http://www.west-wind.com/ West Wind Technologies Article Archive for .Net, Windows and Visual FoxPro developers. en-us 1440 Fri, 28 Dec 2012 08:00:00 GMT Application configuration is a key feature for application customization and adaptability and .NET provides some fairly decent built-in support for configuration management. Personally however I prefer a code-first approach to configuration management and so I've long ago created a custom component to handle configuration using strongly typed .NET classes that can read and write configuration data from various data stores. In this article I describe the built-in features in .NET and then demonstrate the Westwind ApplicationConfiguration component to show how configuration management in your apps can be even easier. http://www.west-wind.com/weblog/posts/2012/Dec/28/Building-a-better-NET-Application-Configuration-Class-revisitedhttp:/ Rick Strahl dotnet Mon, 3 Dec 2012 08:00:00 GMT How do you display editable time values in Web applications? While date display has a pretty clear UI choice with date pickers, visual time picking isn't very efficient. In this post I show a keyboard based alternative to navigating and entering time (and date values) values using hotkeys hooked up through a jQuery plugin. http://www.west-wind.com/weblog/posts/2011/Dec/06/Creating-a-Dynamic-DataReader-for-easier-Property-Access Rick Strahl dotnet Mon, 5 Nov 2012 08:00:00 GMT Parsing JSON dynamically rather than statically serializing into objects is becoming much more common with today's applications consuming many services of varying complexity. Sometimes you don't need to map an entire API, but only need to parse a few items out of a larger JSON response. Using JSON.NET and JObject,JArray,JValue makes it very easy to dynamically parse and read JSON data at runtime and manipulate it in a variety of different ways. Here's how. http://west-wind.com/weblog/posts/2012/Aug/30/Using-JSONNET-for-dynamic-JSON-parsing Rick Strahl dotnet Thu, 1 Nov 2012 08:00:00 GMT This article is a practical introduction and hands on overview of ASP.NET Web API. From the basics of setting up a new API Controller to calling the service via AJAX calls to handling errors, dealing with model binding this article serves as tour of the core features of Web API by example. http://west-wind.com/weblog/posts/2012/Aug/21/An-Introduction-to-ASPNET-Web-API Rick Strahl dotnet Fri, 26 Oct 2012 08:00:00 GMT .NET is here to stay, and you can take advantage of the rich functionality in the .NET framework from Visual FoxPro. You can access code in the .NET framework as well as Microsoft, third party and your own .NET libraries. This article expands on my previous COM interop articles and introduces the open source wwDotnetBridge library that lets you instantiate and interact with most .NET types directly from Visual FoxPro code. It's a great way to extend Visual FoxPro's reach as well as allowing FoxPro developers to create their own .NET components that can be interacted with from FoxPro. Calling .NET Components from Visual FoxPro using wwDotnetBridge Rick Strahl fox Thu, 25 Oct 2012 08:00:00 GMT If you need to call FoxPro COM components from ASP.NET recent changes in .NET 4.0 have made this process a bit easier. This article expands on how to create FoxPro COM components in .NET and ASP.NET in particular by using more modern technologies like ASP.NET MVC and Web Services to call FoxPro COM Components taking advantage of the Dynamic language improvements in .NET that make it much easier to consume FoxPro COM components. http://www.west-wind.com/presentations/AspNetFoxProRevisited.pdf Rick Strahl fox Wed, 15 Aug 2012 08:00:00 GMT If you still have to use STA COM components with ASP.NET you'll find that other than WebForms STA COM support in ASP.NET is non-existant. If you want to use MVC, Web Services or WCF natively you'll find they all run with MTA and have no easy mechanism to allow STA components to run reliably. In this article I show how you can create STA compatible handlers for MVC and ASMX and WCF Web Services. http://www.west-wind.com/weblog/posts/2012/Sep/18/Creating-STA-COM-compatible-ASPNET-Applications Rick Strahl fox Thu, 19 Jul 2012 08:00:00 GMT Securing HTML input from users in Web applications is a thorny subject, but there are not many good solutions out there for .NET. In this article I describe an HTML sanitation scenario and a custom solution I used to allow posting of relatively rich HTML on a Web site. http://www.west-wind.com/weblog/posts/2012/Jul/19/NET-HTML-Sanitation-for-rich-HTML-Input Rick Strahl dotnet Wed, 20 Jun 2012 08:00:00 GMT Spatial data has been available for a while in SQL Server, but if you wanted to use it with Entiry Framework you had to jump through some hoops. In this article I show how basic SQL Spatial data works and then how you can utilize the new features in EF 5.0 and later