This article is also available as a video, courtesy of Webucator. Click here to jump to the video section below.   For many data types, sorting is a logical, deterministic operation that works by comparing elements and determining whether they are less-than, greater-than or equal-to each other. For example, with a list of integers, we can… Continue reading

I recently attempted to transform a boring, alphabetical list of tags into a more visually-appealing (and more informational) tag cloud. No doubt you’ve seen tag clouds on blogs and other websites (there’s even one on here!) but for the uninformed: A tag cloud is a form of ‘weighted list’ where reusable tags (keywords, categories, etc)… Continue reading

Covers the development and theory behind an extended ComboBox control that displays its items in groups/categories. Explains the principles behind Windows Forms data binding and how property values can be easily retrieved from data sources using BindingSource and PropertyDescriptor objects. Also details the best-practice techniques for measuring and painting an OwnerDrawVariable combo box in code. Examples and source code are provided. Continue reading