Free MVC3 Training via Virtual Conference

January 26, 2011 at 8:42 PMFred Mastro

Awesome find by my friend Pasha.

http://www.mvcconf.com/

Free/Donation virtual conference on ASP.NET MVC3.

Some of the speakers:

Scott Guthrie – Microsoft
Scott Hanselman – Microsoft
Phil Haack – Microsoft

and more…

 

Some of the Sessions:

Intro to Building Twilio Apps with ASP.NET MVC
To the Next Level of Customizability with ASP.NET MVC Dynamic Filters
MVC Q&A
Introduction to MVC 3
The Big Comparison of ASP.NET MVC View Engines
Real World Application Development with Mvc3 NHibernate, FluentNHibernate and Castle Windsor
Mvc3 Extensibility

and more…

From the site:

MvcConf is a virtual conference focused on one thing: writing awesome applications on top of the ASP.Net MVC framework. Your brain will explode from taking in so much hard core technical sessions. Sounds fun eh?

This is a community event and we want the best and brightest sharing what they know.

We intend to record each session and make them available online for viewing. We intend to make the videos available free of charge, depending on conference sponsorships.

Posted in: ASP.NET MVC | Training & Learning

Tags:

Authorize.NET SDK for ASP.NET MVC

November 4, 2010 at 10:36 AMFred Mastro

 

Rob Conery has worked with the new Authorize.Net SDK and shows it how is easily used for ASP.NET MVC

Authorize.NET SDK Download

Works with nice HTML Helpers

  • Html.CreditCardInput() - creates a properly sized box for inputting a card, named with a purpose. If you set a boolean switch "forTest" it will set a test card number for you.
  • Html.CCVInput() - a textbox for the card code
  • Html.CreditCardExpirationInput() - a textbox for the expiration
  • Html.CheckoutFormInputs(true) - all 3 of the above, formatted for you, with a "test" switch that indicates whether to show a test warning.

Posted in: ASP.NET MVC

Tags: ,

ASP.NET MVC Self-Training in 15 Days–Free Online Material

November 3, 2010 at 12:23 PMFred Mastro

This is still a work in progress, in regards to timing, and removing redundant material. However, I think it’s pretty close, as I’ve done a couple of these tutorials already.

Some of the tutorials are in C# and VB.NET so I’ve linked to the VB.NET versions, being a VB.NET lover myself.  On those tutorials you can click on the C# version.

image

Tutorial 1 and 2 are in C# only, so you can use the converter I’ve linked too.

 

 

Tools to use:

C# to VB Converter: http://converter.telerik.com

Adventure Works Sample DB: http://msftdbprodsamples.codeplex.com/

Visual Studio Express: http://www.microsoft.com/express/Web/

Day 1

Complete Tutorial Set 1: Getting Started

http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/getting-started-with-mvc-part1

Read Material Set A: Overview / Execution Process

http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/asp-net-mvc-overview-vb

http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/understanding-the-asp-net-mvc-execution-process-vb

Day 2, 3, 4

Complete Tutorial Set 2: MVC Music Store (Use Converter to VB)

http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/mvc-music-store-part-1

Day 5:

Read Material Set B: Models and Controllers / MVC Routing

http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/understanding-models-views-and-controllers-vb

Complete Tutorial Set 3: Routing / Custom Routing

http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/asp-net-mvc-routing-overview-vb

http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/creating-custom-routes-vb

http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/creating-a-custom-route-constraint-vb

http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/creating-a-route-constraint-vb

Complete Tutorial Set 4: MVC 3 with Razor View Engine

http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/creating-a-mvc-3-application-with-razor-and-unobtrusive-javascript

Day 6:

Complete Tutorial Set 5: Creating Custom HTML Helpers

http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/creating-custom-html-helpers-vb

Complete Tutorial Set 6: Using Tagbuilder for HTML Helpers

http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/using-the-tagbuilder-class-to-build-html-helpers-vb

Day 7:

