Home - Hi, I'm Ray

Recent Posts

27 May, 2019
C#: Building a TNoteBook component for Windows Forms as an user control (PanelBook)
Last week I was developing a Windows Forms (WinForms) application that required a particular kind of user interface. The application was a step-by-step wizard that had navigation buttons: "back" and "next". Think multiple steps of a setup installer. Each page occupied the same position and contains other controls. I wanted a more elegant solution other than hiding/showing and moving panels around the form.

25 May, 2019
C#: A practical example of polymorphism for everyday projects
Every programming textbook and wiki is going to have a definition for polymorphism, so you don't need me to explain the concept. In my mind, polymorphism is the OOP technique of defining one interface that allows different entities to do the work. In this post I'm going to provide a practical example of subtype polymorphism or subtyping.

18 May, 2019
C#: Quick and easy multi-threading on Windows Forms App with Tasks (Async/Await)
This time I'm going to show multi-threading using Tasks, also known as async/await. The two patterns are practically identical and I've kept the structure of the code the same to highlight the comparison.

04 Apr, 2019
C#: Storing settings in a SQLite database for a Windows Forms application
I find it's a pretty common requirement to store settings for an application, such as: "recently opened files", "last opened path" or other user preferences. I've seen this done using INI configuration files, XML and JSON text files. A few years ago I heard about SQLite; how the likes of Google Chrome were using it for storing configurations. So, I built my own helper to handle reading and writing of settings.

16 Mar, 2019
C#: Quick and easy multi-threading on Windows Forms App with BackgroundWorker
Today let's talk about a common problem, you have code running and the application becomes unresponsive. If you're running something that's outputting to a textbox or using a control, the application takes considerably more time to run and locks up the form. How are you supposed to use the progress bar if the form just turns grey all the time?

23 Feb, 2019
C#: Serialise object to XML (three flavours)
I feel like at some point in every project you find yourself needing to serialise an object. My immediate go-to is JSON: whether it's being send to another system or saved to disk, the magicians at Newtonsoft have made it super-easy with JSON. However, when I had a requirement to use XML, the results looked somewhat messier than I expected. Here's what I discovered when serialising an object to XML, in three flavours.

Hi, I'm Ray.

I'm a software developer for desktop, Web and mobile devices. I specialise in:

Software
- .NET Framework (C#)
  - Windows Services
  - WinForms
  - User Controls
- Xamarin.Forms
Web
- ASP.NET C# MVC 4+ (full-stack)
- ASP.NET C# Web Forms (full-stack)
- PHP 4+ with LAMP (Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP) stack
- PHP 5+ with LEMP (Linux-Nginx-MariaDB-PHP) stack
Front-End
- AngularJS (1.2)
- jQuery
- Vue.js

I've also been known to manage servers (Microsoft and Linux), crimp some cables and change a light bulb. More about that over on LinkedIn .

In my spare time, I love to read. I seem to read mostly science-fiction, fantasy and young adult; more about books over on Goodreads .

I enjoy taking photographs but I have -so much- to learn. You can see some of my photographs on Flickr .

I post a lot of photos of food on Instagram .

I like working in coffee shops with my laptop, tablet and reMarkable. There's coffee, cakes and people-watching is fun.

That is me.