ILoveYou.Net

Two column div using simple CSS

2012-02-08T06:08:00.001-08:00

This is a fairly simple post on how to align 2 <Div> in parallel to form a 2 column structure.
Imagine, I wish to create a blog system where on left should be an avtar pic while right part contains comment text. Keep it simple, imagine following HTML block:
<div style="float:left; padding-right:20px;">
                <div style="height:30px; width:50px; background-color:Red">avatar</div>
</div>
<div >     Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do <br />
                Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do <br />
                Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do <br />
                Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do <br />
</div>
This HTML block renders as following:

This looks good. Watch for 3rd line of Lorum ipsum which wraps automatically below avatar pic. This might be an ideal design for many but some may like to see avatar and comment text in their own space (similar to <TR><TD>avatar</TD><TD>Comment</TD></TR>). In context of above example, something like:

To achieve this, there is a very simple change we need. Just add “padding-bottom:100%” to first div:
<div style="float:left; padding-right:20px;padding-bottom:100%">
That’s it! It might be very useful when you are creating left navigation menu or anything where you wish to have 2 column structure.

Keyset does not exist issue in creating VS STS project

2012-01-18T04:42:00.000-08:00

Error:
Keyset does not exist

When:
While creating Visual Studio ASP.NET STS Website (a project type for WIF)

Impacts:
Causes FederationMetadata.xml to be empty

Reaon(s):
STSTestCert certificate might be corrupt/lost or not accessible.

Resolution:
1. Click Start, type mmc in the Search programs and files box, and then press ENTER.
2. On the File menu, click Add/Remove Snap-in.
3. Under Available snap-ins, double-click Certificates.
4. Select Computer account, and then click Next.
5. Click Local computer, and then click Finish. Click OK.
6. Under Console Root, Certificates (Local Computer), in the Personal store, click Certificates.
7. Select STSTestCert certificate and right click
8. From context menu select All task > Manage Private Keys
9. Most likely, you would see "Object Not found" error. If so, delete this certificate and close console.

Note:
1. If you can not see STSTestCert, this post might not be useful to you OR alternatively, you can try steps 7-9 for all other certificates.
2. If you do not face error in Step 9., then ensure that certificate is accessible to user using Visual Studio

Understanding MVC Razor layouts

2011-12-02T03:54:00.001-08:00

Q) What are ASP.NET MVC3 Razor Layouts?
You want a disclaimer, header and a menu on left to appear on all pages to bring in consistency to your web application. You would be quick enough to think of using a Master Page which is a template to your content.

Similar to Masterpage, MVC 3 introduces concepts of layout. So, like while creating an ASPX page you like declare a masterpage in ASPX file's page directive OR selecte a master page in MVC while creating controller, in MVC3 Razon you choose a layout instead for your view which will act as a template to your view.
Q) When and how are they created?
When you add a new MVC3 application (either blank or internet or intranet), Visual Studio automatically adds a default layout file called “_layout.cshtml” , placed in shared folder of view.

Note: There is no special extension for layout file.
This layout is automatically wired in another auto generated file called “_viewStart.cshtml” which contains following code:

@{
    Layout = "~/Views/Shared/CustomLayout.cshtml";
}

Of course, you can replace CustomLayout.cshtml with your custom html OR replace this file path with yours layout file. There is no naming convention. You can set “Layout” above to any .cshtml file.

Q) Can I have only one layout file?

_Layout file is generated by default as a boilerplate code. You can either replace it with your layout file or change its content. However, if you have a requirement to use different layouts for different sections, then when you add a View, you can select any .cshtml file as a master layout.

If you leave this box empty, automatically the layout as specified in _viewstart.cshtml is applied, otherwise the layout explicitly specified is applied. In above figure, for this view, _customlayout.cshtml will be applied.

Q) How do I create my portions of layout and inject them in master layout?

When a view is called, following process happens:

You can derive options from aforesaid diagram:

To not use layout in a specific view, set Layout = “”

@{
    ViewBag.Title = "Index";
    Layout = "";
}

To use a custom layout for a view, set aforesaid Layout to specific layout’s path

Q) How can I need to inject view’s content in separate portions of layout?