Complete Tutorial Set 7: Validation Methods. Simple / iDataError / Service / Data Annotation

http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/performing-simple-validation-vb

http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/validating-with-the-idataerrorinfo-interface-vb

http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/validating-with-a-service-layer-vb

Day 8:

Read Material Set C: Passing Data to View Master Pages

http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/passing-data-to-view-master-pages-vb

Complete Tutorial Set 8: Caching Output / Dynamic Content

http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/improving-performance-with-output-caching-vb

http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/adding-dynamic-content-to-a-cached-page-vb

Read Material Set D: JavaScript Injection Attacks

http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/preventing-javascript-injection-attacks-vb

Complete Tutorial Set 9: Unit Testing

http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/creating-unit-tests-for-asp-net-mvc-applications-vb

Day 9, 10, 11, 12

Complete Tutorial Set 10: Content Management

http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/iteration-1-create-the-application-vb

Day 12, 13, 14, 15

Optional Complete Tutorial Set 11: Nerd Dinner Tutorial

http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/introducing-the-nerddinner-tutorial

Posted in: ASP.NET MVC | Training & Learning

Tags: , ,

ASP.NET Web App vs ASP.NET MVC – Comparing File size and Html View Source

October 26, 2010 at 1:47 AMFred Mastro

If you’ve been keeping any attention to my recent posts you’ll see that I’ve been toying with and learning ASP.NET MVC.  MVC is clean and light weight.  It’s everything I wanted .NET to be.

Out of curiosity I did a comparison.

I wrote a simple contacts from the AdventureWorks database.  One version using the default ASP.NET 4.0 Web Application Project and the other using ASP.NET MVC 2 Project.

On both projects I created the same functionality the simplest way I knew.

From default projects I added an Entity Framework Model of the database.

ASP.NET 4.0 Web App ASP.NET MVC 2 Web App
image image

I modified both Master pages to include jQuery and have a button in the footer that told me the page size in kb. Also added an additional menu item called “Contacts”

 

Home Page:

I modified both home pages just to say Adventure Works and Home Page.

 

ASP.NET 4.0 – Home Page – File Size: 2.47kb
 image

ASP.NET MVC 2 – Home Page – File Size: 0.69kb
image

 

Contacts Page:

Created the Contacts page to list the top 50 contacts from the Contact table in Adventure works. From this list you can click on a link to edit the contact. I limited the fields to just the ones shown.

ASP.NET 4.0 – Contacts Page – File Size: 47.50kb
image 2.47

ASP.NET MVC 2 – Contacts Page – File Size: 30.30kb
image

 

Contact Edit Page:

 

On the Contact edit page I added validation for the .NET and extra validation on the MVC side to match the .NET, since MVC has built in validation already. I added required fields to Title, Phone and Email.

ASP.NET 4.0 – Contact Edit Page – File Size: 10.00kb
image

ASP.NET MVC 2 – Contact Edit Page – File Size: 1.82kb
image

 

Contact Edit Page With Errors:

Then I blanked out the required fields and tried to do a save.

ASP.NET 4.0 – Contact Edit Page – File Size: 9.92kb
image

ASP.NET MVC 2 – Contact Edit Page – File Size: 2.27kb
image

 

Contact Edit Page View Source:

Since this page has the most drastic change. I thought I’d show the view source differences. You’ll see what you’re used too in the .NET 4.0 code, such as ViewState.  You won’t find anything like that in the MVC Source.

ASP.NET 4.0 – View Source:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
<head><title>

