Tag: mvc

Clearer MVC

In every application there are some variables that are set by the ASP.NET application( ASP.NET_SessionId cookie ) and some that are set by the programmer( cached data in Application/Session/Cache/Cookies and so on).

I wanted every time to have a page where I can “clear” / delete those – and not found. So it’s the Clearer project.

It consists of :

ClearerController with 2 Actions: Index and DeleteItem
2 Views : Index.cshtml and EditAppData.cshtml
Different Models:
- SourceData – enum – can be : None , Application , Cache , Session , Cookies
- AppData – maintains Key/Value and SourceData pairs
- ListAppData – loads data from Application , Cache , Session , Cookies – and deletes.

To make an example, I have put in the Application_Start and Session_Start different values. So the screen is the following:

What I learn from the code:

The Cookies, Applications, Session , Cache items can be easily converted to an DictionaryEntry and the code can be like this:
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1
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DictionaryEntry de = new DictionaryEntry(item, sess[item.ToString()]);
AddNew(de, SourceData.Session);

Code must be error prone – what if some item in Session is null ? So , if I have the Key, all is good:

private void AddNew(DictionaryEntry de, SourceData sd)
        {
            AppData ap = new AppData() { source = sd, Key = de.Key.ToString() };
            try
            {
                var obj = de.Value;
                ap.Value = (obj == null) ? Null : obj.ToString();
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
 
                ap.Value = string.Format(ErrorToString, ex.Message);
            }
            this.Add(ap);
        }

The dog-food is good: I have followed my advice from msprogrammer.serviciipeweb… and it works ( used for Remove )

[HttpPost]
     public JsonResult DeleteItem(string TheKey, int Source)
     {
         try
         {
             var lad = new ListAppData();
             lad.DeleteItem(TheKey, (SourceData)Source);
             return Json(new { ok = true, message = "" });
         }
         catch (Exception ex)
         {
             return Json(new { ok = false, message = ex.Message });
         }
          
     }

When you pass strings in Javascript, there is a simple way to encode: HttpUtility.JavaScriptStringEncode
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<a href="javascript:removeItem('@HttpUtility.JavaScriptStringEncode(Model.Key)','@((int)Model.source)','@id')">Remove</a>

Possible uses:

For developers – when they want to see what happens when a cache item no longer exists
For developers – to put to site admins some simple tool to reload data from Cache/Application . Just edit the LoadAll function to load only Cache/Application
For developers – to test easily the session. Just delete ASP.NET_SessionId cookie – you will get another one when you refresh the page.

You can view online at http://clearer.apphb.com/Clearer
The project could be found at http://clearer.codeplex.com and have all – source code, downloadable project .

Next week it will be a Nuget item.

For more features , please leave me a comment here or on codeplex at issues
Nuget package at http://nuget.org/packages/Clearer

First version of Messaging system

Realized the first version. When you logon on the system, the application sends you an email and you can see it.

Lots of thing done – however, the testing is not complete.

Logging was the difficult part- since I want to work with various loggers( LOG4NET, NLOG, MS TRACE, and so on). I required to a duck typing from DeftTech. See logging assembly for more details.

You can download the files from http://messagemvc.codeplex.com/– however, you may want to wait for a NuGET version.

If you want to help me further , please send me an email via http://messagemvc.codeplex.com/.

December 12, 2011
7 Comments
Andrei Ignat
ASP.NET MVC, HowTo, MVC 4, MVC Messaging System

Implementations GUI details

When creating a GUI you must think to give user some good feeling about what the software can do – so I started to MVC 4 website, that have mobile support integrated.

More, you must demonstrate some features right away to the user – so what’s best if not a message from system admin to the user to “welcome” him ?

For this , I have to implement a template with RazorEngine – simple to used from his code

string template = "Hello @Model.Name! Welcome to Razor!";
  string result = Razor.Parse(template, new { Name = "World" });

Summary of modifications for this simple operation – send and display a message from Admin when a user registers

Add connectionstrings to web.config – to connect to database + SiteUtils static class to retrieve it.
RegisterAdmin user in Application_Start – in order to have user Admin in the database ( generate a GUID and put into a const)
Add “welcome.txt” file
Add RazorEngine to parse message
Modify Register action in order to send message after a user registers
Add an area “Messaging” in order to can have the messaging separated from main site( to be easier to xcopy)
Add an Index action( display read/unread messages) + View
Add an DisplayMessage action (display a message) + View

All for this picture where it shows number of unread messages(1) and list :