Create a VS 2005 Debugging Visualizer

Visual Studio 2005 visualizers allow you to see the data contained in a variable.  For this example we will create a visualizer to see the value of a guid.  To create a visualizer we need to start with a class library project.  Add a reference to Microsoft.VisualStudio.DebuggerVisualizers and System.Windows.Forms.  Set the build output path in the compile tab of my project to My Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Visualizers. 

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Imports Microsoft.VisualStudio.DebuggerVisualizers
Imports System.Windows.Forms

<Assembly: DebuggerVisualizer(GetType(GuidVisualizer), target:=GetType(Guid), description:="Guid visualizer")>
Public Class GuidVisualizer
    Inherits DialogDebuggerVisualizer

    Protected Overrides Sub Show(ByVal windowService As Microsoft.VisualStudio.DebuggerVisualizers.IDialogVisualizerService, ByVal objectProvider As Microsoft.VisualStudio.DebuggerVisualizers.IVisualizerObjectProvider)
        Dim g As Guid = CType(objectProvider.GetObject, Guid)
        MessageBox.Show(g.ToString)
    End Sub

End Class

GotDotNet Phase out

Since the GotDotNet website is being phased out I am placing my user samples here .

Video Capture Box

A inherted picturebox control which allows you to capture an image from a webcam. Also adds a ByteImage Property to make it easier to bind to an image from a database.

Enum Windows

A module you can add to your projects which contains an enum with all the WM_ messages. Good to use when overriding wndproc.

Change the DataType of a Column

Sometimes when you fill a DataTable the .Net framework does not get the data type right.  Unfortunately once you fill a data table you can not change the data type.  You can use the data adapters FillScheme method to setup the data table this will allow you to be to change the data type.  Then you can fill the datatable with the data of the right type. .

VB Example
Dim conn As New SqlClient.SqlConnection("Server = .\sqlexpress; Database = NorthWind; " & _

"Integrated Security = sspi;")

Dim dt As New DataTable

Dim da As New SqlClient.SqlDataAdapter("Select * from [Order Details]", conn)

da.FillSchema(dt, SchemaType.Mapped)

dt.Columns("OrderID").DataType = GetType(Integer)

da.Fill(dt)

C# example

            SqlConnection  conn = new SqlConnection(
                 @"Server = .\sqlexpress; Database = NorthWind;Integrated Security  = sspi;");
            DataTable dt = new DataTable();
            SqlDataAdapter da = new SqlDataAdapter("Select * from [Order Details]", conn);
            da.FillSchema(dt, SchemaType.Mapped);
            dt.Columns["OrderID"].DataType = typeof(int);
            da.Fill(dt);