I've built a pretty simple content manager for a website that I have. For every page, the user has control over what content is displayed by using an Admin tool.
Now, my client wants the ability to add entire pages. Right now, I have to create a new page, and then they can go in and edit the content for that page. But they don't want to do that anymore, they'd like to create their own without having to come to me. They'd like the name of the page to be consistent as well - so if they create an "About" page, it would be mysite.com/about instead of mysite.com/dynamicpage/8.
I need to be able to do this without using a third party CMS, considering that there already a robust Admin backend. Is there any tutorial about how to do this?
I'm using ASP.NET MVC 2, .NET 4.0.
A simple solution here (and you should probably customize it a bit):
Simply create a route that contains a variable (say pageName or something) on a ContentController or something. AKA (mysite.com/content/{pageName}). Your action method takes the page name, and then loads up the HTML via the database. It then simply returns that HTML as a Content Response
return new ContentResult
{
Content = htmlFromDatabase,
ContentType = "text/html" // Change if you want depending on DB values
};
Then you just need one admin panel to update the DB entries with content and the client can add / remove / edit entries that just exist in the DB.
While I haven't tried it you can have a look here http://haacked.com/archive/2009/04/22/scripted-db-views.aspx
And it has already been asked and answered in SO Create Dynamic pages in asp.net mvc
If you can move to MVC3, you can use Razor's ability to execute scripts (pages) from a string.
I'm using this open-source project to do something very similar.
Then, all you need to add is a page in your admin area to edit the virtual pages, and stuff the result into a database.
Your controller will examine the requested route and retrieve the correct page record from your database, use Razor to execute the page (and get the result as a string), and send the result back to the client.
This will let you easily include dynamic content within the page (the script can, say reference partial views that return the dynamic items). If all they need to do is edit HTML, it's probably overkill.
Related
I've got an application written in ASP .NET Core 3.1 that uses Razor pages to display various content.
I have a kind of project details view, where the details of the project are shown like image, description, some fields but also a list of files of the project.
The files of the project I collect using the Graph API (using credentials stored in Configuration/Azure Key Vault) and currently I list them out in a flat list. I store the list of files in my model (in a list with a custom object, to include metadata for the file)
I would like to show the files with folders, so the user only sees the top level folders and files when he opens the page. When he clicks on a folder, the folder should "open" and the user should now see the contents of the this folder (with an option to navigate one level up again).
Honestly, I am not quite sure how to start. I don't want to reload the whole page when the user clicks on a folder and as far as I know there is nothing like an Update Panel in ASP .Net Core that lets me only update parts of a page.
I also programmed some other Reat.JS applications, I know I could create a very dynamic react app to display those files but I am not sure if there is a good way to integrate such a react component in my ASP .NET Core app and also I don't know how I would pass the credentials to this component.
Hope someone can point me in the right direction and give me some tips.
Yes, there is no Update Panel in ASP.NET core MVC, but that doesn't mean you cannot update individual parts of the page. You can use a View Component to render just the content of a folder. The following is a list of key things you need to do to implement it:
Add a MVC action to your controller that returns View Component.
Enclose the folder content in a container div of known id.
Attach JavaScript event listeners to subfolders
When the user clicks one subfolder the event listener uses the fetch API to call the MVC action.
The event listener sets innerHtml property of the container div to the HTML returned by the MVC action
Attach event listeners to subfolders of recent loaded content.
This approach doesn't require any JavaScript framework or library. It can be implemented with plain vanilla JavaScript.
Probably you will want to add fetch and promise polyfills.
Unfortunately, this question is fairly broad and is likely to result in it being closed. (I didn't vote to close it). The challenge with this question is that there are so many different ways to handle this sort of programming problem.
Using ajax is one very common way to handle this. Which then brings us to javascript libraries, and there are a bunch of choices. You mentioned react. That is one good choice. If react feels too heavy for you then give my answer here a read with regard to Vue. VueJs is extremely lightweight and can easily be used on a single page or on a group of pages. Vue may be a great solution for you.