to directly access spatial data using your CodeFirst models. http://www.west-wind.com/weblog/posts/2012/Jun/21/Basic-Spatial-Data-with-SQL-Server-and-Entity-Framework-50 Rick Strahl dotnet Wed, 30 May 2012 08:00:00 GMT Creating templated text output that's not tied to the HTTP output stream is a frequent requirement in many applications. Rendering confirmation emails, password resets, validations and notifications all generate text through templates that require string or stream output that doesn't get sent to HTTP. In this article I show a few helpers that make it easy to create string output from MVC Views. http://www.west-wind.com/weblog/posts/2012/May/30/Rendering-ASPNET-MVC-Views-to-String Rick Strahl dotnet Mon, 21 May 2012 08:00:00 GMT The Web Browser control's default rendering mode is not very standards compliant - it's stuck in IE 7 quirks mode which is less than ideal for any HTML preview operations. It also fails to display the latest CSS and HTML 5 enhancements of IE 9. Luckily there's a workaround via some registry hacks that you can add to make your application render the Web Browser control using a specific version of IE. http://www.west-wind.com/weblog/posts/2011/May/21/Web-Browser-Control-Specifying-the-IE-Version Rick Strahl system Mon, 2 Apr 2012 08:00:00 GMT Web API doesn't include native JSONP support, but it's pretty easy to create a custom formatter that handles this task. Here's how to create a JsonpFormatter and hook it up as well as a short review of how JSONP works. http://www.west-wind.com/weblog/posts/2012/Apr/02/Creating-a-JSONP-Formatter-for-ASPNET-Web-API Rick Strahl dotnet Wed, 28 Mar 2012 08:00:00 GMT Routing support in ASP.NET 4.0 has been vastly improved, but custom routing still involves a fairly complex process of creating RouteHandlers and mapping requests properly. In this post I show an example of how to create custom routes automatically via Attribute route mapping for Http Handler endpoints http://www.west-wind.com/weblog/posts/2011/Mar/28/Custom-ASPNET-Routing-to-an-HttpHandler Rick Strahl dotnet Tue, 6 Mar 2012 08:00:00 GMT Upload controls in HTML are a pain, but HTML5 at least allows for multiple files to selected from the file picker to effectively upload multiple files from a single control. Here's how you use the HTML5 control and how you handle receiving the files in ASP.NET. Using the HTML5 <input type="file" multiple="multiple"> Tag in ASP.NET Rick Strahl dotnet Tue, 28 Feb 2012 08:00:00 GMT Routing support in ASP.NET 4.0 has been vastly improved, but custom routing still involves a fairly complex process of creating RouteHandlers and mapping requests properly. In this post I show an example of how to create custom routes automatically via Attribute route mapping for Http Handler endpoints http://www.west-wind.com/weblog/posts/2011/Mar/28/Custom-ASPNET-Routing-to-an-HttpHandler Rick Strahl dotnet Thu, 15 Dec 2011 08:00:00 GMT If you're running the full version of IIS and you try to debug your Web application's startup code in Application_Start you might have found that you can't debug this code as the debugger doesn't break there. Here's why and some easy ways you can work around this limitation. http://goo.gl/h1oyL Rick Strahl dotnet Tue, 6 Dec 2011 08:00:00 GMT Handling keyboard input events in JavaScript can be tricky when you need to deal with key codes. There are browser difference and different behaviors for various key events. Here's a refresher on how keyboard events work in JavaScript and a utility that lets you test key strokes and their resulting key codes in the various events available. http://www.west-wind.com/weblog/posts/2011/Dec/08/A-Key-Code-Checker-for-DOM-Keyboard-Events Rick Strahl dotnet Wed, 30 Nov 2011 08:00:00 GMT How do you display editable time values in Web applications? While date display has a pretty clear UI choice with date pickers, visual time picking isn't very efficient. In this post I show a keyboard based alternative to navigating and entering time (and date values) values using hotkeys hooked up through a jQuery plugin. http://www.west-wind.com/weblog/posts/2011/Nov/30/jQuery-Time-Entry-with-Time-Navigation-Keys Rick Strahl dotnet Wed, 9 Nov 2011 08:00:00 GMT .NET includes many Dictionary related types but serialization of Dictionaries leaves a lot to be desired. In this post I show how to create a serializable PropertyBag class that makes it easy to XmlSerialize arbitrary key/value pairs into XML and back. http://www.west-wind.com/weblog/posts/2011/Sep/27/An-Xml-Serializable-PropertyBag-Dictionary-Class-for-NET Rick Strahl dotnet Wed, 9 Nov 2011 08:00:00 GMT Registrationless COM makes it possible to run COM components without registry configuration making for an xCopy deployable solution. The process is not terribly difficult but not easy to debug if something goes wrong. Here's how you can use registrationless COM