ASP.NET MVC Tip #25 – Unit Test Your Views without a Web Server
In this tip, I demonstrate how you can unit test ASP.NET MVC views without running a Web server. I show you how to unit test views by creating a custom MVC View Engine and a fake Controller Context. The more of your web application that you can test, the more confident that you can be that changes ......
Email Verification for New Accounts via ASP.NET's Membership Framework
In my last blog entry, The CreateUserWizard and Validation ErrorMessages, reader Andrei Rinea commented:
I wish the whole Membership set of controls would be replaced with better ones. Very often I need to have an authentication/authorization mechanism that doesn't need a username but an e-mail.......
The CreateUserWizard and Validation ErrorMessages
The CreateUserWizard control introduced in ASP.NET 2.0 makes it easy to create a new user account on a website that uses the Membership framework. (See my Creating User Accounts tutorial for more information on using this control.) Out of the box, the CreateUserWizard control offers a fully functio......
Alternating styles in ListView without AlternatingItemTemplate
ListView (the server-side control), like all repeating data controls in ASP.NET, has an AlternatingItemTemplate, but it would be a shame to have to copy all the markup in the ItemTemplate into AlternatingItemTemplate, just to alternate styles on the items. It's quite likely that only css classes wi......
ASP.NET MVC Tip #24 – Retrieve Views from Different Folders
In this tip, I demonstrate how you can retrieve a view from any folder in an ASP.NET MVC application. I show you how to use both specific paths and relative paths. Until today, I thought that a controller action could return a view from only one of two places: · Views\ controller name · V......
Examining ASP.NET 2.0's Membership, Roles, and Profile - Part 12
Several of the earlier installments in this article series examined how to apply authorization rules in order to prohibit particular users, roles,
or classes of users from accessing particular resources. For instance, Part 2
showed how to define URL-based authorization rules in web.config for ......
Examining ASP.NET's Membership, Roles, and Profile - Part 12
Several of the earlier installments in this article series examined how to apply authorization rules in order to prohibit particular users, roles,
or classes of users from accessing particular resources. For instance, Part 2
showed how to define URL-based authorization rules in web.config fo......
ASP.NET - Render Hidden Fields at the Top of a Form with .NET 3.5 SP1
I just came across a nice feature in ASP.NET 3.5 SP1 (currently in Beta) that I didn’t realize was included. It’s always nice to discover hidden gems from time to time. With ASP.NET 1.0, 1.1, 2.0 and 3.5 applications if a user or JavaScript function tried to do a postback before all o......
The Weekly Source Code 30 - Spark and NHaml - Crazy ASP.NET MVC ViewEngines
I've been getting more and more interested in how folks extend their applications using plugins and things. In my new ongoing quest to read source code to be a better developer , Dear Reader, I present to you thirtieth in a infinite number of posts of " The Weekly Source Code ." Spark......
IronRuby With ASP.NET MVC Working Prototype
In June, John Lam wrote about a demo he gave at Tech-Ed 2008 where he showed IronRuby running on ASP.NET MVC. He posted the code for the demo online, but it relied on an unreleased version of MVC, so the code didn’t actually work. Now that Preview 4 is out, I revisited the prototype and got it work......
Will ASP.NET MVC be the main web UI platform for ASP.NET?
Microsoft folks are very enthusiastic ! We love to dig in to new technology and show off the cool work that we do and this has been VERY true of ASP.NET MVC. Unfortunately, sometimes our zeal get's misinterpreted. I'm getting lots of questions about the future of ASP.NET development as it p......
Proof of Concept: a simple DI solution for ASP.NET WebForms
Chris Tavares and I were chatting yesterday morning about an idea Chris had: building a simple, reusable Http Module that gives folks DI scoped to the Application, Session, and Request. Yesterday afternoon, during the p&p Dev team's weekly "Code Kata" we threw together a spike/pro......
Instinct Experiment Over…Back to Windows Mobile
Over the past few weeks I’ve been trying out the Sprint Instinct touch screen phone to see how I liked it. I wrote my initial review here and posted some tips and tricks on using the device here. The poor browsing experience on the Instinct finally led me to take it back to the store ye......
Notes on ASP.NET MVC CodePlex Preview 4
(If you want to skip all the blah blah blah, go straight to the release ) What I love about working with The Gu (aka ScottGu, the man with many aliases) is that he makes my life easier with his gargantuan and detailed blog posts covering the features of each release. This allows me to follow up and......
Summer ASP.NET Missions
Spring is ugly in my job. From early March until late June I'm on the road. Conferences, Meetings, etc. Then when I finally get done my spring traveling.... There is "make up" work to do. I have to "make it up" to my two little princess and my wife. Work my way through a who......
Sprint Instinct Tips and Tricks
In a previous post I discussed some of the pros and cons of the new Sprint Instinct phone that I recently purchased. I’ve had the phone for a few weeks now and still like it a lot overall. It’s not nearly as flexible as the PPC-6700 phone I had previously when it comes to installing so......