</title><link href="Styles/Site.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.4.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
   1:  
   2:     
   3: </head>
   4: <body>
   5:     <form method="post" action="EditContact.aspx?ID=2" onsubmit="javascript:return WebForm_OnSubmit();" id="ctl01">
   6: <div class="aspNetHidden">
   7: <input type="hidden" name="__EVENTTARGET" id="__EVENTTARGET" value="" />
   8: <input type="hidden" name="__EVENTARGUMENT" id="__EVENTARGUMENT" value="" />
   9: <input type="hidden" name="__VIEWSTATE" id="__VIEWSTATE" value="/wEPDwULLTE4NDE5MzY0MjdkZJcZYmtPZoLLOePFV+1ApdqOkLlUkaADsWHG0UuqS9uy" />
  10: </div>
  11:  
  12: <script type="text/javascript"> 
  13: //<![CDATA[
  14: var theForm = document.forms['ctl01'];
  15: if (!theForm) {
  16:     theForm = document.ctl01;
  17: }
  18: function __doPostBack(eventTarget, eventArgument) {
  19:     if (!theForm.onsubmit || (theForm.onsubmit() != false)) {
  20:         theForm.__EVENTTARGET.value = eventTarget;
  21:         theForm.__EVENTARGUMENT.value = eventArgument;
  22:         theForm.submit();
  23:     }
  24: }
  25: //]]>
</script>
   1:  
   2:  
   3:  
   4: <script src="/WebResource.axd?d=rpDV5lYn3IaummS63NE_2Q1Jtwkxg_wWwZ7flTZnPl-_hyeTnekRfJHuo1_m8da4QUiNH84sihf1gBG_zEmQsRKwhMOrcao1Nidsc_FjGJk1&amp;t=634227375085699878" type="text/javascript">
   1: </script>
   2:  
   3:  
   4: <script src="/WebResource.axd?d=yqF50G3amP76dgnuXSDqrR-Z-FE57OP97CzzFR3Q80Z6rPOxPdOsaKweNOtYlKJSSZ0zEtNXrdWv_B8KkZBYjDRHsirjAD67Qki53R4PpCQ1&amp;t=634227375085699878" type="text/javascript">
   1: </script>
   2: <script src="/WebResource.axd?d=HIqme4K1Z_NhNkoBU3rBVY7pfAn1iQRfCSOAtiayjvvAFXmUADu6qR84lzcCQ8RYojG2Derx-p3SM2wPgsCswGcC7lkMavJM-duHIb8DjvI1&amp;t=634227375085699878" type="text/javascript">
   1: </script>
   2: <script type="text/javascript"> 
   3: //<![CDATA[
   4: function WebForm_OnSubmit() {
   5: if (typeof(ValidatorOnSubmit) == "function" && ValidatorOnSubmit() == false) return false;
   6: return true;
   7: }
   8: //]]>
</script>
   1:  
   2:  
   3: <div class="aspNetHidden">
   4:  
   5:     <input type="hidden" name="__EVENTVALIDATION" id="__EVENTVALIDATION" value="/wEWCQKB7+KQBQKAqo2fBQKj7diWAgKR7a/UAwL8jLCWCgLJj/62AwKprImqAwLVw96TCQKnk93nCbgxuO2j4LdE3f2GfgnicZRAvfHze6AaPKfca0UC9bdY" />
   6: </div>
   7:     <div class="page">
   8:         <div class="header">
   9:             <div class="title">
  10:                 <h1>
  11:                     My ASP.NET Application
  12:                 </h1>
  13:             </div>
  14:             <div class="loginDisplay">
  15:                 
  16:                         [ <a href="Account/Login.aspx" id="HeadLoginView_HeadLoginStatus">Log In</a> ]
  17:                     
  18:             </div>
  19:             <div class="clear hideSkiplink">
  20:                 <a href="#NavigationMenu_SkipLink"><img alt="Skip Navigation Links" src="/WebResource.axd?d=TmuB4w3dYhxsh1Xv0ri7S4JYvbwxZdOmpw671tEiWmocv3uzBjwO2JJRTIt9J_tdKcpS52MtKL-8-OBDYWWfBEzCE0ySEuLYR6VnjfTx3ck1&amp;t=634227375085699878" width="0" height="0" style="border-width:0px;" /></a><div class="menu" id="NavigationMenu">
  21:     <ul class="level1">
  22:         <li><a class="level1" href="Default.aspx">Home</a></li><li><a class="level1" href="About.aspx">About</a></li><li><a class="level1" href="Contacts.aspx">Contacts</a></li>
  23:     </ul>
  24: </div><a id="NavigationMenu_SkipLink"></a>
  25:             </div>
  26:         </div>
  27:         <div class="main">
  28:             
  29:  
  30:     <h2>
  31:         Edit Contact
  32:     </h2>
  33:     <p>
  34:         <table>
  35:             <tr>
