Can an arbitrary number of ContentItems of the same class to be added to a page in N2? And can they be nested?
I.e. Is there a way to define a collection of ContentItems as a property in N2? I’d also like to nest these if possible so we can run more meaningful queries against the data. (I.e. instead of using huge EditableTextRegions which will be difficult to query.)
I currently have the following model as an ‘ideal’, can this be N2ified? (I’ve left off attributes and N2 style getters/setters for clarity)
public class Link : ContentItem
{
public string Text { get; set; }
public string Title { get; set; }
public string Url { get; set; }
}
public class Panel : ContentItem
{
public string Title { get; set; }
public string Text { get; set; }
public List<Link> Links { get; set; } // Should show an expandable number of “Link” editors in the CMS editor
public string ImageUrl { get; set; }
}
public class Page : ContentItem
{
public string Title { get; set; }
public string BodyText { get; set; }
public List<Panel> Panels { get; set; } // Should show an expandable number of “Panel” editors in the CMS editor
}
Yes - instead of Get/SetDetail in your properties use Get/SetDetailCollection.
FYI if you're using 2.1 you can just make your properties virtual and leave off the Get/SetDetail - not sure if this works for the DetailCollection methods though, but you can mix the two.
I'd be careful with what you're proposing though - nesting collections like this is likely to cause you SELECT N+1 issues down the line. If you can't change the design then I'd recommend turning on N2's database caching (which is just NHibernate's 2nd level cache), this way as much as possible will be kept in memory without hitting the database too much.
Related
I am creating some view models for my ASP MVC web app.
I created "code first" models for database. Is it a good way to derive view models from database models?
Example database model:
public class Project
{
[Key]
public int Id { get; set; }
public int? CustomerId { get; set; }
public int TypeId { get; set; }
public string Number { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
}
View model:
public class ViewModelProject : Project
{
[NotMapped]
public DateTime? Start { get; set; }
[NotMapped]
public DateTime? End { get; set; }
[NotMapped]
public string Manager { get; set; }
}
Is this the right way or is it completely false?
EDIT (subquestion):
I have some very simple database models like ProjectType, which only contains i.e. two properties. Should I also fragment those models in model view or can I make it that way:
Simple database model:
public class ProjectType
{
[Key]
public int Id { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public int? Code { get; set; }
}
Can I use it like so:
public class ProjectVM
{
public string Name { get; set; }
public int Number { get; set; }
public ProjectType Type { get; set; }
}
Or does it have to be fragmented like so:
public class ProjectVM
{
public string Name { get; set; }
public int Number { get; set; }
public string Type { get; set; }
public int TypeCode { get; set; }
}
I would not recommend doing it this way. I (and many others) have tried it and it doesn't work well. You will inadvertedly run into troubles, since an MVC model has to be tailored to the view and what you get from the DB rarely fits. Sure, you can hammer it into place, but the code quickly gets messy and store-related and UI code starts to mangle together. This even shows in your example, since you have to put the NotMappedAttribute (which is related to data storage), to ViewModelProject (a class at UI level).
There are many other examples to show this problem, but an especially good one I find when you want to serialize a model object to JSON and send it to a JavaScript client. The JSON serializer takes the values of all public properties and adds them to the JSON. If you want to exclude a property, you have to mark it with a ScriptIgnoreAttribute, which you would also have to apply to the base class, which breaks separation between UI and store-related code.
The better way to go is to keep the staorage model and the MVC model separated and to map the data from one to the other (there are already pre-existing frameworks that help you with that, such as Automapper). This comes with additional advantages, for example better testability, since you are now not dependent on a specific data store to create model instances.
This is my first question on this community, I hope someone can help.
I have 3 models: Parent, child and grandchild. Resource, Parameter and Metric. I create the controlers with entity framework and it generated all CRUD operations. My problem its basically the grandchild. When I go to create a new Metric (grandchild), I have the dropdownlist of all the Parameters (child), but I want first to choose the Resource, then that will list all the parameters from that resource so I can create the metric. I'm new on asp MVC and this might be a lil bit basic question but I couldn't find anything like this. Thanks
Here are my classes just in case.
public class Resource
{
public int ResourceID { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public virtual ICollection<Parameter> Parameters { get; set; }
}
public class Parameter
{
public int ParameterID { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public int ResourceID { get; set; }
public virtual Resource Resource { get; set; }
public virtual ICollection<Metric> Metrics { get; set; }
}
public class Metric
{
public int MetricID { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public int ParameterID { get; set; }
public virtual Parameter Parameter { get; set; }
}
What you are trying to do sounds like either a linked or cascading drop down list. I did a quick search and found this link that may help you.
You will need some JavaScript that listens to the selection changed event for the first list (parent), and then updates the second list (child) with the available values. Depending on your situation, you may then need to link the third list (grandchild) to load when the second list has its selection changed as well.
