Code-Inside Blog International

Just found an interesting eBook:

- Free Chapter of Beginning ASP.NET MVC 1.0 – Testing ASP.NET MVC Applications (Blogpost)

The ASP.NET MVC 1.0 Release Candidate was today published by Scott Gu. Scott wrote a great blogpost about the improvements in the RC in his blog.

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ScottGu wrote (I know – I´m late ) a blogpost about the release candidate of ASP.NET MVC and the  MVC Design Gallery.

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Microsoft released last week a ASP.NET MVC demo project called "Oxite" and many Newssites wrote things like "MS launched open source blogging plattform". It´s great that Microsoft released the source code, but on the other handside, there are many criticisms from the alpha geeks. The question is: Should source code only released if it is "perfect"?
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Microsoft released today a new feature for ASP.NET – free chart controls (which are based on the Dundas Chart Controls). There are many nice looking charts in this download included:

The best thing is: It should work with ASP.NET MVC!

Download links for the ASP.NET Charts (free) :

• Download the free Microsoft Chart Controls
• Download the VS 2008 Tool Support for the Chart Controls
• Download the Microsoft Chart Controls Samples
• Download the Microsoft Chart Controls Documentation

Edit the Web.Config
To enable the controls you have to edit the web.config file.
Add this under the controls tag (path: "<system.web><pages><controls>") :

<add tagPrefix="asp" namespace="System.Web.UI.DataVisualization.Charting" assembly="System.Web.DataVisualization, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"/>

And add this httpHandler (under "<httpHandlers>") :

<add path="ChartImg.axd" verb="GET,HEAD" type="System.Web.UI.DataVisualization.Charting.ChartHttpHandler, System.Web.DataVisualization, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" validate="false"/>

Via: Combining ASP.NET MVC and ASP.NET Charting Controls

Add a chart control to a view:

Option A: ASP.NET Control + Code behind

If you use this option, you will have to add some code lines in the code behind file of your view. This shouldn´t be a big problem, because the controller is still responsible for the logic.

I took the "GettingStarted" Control from the samples:

Index.aspx:

<asp:chart id="Chart1" runat="server" Height="296px" Width="412px" Palette="BrightPastel" imagetype="Png" BorderDashStyle="Solid" BackSecondaryColor="White" BackGradientStyle="TopBottom" BorderWidth="2" backcolor="#D3DFF0" BorderColor="26, 59, 105">
	<Titles>
		<asp:Title Text="With datasource in code behind" />
	</Titles>
	<legends>
		<asp:Legend IsTextAutoFit="False" Name="Default" BackColor="Transparent" Font="Trebuchet MS, 8.25pt, style=Bold"></asp:Legend>
	</legends>
	<borderskin skinstyle="Emboss"></borderskin>
	<series>
		<asp:Series Name="Column" BorderColor="180, 26, 59, 105">
		</asp:Series>
	</series>
	<chartareas>
		<asp:ChartArea Name="ChartArea1" BorderColor="64, 64, 64, 64" BorderDashStyle="Solid" BackSecondaryColor="White" BackColor="64, 165, 191, 228" ShadowColor="Transparent" BackGradientStyle="TopBottom">
			<area3dstyle Rotation="10" perspective="10" Inclination="15" IsRightAngleAxes="False" wallwidth="0" IsClustered="False"></area3dstyle>
			<axisy linecolor="64, 64, 64, 64">
				<labelstyle font="Trebuchet MS, 8.25pt, style=Bold" />
				<majorgrid linecolor="64, 64, 64, 64" />
			</axisy>
			<axisx linecolor="64, 64, 64, 64">
				<labelstyle font="Trebuchet MS, 8.25pt, style=Bold" />
				<majorgrid linecolor="64, 64, 64, 64" />
			</axisx>
		</asp:ChartArea>
	</chartareas>
</asp:chart>

I don´t know the exactly meaning of each line (read the documentation to lern more about it), but the important point is that we have a "Serie" with name " "Column" – this will represent your data as a bar in your bar chart.