  36:                 <td>Title</td>
  37:                 <td><input name="ctl00$MainContent$tbTitle" type="text" value="Ms." id="MainContent_tbTitle" /></td>
  38:                 <td><span id="MainContent_rfvTitle" style="color:Red;visibility:hidden;">Title is Required</span></td>
  39:             </tr>
  40:             <tr>
  41:                 <td>First Name</td>
  42:                 <td><input name="ctl00$MainContent$tbFirstName" type="text" value="Catherine" id="MainContent_tbFirstName" /></td>
  43:                 <td><span id="MainContent_RequiredFieldValidator1" style="color:Red;visibility:hidden;">First Name is Required</span></td>
  44:             </tr>
  45:             <tr>
  46:                 <td>Middle Name</td>
  47:                 <td><input name="ctl00$MainContent$tbMiddleName" type="text" value="R." id="MainContent_tbMiddleName" /></td>
  48:             </tr>
  49:             <tr>
  50:                 <td>Last Name</td>
  51:                 <td><input name="ctl00$MainContent$tbLastName" type="text" value="Abel" id="MainContent_tbLastName" /></td>
  52:                 <td><span id="MainContent_RequiredFieldValidator2" style="color:Red;visibility:hidden;">Last Name is Required</span></td>
  53:             </tr>
  54:             <tr>
  55:                 <td>Suffix</td>
  56:                 <td><input name="ctl00$MainContent$tbSuffix" type="text" id="MainContent_tbSuffix" /></td>
  57:             </tr>
  58:             <tr>
  59:                 <td>Email Address</td>
  60:                 <td><input name="ctl00$MainContent$tbEmailAddress" type="text" value="catherine0@adventure-works.com" id="MainContent_tbEmailAddress" /></td>
  61:                 <td><span id="MainContent_RequiredFieldValidator3" style="color:Red;display:none;">Email Address is Required</span>
  62:                     <span id="MainContent_revEmail" style="color:Red;display:none;">Email is invalid!</span>
  63:                 </td>
  64:             </tr>
  65:             <tr>
  66:                 <td>Phone</td>
  67:                 <td><input name="ctl00$MainContent$tbPhone" type="text" value="747-555-0171" id="MainContent_tbPhone" /></td>
  68:                 <td><span id="MainContent_RequiredFieldValidator4" style="color:Red;visibility:hidden;">Phone is Required</span></td>
  69:             </tr>
  70:             <tr>
  71:                 <td colspan="2">
  72:                     <input type="submit" name="ctl00$MainContent$btnSave" value="Save" onclick="javascript:WebForm_DoPostBackWithOptions(new WebForm_PostBackOptions(&quot;ctl00$MainContent$btnSave&quot;, &quot;&quot;, true, &quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;, false, false))" id="MainContent_btnSave" />
  73:                 </td>
  74:             </tr>
  75:         </table>
  76:     </p>
  77:     <div>
  78:         <a href="/Contacts.aspx">Back to List</a>
  79:     </div>
  80:  
  81:         </div>
  82:         <div class="clear">
  83:         </div>
  84:     </div>
  85:     <div class="footer">
  86:         <button onclick="alert(($('html').html().length)/1024);">Page Size</button>
  87:     </div>
  88:     
  89: <script type="text/javascript"> 
  90: //<![CDATA[
  91: var Page_Validators =  new Array(document.getElementById("MainContent_rfvTitle"), document.getElementById("MainContent_RequiredFieldValidator1"), document.getElementById("MainContent_RequiredFieldValidator2"), document.getElementById("MainContent_RequiredFieldValidator3"), document.getElementById("MainContent_revEmail"), document.getElementById("MainContent_RequiredFieldValidator4"));
  92: //]]>
</script>
   1:  
   2:  
   3: <script type="text/javascript"> 
   4: //<![CDATA[
