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by Doug Thews.
Original Post: LocalDesktop Updated
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Based on some feedback, I've made some feature enhancements to the
LocalDesktop project:
I've fixed a problem that turned out to be a bug in the way that the
StreamReader.ReadLine() method works. For very large input lines (like Schobleizer feeds), this would overflow (even though there's no way to give it a
buffer size). The result was missing pieces of information in the cached
XML documents, without any exceptions being thrown. I now use
StreamReader.ReadToEnd() to get the remote stream for local caching.
I added a 20 second timeout for HTTP responses when caching. Any
cache errors can be seen in the CacheError.txt file in the root of the
LocalDesktop web folder.
I moved the caching into a Caching class (Caching.vb) so it can be called
from multiple places.
I added a ResetCache.aspx page so that you can
physically reset the cache if it becomes corrupted and you don't want to wait
for the next caching cycle. Just run it from a browser window, and it
gives real-time progress (I'll put out a "how-to" on this later this week).
I added some options that will allow you to use other images. You can
now use a specific image, or your current Windows wallpaper as the
background for the content frame. You can use my default, windows, or
custom styles. Custom allows you to specify your own image (even via
http:), while Windows looks inside the registry to get your current wallpaper to
use. There's even a refresh rate setting to work with those screen saver
utilities that change the backgrounds every once in awhile. Just set the refresh
rate to match the randomizer rate used in the software. Read the documentation in the Config.xml
configuration file for more details.
A couple of notes
on the updates. In the original version, I used a plain HTML page for the main page
(default.htm).
This version is still available (it runs faster since it's plain HTML). If
you want to take more control and use your own images and refresh rates, then use default.aspx.
When you choose style=windows,
you will need to know your SID value so that the application can get to your
registry hive instead of using the one that the asp_net process runs under.
Also, to gain access to the registry, you might need to change the user that the
asp_net process runs under so that access to this hive is available to this
application. I've tested with values of SYSTEM and Administrator on my
machine and it seems to work fine for them. Change the username value under
processModel in Machine.config - found in your
%WINDIR%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322\CONFIG directory (assuming you're running v1.1 of the .NET Framework).
Download the new version here. Enjoy!
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