in your apps. http://goo.gl/1lPkp Rick Strahl foxdotnet Sat, 5 Nov 2011 08:00:00 GMT In this post I describe how to use the West Wind Web Toolkit to create an AJAX/REST service that can serve data to a JavaScript applications with a few short steps. Then we'll look at ways to access the server side code with simple jQuery/JavaScript code and the ajaxCallMethod() helper. http://www.west-wind.com/weblog/posts/2011/Nov/03/Using-the-West-Wind-Web-Toolkit-to-set-up-AJAX-and-REST-Services Rick Strahl dotnet Mon, 30 May 2011 08:00:00 GMT Dynamic types in .NET make it very easy to create custom types in .NET. In this article we'll look at using a custom dynamic type that can extend an existing type at runtime with dynamic properties and methods. http://www.west-wind.com/weblog/posts/2012/Feb/08/Creating-a-dynamic-extensible-C-Expando-Object Rick Strahl dotnet Tue, 22 Feb 2011 08:00:00 GMT Ever have the need to monitor movement of elements in an HTML document via JavaScript? Unfortunatey there are no events that fire if HTML elements are moved around the document either via dragging or by programmatic location changes. As a workaround I created a jQuery CSS monitoring plugin that fires event when a given CSS property changes. http://www.west-wind.com/weblog/posts/2011/Feb/22/A-jQuery-Plugin-to-monitor-Html-Element-CSS-Changes Rick Strahl dotnet Wed, 29 Dec 2010 08:00:00 GMT Microsoft's new Razor View Engine is now available with WebMatrix and MVC 3 and the good news is that the engine can be easily and efficiently hosted in non-Web applications. In this article I'll discuss a library that makes it easy to embed Razor based templating into your own applications and in the process describe how Razor hosting works. http://www.west-wind.com/weblog/posts/864461.aspx Rick Strahl dotnet Sat, 2 Jan 2010 08:00:00 GMT ASP.NET includes a plethora of functions and utilities to retrieve information about the current requests and paths in general. So much so that it's often hard to remember exactly which path property or method you are actually looking for. This article summarizes many of the paths and path related operations that are available in ASP.NET. http://www.west-wind.com/Weblog/posts/132081.aspx Rick Strahl dotnet Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:00:00 GMT ASP.NET includes several controls that support paging but they vary fairly drastically for different controls and can't be controlled purely by assignment. This article discusses the shortcomings of native paging in ASP.NET and introduces a free standing pager control that is generic and works without dependencies on DataSource or other specific ASP.NET controls and provides SEO friendly navigation. http://www.west-wind.com/Weblog/posts/114621.aspx Rick Strahl dotnet Fri, 13 Nov 2009 08:00:00 GMT Capturing ASP.NET response output can be done in a variety of ways. In this article I discuss how you can use a Response.Filter to capture output and transform it using a simple class that provides event hooks to make it easy to capture and transform output generically http://www.west-wind.com/Weblog/posts/72596.aspx Rick Strahl dotnet Fri, 18 Sep 2009 08:00:00 GMT OpenId is a single sign on technology getting more popular and with it come requests to integrate it into Web sites as a user authentication mechanism. In this post I'll give an overview of what OpenId is, how it works and demonstrate implementing it in an MVC Web application using the DotNetOpenAuth toolkit including a detailed walk through of the integration code. http://west-wind.com/weblog/posts/899303.aspx Rick Strahl dotnet Thu, 10 Sep 2009 08:00:00 GMT This article describes a self-contained mechanism for calling WCF/ASMX services using only the jQuery client library and a small bit of custom code by providing a reusable ServiceProxy class that makes calling service methods as easy as a single method call. http://www.west-wind.com/Weblog/posts/896411.aspx Rick Strahl dotnet Wed, 1 Jul 2009 08:00:00 GMT This article introduces the core localization features in the .NET framework relevant for WPF as well as specific localization approaches supported for WPF. Covered are the static and rigid approach using LocBaml as well as a couple of approaches using a Resx markup extension or using a more Windows Forms based approach using attached properties. This article is hosted on the CodePlex site as a downloadable Microsoft Word document. http://wpflocalization.codeplex.com/ Rick Strahl dotnet Mon, 27 Apr 2009 08:00:00 GMT Visual Studio provides an easy way to create project templates from an existing project and this makes it real easy to create custom project types that are tailored to the way that you work. http://www.west-wind.com/Weblog/posts/740022.aspx Rick Strahl dotnet Fri, 20 Feb 2009 08:00:00 GMT Sometimes it can be handy to display data from Enum values in lists in the user interface as