   5: var MainContent_rfvTitle = document.all ? document.all["MainContent_rfvTitle"] : document.getElementById("MainContent_rfvTitle");
   6: MainContent_rfvTitle.controltovalidate = "MainContent_tbTitle";
   7: MainContent_rfvTitle.errormessage = "*";
   8: MainContent_rfvTitle.evaluationfunction = "RequiredFieldValidatorEvaluateIsValid";
   9: MainContent_rfvTitle.initialvalue = "";
  10: var MainContent_RequiredFieldValidator1 = document.all ? document.all["MainContent_RequiredFieldValidator1"] : document.getElementById("MainContent_RequiredFieldValidator1");
  11: MainContent_RequiredFieldValidator1.controltovalidate = "MainContent_tbFirstName";
  12: MainContent_RequiredFieldValidator1.errormessage = "*";
  13: MainContent_RequiredFieldValidator1.evaluationfunction = "RequiredFieldValidatorEvaluateIsValid";
  14: MainContent_RequiredFieldValidator1.initialvalue = "";
  15: var MainContent_RequiredFieldValidator2 = document.all ? document.all["MainContent_RequiredFieldValidator2"] : document.getElementById("MainContent_RequiredFieldValidator2");
  16: MainContent_RequiredFieldValidator2.controltovalidate = "MainContent_tbLastName";
  17: MainContent_RequiredFieldValidator2.errormessage = "*";
  18: MainContent_RequiredFieldValidator2.evaluationfunction = "RequiredFieldValidatorEvaluateIsValid";
  19: MainContent_RequiredFieldValidator2.initialvalue = "";
  20: var MainContent_RequiredFieldValidator3 = document.all ? document.all["MainContent_RequiredFieldValidator3"] : document.getElementById("MainContent_RequiredFieldValidator3");
  21: MainContent_RequiredFieldValidator3.controltovalidate = "MainContent_tbEmailAddress";
  22: MainContent_RequiredFieldValidator3.errormessage = "*";
  23: MainContent_RequiredFieldValidator3.display = "Dynamic";
  24: MainContent_RequiredFieldValidator3.evaluationfunction = "RequiredFieldValidatorEvaluateIsValid";
  25: MainContent_RequiredFieldValidator3.initialvalue = "";
  26: var MainContent_revEmail = document.all ? document.all["MainContent_revEmail"] : document.getElementById("MainContent_revEmail");
  27: MainContent_revEmail.controltovalidate = "MainContent_tbEmailAddress";
  28: MainContent_revEmail.errormessage = "*";
  29: MainContent_revEmail.display = "Dynamic";
  30: MainContent_revEmail.evaluationfunction = "RegularExpressionValidatorEvaluateIsValid";
  31: MainContent_revEmail.validationexpression = "^[a-zA-Z][\\w\\.-]*[a-zA-Z0-9]@[a-zA-Z0-9][\\w\\.-]*[a-zA-Z0-9]\\.[a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z\\.]*[a-zA-Z]$";
  32: var MainContent_RequiredFieldValidator4 = document.all ? document.all["MainContent_RequiredFieldValidator4"] : document.getElementById("MainContent_RequiredFieldValidator4");
  33: MainContent_RequiredFieldValidator4.controltovalidate = "MainContent_tbPhone";
  34: MainContent_RequiredFieldValidator4.errormessage = "*";
  35: MainContent_RequiredFieldValidator4.evaluationfunction = "RequiredFieldValidatorEvaluateIsValid";
  36: MainContent_RequiredFieldValidator4.initialvalue = "";
  37: //]]>
</script>
   1:  
   2:  
   3: <script type='text/javascript'>new Sys.WebForms.Menu({ element: 'NavigationMenu', disappearAfter: 500, orientation: 'horizontal', tabIndex: 0, disabled: false });
</script>
   1:  
   2: <script type="text/javascript"> 
   3: //<![CDATA[
   4:  
   5: var Page_ValidationActive = false;
   6: if (typeof(ValidatorOnLoad) == "function") {
   7:     ValidatorOnLoad();
   8: }
   9:  
  10: function ValidatorOnSubmit() {
  11:     if (Page_ValidationActive) {
  12:         return ValidatorCommonOnSubmit();
  13:     }
  14:     else {
  15:         return true;
  16:     }
  17: }
  18:         //]]>
</script>
</form>
</body>
</html>


