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WebMatrix And jQuery Forms

2010-08-10T17:23:09+01:00

Even though WebMatrix is still in its first Beta, there have been a few requests in forums already for examples illustrating how to create Web Pages forms powered by AJAX. Building on previous articles, I thought I'd put together a little sample that shows how to do this to add a record to a database using jQuery. Here's how it's done.

Looking At The WebMatrix WebGrid

2010-08-08T09:33:34+01:00

One of the most useful helpers provided by ASP.NET Web Pages via WebMatrix is likely to be the WebGrid, which is designed for displaying tabular data. Still in Beta 1, documentation is sparse, so here's a more detailed look the WebGrid Helper.

Inline Razor Syntax Overview

2010-07-30T15:27:02+01:00

With the launch of WebMatrix, and the announcement of the new Razor View Engine for the next version of ASP.NET MVC, here's a quick guide to Razor syntax.

Adding And Editing Data In ASP.NET Web Pages

2010-07-25T09:52:05+01:00

In the first of my WebMatrix articles, I mentioned that entering data via the database design forms is a bit of a pain. I also promised to look at editing data via a web page at some stage. This article keeps that promise, and looks at adding data too.

Extending ASP.NET Web Pages - Create Your Own Helpers

2010-07-18T21:37:38+01:00

The Beta1 version of WebMatrix comes with a number of Web Pages helpers to make your life simple. These include helpers to work with file uploading, images, email, caching, grids, Twitter feeds and a lot more. I suspect that as the product evolves towards full release, more will be added. Nevertheless, the developers of WebMatrix and Web Pages cannot anticipate every requirement, so there will be a time when you feel you need something extra. Adding your own helpers is quite easy, as this article shows.

Web Pages - Efficient Paging Without The WebGrid

2010-07-17T10:48:07+01:00

If you want to display your data over a number of pages using WebMatrix Beta1, you have two options. One is to use the built-in paging support that comes with the WebGrid helper. But that means that your data will be displayed within an HTML table. If that is not your preferred layout choice, you need to write your own paging code. Let's look at how you can do that.

Finding Yesterday in SQL and C#

2010-07-12T21:27:20+01:00

Here's something that comes up often in forums - How To Find Yesterday in SQL or C#. Piece of cake, if you know how, but tricky if you don't. And especially tricky to get the right value if you are not clear on the requirement.

Save And Retrieve Files From a Sql Server CE Database with WebMatrix

2010-07-09T20:28:01+01:00

A perennial choice that web developers have to make is whether to store uploaded files to the file system or a database. Each method has its pros and cons, and the debate over which approach is best continues to rage. This article will not add to the noise. It will simply demonstrate how to upload files to the Sql Server CE database which is the default option in Web Pages, and how to retrieve them for users again.

WebMatrix - Consistent Look And Feel With Razor

2010-07-07T22:04:07+01:00

Most web development frameworks provide features that assist with creating a consistent look and feel across pages, or make provision for managing reusable partial content, such as headers and footers. The Web Pages framework is no exception. This article examines the core features offered by its Razor view engine for handling templated layouts and common blocks of content.

WebMatrix - A First Application

2010-07-06T21:35:49+01:00

This article will take a first look at WebMatrix - Microsoft's new IDE for developing Web Pages applications. In it, I will cover a number of the core features that will make Web Matrix the ideal starter's web development framework as I create a very simple application.

Introducing WebMatrix - An Easier Way To Do ASP.NET

2010-07-06T20:51:24+01:00

There has been a spate of announcements recently from Scott Guthrie, the main Microsoft man responsible for ASP.NET over the last week or so - the launch of IIS Express, a new version of SQL Server Compact Edition (CE) that can be run in medium trust environments, and a new View Engine and syntax called Razor. Each of these announcements have generated a lot of reaction, and they are each significant in themselves. They all make ASP.NET easier for existing developers. However, if you put them all together, and throw in a new framework and IDE, they make ASP.NET much, much easier for new developers coming to ASP.NET for the first time. So that's what Microsoft have gone and done. And today, they have announced the first Beta version of WebMatrix - a head-on competitor to WAMP stacks.

Classic ASP Include Files in ASP.NET

2010-06-23T07:43:35+01:00

Include files within classic ASP are about the only way to achieve some measure of code-reuse within frameworks that offer little or nothing by way of composition or inheritance. Judging by the number of questions in forums, there are still a lot of people moving across from classic ASP who are puzzled as to how to approach replacing include files within ASP.NET. A number of articles illustrate individually how to do so for site-wide layout reasons, including widgets, reusing global functions, or actually including the content of a file. However, I haven't been able to find one resource that brings all these together, hence the purpose of this article.

Named Anchors And MVC Urls

2010-06-14T10:15:15+01:00

Named Anchors are used to generate links to specific locations within a web document. Unless you are careful, you may end up having a little trouble getting these to work using the MVC LinkExtension helpers.

Google Sitemap Generation From A Custom SiteMapResult

2010-05-31T20:42:48+01:00

My previous article showed how to use a custom ActionResult and the classes within WCF to generate an RSS feed. There are no similar classes to help build a valid Google Site Map for an ASP.NET MVC application. So here's how your can build your own.

Rss Feed Generation From a Custom RssResult

2010-05-31T09:14:32+01:00

When I looked at producing RSS Feeds in ASP.NET MVC before, I used the ContentResult method to return XML. Best Practice suggests that you should create a new ActionResult if required. So this article looks at creating an RssResult, and a different way to generate the feed itself.

Converting URLs Into Links With Regex

2010-05-22T22:56:55+01:00

Following on from the recent spate of extensions methods I've posted, here's another I use to convert URLs and email addresses into links within HTML. You may want to restrict users from submitting HTML tags via forms in your application, which means that URLs and email addresses that they submit appear as plain text unless they are subjected to some kind of processing.

Highlighting Keywords Found In Search Results

2010-05-22T19:41:22+01:00

A common question in the forums is how to highlight key words found in search results. Here's an extension method that does that, both for partial matches, or whole word matches.

jQuery News Scrollers and Tickers with a ListView

2010-05-21T21:12:46+01:00

The jQuery Cycle plug-in is most often used for creating image slide shows. However, it's just as easy to use to create a news scroller from a ListView. Here, I look a doing just that. I also look at an alternative jQuery plug-in (NewsTicker) that gives the effect of the classic BBC News Ticker.

Displaying The First n Characters Of Text

2010-05-16T09:59:34+01:00

Displaying the first n characters of a block of text on a page without chopping words off halfway through is a common requirement. There are a number of ways to achieve this, but here's an extension method that you might find useful.

Sessions and Shopping Carts

2010-05-03T23:36:32+01:00

Managing shopping carts using Sessions is the source of much confusion for beginners to ASP.NET. This article looks at how to do this so that items can be added and removed by customers easily before they commit to their purchase.