MVC browser history

This is the part 5 of 5 of my implementing of a MVC Browser history

MVC browser history – idea

Browser history –2 – implementing, small bugs

Browser history 3–trying to Nuget – modifications in order to can be transformed from an application to a component

Browser history 4–NuGet again – finally Nuget deployment

Browser history–part 5–conclusions – conclusions

I want to do another small open source utilities project – MVC browser history . That seems simple at the beginning – but , yet , there are small tasks to do that are not so easy .

What does MVC browser history  does? Well, keep an history of the links the user clicks through an MVC site. I must eliminate the ajax requests and Child requests – so keep the just the URL’s

So what I have learned after one hour:

Thinking process :

I must somehow maintain the url’s – either in database , either in memory – so a Repository concept came handy.

Data to be saved includes :

1. URL –easy –  HttpContext.Request.Url.ToString();
2. Date – easy – DateTime.Now;
3. UserName – not so easy – what if user not registered?
4. PageName – it should belong to that, but, from a RelationalDatabase in a 3rd form, should be another table.

Named this class BrowserUserHistoryData ( rather a long name, but descriptive)

Now detailing:
URL – possible problem : differentiate between Person/Edit/1 and Person/Edit/2. It’s a feature, not a bug : browser history, not Action history. More, the User can have acces to Person/Edit/1 and NOT Person/Edit/2.
UserName – maybe Session , if not registered? (con.User.Identity.IsAuthenticated ? con.User.Identity.Name : con.Session.SessionID); , if not WebApp, then … ok, not for this time.

How to obtain the data? The global filter from http://bradwilson.typepad.com/blog/2010/07/aspnet-mvc-filters-and-statefulness.html

What to obtain ? A user history and first 5 links order by count

Programming:

Errors repaired:

1. Brad Wilson put data in context.HttpContext.Items . Forget that is good for one request only. Thinking about how to persist and obtain data in MVC action and Global filter- and storing to Application . Made public static T AddOrRetrieveFromApplication
2. Adding ViewName in OnResultExecuting, not in OnResultExecuted.
3. Reading data from Repository WITHOUT persisting there .
4. Thinking that the Model of the page is just the list of user history. Nope, it is also the first 5 links order by count : HistoryViewModel

   public class HistoryViewModel
       {
           public BrowserUserHistory UserHis;
           public IBrowserUserHistoryRepository rep;
       }
   

Errors not repaired:

1. Not showing just HIS user browser history, but all ( not to be repaired, since Cassini changes session_id all the time) . NOT TO BE REPAIRED.
2. Latest links, history himself, not show view name

What I have enjoyed:

1. Programming process
2. The idea that will be useful to other people
3. Linq:  – can be translated to database also.

    public IEnumerable<KeyValuePair<string,int>> MostUsed(int Count, DateTime? date)
           {
               var data= historyMemory.Where(item =>(date==null || item.Date.Subtract(date.Value).Days == 0)).GroupBy(item=>item.Url).OrderByDescending(g=>g.Count()).Take(Count);
               return data.Select(i =>new KeyValuePair<string,int>( i.Key,i.Count()));
           }
   

What to do next:

1. Correct the error
2. Test more the application with a real application
3. Make the application understandable – comments.
4. Make the application publicly available
5. Spread the word ( already did, but not enough).

Code can be downloaded from BrowserHistory

. Play with it – and, if you like, drop a comment.