Through – Sections!

Besides, @RenderLayout, you can also define placeholders in layout file with specific name. For example, we created 2 placeholders @Header and @Disclaimer. In Views, create sections (with same name as in layout) and define content within curly braces {}.

All content with in section is rendered in respective placeholders, while everything else remaining is displayed by replacing @RenderBody

Q) What if my view has a section but layout doesn’t renders it or vice-versa?

If view has no layout specified, then there are no issues. But if a layout is specified, then either of the following scenarios would result in an error:
1) If Layout has a RenderSection(“somesection”) and there is no equivalent @section in view, then error comes.
2) If view contains any @section, which is not rendered in Layout, then also error comes.

To resolve 1), use IsSectionDefined(“viewname”) which checks if view has any section with specified name and accrodingly returns true false. So, where there is a probability of section not defined in a view, wrap the @RenderSection with this method.

@if (IsSectionDefined("somesection"))
    {
        @RenderSection("somesection")
    }

To resolve 2) you can either render section programmatically using Html.RenderPartial (explained in following sections).

Q) How can I extract sections in to separate view (for reusability)?

Through – Partial Views!

You can create partial views by checking “Create as partial view” checkbox, that appears in Add a new View popup.

Partial views have nothing special. They are same as other views, its just they don’t have default code block on top.

Q) How can I render partial views into layouts?

using RenderPartial method.

@{
Html.RenderPartial(“myView”)
}

Note: MyView will be searched in context of current view directory and shared directory. If you view lies somewhere else, you must specify full path like “~/Home/Views/SomeFolder/MyView.cshtml”

You can also use @Html.Partial(“viewName”)

Handling CSS with JQuery

2011-11-06T03:17:00.000-08:00

1. Modify class at runtime

1.1. If an element has multiple classes attached and you need to remove one of class (say 'oldclass') $(selector).removeClass("oldclass")

1.2. If you want to add a new class to an element (say 'newclass')
$(selector).addClass('newclass')

1.3. If you want to replace one of the class associated with element (say replace 'oldclass' with 'newclass') $(selector).removeClass('oldclass').addclass('newclass')

1.4. If you want to replace all classes with a different class
$(selector).attr('class','newclass') // with this one

2. Notes on using multiple classes.

2.1. If you want to specify multiple classes to an element, separate them with space.
<div class="class1 class2 class3"></div>
OR $('div').addClass('classA classB')
OR $('div').addClass('classA').addClass('classB')

2.2. More than the sequence in which classes are specified in an element, priority is more driven by class appearance in css. For example, consider following:

<style>
.fancy2 {
color:'#ffffff';
background-color:'black';
text-decoration:underline;
}
.fancy {
font-size:19px;
color:orange;
background-color:'blue';
}

</style> <div class="fancy fancy2">Lorem Ipsum</div>
<div class="fancy2 fancy">Lorem Ipsum</div>

For either div, settings will be applied by merging fancy and fancy2 while picking values appearing later in css for common properties. Therefore, both div will have following properties when rendered:
font-size:19px //picked from fancy
color:orange //picked from fancy as it appears after fancy2 in css
background-color:blue //picked from fancy as it appears after fancy2 in css
text-decoration:underline //picked from fancy

3. Using functions to set class If you need to specify class based on some logic, the same can directly be wired while setting css. For example, if(i=1) set 'Class1' otherwise 'Class0' then:
$('div').addClass(function(){return (i==1)? 'class1':'class2'})

4. Alter css property using JQuery - ummm U Can't!
Quiz:
Let's say there is a class 'abc'
.abc { color : 'red' }
and an element with that class
<div id='div1' class='abc'>Lorum Ipsum</div>
Now, what if following is executed in $(document).Ready():
$('.abc').css('color':'yellow')
What color will be displayed for text eventually?
You said "Yellow"? Correct!
Now, What if following line is executed?
$('#div1').removeClass('abc') ??
You said, "No color will be applied"?? ahm!
This time you are likely wrong. You would still see yellow color.
Reason:
When $('abc').css('color','yellow') was applied, an inline property of color=yellow was applied to all elements. when you remove css, that inline property was still there. Hence, yellow!