Index.aspx.cs:

    public partial class Index : ViewPage
    {
        protected void Page_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
        {
            foreach (int value in (List<int>)this.ViewData["Chart"])
            {
                this.Chart1.Series["Column"].Points.Add(value);
            }
        }
    }

Result:

Option B: Inline ASP.NET Control

You could also create the control without a code behind file, just create the control on the fly via inline code:

        <p>
        <%
						System.Web.UI.DataVisualization.Charting.Chart Chart2 = new System.Web.UI.DataVisualization.Charting.Chart();
                        Chart2.Width = 412;
                        Chart2.Height = 296;
                        Chart2.RenderType = RenderType.ImageTag;

                        Chart2.Palette = ChartColorPalette.BrightPastel;
                        Title t = new Title("No Code Behind Page", Docking.Top, new System.Drawing.Font("Trebuchet MS", 14, System.Drawing.FontStyle.Bold), System.Drawing.Color.FromArgb(26, 59, 105));
                        Chart2.Titles.Add(t);
                        Chart2.ChartAreas.Add("Series 1");

						// create a couple of series
                        Chart2.Series.Add("Series 1");
                        Chart2.Series.Add("Series 2");

						// add points to series 1
                        foreach (int value in (List<int>)ViewData["Chart"])
                        {
                            Chart2.Series["Series 1"].Points.AddY(value);
                        }

                        // add points to series 2
                        foreach (int value in (List<int>)ViewData["Chart"])
                        {
                            Chart2.Series["Series 2"].Points.AddY(value + 1);
                        }

                        Chart2.BorderSkin.SkinStyle = BorderSkinStyle.Emboss;
                        Chart2.BorderColor = System.Drawing.Color.FromArgb(26, 59, 105);
                        Chart2.BorderlineDashStyle = ChartDashStyle.Solid;
                        Chart2.BorderWidth = 2;

                        Chart2.Legends.Add("Legend1");

						// Render chart control
                        Chart2.Page = this;
						HtmlTextWriter writer = new HtmlTextWriter(Page.Response.Output);
						Chart2.RenderControl(writer);

                     %>
        </p>

Result:

Both controls together:

I think this is a very nice feature (and play well together with ASP.NET MVC) and you could add nice charts without buy a 3rd party licence.

[ Download Source Code ]

A while ago I blogged about some ASP.NET MVC stuff, but why should I (and you) care about ASP.NET MVC?
ASP.NET MVC is a great and extensible framework for building web applications and is a alternative to the ASP.NET WebForms model.

Tell me more about "MVC"! 
MVC stands for "Model-View-Controller", which is a very old (but still very useful) design pattern. This design pattern will split your application in 3 different parts ("model", "view", "controller"). "Seperation of concern" is one of it´s main benefits.

Short description of these parts:

• "Model": Represents your application data/model and has no(!) business logic
• "View": Just display the given viewdata (this could be a normal HTML page or JSON/RSS data)
• "Controller": The controller represents the business logic and create the view data and send it to a view.

A good example of an MVC application is the web browser.

What is so "bad" about ASP.NET WebForms?
ASP.NET WebForms include many abstractions for the web development. If you are a WinForms developer, you will feel comfortable with it, but if you started with PHP/JSP or just pure HTML and Javascript you will feel very uncomfortable.
The "viewstate" is one feature to hide the stateless nature of HTML, but it can make your web application very slow and makes you crazy. The "WebForms" model include a very complex lifecycle and it´s  important to understand this to work with ASP.NET WebForms.
In my opinion it is too complex and the framework should embrace the nature of HTTP and don´t hide it.

Disclaimer: If you feel comfortable with WebForms, you have no reason to change to MVC – MVC is only on option.

What are the benefits of ASP.NET MVC
MVC is a very testable framework and you get full control of the rendering process. You can add functionality if you want, because MVC is very extensible and you can create a clean, DRY, testable web application.
Phil Haack (the program manager of ASP.NET MVC) did a great presentation at the PDC.

Things that you´ll maybe missing in MVC
Many ASP.NET controls use the postback-functionality. This function will not work well together with the MVC framework. Phil Haack did also 2 podcasts on HerdingCode and tell some thought about "the control story in MVC":
Part 1
Part 2

If you have questions, please add a comment (and if my english really suck please let me know ). This blogpost should only provide basics – other posts are planned.

