Errata

Deep Zoom Project:

For some reason when you specify the Uri line in the main page function, it doesn't recognize "GeneratedImages/dzc_output.xml" as a valid path. After playing around for a bit, I was able to get it to work, my Uri line looks like this:

Uri uri = new Uri( "http://localhost:<port>/DeepZoomProjectSite/ClientBin/GeneratedImages/dzc_output.xml", UriKind.RelativeOrAbsolute );

<port> = what ever port your development server is using.

Also make sure that the web site project is the startup project.

Hope this helps.

John

The WebInstaller is upgraded to 3.0 on microsoft.com/web and it is less obvious which components to install!

Microsoft no longer supports or distributes Web Platform Installer 2.0. Other software tools have also been re-issued in later, revised versions. Some of the "required" tools no longer exist--at least as Microsoft downloads.

The directions for downloading and installing the covered software are no longer current, active, or workable--rendering the "step-by-step" instructions throughout the book largely unusable.

In short, the publication is essentially obsolete within 6 months of its publication. I believe this could be remedied by publishing extensive revisions online, but I have been unable to find these at either Microsoft Press or O'Reilly Press.

Following up on my other post, I figure out where the SbSCh4_1.Web namespace came from in the Silverlight project, i.e. in Step 5 of the initial client steps. The author failed to mention that you need to right-click on the project node in Solution Explorer and view the Project Properties. Then look for the "WCF RIA Services link" drop-down menu. It defaults to "<No project set>". Change it to SbSCh4_1.Web.

The book in Step 14 on page 82 says: "the application will write the changed data to the database". However I have built this application from scratch, step by step, (several times!) and I always get the following exception:

System.NotSupportedException was unhandled by user code
Message=This EntitySet of type 'FinalAttemptCh4_1.Web.MyFriend' does not support the 'Edit' operation.
StackTrace:
at System.ServiceModel.DomainServices.Client.EntitySet.EnsureEditable(EntitySetOperations operation)
at System.ServiceModel.DomainServices.Client.Entity.RaiseDataMemberChanging(String propertyName)
at FinalAttemptCh4_1.Web.MyFriend.set_FirstName(String value)
InnerException:

It would seem that the default supported operations in the Domain Service differ from those that were available when the book was written.

How do we get it to support the Edit operation?

My experience with the Project in this Chapter 4 is the same as Ian W. has already noted. With the code I creating working through the exercise of this chapter, the build terminates with an error.

This also occurs when the first of the two versions of this same exercise (SbSCh4_1) from the CD is built, with 20 build errors

Oddly, there is another version of the same exercise on the CD labeled "SbSCh4_1_Revised". This also fails to build, and ends on this line:

loadOp = this._friendsContext.Load(this._friendsContext.GetMyFriendsQuery());

with an "ArgumentException was unhandled by user code."

The only explanation as to why this "Revised" version is provided that I've found is a note in the MainPage.xaml.cs page:

// Note that the book says to use System.Windows.Ria -- this was changed to the below line by MS post-writing the book. Sorry about that... :)

Obviously, there's been some problems with this project, but it seems there may be some others as well that haven't as yet been fixed.

Mr. Moroney, any chance you could indicate what is wrong here? I'm not a good enough Silverlight programmer to figure this out on my own, which is, of course, why I purchased your book.

Thanks for your help,

Ian J.

Maybe it's me but ...

Trying to execute the "Program a Deep Zoom project" section in this book ...

I'm using Deep Zoom Composer Version 1.0.1945.1. I worked through Steps 1 to 5, opening the solution in Visual Web Developer Express 2010 and allowing the conversion.

Then I tried to run the app once I got to Step 8. No images displayed in the browser. Checked my code against the book, everything seems OK.

I continued on with the "Enable image interaction" section, Step 1 to the end of Step 6. Tried to run the app again. This time I am getting the buttons, but again there are no images being displayed. Something's not as advertised.

There is no finished code provided for this project, which would have been nice to have, even though we do supply our own images for the Composer. Why weren't a couple of images provided for this project on the CD so there could be functioning project code as well?

So, Mr. Moroney, any chance you can confirm if there's something inaccurate in your book, or if I have done something incorrect? I see a lot of "unconfirmed errata" here for this book but no "confirmed errata," so I'm wondering if anyone is taking an interest in this book since it's been published and once it's been purchased.

Here's a copy of the dzc_ouput.xml file in case you can tell anything from that. Everything else code-wise is as you've written it in the book, as far as I can see.

Thanks for your help,

Ian J.

----

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
- <Collection MaxLevel="8" TileSize="256" Format="jpg" NextItemId="2" ServerFormat="Default" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/deepzoom/2009">
- <Items>
- <I Id="0" N="0" Source="dzc_output_images/chrysanthemum.xml">
<Size Width="1024" Height="768" />
<Viewport Width="2" X="-0" Y="-0" />
</I>
- <I Id="1" N="1" Source="dzc_output_images/desert.xml">
<Size Width="1024" Height="768" />
<Viewport Width="2" X="-1" Y="-0" />
</I>
</Items>
</Collection>

The clientaccesspolicy.xml file, explained on page 223, is required in order for the code to run successfully on my set-up (described below), on page 213 step 17, on page 215 step 20, and page 222, step 18. This file is also absent from the practice files provided on the accompanying CD.

Without this file, the code provided fails at the following code location:

SbSCh10_1.MainPage.wc_OpenReadCompleted

StreamReader read = new StreamReader(e.Result);

and SbSCH10_2 also fails at a location I did not determine.

A working listing for the clientaccesspolicy.xml file, to be added to the SbSCH10_1.Web and the SbSCH10_2.Web projects, is as follows:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<access-policy>
<cross-domain-access>
<policy>
<allow-from http-request-headers="*">
<domain uri="*"/>
</allow-from>
<grant-to>
<resource path ="/" include-subpaths="true"/>
</grant-to>
</policy>
</cross-domain-access>
</access-policy>

Note that the Online Templates (Add New Item - Online Templates - Templates - Silverlight) includes a "Silverlight Client Access Policy File" template, that can be modified as above.

For background commentary, see:

http://timheuer.com/blog/archive/2008/04/06/silverlight-cross-domain-policy-file-snippet-intellisense.aspx

My platform for this exercise is Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2010 -Windows 7 64-bit running IE8. As instructed in the book, I used the Web Platform Installer to install the required supporting elements.

In Bullet 2

SupportedOrientations = ...

simply does not occur in the Mainpage() constructor in MainPainPage.xaml.cs. After a lot of hunting around, it appears in MainPage.xaml (and differently) as:

SupportedOrientations="Portrait" Orientation="Portrait"

As a result, all of subsequent bullets are wrong.

NOTE: It kills me that Microsoft's documentation is so fragmented (hence almost useless) that I had to BUY a book by a "Senior Technical Evangelist" and it too has such awful mistakes.