The main thing to know is that there is no "right" answer to your question which is why unfortunately it's not a great fit for StackOverflow. Here we prefer questions that have definitive answers. And this one has none.
I'm creating a new website application in asp.net. The landing page needs to have a button (or something similar) which the user can click to create a new instance of a webpage. Similar to how a Facebook user can create a new group/event or a StackOverflow user create a new question.
My website needs to be able to create multiple "events" from the landing page which can then be accessed from the landing page, each event should be a template populated with user details on creation.
Can someone please tell me how people refer to this technique of creating many instances of a webpage (event) from one template?
With ASP.NET Core MVC (using this as an example as you have an ASP.NET tag and your description doesn't specify a technology), you can create a template using a .cshtml file. If you are not familiar with these types of files (which are used within the ASP.NET framework), then I suggest a read of it here:
https://www.w3schools.com/asp/razor_syntax.asp
Roughly, it's a file with HTML content where you can easily embed .NET types (such as types from your Model) and .NET logic using "Razor syntax", so that your HTML file is modified appropriately (e.g. with queried data specific to your user) before being sent back to the client. The reference above gives good examples, so I'm not going to waste space and repeat them here.
You can have certain .cshtml files as your "template" and embed appropriate model data using Razor syntax. You can then have a hyperlink tag (for example) reference the .cshtml file using the asp-action attribute. This will render the .cshtml file to the client whenever that tag is clicked on. ASP.NET uses types called Controllers to handle such requests (Controllers are types that inherit from the Controller type) appropriately, such as querying the correct database and providing your .cshtml file with the correct data before sending the result back to the client.
ASP.NET Core MVC modularizes the types of actions described above very well (M --> Model, V --> View, C --> Controller). Here is a good reference:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/mvc/overview?view=aspnetcore-2.2
For other technologies that you wish to use to achieve the same result, you will have to consult the appropriate references.
Stackoverflow is a place to get answer on specific problem with short answer. Your problem is general design and programming question, and requires understanding of basic programming aproaches.
For that you should grab a book and read about designing webapplications in .Net.
I'm having a web application project which is running .NET 4.0. I've plenty of .aspx page and now I would like to add in a block of script code to all the .aspx page header, for example Google Analytics.
I know there is a solution to do is add in every single page, but I would like to know is there any other's way to do this instead modify every single .aspx page?
*My header is not runat server
I got an idea to do but not sure it's work or not.
Get the page class in Global.asax
Get the output stream from the page class.
Insert the Google Analytics code in the HTML header.
I couldn't get the Page.Response in the Global.asax as I tried in the Application_PostRequestHandlerExecute & also Application_EndRequest. Does anyone know is this work and how it's work?
Thanks.
Use master pages. This is the ASP.NET way of putting the same content on multiple pages without repeating yourself.
All of our aspx pages code-behind classes inherit from the same base class, which allows us to inject standard client side elements (controls, script, etc) into every page using a single point of control.
Our design was implemented before the advent of master pages, but while it could possibly be converted to a master-page design, we have found this implementation to be extremely flexible and responsive to changing needs.
For example, we have two completely separate application designs (different skin, some different behavior) that is based off of the same code base and page sets. We were able to dynamically swap out banners and other UI and script elements by simple modifications to the base class in order to support this without having to duplicate every page.
Unfortunately, if you want the script to be in the head element, you will need to ensure that they are all marked as runat=server.
Our base class itself inherits from Page, so it can intercept all of the page's events and act on them either instead of or in addition to the inheriting classes (we actually have internal overrideable methods that inheritors should use instead of the page events in order to ensure order of execution).
This is our (VB) code for adding script to the header (in the Page's LoadComplete method):
' sbscript is a stringbuilder that contains all of the javascript we want to place in the header
Me.Page.Header.Controls.Add(New LiteralControl(sbScript.ToString))
If it is not possible to change the heads to runat server, you could look into ClientScriptManager method RegisterClientScriptBlock which places the script at the top of the page.