5. toggleClass('classname') - A sweet shortcut
Everytime ToggleClass('classname') is called on an element, it adds specified class to it (if specified class is not set for element) or otherwise remove that clas (if already set). Hence every alternate call toggles the class.
e.g. css: <style>.abc {color:'red')</style>
element: <div>abc</abc>
jquery: $('div').click(function() {$(this).toggleClass('abc'));
Everytime div is clicked, its class toggles.

6. properties with hyphens like background-color OR text-decoration can be set through .css() function only if they are in quotes. You can also have them as camelcased.
$('div').css(background-color,'yellow') //won't work
$('div').css('background-color','yellow') //works
$('div').css(backgroundColor,'yellow') //works

Starting a Thread targeting method with parameters

2011-08-03T04:42:00.000-07:00

Lets say you want to start a thread. How would you do it?

Thread T1 = new Thread(new ParameterizedThreadStart(SomeMethodName));

Restriction imposed by .NET is that Method which T1 targets can have only one parameter of object type. Hence, above code will work only if method signature is:
public static void SomeMethodName(object o)

But what if I want to invoke a method like:

public static void xyz (int a, int b)  ???


Answer is to use delegates here and start thread as:
Thread T3 = new Thread(delegate() { xyz(3, 4); });
or
Thread T3 = new Thread(() => xyz(3, 4));

The following module was built either with optimizations enabled or without debug information Visual Studio

2011-07-11T05:45:00.000-07:00

If you are facing this issue for long you must be on verge of banging your head or throw away your PC. There are many cause for this error. You might have tried options and may have missed a few. Following is a summary of different things that have helped me in resolving this issue (Hope it helps you out too):

1. In your Visual Studio, Go to Tools>Options>Debugging>General and check "Enable just my code as shown below"

2. If your application is configured to run using a IIS URL instead of dynamic localhost port, just ensure that IIS directory is pointing to your directory. Often while testing we make different copies of application and keep pointing application in IIS to one or the other. This actually resolved my issue.

3. Clean your solution, close VS, open again, rebuild application and try

4.Open properties of your project and ensure configuration as below:

5. Continuing from above, press advance button in Build settings below which opens a popup. Ensure, Debug Info is full as shown below

6. Delete old assemblies from GAC if you have added one to it.

Delete network credential from IE

2011-06-28T23:54:00.000-07:00

If you have mistakenly opted for "remember password" while opening sharepoint site (or any other site which opens a popup up for network credentials), then forcing IE to again start prompting for credentials is a pain unless you know the right think to do.

Everywhere you will get replies to delete cookies and other files by going into IE8>Settings>Content>AutoComplete>Delete Files. But this doesn't works for network credentials as they actually get stored by windows. Instead do following:

STEPS (applies to windows 7)

1. Click on start button

2. Type passwords and select Manage network passwords option from filtered list.
You will find saved URLs and passwords of saved credentials

3. Select Delete option for the saved credential you want to remove

disabling Page Cache

2011-06-16T23:24:00.001-07:00

1. Create a new .cs file "MyHttpModule.cs"

    public class MyHttpModule : IHttpModule
    {
 
        public void Dispose()
        {
            
        }
 
        public void Init(HttpApplication context)
        {
           context.PostRequestHandlerExecute +=new EventHandler(context_PostRequestHandlerExecute);
        }
 
        public void context_PostRequestHandlerExecute(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            HttpContext.Current.Response.Cache.SetCacheability(HttpCacheability.NoCache);
        }
    }
}

2. Register this module in web.config

 <httpModules>
          <add name="sessionmodule" type="WebApplication1.sessionmodule"/>
      httpModules>
  system.web>

Your all requests will automatically be skipped from caching.

