Giuseppe "Cowo" Corbelli ...

3rd of the saga...
Disclaimer: I'm not a visual basic programmer. In fact I don't know visual basic at all; this was my third experiment in vb.
Previous posts were about a similar macro for Visual Studio 6.0 and 7.1.
This one works for the 8.0 IDE.
Thanks to mr. bc for pointing out and correcting a bug.

Sub CommentUncomment()
    Dim StartPoint, EndPoint As EnvDTE.EditPoint
    Dim Sel As EnvDTE.TextSelection

    Sel = DTE.ActiveDocument.Selection()
    StartPoint = Sel.TopPoint.CreateEditPoint()
    EndPoint = Sel.BottomPoint.CreateEditPoint()

    DTE.UndoContext.Open("Comment/Uncomment")
    Try
        Do While (True)
            StartPoint.StartOfLine()
            If StartPoint.GetText(3) = "//~" Then
                StartPoint.Delete(3)
            Else
                StartPoint.Insert("//~")
            End If

            If (StartPoint.Line = EndPoint.Line) Then
                Exit Do
            End If
            StartPoint.LineDown()
        Loop
    Finally
        DTE.UndoContext.Close()
    End Try

End Sub

Pyreb is a wxPython GUI to the re python module; it will speed up the development of Python regular expression (similar to PCRE). This release features minor enhancements. See

• Freshmeat announcement
• Pyreb homepage

AKA: another fine bug in Windows CE PocketPC 2003 SDK.

I am developing an application which stores its configuration in an INI file in the same directory as the executable. So I need to get the executable directory and build the path for the INI file.

Some WIN32 syscalls are available for this job: GetModuleFileName, PathRemoveFileSpec and PathAppend. PathRemoveFileSpec and PathAppend are defined in shlwapi.h, which IS available in the SDK. So I expect the shlwapi.lib to be available, too, right? But it isn't, so a workaround is needed.

Here's the code needed to build the new path, based on the absolute path obtained from GetModuleFileName. Some error handling is provided, but error shouldn't really happen. GetModuleFileName returns an absolute path, so I'm sure that at least one '\' will be found.

#include <cstring>
#include <windows.h>

wchar_t Path[MAX_PATH];

if (0 == ::GetModuleFileName(NULL, Path, MAX_PATH))	{
    //Error that shouldn't happen
    ::wcscpy(Path, L"IniFile.ini");
}	else	{
    //Find the last '\' in the absolute path
    wchar_t* pos = ::wcsrchr(Path, L'\\');
    if (!pos) //Error, '\' not found
        pos = Path;
    else
        pos++;
    ::wcscpy(pos, L"IniFile.ini");
}

Trillian is a nice instant messaging client for win32 systems. I've been using it for some time and was annoyed by a stupid bug: when I asked for "View contact history" a message pops up asking me to configure a suitable log viewer in the preferences screen.

Of course there's no such configuration item in that screen, so you have to do it by hand. Which is not a problem, by the way, only if they told me in the first place I'd be happier...

Locate the file

talk.ini

of your user under trillian installation tree. Browse to the

Logging

section, find the

Viewer

element and update it with the full path of your viewer. I use Scintilla Text Editor, so for my setup I have:

[Logging]
Viewer Use Association=0
Viewer=D:\Programmi\SciTE\SciTE.exe

Another fine bug in the Embedded Visual C++ 4 saga.

While developing a project I stumbled upon this; imagine you want to handle a WM_CONTEXTMENU message. You place a ON_WM_CONTEXTMENU() in the class message map, right? Then you'll get a

error C2065: 'ON_WM_CONTEXTMENU' : undeclared identifier

I found some references on the net: they say that the context menu message is either not supported or handled by buggy code. I can easily believe this, but what if I want a quick solution to handle the message?

The solution turned out to be extremely simple. The ON_WM_CONTEXTMENU macro is defined in afxmsg_.h, which surely gets included somewhere in your files, but somehow its definition is "lost" somewhere.

So you just copy the following code and paste it into the file with the message map:

#ifndef ON_WM_CONTEXTMENU
#define ON_WM_CONTEXTMENU() \
{ WM_CONTEXTMENU, 0, 0, 0, AfxSig_vWp, \
(AFX_PMSG)(AFX_PMSGW)(void (AFX_MSG_CALL CWnd::*)(CWnd*, CPoint))&OnContextMenu },
#endif

This is exactly the same code in afxmsg_.h so I didn't invent anything. Neither did I connect the brain before adopting and posting this solution. It's just a stupid workaround for another stupid bug in eVC4 / ppc2003. And, quite strange, does work for me :-)

Samsung YH-920 is a 20GB portable mp3 player. Cool device, but as usual its software is both a total crap and m$-windows only.