You can create a basic page with the header with the custom code such as Google analytics and have the other pages inherit from that. It will facilitate two things:
1) In case you ever want to change the custom code you will only have to do it in one place
2) No repetitive code hence more maintainable
I am trying to do the same thing on a legacy app that we're trying to decommission. I need to display a popup on all the old pages to nag users to update their bookmarks to use the new sites, without forcing them to stop using the legacy site (yet). It is not worth the time to convert the site to run on a master page when I can just plop in a popup script, since this whole thing is getting retired soon. The main new site uses a master page, which obviously simplifies things there.
I have this line in a file that has some various constants in it.
Public Shared ReadOnly RetirementNagScript As String = "<Script Language='javascript'> alert('[app name] is being retired and will be shut down [in the near future]. Please update your bookmarks and references to the following URL: [some URL]'); </script>"
Then I am inserting it in Global.asax, in Application_PostAcquireRequestState:
Response.Write(Globals.RetirementNagScript)
Hopefully this is useful to you; I still need to be able to present a clickable URL to the user that way, on each page of the legacy site, and JS alert doesn't do that for me.
I'm trying to switch my custom cms written in php into .net c#. I was thinking to use cms as a learning project. I'm going to use C#, NHibernate ORM layer, mssql, mvc3 and jquery.
I'm aware there are plenty of commercials or open source cms, but still I'm going to spend some of my free time trying to learn new technology working on project like this.
So, is there anyone out there who is willing to share some ideas on creating cms domain model, usefull link, ideas, etc.
Thanks
A really basic CMS consist of 3 elements:
one database table to hold your "pages". The table structure is "name" and "content"
a route to transform requests of type /cms/pagename to a fixed controller, the method called cms and pagename as a parameter
a embeddable html editor
Now, there are two ways your "page" can be invoked. It is either create mode or view/edit mode.
In "create" mode, the page is requested but it is not in the database yet (e.g. cms/announcement1). In this mode you create a view consisting of a html editor and upon submit, you persist the page to the database.
In "view" mode, the page is requested and is IS in the database. You perform any necessary rewriting (for example you rewrite internal links of the form [cms/pagename] to a fully routable http address) and render the content.
If the user is authorized to edit the page, you also show a "edit" button which then invokes the html editor with the page loaded and ready to be edited.
And that's it.
There are tons of additional elements (caching, different built-in page types, embedding images, youtubes, preformatted texts) etc. but all of them are optional and you can introduce new features when you have the core already implemented.
Once I wrote a simple CMS following the structure above, it was a part of a bigger solution and till now it's been sucesfully deployed several hundred times. An advantage of a custom CMS is that it can be really simple and easily maintanable.
I am using asp.net mvc 1.0 and I want to return a XML file but I also want to return a strongly typed data back so I can update some fields.
Like the XML file will contain users who failed to be inserted into the database. So I want that to appear as a dialog save box what asp.net mvc return file() would do.
However I also want to return on the page like values like how many users failed to be added, how many users where added, etc.
So I want to use scafolding with the class file I want to pass it along. If this was a view I could pass it along as an object model but I don't see a parameter for that in File().
I also don't want to save the xml file onto the harddrive I want to do it through memory. So have a link that would display on the page to download the file and show the the data I want would not be desired.
I could be wrong, but I think you'll need to use JavaScript for this. What your're trying to do is a limitation of HTTP and from my understanding of HTTP, you can only return one file type per response since the protocol is a request->response.
You can have MVC return the strongly typed view in addition to the XML file name inside the ViewData. Then have a JavaScript function change the window.location property to the file's URL (or make a new window).
I'm not sure about the exact details on how to gracefully have the JavaScript spit the file out like alot of download websites have it.
Edit:
I found how to gracefully automate the download process, check this question out:
JavaScript automatic download of a file