Latest Javascript framework tags

2011-06-08T06:59:00.000-07:00

Get latest javascript framework links from http://scriptsrc.net/

SocialAuth.NET - OAuth with Facebook, Yahoo, Google & MSN

2011-05-31T00:04:00.000-07:00

So last time when you visited your favourite site, you were pleased to see that it allowed login through facebook also besides direct registration . This is such a convenient functionality as user tend to be lazy to fill in registration forms and then wait for email with activation link. If you are looking for implementing similar functionality in your application then you can simply use "Facebook Button" from Facebook. But what if you want to implement authentication with Yahoo, Google and MSN as well?
Well there is an out of the blue easy solution to achieve it! Meet SocialAuth.NET.

SocialAuth.NET is a .NET class library that can be used to implement authentication with Facebook, Yahoo, Google and MSN. Using this library is so easy, that even if you are aware of writing simple application with ASP.NET, you can easily use this library.

This library provides following features:
- Authentication with Yahoo, Google, Facebook, MSN, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace
- Retrieval of user profile
- Retrieval of user friends
- Automatic authentication engine
- Option for generating custom provider selection UI with simple HTML or .NET controls
- Framework for extending this API for other providers like Foursquare etc. .
- Easily switch authentication mechanism between OAuth1a, Hybrid and Oauth2
- Execute REST APIs on supported provider and build your applications
- Persist tokens and restore them later
- Integrate library in less than 15 minutes

Connect with 32bit DSN from 64bit .NET

2011-05-24T04:46:00.000-07:00

Recently I ran into a trouble. I was using a specific database which supported only 32bit ODBC connections. However my machine was 64bit Win7. If I connected to my 32bit DSN from Excel, I could get the data but from Visual Studio I received error :" There is an architectural mismatch". The reason was that by default my .NET communicated with 64bit driver. To force it to use, I changed my project Platform target from "ANY CPU" to "x86".. and it worked!! :)

Blittable types

2011-05-17T04:12:00.000-07:00

Blittable types have an identical presentation in memory for both Managed & Unmanaged environments, and can be directly shared by them. Hence, it does not require special attention from the interop marshaler.

• System.Byte • System.SByte • System.Int16

• System.UInt16 • System.Int32 • System.UInt32

• System.Int64 • System.IntPtr • System.UIntPtr

Additionally, one-dimensional arrays of these types as well as complex types containing only fields of these types are blittable. The following are some commonly-used non-blittable types in the .NET framework: System.Boolean, System.Char, System.Object, System.String

Youtube to MP3 converter (online)

2011-04-12T03:51:00.000-07:00

Came accross this amazing URL "http://www.listentoyoutube.com/"
Just input any youtube URL and download its mp3 version

2011-03-14T23:32:00.000-07:00

Use

VirtualPathUtility

to obtain information like requested path, extension etc in web environment. It is Web version of System.IO.Path

 VirtualPathUtility.GetExtension(HttpContext.Current.Request.RawUrl)

Convert XmlDocument to XElement

2010-11-26T05:04:00.001-08:00

XElement x = objXmlDocument.documentElement;

You might need this if you are creating a WCF service that accepts XElement as parameter but user has a dataset to be converted to Xelement

XmlDocument xDoc = new XmlDocument(YourDataset);
Xelement x = xDoc.DocumentElement;

?? operator

2010-10-12T04:09:00.000-07:00

x=1;
string NumberIs = (x==1)?"One":"Not Known";

Above code checks if X is queal to One then return "One" to NumberIs variable else return "Not Known"

There is another operator ?? which specifically checks for null

DataRow dr = myRow ?? DataRow.EmptyRow

This is same as:
If (myRow == null)
dr = myRow
else
dr = Datarow.EmptyRow

?? checks for left side is null or not. If it is null then it returns right part.

Accesssing TextBox value in Init Event

2010-09-03T04:18:00.000-07:00

As per ASP.net Page Lifecycle, Events that actually wire up Server Controls and load their viewstate, take place, quite after Init. However, one thing to remember is that even in Init Request object is available.

Hence, if you are aware of textbox control then you can access it using Request["textBoxName"].

