Archive for August, 2010

Macs, Parallels and Keyboard Layouts

I am currently developing on a Mac, running Visual Studio on a Windows 7 VM courtesy of Parallels. There are a number of issues to resolve the first of which is the key mappings.

I am using the Mac bluetooth keyboard and a few keys are mapped incorrectly:

Pressing this key Results in this output
§ `
± ¬
@
@
\ #
| ~

When using OS X alt + 3 produces a # and alt + 2 produces a €. Unfortunately in Windows alt key combinations are normally used to launch menu items.

The answer to this is a free program from Microsoft called Keyboard Layout Creator.

Download and install this (on your Windows VM) then you can use it to create a correct layout. Once you have the layout you can create an installer to install your keyboard layout on however many VMs you like.

You can download the layout I created and open the file in the layout creator to build your own installer. I have also uploaded the installer I created (mostly for my own reference, I make no guarantees it will not fry your system, please use a good virus scanner etc.).

Once you have installed the layout open Keyboards and languages:

image

Then change the default input language and keyboard:

image

Any applications that are open need to be restarted, but then you should have all keys working correctly.

I have mapped # to Ctrl + alt + 3 and € to ctrl + alt + 2 which should work as long as the application you are in is not using them as shortcut keys.

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DI with Ninject for an MVC project

This seems to be a somewhat moving target with ASP.Net MVC moving up the versions as well as Ninject. This particular target will be ASP.Net MVC 2.0 and Ninject 2.0.

First set up the references:

  1. Download Ninject.Web.Mvc (If not using git, there is a download source link on the page).
  2. Open the mvc2/Ninject.Web.Mvc.sln and compile with release settings.
  3. Copy the files Ninject.dll and Ninject.Web.Mvc.dll from the mvc2/build/debug/release folder to the lib folder of your MVC project.
  4. Add references to these two files to your MVC project.

The DI Container (called a Kernel with Ninject) needs initializing on app startup which, with MVC, is in the Global.asax. Add the following using statements to the Global.asax:

using Ninject;
using Ninject.Modules;
using Ninject.Web.Mvc;

Change the MvcApplication so it inherits from NinjectHttpApplication:

public class MvcApplication : NinjectHttpApplication {

Let Visual Studio implement the CreateKernel method.

override the OnApplicationStarted method copying in the lines from the Application_Start method:

protected override void OnApplicationStarted() {
    AreaRegistration.RegisterAllAreas();
    RouteRegistrar.RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);
}

Then delete the Application_Start method.

Ninject stores the rules it uses to return class instances in Modules which are derived from NinjectModule. Add the following class to the MVC project:

using Ninject.Modules;

namespace MvcApp.Web {
    public class WebModule : NinjectModule {
        #region Instance Methods

        public override void Load() {
        }

        #endregion
    }
}

The Load method is where we specify how each request for a concrete class is fulfilled.

Lastly, modify the CreateKernel method so that the module is passed into the Kernel’s ctor:

protected override IKernel CreateKernel() {
    var modules = new INinjectModule[]
                      {
                          new WebModule()
                      };
    var kernel = new StandardKernel(modules);
    return kernel;
}

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