DX_Contrib, MoveIt, PaintIt and UnusedVariables all added to DXCorePlugins

The sourcecode to DX_Contrib, MoveIt, PaintIt and UnusedVariables has now been uploaded to http://DXCoreplugins.GoogleCode.com
These projects (DX_Contrib, MoveIt, PaintIt and UnusedVariables) are all still somewhat in flux.

I'm trying to get around to making sure that the cache employed by each of them for paint purposes is kept up to date.

This seemed originally to have some performance issues and I am trying to move towards a background threaded mechanism for keeping said cache up to date.

The problem seems to be that each time I approach this system looking to see if I Can improve it, it takes almost all my spare time to analyse what I have done to date. so that I seem to have very little time left to actually improve it.

This of course smacks of poor documentation/commenting. Therefore I have checked the entire set of projects into GoogleCode.com.

At least this way everyone can see where things have reached.

I am by no means giving up on these projects though. I intend to start going through the code making damn sure that I comment things as I go this time ;)

DX_Contrib Bugs fixed in version 0.2.1

The latest version of DX_Contrib fixes PaintIt and UnusedVariables.
Yup that's the beauty of library dlls. They can be used to fix or introduce bugs to several apps/plugins at once. In this case lets hope that the net result is more positive than negative. :)

Specifically fixed in version 0.2.1 of DX_Contrib are

• An InvalidcastException which was being caused when PaintElementName was instructed to use the OverlayText PaintStyle (and posibly others)
• An attempt to decorate elements even when they were hidden inside colapsed regions. Oops :)

These bugs would have affected any plugin attempting to call PaintElementName. Which includes PaintIt and UnusedVariables.

Anyway hopefully we can now resume our <cough/> usual high service. :)

Refactoring PaintIt -> DX_Contrib v0.1

I've realised that perhaps some of my PaintIt Code could be useful elsewhere.
I have spent the past couple of days refactoring PaintIt so as to extract the actual painting code (Including the ColorPicker and PaintPicker(yes they are crap names) from the Original PaintIt plugin and into a new Common Dll called DX_Contrib.

I am releasing this project like all my others, complete with source.

It is my intention to initially maintain control over this project but to accept code snippets in vb.net (feel free to submit in c# if examples are short enough for me to translate without too much difficulty) and to include them for everyone's benefit.

I would like to say up front that at this early stage, I have no plans to honour backward compatibility in any way. However like all my plugins, I will not be deleting past version from my site.

In addition, I will be including the version number in the dll itself (thus the first version is DX_Contrib0.1.dll) and in this way allow past versions to work side by side with newer ones.

For Example, PaintIt v1.3 (the current latest version) uses v0.1 of DX_Contrib. (naturally enough). I have release both. Some developer 'A' might choose also to develop against v0.1 of DX_Contrib. Later I might decide, or indeed have it subtley pointed out with a sledgehammer, that a give method is either in the wrong class or a class is in the wrong namespace. At this time corrections and enhancements will be made and a new version will be released with version 0.2. This new dll will be called DX_Contrib

As I said, it is my init plan to maintain control of this myself, but if it proves in some way successful then I think we will have to consider sourceforge or some similar facility instead. :)

Feel free to submit code to me either by email or newsgroup for potential inclusion in a future version of this dll.

Oh yeah, if you don't already know, DX_Contrib and my other real(ish) plugins can be found at http://www.rorybecker.co.uk

PaintIt has arrived

Yup the first iteration of PaintIt is here. The basic functionaliy is in place and there's more to come.
The first iteration of PaintIt is here. With it comes a minor change to the plugins page.

I will now be publishing an official version number and release date so that will know just when a pluginis different from a previous iteration that you might already have downloaded. So in this case version 1.0 of PaintIt is published exactly 1 month after my last plugin update. Unforgivable isn't it.

Anyway... back to PaintIt.
This plugin is an amalgamation of the previously released ColorCodeVars and HighlightCurrentVars enhanced to work with methods aswell as variables.

Essentially this means that you can pick the color that you would like Public, Protected, Protected Internal, Internal and Private Methods and Variables to be displayed in.
In addition seperate colors can be specified for Local, ParamIn, OParamOut, ParamRef and ParamArray variables.

Finally these colors can be overridden to allow the notion of a Current variable or method and all references to it be drawn in yet another differing color. This time allowing also the specification of a back color.

Some suggest that these measures might create a level of chaos within your code, Others sugest that this might help create a level of clarity. It all depends which way you think.

Either way I hope that this serves some as a useful tool and others as a possible example of how to create such tools.

Source Code is available as always :)