Ideally you would use HTMLcontrol instead of ASP.net server control Like:

<input type="text" id="myTextbox" value="<%=SomeValueFromServerSide%>">

This textbox then can easily be accessed in Init using
var textBoxValue = Request["myTextBox"]

Dropdown value when EnableViewstate = false

2010-04-26T03:21:00.000-07:00

If EnableViewstate of a dropdown is set to false, you would need to bind the data at every post. Nothing new in this! But, you might face issues in retrieving value selected in dropdown before postback. It will always be ""

To get the value, pre-populate dropdown in Page_Init instead of Page_Load (if you are doing so). This will give the right selected value.

Indexers in C# and VB.net

2010-03-07T01:58:00.000-08:00

What are Indexers?

Indexers allow instances of a class or struct to be indexed just like arrays. Indexers resemble properties except that their accessors take parameters.

A class can have only one Indexer
In VB.net, default keyword is required to make it indexer
Index can be accessed either by a numeric index or even string

How to Use (C#)?

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Linq;

using System.Text;

namespace CSconsole

{

class NamesList

{

public int Length

{

get { return objList.Count; }

}

List<String> objList = new List<string>();

public string this[int index]

{

get { return objList[index]; }

set { objList.Add (value); }

}

public class TestIndexers

{

public static void Main()

{

NamesList obj = new NamesList();

obj[0] = "UserA";

obj[1] = "UserB";

for(int i=0;i

{

Console.WriteLine(obj[i]);

}

Console.ReadKey();

}

How to Use (VB.net)?

Imports System.Collections.Generic

Public Class NamesList

Dim Names As New List(Of String)

Default Public Property LastName(ByVal index As Integer) As String

Get

Return Names(index)

End Get

Set(ByVal value As String)

Names.Add(value)

End Set

End Property

Public Property FirstName(ByVal index As Integer) As String

Get

Return Names(index)

End Get

Set(ByVal value As String)

Names.Add(value)

End Set

End Property

Public Shared Sub Main()

Dim obj As New NamesList()

obj(0) = "User1"

Console.WriteLine(obj(0))

Console.Read()

End Sub

End Class

Handling Dropdownlist inside gridview

2010-02-24T00:02:00.000-08:00

Often there is a need to handle OnSelectedIndexChanged event of a dropdown residing inside a GridView. This can be handled as following:

1. Specify an event handler from dropdown in ASPX

<asp:GridView ID="GridView1" runat="server" AutoGenerateColumns="False">

<asp:TemplateField>

<asp:DropDownList OnSelectedIndexChanged="ddl_Change" DataTextField="UserName" AutoPostBack="true" DataValueField="userId" ID="ddl" runat="server"/>

2. Add event handler in ASPX.cs

Protected Sub ddl_Change(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As EventArgs)

'You can retrieve Dropdown as:

Dim DropDownControl As DropDownList = CType(sender, DropDownList)

'You can retrieve Parent GridRow as:

Dim gridRow As GridViewRow = CType(CType(sender, DropDownList).NamingContainer, GridViewRow)

' Do stuff with your dropdown and grid row like populating other dropdown.

End Sub

Whats new in C# 2.0 3.0 4.0

2010-02-21T08:14:00.000-08:00

What's new in C# 2.0
1. Generics
2. Nullable Types
3. Iterators
4. Partial Class Definitions
5. Anonymous Methods
6. The :: Alias Qualifier
7. Static Classes
8. Covariance and Contravariance
9. Fixed-Size Buffers
10. Friend Assemblies
11. extern Aliases
12. Method Group Conversion
13. Accessor Access Control
14. The #pragma Directive

What's new in C# 3.0
1. Lambda expressions
2. Extension methods
3. Implicitly typed local variables
4. Query comprehensions
5. Anonymous types
6. Object initializers
7. Implicitly typed arrays
8. Automatic properties
9. Partial methods
10. Expression trees

What's new in C# 4.0
1. Named and Optional Parameters
2. Dynamic Support
3. Variance
4. COM Interop