Here's a quick note on how to get it working without Samsung software. It requires pmplib and, optionally, a quick python hack I developed. My hack is tested under m$-windows and Debian GNU/Linux.

1. Download and compile pmplib code from subversion
2. Put some mp3s in the System/MUSIC directory on the device
3. Ask easypmp_cui/gui to rebuild/update the database
4. Optional Download my playlist package and unpack it somewhere.

Get started by rebuilding or updating the device database (refer to pmplib website for more info). If you also asked pmplib to update/build playlists it will convert winamp-style playlists to be playable on your device, and you don't need anything else.

If you want to build playlists from scratch, in the format playable by the YH920 you need to download my playlist package. Sample command:

python test.py -b H:\ -o Tyr H:\System\MUSIC\Tyr-EricTheRed 

This uses the device mapped to H: , creates a playlist Tyr.plp in the Playlists folder that will play all files in H:\System\MUSIC\Tyr-EricTheRed

Hope this is useful, as it was for me.

If explanations are not good (and they are not good, I know) feel free to send me a better version.

Disclaimer: I'm not a visual basic programmer. In fact I don't know visual basic at all; this was my second experiment in vb.

A previous post was about a similar macro for Visual Studio 6.0. This one works for the 7.1 IDE.

Tipographic note: to constrain this code in blog's page width, I've had to break long lines with '\'. I don't know if this line-break is acceptable to vb, so don't copy&paste blindly.

Sub CommentUncomment()
  Dim StartLine, EndLine, Temp As Integer
  Dim Sel As TextSelection
  StartLine = ActiveDocument().Selection.TopLine
  EndLine = ActiveDocument().Selection.BottomLine
  If EndLine < StartLine Then
    Temp = StartLine
    StartLine = EndLine
    EndLine = Temp
  End If

  For Temp = StartLine To EndLine
    Sel = ActiveDocument().Selection()
    Sel.GotoLine(Temp)
    Sel.StartOfLine(\
      vsStartOfLineOptions.vsStartOfLineOptionsFirstText\
    )
    Sel.CharRight(True, 3)
    If Sel.Text = "//~" Then
      Sel.Delete()
    Else
      Sel.Text() = "//~" & Sel.Text()
      Sel.GotoLine(Temp)
      Sel.StartOfLine(\
       vsStartOfLineOptions.vsStartOfLineOptionsFirstText\
      )
    End If

  Next

End Sub

Disclaimer: I'm not a visual basic programmer. In fact I don't know visual basic at all; this was my first experiment in vb.

Over the years I've been fighting with Microsoft Visual Studio 6 editor, and missing many of Scintilla's features; one of the most useful is the capability to comment/uncomment a line of code. So I wrote this little macro, and usually bind it to a Ctrl+Q; hope someone will find it useful!

Tipographic note: to constrain this code in blog's page width, I've had to break long lines with '\'. I don't know if this line-break is acceptable to vb, so don't copy&paste blindly.

Sub CommentUncomment()
'DESCRIPTION: Comment/Uncomment a line of C++ code.

'Begin Recording
  StartLine = ActiveDocument.Selection.TopLine
  EndLine = ActiveDocument.Selection.BottomLine
  If EndLine < StartLine Then
    Temp = StartLine
    StartLine = EndLine
    EndLine = Temp
  End If
  For i = StartLine To EndLine
    ActiveDocument.Selection.GoToLine i
    ActiveDocument.Selection.StartOfLine \
      dsFirstText, dsMove
    ActiveDocument.Selection.CharRight dsExtend, 3
    if ActiveDocument.Selection.Text = "//~" Then
      ActiveDocument.Selection.Delete
    Else
      ActiveDocument.Selection = "//~" + \
        ActiveDocument.Selection
    End If
  Next

'End Recording
End Sub

While developing an application with Microsoft Embedded Visual C++ 4 on Windows CE 4.2 I stumbled upon the infamous XLock bug.
This bug creeps up in Release builds when you try to use standard STL containers such as std::map in a MFC project. I did not investigate, but apparently something prevents the inclusion of empty XLock implementation in Single-Threaded builds.
I did not test Multi-Threaded builds.
There are some other references to this issue in various newsgroups, but I did't find a ready-made solution, so I posted this, to serve as an archive.
Symptom:

error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol "public: __cdecl std::_Lockit::_Lockit(void)" (??0_Lockit@std@@QAA@XZ)

Solution:
Create a XLock.cpp file and add it to your application. Copy & paste from here:
>>>> xlock.cpp

#ifndef  _MT

#include <afxwin.h>
#include <yvals.h>

namespace std {

_Lockit::_Lockit() {}
inline _Lockit::~_Lockit() {}

}
#endif //_MT

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