July's Toolbox Column Online
My Toolbox column in the July 2008 issue of MSDN Magazine is avaiable online. The July issue examines:
ScrewTurn Wiki - a wiki is a web application whose content is maintained by its users. Adding a wiki to your site is remarkably easy with ScrewTurn Wiki, a free, open-source ASP.NET wiki applic......
Techniques for Randomly Reordering an Array
While reading through some of Jeff Atwood's old blog entries, I stumbled across this gem:
The Danger of Naivete. In it, Jeff discussed the pitfalls the can befall a programmer
who implements a naive algorithm and calls it a day. Consider an algorithm to randomly reorder an array. If you have a ......
Pros and Cons of the Sprint Instinct Phone
There’s been a lot of hype over Apple’s new iPhone 3G coming out on July 11th as well as Sprint’s recently released Instinct phone. I was originally going to switch over to AT&T and get the iPhone but it meant switching my wife over as well since we need to be able to call each other wit......
Random Grammar/Style Question
When writing my Security Tutorials for www.asp.net, I often wrote sentences like the following: “To log in to the site, ...” Although sometimes I'd write it, “To log into the site, ...” and other times I'd use, “To login to the site...”
I can't say with certainty whether any one of these three are......
Examining ASP.NET's Membership, Roles, and Profile - Part 11
Many websites that support user account allow anyone to create a new account, but require new users to undergo some form of verification before their
account is activated. A common approach is to send an email to the newly created user with a link that, when visited, activates their account. Th......
The Economics Behind Writing Subsequent Editions (for Computer Trade Books)
The economics behind the college text book must be interesting. I've not written any textbooks, so my comments here are based more on assumption than knowledge, but what I but what always intrigued me - whilst a college student, at least - was how authors would release different versions of books a......
ASP.NET Podcast Show #118 - Paul on Peer-To-Peer with Windows Communication Foundation
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Two New Master Page Tutorials Published
As I noted in an earlier blog post, in May the first of my Master Pages tutorials were published on www.asp.net. Two new master page tutorials were put online today:
URLs in Master Pages [VB | C#] - one challenge with master pages is that the master page and linked resources - image files, hyper......
New Features in Silverlight 2 Beta 2
Bill Gates and S. Somasegar announced several new features at TechEd for Silverlight Beta 2 that are great additions to the existing functionality. Here's a list of the highlights in Beta 2: UI Framework: Beta 2 includes improvements in animation support, error handling and reporting, aut......
ASP.NET MVC Support with Visual Web Developer 2008 Express
Last week I blogged about the ASP.NET MVC Preview 3 release. One important thing I forgot to mention about this release is that you can now use it with both Visual Studio 2008 as well as the free Visual Web Developer 2008 Express edition. The SP1 release of Visual Web Developer 2......
Alter your ASP.NET Blog with the Raw Header Text box inside the Control Panel
I only noticed today that you can to the head element of the ASP.NET blog using the Raw Header Header Text Box inside the Control Panel. I have as you can see made a few changes which I have actually wanted to do for a while but thought that constraints prevented me from doing so. If yo......
Resharper 4 BETA Released
Avoid Much Talk
I wrote about Resharper 4 performance improvements in an earlier blog post today showing my VS Color Scheme including use of R# nightly builds. My friend Mohamed Tayseer pointed me out that Resharper 4 BETA was released yesterday. If you already know Resharper, skip the blah blah......
A New Tutorial Series on Master Pages
Over the past two years I've been working on a number of step-by-step tutorials for Microsoft's www.asp.net website. The two complete tutorial series are:
Working with Data in ASP.NET
Website Security: User Accounts, Membership, Roles, and Form Authentication
I'm happy to announce a new tutori......
Accessing and Updating Data in ASP.NET 2.0: Using Optimistic Concurrency
Because multiple users can visit the same web page concurrently, it is possible for a user visiting a data modification page to inadvertently overwrite
the modifications made by another user. Consider a page with an editable GridView. If two users visit this page simultaneously from different comp......
Accessing and Updating Data in ASP.NET 2.0: Using Optimistic Concurrency
A Multipart Series on ASP.NET 2.0's Data Source Controls
ASP.NET 2.0 introduced a number of new Web controls designed for accessing and modifying data.
These controls allow page developers to declaratively access and modify data without writing any
code to perform the data access. This art......
The 21 most popular blog posts
I started this blog 2.5 years ago today, mostly because I felt that the same types of issues came up over and over and over in our support cases. I figured that if I started writing about them, a lot of people would be able to resolve them on their own, or even better avoid them in the first place.......
Warning the User When Caps Lock is On
After my first batch of Security Tutorials were published on www.asp.net, a reader emailed me asking if it was possible to display some sort of warning if the user has Caps Lock on whilst entering their password into the Login control. While JavaScript cannot indicate if Caps Lock is on or not, you......
