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How to manipulate a url to access a parent directory

I have an asp.net web application that is being hosted on an internal network. In my testing environment of course it gets hosted out on localhost:01010/Views/page.aspx. now whenever I take it live the Url changes to server_name/folder 1/folder 2/views/page.aspx. what I am trying to do is get a new page to open up as server_name/folder 1/folder 2/Uploaded_Images/randomimage.png. Now I Can get the url, but as soon as I do a single ".Remove(url.lastindexof("/")+1)" it returns "server_name/folder 1/folder 2/Views". The I perform my second ".Remove(url.lastindexof("/")+1)"
and the it only returns "server_name/". I am ripping my hair out at this one and am hoping somewhere in the world a .net developer already has this built in. Appreciate all the help.
Also just to specify this is webforms and not mvc. also there is no ajax or page manipulation going on except for a response.write to open the new page.

You don't need the +1, this works:
var url = "server_name/folder 1/folder 2/views/page.aspx";
url = url.Remove(url.LastIndexOf("/"));
url = url.Remove(url.LastIndexOf("/"));
Or you could do it like this:
var parts = url.Split('/');
var newPath = string.Join("/", parts.Take(3));

I assume you are talking about URL's used as links to parts of your site and not physical paths on the file system.
In most cases, you should be able to use methods that construct paths on the fly. For example, in any of your .aspx files (or .aspx.cs files), you can use the ResolveUrl method, like this:
Some link
If there are any places where you need the full URL including the domain (like for email notifications or something like that) then what I have done is keep a static variable accessible to my whole application that gets set the first time Application_BeginRequest runs:
void Application_BeginRequest(object sender, EventArgs e) {
if (SiteRoot == null) {
SiteRoot = HttpContext.Current.Request.Url.GetLeftPart(UriPartial.Authority) +
(VirtualPathUtility.ToAbsolute("~") == "/" ? "" : VirtualPathUtility.ToAbsolute("~"));
}
}
That will pull the full URL from the Request details (the URL that the user used to access your site), without any trailing slash.

Unable to get some user account information in UWP app - In-premise active directory (Not Azure AD)

In a UWP app, I have enabled the User Account Information capability.
I need to get the username and the domain name (each of them separately) of the currently logged on user (The users are logged on with an in-premise Active Directory account - Not Azure AD).
For example, the user would log in to the Active Directory domain domain1 using the username user1. i.e. domain1\user1.
I am using the following code to try to get the required details:
IReadOnlyList<User> users = await User.FindAllAsync();
var user = users.FirstOrDefault();
// get domain
var data1 = await user.GetPropertyAsync(KnownUserProperties.DomainName);
string strDomainName = (string)data1;
// get username
var data2 = await user.GetPropertyAsync(KnownUserProperties.AccountName);
string strUserName = (string)data2;
Issues:
strDomainName returns domain1.com\user1. Why does this include the .com part for all our domains? On c# winforms applications we can easily get domain1\user1 without any issue.
strUserName returns an empty string. i.e. "". Why does this not return any value?
I also checked the following:
KnownUserProperties.FirstName returns an empty string. i.e. ""
KnownUserProperties.LastName returns an empty string. i.e. ""
KnownUserProperties.PrincipalName returns an empty string. i.e. ""
KnownUserProperties.ProviderName returns an empty string. i.e. ""
KnownUserProperties.GuestHost returns an empty string. i.e. ""
Is there anything else I need to enable similar to the User Account Information capability? Or are there any other permissions that need to be granted to the app to get this information?
I understand that I can get the value of strDomainName and perform string functions to get what I need. But I want to know if there is any way to get this information directly. Also curious why KnownUserProperties.AccountName and other properties listed above such as FirstName, LastName etc. just returns an empty string.
I am running the following version of Windows:
I have the following set as the Target version and Min Version:
To verify, I also tested with the UserInfo sample project by Microsoft from GitHub and I got the following output:
The following was automatically enabled in Settings > Privacy > Account Info.
TestApp is the app I tried with and User Info C# Sample is the sample app from GitHub:
Update:
After also enabling the Enterprise Authentication capability, KnownUserProperties.PrincipalName does return the expected value. i.e. user1#domain1.com.
However, other properties listed above such as FirstName, LastName etc. just returns an empty string and I am still unable to find any property that returns domain1\user1 (without the .com part)