a quick way to present pick lists, especially in administration interfaces. Here is how you can load up enum values in DropDown lists along with some ideas on when this practice does and does not make sense. http://www.west-wind.com/Weblog/posts/632732.aspx Rick Strahl dotnet Wed, 14 Jan 2009 08:00:00 GMT When working with HTTP clients or Web Services being able to capture HTTP output is crucial. HTTP monitors are invaluable in this process and using them with .NET clients requires some special care. Here's what you need to know. http://www.west-wind.com/Weblog/posts/596348.aspx Rick Strahl dotnet Sun, 4 Jan 2009 08:00:00 GMT Part 2 of this series introduces focuses on connectivity between the jQuery client and ASP.NET server. This article discusses the Ajax functionality available in jQuery and demonstrates a variety of ways on how to retrieve data from the server and use on the client with jQuery. Topics covered using .load() with external content, making Page callbacks with HTML fragments and JSON results and using WCF and ASMX service to create raw Ajax applications that only consume server data. http://www.west-wind.com/presentations/jQuery/jQueryPart2.aspx Rick Strahl dotnet Wed, 3 Dec 2008 08:00:00 GMT Part 2 of this 2 part series covers using jQuery's Ajax functions to call back to an ASP.NET backend. This article covers a variety of different approaches you can take to communicate with ASP.NET starting with external Urls and using the simple .load() function, same page callbacks and returning Html Fragments or JSON data and using WCF/ASMX services to create raw Ajax data services for client consumption with jQuery. There's also some discussion of using client templates to render content and keep your markup centralized in one place. Article includes extensive samples and a jQueryControls support library that provides both a client library of plug-ins and server side controls and ASP.NET and Ajax related utilities. http://www.west-wind.com/presentations/jQuery/default.aspx Rick Strahl dotnet Tue, 7 Oct 2008 08:00:00 GMT Part 1 of this 2 part series introduces the jQuery JavaScript library and provides an overview of the functionality this powerful library provides. Article starts with an overview of what jQuery is and does followed by a walkthrough of some of jQuery's prominent features starting with Selectors, Wrapped Set functions, event handling all the way up to simple plug-in creation. Part 1 deals purely with client side functionality. Part 2 addresses ASP.NET integration and AJAX functionality. http://www.west-wind.com/presentations/jQuery/default.aspx Rick Strahl foxdotnet Thu, 28 Feb 2008 08:00:00 GMT This article describes the complete process of signing an XML document with a private key certificate, and then validating the same document with the public key. The includes step by step instructions including creating a test certificate and installing it and how to use the certificate from your code for signing and validation. It also covers installation of a full certificate from a qualified CA which is a slightly different process. A sample class that works with any SOAP Envelope XML document is provided to demonstrate. http://www.west-wind.com/weblog/posts/257599.aspx Rick Strahl dotnet Thu, 9 Aug 2007 08:00:00 GMT This article is a quick start step by step guide for setting up Subversion for Source Control and using Tortoise SVN to set up and manage your repository and local copies of projects. This article uses a Visual Studio Solution as an example, but the same concepts can be applied to any tool or set of files for that matter. The article discusses installation and setup, creating of a repository, creating local copies and basic day to day operations. http://www.west-wind.com/presentations/subversion/ Rick Strahl foxdotnet Wed, 18 Jul 2007 22:08:02 GMT Check out the localization features in ASP.NET 2.0 and understand how they work under the covers. This introduction focuses on the ASP.NET 2.0 specific technology for localization and discusses how Resource Providers are used to provide the various integrated localization features in ASP.NET 2.0 and Visual Studio .NET. The focus of this article is on the technology rather on the deep semantics of localization. Serves as an introduction for the Resource Provider article. http://www.west-wind.com/presentations/wwDbResourceProvider/introtolocalization.aspx Rick Strahl dotnet Wed, 18 Jul 2007 08:00:00 GMT Find out how to build an ASP.NET 2.0 Resource Provider that uses database data for its localization storage rather than Resx files. Database resources can be much more flexible and this article demonstrates how to build a powerful ASP.NET resource editing front end that allows editing of resource data in a live ASP.NET application in a context sensitive manner. http://www.west-wind.com/presentations/wwDbResourceProvider Rick Strahl dotnet