Ok, I have 3 models. WorkoutViewModel has a one to many relationship with WorkoutExerciseViewModel. WorkoutExerciseViewModel has a one to many relationship with ExerciseSetViewModel. I need a dynamic “Create View”, that will allow me dynamically add Exercises to Workouts, and Sets to Exercises. I then want to save a Workout including all exercise and set records back to the database. I just need to validate that there is at least 1 exercise for the workout created and at least 1 set for the exercise created. Ultimately I just need to push a Workout View Model back to the controller with all of the populated nested IEnumberable objects present. Can anyone point me in the right direction?
public class WorkoutViewModel
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public string Description { get; set; }
public virtal IEnumerable<WorkoutExerciseViewModel> WorkoutExercises { get; set;}
}
public class WorkoutExerciseViewModel
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public int WorkoutId { get; set; }
public int ExerciseId { get; set; }
public virtual ExerciseViewModel Exercise { get; set; }
public virtual IEnumerable<ExerciseSetViewModel> ExerciseSets { get; set; }
public string ExerciseFullname
{
get
{
return Exercise.Equipment.Name + " " + Exercise.Name;
}
}
}
public class ExerciseSetViewModel
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public int WorkoutExerciseId { get; set; }
public int Set { get; set; }
public int Reps { get; set; }
public int Weight { get; set; }
public string WeightValueType { get; set; }
}
There's really more to this than can reasonably be discussed in a StackOverflow answer, but I'll give you enough to start with.
As far as adding new exercises and sets within those exercises go, that's just JavaScript. You'll need to have some button that the user can click to add a new one, and tie the click event on that button to a handler that will add the appropriate HTML (form fields and such) to the page. There's many different ways to go about doing that, some more difficult than others. Most likely you want to look into some JavaScript templating library or a more full stack JS library like Knockout to make things easier. The only other thing to keep in mind is the conventions the modelbinder uses to wire everything from the post body to an instance of your model. For collections, it expects fields to have name attributes in the form of CollectionPropertyName[N].PropertyBeingEdited, where N is the position within the collection. So, the name attribute for ExerciseFullName for the first exercise would be WorkoutExercises[0].ExerciseFullName.
Your post action would simply take your same main view model:
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Create(WorkoutViewModel model)
{
...
}
As long as you follow the property naming conventions for all the fields in your form, the modelbinder will happily wire everything from the post body onto your WorkoutViewModel instance.
I am wondering how people handle nested/complex routes for an application when using a data-driven menu structure?
I've got two classes for my data driven menus:
public class List : Entity
{
public virtual ICollection<ListItem> ListItems { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public string Description { get; set; }
public ListType ListType { get; set; }
public string UlTagCssClass { get; set; }
public string UlTagCssID { get; set; }
}
public class ListItem : Entity
{
public virtual List List { get; set; }
public virtual ListItem ParentItem { get; set; }
public virtual ICollection<ListItem> ChildItems { get; set; }
public int SortOrder { get; set; }
public string Text { get; set; }
public string Controller { get; set; }
public string Action { get; set; }
public string Url { get; set; }
}
I then have a recursive function that spits out any List into a nested ul tags (which is used as a menu). As it stands right now the ListItem can have a URL via straight up full URL, provide a controller and action, or not be a link at all.
However, I am running into a problem in that the URLs don't match the hierarchy of the menu, which is pretty common practice and most people would expect.
So for example I have a menu hierarchy such as:
About
Contact
Departments
Human Resources
Sales
So right now my top level item Contact has .Controller = "Contact". It's child item Departments has .Controller = "Content", .Action = "Departments". It's link as you would expect goes to www.domain.com/Contact/Departments. But my third level item Sales now has .Controller = "Departments, .Action = "Sales". This makes the link www.domain.com/Departments/Sales, which doesn't make sense in the hierarchy of the menu.
What is a good approach to store the proper URL and generate the routes to support that (I can change the ListItem class if necessary)? Also how would one structure their views/controllers in such a scenario? I am not sure how to continue with the increasing depth as I've only ever really developed MVC apps where I hard-coded routes or just used the default controller/action route, but now I am trying to make it more data-driven.
Add the following route and add it before your default routes:
Dynamically map these on application launch by pulling in your menu list and iterating down through the list.
I would prefer not to dynamically map these unless they change on the fly
As you need supporting files (views, etc) that you likely don't create dynamically
routes.MapRoute("Contact", "Contact/{action}",
new { controller = "Contact"});
routes.MapRoute("Departments", "Contact/Departments/{action}",
new { controller = "Departments"});
I an developing a page where users will be able to add and modify existing content, its not a wiki per sé but sort of, like SO's editing abilities.
I am working with EF4 and the new Code First approach in the latest CTP, so what would be the best class design for this?
my current guess is something like this:
public class VersionableText
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public DateTime Date{ get; set; }
public String Text{ get; set; }
public virtual User User{ get; set; }
}
and then use it in my other entities, in a SO context it could be something like this
public class Question
{
public int Id {get; set;}
public virtual VersionableText Title {get; set;}
public virtual VersionableText Content{get; set;}
...
}
But I'm not really convinced by it.. since I am also going to have tags, ability to delete/undelete posts, rollback, etc. Do you know how to properly design classes that help me version the content properly?
Aim for simplicity
The main question that you need to ask yourself is Are you going to show all versions all the time or the latest version most of the time and all of them on request? Similar to here. Most of the time you only see the latest version.
If this is the same with our case I wouldn't care so much about these versions. But when you'd want to show them all on one page class design more or less depends on the way that you'd like to show it. Is it going to be showing changes and things like that.
I'd rather have a class like:
public class Question
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public QuestionStatus Status { get; set; }
}
public class QuestionHistory
{
public Question Question { get; set; }
public string Title { get; set; }
public string Content { get; set; }
public User Author { get; set; }
public DateTime Created { get; set; }
public IList<Tag> Tags { get; set; }
}
And when I'd display all of them I'd just return a list of these ordered by LastChange. I've added tags list but I didn't add any of the other process-related properties related to question state. It hugely depends on the process sequence.