes = True
End If
Next
Next
‘oSheet.Cells(2, 2).Select()
‘oExcel.ActiveWindow.FreezePanes = True
Next
‘ Make sure Excel is visible and give the user control
‘ of Excel’s lifetime.
oExcel.Visible = True
oExcel.UserControl = True
‘ Make sure that you release object references.
oSheet = Nothing
oBook = Nothing
oExcel.Quit()
oExcel = Nothing
End Sub
Posted on

Manually Populating Datarows

I like using datarows and datatables as multi-dimensioal array structures. Their most common use seems to be iterating through datatables, but you can also populate them as you would an array but with strongly typed values. This is a demonstration of populating a datarow with a combination of datareader, datarow and direct assignment. I have encapsulated it in a function to avoid using public variables.

Function GetOrderData(ByVal rAccount As DataRow, ByVal rOrder As DataRow) As DataRow

Dim strErrorMessage As String
Dim intExitCode As Integer
Dim StartDate As Date
Dim EndDate As Date

Try

Dim strConnectionString As String = “Server=DBSERVER;Database=DB;User ID=Program;Password=Password;Trusted_Connection=False”
Dim myConnection As SqlConnection = New SqlConnection(strConnectionString)
myConnection.Open()

Dim myCommand As SqlCommand = New SqlCommand(“usp_sel_Query”, myConnection)
Dim mySqlReader As SqlDataReader

‘Get original account info
myCommand.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure
myCommand.Parameters.Add(“@ID”, rAccount.Item(“ID”))

mySqlReader = myCommand.ExecuteReader
Do

While mySqlReader.Read()

If IsDBNull(mySqlReader(“Collected”)) Then rOrder.Item(“Collected”) = 0 Else rOrder.Item(“Collected”) = mySqlReader(“Collected”)
If IsDBNull(mySqlReader(“EndDate”)) Then EndDate = Nothing Else EndDate = mySqlReader(“EndDate”)
rOrder.Item(“CustomerID”) = rAccount.Item(“CustomerID”)
rOrder.Item(“OrderDate”) = rAccount.Item(“OrderDate”)
rOrder.Item(“AccountDate”) = rAccount.Item(“AcctAssign”)
rOrder.Item(“Orders”) = 1 + 5
rOrder.Item(“Package”) = rAccount.Item(“Package”)

End While

Loop While mySqlReader.NextResult()

mySqlReader.Close()
myConnection.Close()

GetOrderData = rOrder

Catch ex As Exception
strErrorMessage = ex.Message
intExitCode = Err.Number()

Finally

If intExitCode <> 0 Then

MsgBox(“Error ” & intExitCode & ” occurred for CustomerID ” & rAccount.Item(“CustomerID”) & “. ” & strErrorMessage, MsgBoxStyle.OKOnly + MsgBoxStyle.Critical)

End If

End Try

End Function