ASP.NET MVC – View Source:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head><title>

Edit

</title><link href="/Content/Site.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.4.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
</head>

<body>
<div class="page">

<div id="header">
<div id="title">
<h1>My MVC Application</h1>
</div>

<div id="logindisplay">


[ <a href="/Account/LogOn">Log On</a> ]

</div>

<div id="menucontainer">

<ul id="menu">
<li><a href="/">Home</a></li>
<li><a href="/Home/About">About</a></li>
<li><a href="/Contact">Contacts</a></li>
</ul>

</div>
</div>

<div id="main">


<h2>Edit Contact</h2>




<form action="/Contact/Edit/2" method="post">
<fieldset>
<legend>Fields</legend>

<div class="editor-label">
<label for="Title">Title</label>
</div>
<div class="editor-field">
<input id="Title" name="Title" type="text" value="Ms." />

</div>

<div class="editor-label">
First Name
</div>
<div class="editor-field">
<input id="FirstName" name="FirstName" type="text" value="Catherine" />

</div>

<div class="editor-label">
Middle Name
</div>
<div class="editor-field">
<input id="MiddleName" name="MiddleName" type="text" value="R." />

</div>

<div class="editor-label">
Last Name
</div>
<div class="editor-field">
<input id="LastName" name="LastName" type="text" value="Abel" />

</div>

<div class="editor-label">
<label for="Suffix">Suffix</label>
</div>
<div class="editor-field">
<input id="Suffix" name="Suffix" type="text" value="" />

</div>

<div class="editor-label">
Email Address
</div>
<div class="editor-field">
<input id="EmailAddress" name="EmailAddress" type="text" value="catherine0@adventure-works.com" />

</div>

<div class="editor-label">
<label for="Phone">Phone</label>
</div>
<div class="editor-field">
<input id="Phone" name="Phone" type="text" value="747-555-0171" />

</div>

<p>
<input type="submit" value="Save" />
</p>
</fieldset>

</form>

<div>
<a href="/Contact">Back to List</a>
</div>



<div id="footer">
<button onclick="alert(($('html').html().length)/1024);">Page Size</button>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>

About Page:

On the about page I dropped in the same number of controls.

 

ASP.NET 4.0 – About Page – File Size: 4.78kb
image

ASP.NET MVC 2 – About Page – File Size: 3.21kb
image

 

Total ASP.NET 4.0 Size Across Pages: 74.67

Total ASP.NET MVC 2 Size Across Pages: 38.29

 

Now is it all about just page size? No, but you have to admit out of the box. MVC is 50% more light weight then .NET on a whole it seems. Or if you have many editing pages, it’s 9x smaller! from 10kb to 1kb? Take that and start adding real data on a complex application and I think you’ll see some big differences.

There are other benefits to MVC as well. Unit testing is very easy. You have way more control over what goes back to the browser.  No more view state and server state.

Anyway, this wasn’t a real world comparison but it’s good enough to see the drastic changes.

Feel free to download the projects, keep in mind you’ll need a local running instance of SQL Express or Development Server with the AdventureWorks sample database installed. Then update your connection string in web.config.

ASP.NET 4.0 Web App in Visual Basic:

ASP.NET MVC 2 Web App In Visual Basic:

 

Releated Blog Post a friend of mine found. Webforms & Jquery: A Comparison

Posted in: ASP.NET MVC

Tags:

Great Tutorials for Learning ASP.NET MVC and my Thoughts

October 23, 2010 at 7:14 PMFred Mastro

I’ve been digging into ASP.NET MVC more and more and the more I use it the more I love it. Never thought I’d say that.  At first glance I didn’t like the idea of MVC because it looks like ASP Classic when you first look at it.  Server side code nuggets <% Inside the Html %> like asp classic.  Though I was hesitant giving up classic when .net came out. 

