ASP.NET

Visual Studio 2005 SP1 is Released

Walt Ritscher — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 08:51:00 GMT

Hooray! Microsoft released the service packs for Visual Studio today. These are a MUST INSTALL for anyone using VS. There are plenty of bug fixes. The two that I'm most excited about are the Visual Basic background compiler fix and the performance fix for compiling large projects. Both of these issues have slowed my daily development consistently during the last year.

If you are an ASP.NET developer you'll be happy that the Web Deployment and Web Application projects are now included.

Microsoft has added some interesting new features in the SP too.

Multicore support for profiling
Multicore support for code gen
Team Server performance improvements
See the Microsoft website for more details

There are several version of the SP. Pick the one that matches your version of Visual Studio.

Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite SP1 (includes SP1 updates for Standard, Professional, and Team Editions of Visual Studio 2005)
Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server SP1
Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions SP1
Visual Studio 2005 SP1 Update for Windows Vista Beta

Seriously, if you are using Visual Studio 2005 you should install this SP as soon as possible.

ASP.NET 2.0 "Generation of designer file failed: ConnectionString error fixed

Walt Ritscher — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 23:59:00 GMT

Tonight I was converting an ASP.NET 2.0 Website to a Web Application Project. There is a nice step-by-step guide that I was using to walk me through the process. I ran into troubles as soon as I ran the “Convert to Web Application” menu.

I tracked the trouble down to four files in the project. All of them were failing with this message.

Generation of designer file failed: The expression prefix “ConnectionStrings” was not recognized. Please correct the prefix or register the prefix in the <expressionBuilders> section of configuration.

The first place I looked was a dead end. I looked in the web.config, thinking that was the configuration file in the error message. Wrong!

Next I looked at the html on one of the problem pages.

<asp:SqlDataSource ID="dsUsers" runat="server" ConnectionString="<%$ ConnectionStrings:aspnetdbConnectionString %>"

There was the ConnectionStrings text!

The Fix

Cut everything between the quotes for value of the ConnectionString attribute.
Do the same for any other ConnectionString attributes on the same page.
Run the “Convert to Web Application” for the current page.
Restore the ConnectionString value and save the file.

Seattle Code Camp 2006 (October 28,29)

Walt Ritscher — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 11:35:00 GMT

It's only three weeks away and coming to Seattle. That's right, the Seattle Code camp is looking for camp counselors (speakers). If you want to talk tech to a room full of eager participants this is the event you've been waiting for.

Last year we had over 50 presenters and 250+ attendees.

http://seattle.techevents.info/codecamp/2/default.aspx

Bug Fix: Disappearing Intellisense in ASP.NET web.config

Walt Ritscher — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 10:53:00 GMT

I really like the Visual Studio 2005 intellisense (See here) . There is a bug in the VS however that can stop it from working. I believe it will be fixed in the VS 2005 service pack coming in December but in the meantime here are some things to help fix the problem. Thanks to ScottGu and others for the ideas. I'm posting here so I don't forget.

Configuration Element troubles

The main thing that causes the intellisense to stop working is adding a xmlsn attribute to the root <config> element.

From Scott

There is one gotcha to be aware of, though, that can sometimes cause intellisense for the web.config file to stop working in the IDE. This happens when a default namespace is added to the root <configuration> element. For example, like so:

<configuration xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/.NetConfiguration/v2.0">

This doesn’t cause any runtime problems – but it does stop intellisense completion happening for the built-in .NET XML elements in the web.config file.

The bad news is that the built-in web admin tool (launched via the WebSite->ASP.NET Configuration menu item in VS 2005 and Visual Web Developer) always adds this xmlns namespace when it launches – so if you use this tool to manage users/roles you’ll end up having it added to your web.config file for you.

To get intellisense back when you are editing the web.config file in the IDE, just delete the xmlns reference and have the root configuration element look like so:

<configuration>

Everything will then work fine again.

Changing WebAdmin Tool

A quick fix to the WebAdmin tool will prevent your config file from getting hammered.

Go to %windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\ASP.NETWebAdminFiles\App_Code
Open the WebAdminPage.cs file
Edit the config.NamespaceDeclared line.

Thanks to Massimo Prota

Intellisense in ASP.NET web.confg

Walt Ritscher — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 10:29:00 GMT

Visual Studio 2005 improves on the intellisense in many file-types. One of my favorites is the support for intellisense in XML and .config files. You get a listing of what elements and attributes are available for the current config section.

It's also smart enough to know when you've used a element and not show it in the list (if it is restricted to one instance in the schema).