The ASP.NET Team (see at Scotts Blog) released the 3. Preview of the MVC Framework:

• Setup MSI Download
• Sourcecode @ Codeplex

This release contains improvments of the April Code Release :

• Control Action Methods & ActionResults, useful for…
• AJAX: JsonResult
• Streaming Data: ContentResult
• Web: HttpRedirect / RedirectToAction/Route
• HTML Helper
• URL Routing & Mapping (this dll is part of the .NET 3.5 SP1 and can be used in WebForms and MVC)

Unfortunatly there are no  Sub-Controllers, a nicer AJAX integration, Authentication / Authorization (a nicer integration), Components – these features will be released in Preview 4 (or 5 )

For more information look at Scotts post…

Today I found a very good ASP.NET MVC resource list on  Craig Shoemakers Blog. The post is also available as podcast.

PS:  Even my Pagination User Control is in this list (and in the podcast) \o/

Microsoft released a new version of the MVC Framework.

Update: Scott Guthrie wrote a blogpost about the “Release” – this “Release” is not the MVC Preview 3, it´s more a “Preview” of the “Preview 3″

The new version introduce more ActionFilter methodes and other refactorings. Here is the overview from the Codeplex ReadMe:

MVC Changes Since Preview 2

• Action methods on Controllers now by default return an ActionResult instance, instead of void.
  • This ActionResult object indicates the result from an action (a view to render, a URL to redirect to, another action/route to execute, etc).
  • Each “result” is a type that inherits from ActionResult. To render a view, return a RenderViewResult instance.
• The RenderView(), RedirectToAction(), and Redirect() helper methods on the Controller base class now return typed ActionResult objects (which you can further manipulate or return back from action methods).
• The RenderView() helper method can now be called without having to explicitly pass in the name of the view template you want to render.
  • When you omit the template name the RenderView() method will by default use the name of the action method to determine the view template to render.
  • So calling RenderView() with no parameters inside the About() action method is now the same as explicitly writing RenderView(’About’).
• Introduced a new IActionFilter interface for action filters. ActionFilterAttribute implements IActionFilter.
• Action Filters now have four methods they can implement representing four possible interception points.
  • OnActionExecuting which occurs just before the action method is called.
  • OnActionExecuted which occurs after the action method is called, but before the result is executed (aka before the view is rendered in common scenarios).
  • OnResultExecuting which occurs just before the result is executed (aka before the view is rendered in common scenarios).
  • OnResultExecuted which occurs after the result is executed (aka after the view is rendered in common scenarios).
  • NOTE: The OnResult* methods will not be called if an exception is not handled during the invoking of the OnAction* methods or the action method itself.
• Added a MapRoute extension method (extension on RouteCollection) for use in declaring MVC routes in a simpler fashion.

NOTE: It is pretty easy to update existing Controller classes built with Preview 2 to use this new pattern (just change void to ActionResult and add a return statement in front of any RenderView or RedirectToAction helper method calls).
Routing changes since Preview 2

• URLs may contain any literal (except for /) as a separator between URL parameters. For example, instead of {action}.{format} you can now have {action}-{format}. For more details on changes, see this post.
• Routing is ignored for files that exist on disk by default. This can be overriden by setting the RouteTable.Routes.RouteExistingFiles property to true (it is false by default).

I will try out the new bits in the next days and maybe write some new blogposts

I`m currently working on a ASP.NET MVC sample website and look around for nice helper or implementations on Codeplex. Here is my (small) list:

• ASP.Net MVC Membership Starter Kit

Troy Goode´s  ASP.NET Membership implementation in MVC – (i should have published my MVC Membership Version on Codeplex and write an english blog sooner )

>> License

• Validator Toolkit for ASP.NET MVC

"Never trust user input" – validation is very important – this is intresting way with ActionFilters and jQuery.

>> License

• MVC Contrib – MvcContrib.org

4 new Viewengines, Code Snippets, Extensions and so on…

>> License 

And (of course) the ultimativ mvc demo projekt: Kigg (License)

Do you know any other nice "AddIns"/Implementations for the MVC Stuff?