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12th January 2020

Mazes For Programmers part 3, graphical UI

Part 3 in my ongoing series of how I implemented the code from Mazes For Programmers by Jamis Buck in C#.

The author rendered the mazes in graphical form using a Ruby library that allows you to create PNG images. This requires you to run the code, then open the saved image, then remember to close it before running the code again, otherwise you get a "File access denied" error, all of which seemed like hard work. As I work with WPF on a day-to-day basis, I decided to use that to render my mazes, as it was quicker and easier.

This post shows how I did it.

24th May 2018

Super method name - surely they didn't really mean that did they?

Whilst editing a WPF view, the XAML designer claimed it couldn't display a child user control due to a null reference exception. Looking at the stack trace, I noticed a wonderfully named method...

23rd May 2018

Enabling spell-checking in WPF and using a custom dictionary across the application

What seemed like a simple request to enable spell checking in a WPF application turned out to be significantly more work than I expected.

Specifically, applying a custom dictionary everywhere, without having to write wads and wads of duplicate code kept me going for a while.

16th January 2017

How to ensure buttons are enabled when your window loads

15th September 2013

Cleaning up your XAML with a grid helper class

16th June 2011

How to add a property to a WPF user control and have it show up in the Properties panel of the Visual Studio designer

I had the need today to add my own property to a WPF user control, and have that property available in the Properties panel of the Visual Studio designer, so the property could be set at design-time. The purpose of this was that my user control had a toolbar, and I had come across the need to use the control, but not show the toolbar. Simple eh? Well, not quite!

22nd February 2011