The Information you are trying to access are not reliable, as they (as you mentioned) do not have to be set and also they can be restricted access to via privacy settings in general.
I had a similar problem and would advise you to use the UWP OneDrive API
using Microsoft.OneDrive.Sdk;
and then request wl.basic scope. This scope contains at least a reliable username.
public static async Task<bool> GetAuthenticatedClient()
{
string oneDriveConsumerBaseUrl = "https://api.onedrive.com/v1.0";
var scopes = new List<string>
{
"wl.signin",
"wl.basic",
};
Task authTask;
var onlineIdAuthProvider = new OnlineIdAuthenticationProvider(scopes.ToArray());
authTask = onlineIdAuthProvider.RestoreMostRecentFromCacheOrAuthenticateUserAsync();
oneDriveClient = new OneDriveClient(oneDriveConsumerBaseUrl, onlineIdAuthProvider);
AuthProvider = onlineIdAuthProvider;
try
{
await authTask;
if (!AuthProvider.IsAuthenticated)
{
return false;
}
}
catch (ServiceException exception)
{
// Swallow the auth exception but write message for debugging.
//Debug.WriteLine(exception.Error.Message);
return false;
}
return true;
}
As for the domain, I'm not sure, but you could try to access it via Environment.UserDomainName like described on MSDN or with Windows.Networking.Connectivity.NetworkInformation.GetHostNames() like described here.

I found another possible solution to this. If you are still debugging this locally or the app was already installed on the target machine, I could enable the capabality User Account Information but this was not propagated to the actual installed app:
when your search for your app name in the start menu and then right click the entry and select App settings you get something like this:
As soon as I enabled the highlighted option (basically it says 'Account information') it worked.

How to maintain the right URL in C#/ASP.NET?

I am given a code and on one of its pages which shows a "search result" after showing different items, it allows user to click on one of records and it is expected to bring up a page so that specific selected record can be modified.
However, when it is trying to bring up the page I get (by IE) "This page cannot be displayed".
It is obvious the URL is wrong because first I see something http://www.Something.org/Search.aspx then it turns into http://localhost:61123/ProductPage.aspx
I did search in the code and found the following line which I think it is the cause. Now, question I have to ask:
What should I do to avoid using a static URL and make it dynamic so it always would be pointing to the right domain?
string url = string.Format("http://localhost:61123/ProductPage.aspx?BC={0}&From={1}", barCode, "Search");
Response.Redirect(url);
Thanks.

Use HttpContext.Current.Request.Url in your controller to see the URL. Url contains many things including Host which is what you're looking for.
By the way, if you're using the latest .Net 4.6+ you can create the string like so:
string url = $"{HttpContext.Current.Request.Url.Host}/ProductPage.aspx?BC={barCode}&From={"Search"}";
Or you can use string.Format
string host = HttpContext.Current.Request.Url.Host;
string url = string.Format("{0}/ProductPage.aspx?BC={1}&From={2}"), host, barCode, "Search";

You can store the Host segment in your AppSettings section of your Web.Config file (per config / environment like so)
Debug / Development Web.Config
Production / Release Web.Config (with config override to replace the localhost value with something.org host)
and then use it in your code like so.
// Creates a URI using the HostUrlSegment set in the current web.config
Uri hostUri = new Uri(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings.Get("HostUrlSegment"));
// does something like Path.Combine(..) to construct a proper Url with the hostName
// and the other url segments. The $ is a new C# construct to do string interpolation
// (makes for readable code)
Uri fullUri = new Uri(hostUri, $"ProductPage.aspx?BC={barCode}&From=Search");
// fullUrl.AbosoluteUri will contain the proper Url
Response.Redirect(fullUri.AbsoluteUri);
The Uri class has a lot of useful properties and methods to give you Relative Url, AbsoluteUrl, your Url Fragments, Host name etc etc.

This should do it.
string url = string.Format("ProductPage.aspx?BC={0}&From={1}", barCode, "Search");
Response.Redirect(url);
If you are using .Net 4.6+ you can also use this string interpolation version
string url = $"ProductPage.aspx?BC={barcode}&From=Search";
Response.Redirect(url);
You should just be able to omit the hostname to stay on the current domain.