Professional ASP.NET 3.5 Book (only $16 on Amazon for a short time)
One of the things I like to track are book sales on Amazon.com, which provides a useful data point to monitor what developers are interested in on any given day. I use the www.TitleZ.com site (which is built using ASP.NET) to track specific titles I want to watch - it then generates a repo......
Working with XML Data Using LINQ, a TreeView, and a ListView :: Editing Data
ASP.NET includes a variety of tools for displaying and editing XML documents. A previous article, Working
with XML Data Using LINQ, a TreeView, and a ListView :: Displaying Data, showed how with a TreeView control, a ListView control, an XmlDataSource control,
a LinqDataSource control, and abou......
Slides from my ASP.NET Connections Orlando Talks
Last week I presented at the ASP.NET Connections Conference in Orlando. I gave a general session talk on Monday, and then two breakout talks later that day. You can download my slides+samples below: General Session The slides for my keynote can be downloaded here. In ......
Hanselminutes Podcast 109 - ASP.NET Dynamic Data with Scott Hunter
My one-hundred-and-ninth podcast is up . Recorded at the Microsoft MVP Summit, this show is about the new ASP.NET Dynamic Data subsystem that's being added to ASP.NET. I sit down with Scott Hunter , a Program Manager for ASP.NET (everyone in the division is required to be named Scott, BTW ;) ) ......
Interesting Finds: 2008.04.26
.NET 47 ASP.NET MVC Resources to Rock Your Development New Version of Functional Programming Tutorial Understanding when to use a Finalizer in your .NET class Web What Happened to Operation Aborted? Exceptional Performance Worksheet Other A Great XPath Query Tool ......
The Ninja of Dependency Injectors --- Ninject
Recently I am been following Rob Conery as he explores Test Driven Development using the ASP.NET MVC framework. Rob is using a style of development known as Test First Development or Red - Green - Refactor. The timing of these articles was actually nice as I was exploring the use of the MVC framewo......
Upcoming blog posts
I have been inspired by Rob Conery's blog posts on his journey down the TDD path, I decided there were a few blog series that I want to do myself. So in the near future I will be writing a few series of posts that will cover: Using TypeMock from a beginners perspective Using Ninject in an ASP.NET M......
Where should the ASP.NET team release stuff?
One of the things I love about working on the ASP.NET team is that the team is very focused on getting customer feedback. One of the ways we do this we need to ship bits early and often. While I think this is great, it does present some challenges in terms of helping customers find the ......
Anatomy of a "Small" Software Design Change
File this one away for the next time your boss comes in and asks, Yeaaah, I’m going to need you to make that little change to the code. It’ll only take you a couple hours, right? Software has this deceptive property in which some changes that seem quite big and challenging to the layman end up bein......
Updated ASP.NET Dynamic Data Bits Posted
We just posted some updated bits and samples for ASP.NET Dynamic Data... I encourage you to go pick them up and let us know what you think... Some cool new stuff in this release: Visual Studio Integration is much cleaner Now supports "pretty" URLs http://products/details/1 instead of http......
ASP.NET MVC Source Refresh Preview
We recently opened up a new ASP.NET CodePlex Project that we will be using to provide previews (with buildable source code) for several upcoming ASP.NET features and releases. Last month we used it to publish the first drop of the ASP.NET MVC source code. This first drop included the so......
Examining ASP.NET's Membership, Roles, and Profile - Part 10
The Membership system automatically tracks the last
date and time each user's account has been accessed. With the SqlMembershipProvider, this information is
stored in the aspnet_Users database table in a datetime column named LastActivityDate. This
column is automatically updated to the cu......
Sessionless MonoRail Controllers
I saw this post on the Castle Users mailing list and thought it was interesting and I wanted to post it. By default, MonoRail controllers assume that ASP.NET session state is enabled. If you disable ASP.NET's session state inside web.config, you'll get an exception when MonoRail tries to proc......
Thank you North Carolina!
I had a great trip in North Carolina… In addition to a fun time with my extended family, I had a chance to take two days “off” vacation and visit with three Fortune 500 companies, give a Framework Design Guidelines training class to the Visual Studio North Carolina office and spea......
Developer Summit Sessions on Silverlight, MVC, FaceBook, and Work ethics amongst software developers
On Wednesday I presented a session on troubleshooting ASP.NET production issues at Developer Summit 2008 in Sweden. It offered a lot of good presentations as usual, and here is a summary of the ones I went to along with some links related to the topics they were covering. I will write a separate po......
My presentation on Troubleshooting ASP.NET production issues at Developer Summit 2008
The purpose of my presentation was to show some common pitfalls and of course to show off windbg and sos just to show people that if you have a hang, perf issue, memory leak or crash, there are tools out there that can help you figure out the root cause so that you don't have to resort to guess......
Putting ASP.NET Dynamic Data into Context
There's a lot of folks excited about ASP.NET MVC as an option for creating ASP.NET websites. As I say in my ASP.NET MVC talks, however, I figure about 5% of people creating ASP.NET sites will care about ASP.NET MVC. I say that for a number of reasons. ASP.NET MVC is a big paradigm shift. It ena......