BillWoodruff wrote:

Why even bother to try and figure out what this little-code-monster is, when you can get busy, and write better code

Because I'm in a testing phase right now and can't write additional code until that's done. The best I can do at the moment is try to understand what's here already. That is pretty important when taking over maintenance of undocumented apps.

Could you explain what you mean by that? Or point me to a link, Google isn't finding anything with that term.

I can see in your sample code that you have created a variable of the enum type, and set the value to be the only possible value for that enum - that is all fine and good, but what are you going to use that value for? Remember, setting values that don't get used is a waste of memory - the compiler even warns you about it sometimes. And yeah, I've changed the names to protect the innocent.

I don't know where they got it from. I only had access to the previous developer for 'not long enough' and he showed me only the things he thought were important. He would be happy to admit that he has zero experience with ASP.Net - the site was converted from PHP, so it has some weird patterns and an overall odd style.

I don't see the point in having an Enum that only defines one value. What possible purpose could that have? I can make it private and the app still builds - nobody is using it, and I posted all the code for the class, it's not using it. My concern is not about the unused code though, it's about and Enum with only one value. How do you think that might be used? It can only ever have one value, and it can't be null. I don't see the point. I was kind of wondering if it's done for some reason I've never heard of - a lot of this codebase is copied straight from the MSDN. I agree that sometimes a named class that doesn't extend the "system" class makes sense. However, I don't have any issues with using ArrayList, if that's what you need. It is a waste of code and a useless increase in complexity - I don't need my own special ArrayList class, the system one is fine. I agree with what you're saying, but I don't think it's enough of an advantage in most cases. "Don't use the generic class" is often used to increase complexity for no reason at all. When the code is not very well documented, it puts me in the position of "OK, I see this class doesn't do anything extra from ArrayList, so why is it here?" and I can go and look at places where it's used and it's doing nothing special, and then I think "certainly the guy before me didn't write extra code just because someone told him not to use the generic classes" - sends me down a rabbit hole of trying to understand reasoning I didn't participate in. In this question, I'm looking for someone to say, "oh yeah, that's the Lipshitz design pattern, here's a link"

I'm at a loss for what this is supposed to be? Ever seen this pattern before?

[Serializable]
public class MyCollection : ArrayList {
public enum MyUpdateFields {
MyGroupName
}
}

So, that's basically an ArrayList that defines a useless enum? Why even create this in the first place? I would not even know this exists if Code Analysis hadn't complained about it.

Seems like you're missing a # in the line here:

data: { categoryId: $('categoryId option:selected').val() },

Should be...

data: { categoryId: $("#categoryId option:selected").val() },

Yup, this is why you always format floating point numbers before displaying them.

I think part of the problem is the demos never really worked right. That's a pretty bad way to market something. The post referenced about how to get an answer does not define what we can and can't discuss on this forum. We used to have discussions here. Some of us are still open to it.

It is OPEN SOURCE. Just get a copy and host it yourself.

Yes, the web site designers don't seem to be here.

I think you need to make a proxy so you can use Skype and get around that stupid law. There is no reason for a government to restrict communication between its citizens and the rest of the world, unless they are trying to oppress the citizens. What harm would Iranians using Skype do? I am sorry you are in this position. It is a violation of your god-given human rights. I suggest you take a look at this: http://www.tokbox.com/[^]

I think that is because people don't care about learning and exploring, they just want someone else to do their job. I don't see anywhere that it's a rule.

Make the image request synchronous? How are you requesting the image in the first place? If you do it with a tag, the browser should wait for a response. I've done this in the past... If the myImageGenerator.aspx page streams back an image, the browser will display it. I learned this technique from an OLD article on here about Captcha - the image streaming technique is still valid. A CAPTCHA Server Control for ASP.NET[^]

You mean a look-up table right? You put your 200 characters in an array of objects which each hold the name of the character and the image for the character. THAT array NEVER changes! When the user enters the characters they want, you create an array for the user input, but don't copy the values from the 200-character array - copy the indexes. So, in memory, the message looks like this... 53 41 4c 45 20 6f 6e 20 44 56 44 73 20 54 4f 44 41 59 21 - which I would bet is exactly what the sign stores too. So "the character pngs are layed out in the container one after the other." isn't the right way to do it - just put the reference numbers in there. Making copies of the character set is wasteful, and LED signs don't have a ton of memory - you should emulate that behavior in your web interface. And when you're done... please fix Bubba Chino's sign... it has been flashing "LED SIGN!" for two years ever since he bought it :)

You should learn HTML5 and JQuery first. DON'T BE that "developer" who doesn't understand what we're doing here. ASP, MVC, PHP, etc, are all just fancy ways to get HTML, CSS, and Javascript into the browser. If you don't understand that goal, you're going to be a lousy web developer regardless of what other languages you know. The WWW is written in HTML, CSS, and Javascript. Get solid on those basics before tackling higher-level stuff. TRUST ME. I've had people fired for not knowing HTML, in an ASP.Net shop. Learn to hand-code HTML - it's your bread and butter as a web developer. For Windows Desktop apps, it's a little different - the foundation of that is basic C# or VB code. Learn the basics by making console apps, and do that for a long time, before you add the complexity of Forms, Events, and all that. Event-based programming is a little hard to understand sometimes, but it's how Windows Desktop apps work, so the idea is to be solid on the basics, so that stuff doesn't trip you up as you learn the higher level stuff.

A lot of us use Skype. Don't reinvent the wheel here. Also, your question is very vague. Are you a teacher and want to teach students over the web, or are you a programmer trying to write an application to host online classes, or are you trying to put the content of the class online as a self-learning thing, or what? Also, are you even using the word "class" in the educational sense? Or are you trying to create a code-model for an object in some language that calls THAT a "class" ? Be more specific. Do not be afraid to type. Proper questions have at least 50 words, maybe more.

I meant the forum area. LOOK at the top of the page you are on right now. Does it not say "discussions" up there?

But I take that as a "sticky" with just plain good advice. It doesn't say anywhere that "this is the only thing you're allowed to do here" it's just information about how to ask good questions. I've been here many years, and we used to have good discussions, back when Chris set it up, and everyone was happy, yes, you're right about that. I clicked on a tab that says "discussions" to get here. Should be orange at the top of the page right now.

Yeah I read that, but it doesn't really make sense to have a forum if that's what it is. QA is done on Stack Overflow. This site has no purpose if it doesn't allow discussion. I think it's a good post.