UriBuilder points to localhost instead of domain name

My site has a public section that is accessed by http and a https part to requires logging in. When logging out of the site, it redirects to the http public index page.
Previously I had done this with stating the full url to point too. Recently I had to get rid of such things so the site can be run on numerous domains, for testing.
I tried using UriBuilder to convert https links to http link so that a website no longer has to use direct pointing to a specific url. This should allow the site to use any domain name. Right now it points to the computer name.
if (Request.IsSecureConnection)
{
UriBuilder ub = new UriBuilder();
ub.Path = "/html/index.html";
ub.Scheme = Uri.UriSchemeHttp;
ub.Port = -1; // use default port for scheme
Response.Redirect(ub.Uri.ToString(), true);
//An old direct link to the site
//Response.Redirect("http://www.someaddress.com/html/index.html");
}
When the code is triggered remotely on the test server instead of pointing to the right domain it returns me to the address
http://localhost/html/index.html
Instead of
http://testserver/html/index.html
I have no idea why it is doing this instead of returning the address I am connecting to the server via.

If you don't specify host than default host ("localhost") will be used - see UriBuilder() constructor article on MSDN.
Fix: specify host (probably based on incoming request's host).
ub.Host = GetMeIncomingHost();

Because in the URI to which you are redirecting, you haven't specified an authority (host). Thus, your redirect sends a 302 Found HTTP status and the response contains a location: header that looks like something like this:
location: /html/index.html
That is a relative URI, relative to the current URI from which the redirected request originated. That means it inherited the scheme and authority component of the requesting page (which, obviously, in your case, was an http://localhost:xx/....
To fix this, seed your UriBuilder in its constructor with HttpContext.Current.Request.Url. That should about do it:
UriBuilder ub = new UriBuilder( HttpContext.Current.Request.Url );
ub.Path = "/html/index.html";
Response.Redirect(ub.Uri.ToString(), true);

Where to store global settings for my SPItemEventReceivers?

I have a SPItemEventReceiver that does nothing else than notify another HTTP server at a given IP and Port abouth the events using POST requests.
The HTTP server runs on the same computer as sharepoint, so I used to send the notification at localhost and a fixed Port number. But since the eventreceiver can be called in other servers in the serverfarm, localhost:PORT will not be available then.
So, everytime my HTTP server starts, it needs to save its IP address and Port somewhere in SharePoint where all EventReceivers have access, no matter on what server they are called.
What would be a good place to store such globally available information?
I tought about SPWebService.ContentService.Properties , but I'm not really sure if that's a good idea. What do you think?

Well, if you are using Sharepoint 2010 I would consider store those values in the property bag. Using client object model or even Javascript/ECMAScript Client Object Model. These codes maybe help you.
using (var context = new ClientContext("http://localhost"))
{
var allProperties = context.Web.AllProperties;
allProperties["testing"] = "Hello there";
context.Web.Update();
context.ExecuteQuery();
}
Or using javascript:
function getWebProperty() {
var ctx = new SP.ClientContext.get_current();
var web = ctx.get_site().get_rootweb();
this.props = web.get_allProperties();
this.props.set_item(“aProperty”, “aValue”);
ctx.load(web);
ctx.executeQueryAsync(Function.createDelegate(this, gotProperty), Function.createDelegate(this, failedGettingProperty));
}
function gotProperty() {
alert(this.props.get_item(“aProperty”));
}
function failedGettingProperty() {
alert("failed");
}
Sources:
https://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/questions/49299/sharepoint-2010-net-client-object-model-add-item-to-web-property-bag
https://www.nothingbutsharepoint.com/sites/devwiki/articles/Pages/Making-use-of-the-Property-Bag-in-the-ECMAScript-Client-Object-Model.aspx

There are actually several ways of saving configuration values in SharePoint:
Property Bags of SharePoint objects SPWebApplication, SPFarm,SPSite, SPWeb, SPList, SPListItem`
A "configuration" list in SharePoint - just a regular list you might set to Hidden = TRUE
The web.config file - specifically the <AppSettings>
Wictor Wilen actually explains the 6 ways to store settings in SharePoint.
As you are talking about an external process trying to save its settings somewhere, generally I would recommend the web.config, but each change in the web.config would lead to an IISRESET making it not a good option. I would strongly advise to use either a property bag (e.g. the SPWebApplication.Properties bag) or a hidden list in your favorite web site. You would set the property bag like so:
SPWebApplication webApplication = ...
object customObject = ...
// set value in hashtable
webApp.Add("MySetting", customObject);
// persist the hashtable
webApp.Update();
See what is cool about this? You can actually store an object with the web application which could contain multiple settings as long as you keep your object serializable.