Windows

With recent updates of Windows, the calculator has been blessed with a new feature: showing graphs in the calculator.

However, with Windows 10 Home Edition, this option is greyed out by default.  But there's a way to activate it and this section describes how to do this.

• Open the register editor

• Search for the section HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies

• See if there's a subsection Calculator in there.  In my case, there wasn't so I had to create one:

  • Right-click on the Policies folder and select New -> Key: add Calculator as name

• If there is already a Calculator subdirectory present, check if there's an item called AllowGraphingCalculator.  

  • If there is, change the value of this item to 1

  • If there isn't, you have to create it:

    • Right-click on the item Calculator and then select New -> DWORD (32 bit) Value

    • Give it the name AllowGraphingCalculator

    • Double-click on the item and give it the value 1

If you now (re)open the calculator, the Graphing feature should be selectable and you can start using it.

Since .NET 6.0 there's a new feature introduced with Visual Studio: implicit using.

What does this mean?

Normally, when you're using functionality from the C# language, you have to use the using keyword and then tell the compiler what you want to use.  It's just like the #include for C/C++ files.

Example:

If you want to use a list of strings in your app, you declare something like this:
private static List<string> _history = new();

Normally, List is defined in the System.Collections.Generic class, so if you want to be strict, you should have using System.Collections.Generic at the top of the file.

However, when implicit using is activated, you don't have to do this any more.  If you do so, then  the Visual Studio editor will grey out the using, since it's redundant.  The SDK has already done this implicit for you.

Where is that implicit using defined?  Well, it's in the .csproj file which is part of every Visual Studio project.

If you open the .csproj file, you will see a line like this:

    <ImplicitUsings>enable</ImplicitUsings>

That's the default generated value.

If you want to be strict and see all the usings in your code, then  you have to change enable into disable.

The moment you do this, you'll see a zillion errors during compilation, which you can resolve one by one by taking in the correct using.

But why would you do this, if the SDK can do it implicitly for you?

I'm lazy, so I go the implicit using way...

Link to the section: Visual Studio Code 

Link to the section: VS Code and RPi