First Time

Second Time

Ruby in Steel - Writing Ruby code in Visual Studio 2005

Walt Ritscher — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 11:00:00 GMT

It seems that a lot of my colleagues are intrigued with Ruby and it's web cousin Ruby on Rails. I have to admit I'm intrigued with the language, I just haven't had the time to look into the benefits of Ruby first hand.

A couple of people/companies are working on .NET implementations for Ruby. Last week at the Portland Code Camp I sat in on IronRuby session. A very interesting look at how Wilco Bauwer is building a version of Ruby that runs on the .NET CLR. Wilco is an intern on the ASP.NET team and still finds spare time to work on the Iron Ruby project.

Another interesting find is Ruby in Steel. This is a Visual Studio implementation of Ruby on Rails from a company name SapphireSteel. You can use all the tools you know and love from Visual Studio to build, modify and test Ruby on Rails code. They're still in early beta releases but it looks very interesting to me. According to their web site SapphireSteel will release a commercial version and a free standard edition.

I might be learning Ruby on Rails sooner than I thought.

Updated Portland Code Camp 2006 code

Walt Ritscher — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 10:00:00 GMT

For anyone at the Portland Oregon Code Camp

I updated my ASP.NET tips code this week and uploaded to my website. Thanks for coming to my talk.

Get the code.

Tip: ASP.NET 2.0 Treeview - Expanding Nodes when Bound to SiteMap

Walt Ritscher — Thu, 18 May 2006 22:32:00 GMT

The new ASP.NET 2.0 TreeView control is pretty handy. It can function as a normal treeview - where you can add/remove treenodes to the nodes collection. It can also serve as a site navigation tree. In this mode each node on the tree becomes a hyperlink to another webpage. The hyperlink gets its Href from the treenodes NavigationUrl property which in turn gets its Url from the web.sitemap file.

Today I finally solved one of the annoying dilemmas that crops up when using the Treeview.

The problem

A treenode can be selected or expanded. Selecting the node causes the SelectedNodeChange event to fire if the Treeview is configured correctly. Clicking the + icon on a node causes the TreeNodeExpanded event to fire. The selected event will not fire if the node is in Navigation mode. This behavior makes sense most of the time. The node is acting as a navigation link - it causes the browser to take you to a new page which means there is no postback. Your are going to a new page, without returning to the server first.

If the node has its NavigationUrl property set to an empty string, the node is in Selection mode. If the NavigationUrl is a non-zero length string ,the node is in Navigation mode.

For our project I wanted the children nodes to expand whenever the user selects a parent node. Yes, the user can click the + symbol to expand it, but our testing showed that many users expect the node to expand by clicking the node text instead. Since the nodes are in Navigation mode I couldn't put the code in the SelectedNodeChanged event.

My solution? Use the TreeNodeDatabound event to examine each node as it is being bound to the tree. If the current page URL matches the treenode NavigationUrl I expand all the of the current nodes children. It solves my problem. It still doesn't cause the SelectedNodeChanged to fire so it may not solve all your troubles. At least it's a start.

Protected Sub treeMainMenu_TreeNodeDataBound _
           (ByVal sender As Object, _
            ByVal e As System.Web.UI.WebControls.TreeNodeEventArgs) _
             Handles treeMainMenu.TreeNodeDataBound

       ' other binding code here...

        If Request.Url.PathAndQuery = e.Node.NavigateUrl Then
            e.Node.ExpandAll()
        End If
End Sub

Tip: ASP.NET 2.0 Login Control Not Redirecting

Walt Ritscher — Thu, 18 May 2006 13:56:00 GMT

I fixed a bug this morning on our clients ASP.NET 2.0 website. The site uses the ASP.NET 2.0 Login control. If the user logged in with one account, logged out and attempted to login again they were not redirected to the destination page.

I coded the following in the Login control Authenticate event and it appears to solve the problem.

Protected Sub Login1_Authenticate _
     (ByVal sender As Object, _
      ByVal e As System.Web.UI.WebControls.AuthenticateEventArgs) _
     Handles Login1.Authenticate

   ' validation code here...

    If e.Authenticated Then
        If Request.QueryString("ReturnUrl") IsNot Nothing Then

            FormsAuthentication.RedirectFromLoginPage(Login1.UserName, False)
        Else
            FormsAuthentication.SetAuthCookie(Login1.UserName, False)

            ' we shouldn't have to do this
            ' but I'm  finding that the page doesn't always redirect
            Response.Redirect(Login1.DestinationPageUrl)
        End If
    End If

End Sub

VSLive 2006 Toronto Code is online

Walt Ritscher — Tue, 02 May 2006 01:15:00 GMT

I finally finished the zips of my talks from VSLive Toronto.

http://www.waltritscher.com/Default.aspx?tabid=55

Enjoy