MVC I realize after using it, is much more powerful.  You’re not really doing server side code on the client, it’s an html template, you only do logic that relates to the UI.  Real code and business logic is for the controllers and classes.  There’s no code-behind anymore, no viewstate, no more .net controls with ID and runat server tags.  It’s so light weight, I’m baffled. 

Good Starting Tutorials.

Intro To ASP.NET MVC Tutorial 1 – Using VS2010 – Some Basic MVC stuff

Once you complete that.. move on to the next one which is a more realistic world app.

MVC Music Store MVC Tutorial 2 – Using VS2010

After that you’ll understand it very well and have a good grasp.

More MVC stuff over at asp.net/mvc

Posted in: ASP.NET MVC

Tags: ,

Extending the ASP.NET MVC HtmlHelper in VB.NET Specifically

October 23, 2010 at 3:37 PMFred Mastro

 

I’ve been reading up on MVC and understanding it’s framework. Of course everything out there is in C#, which is fine, however I prefer to write in VB.Net.  This causes some of the examples of lambda expressions and other things to alter, and can be a pain if you are unsure has how.  

This post is specific to the HtmlHelper, and extending it on MVC.

In mvc, you have access to an html. namespace, for links and other html controls.

  • Html.ActionLink()
  • Html.BeginForm()
  • Html.CheckBox()
  • Html.DropDownList()
  • Html.EndForm()
  • Html.Hidden()
  • Html.ListBox()
  • Html.Password()
  • Html.RadioButton()
  • Html.TextArea()
  • Html.TextBox()

 

If you want to know more about it you can read up on it on various posts, such as this here or here, or use it in the mvc music store tutorial. That will give you an good understanding of it.

This post will just show you the difference from the c# examples.   

In C#

Code Snippet
  1. using System.Web.Mvc;
  2. namespace MvcMusicStore.Helpers
  3. {
  4.     public static class HtmlHelpers
  5.     {
  6.         public static string Truncate(this HtmlHelper helper, string input, int length)
  7.         {
  8.             if (input.Length <= length)
  9.             {
  10.                 return input;
  11.             }
  12.             else
  13.             {
  14.                 return input.Substring(0, length) + "...";
  15.             }
  16.         }
  17.     }
  18. }

 

And then in VB.Net

Code Snippet
  1. Imports System.Web.Mvc
  2. Public Module HtmlHelpers
  3.     <System.Runtime.CompilerServices.Extension>    
  4.     Public Function Truncate(Helper As HtmlHelper, Input As String, Length As Integer) As String
  5.         If Input.Length <= Length Then
  6.             Return Input
  7.         Else
  8.             Return Input.Substring(0, Length) & "..."
  9.         End If
  10.     End Function
  11. End Module

You’ll notice that in the C# version it uses a “Static” keyword on the Class. In VB that equivalent keyword is “Shared”.  However, in VB you can’t use the “Shared” keyword on a Class. VB only supports “Shared” on Methods. So you should use a Module instead of a Class which is the same thing actually. It’s from the old VB days.

For your function you have to add the attribute

<System.Runtime.CompilerServices.Extension> 

Notice I don’t have the underscore _ line extending, because I’m in VB.Net 10. Previous versions or .Net 3.5 and earlier you’ll need an underscore to connect those two lines.

Other then that it’s about the same. Still have to add it to the web.config the same. 

Code Snippet
  1. <pages>
  2.   <namespaces>
  3.     <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc" />
  4.     <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc.Ajax" />
  5.     <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc.Html" />
  6.     <add namespace="System.Web.Routing" />
  7.     <add namespace="MvcMusicStore.HtmlHelpers"/>  
  8.   </namespaces>
  9. </pages>

 

So just remember, use a module instead of class, and add your attribute.

Posted in: ASP.NET MVC

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