Tips

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

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

Tip: Adding Reflector to Visual Studio

Walt Ritscher — Sat, 25 Feb 2006 17:38:00 GMT

There are some tools that just seem to find their way into every .NET developer toolbox. Lutz Roeder's Reflector for .NET is one of these. I don't know a single working .NET developer that doesn't use Reflector. Some of my friends live inside of it.

Add to Visual Studio

Since Reflector is such a useful tool it would nice to have it at your fingertips when working within Visual Studio. All versions of Visual Studio since VS 4 support adding custom tools. There might have been support earlier, I can't remember anymore. The only tricky part is figuring out how to pass the current assembly from Visual Studio to Reflector.

It's not really hard at all. Visual Studio has built-in arguments that pass data from the IDE to your third party application.

The following steps work for Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2003. I haven't tested with any other versions.

Click the Tools/External Tools... menu.

Tools Menu

Click the Add button in the External Tools dialog.

External Tools

Add the following to the External Tools dialog. The $(TargetPath) argument will pass your assemblies to Reflector.

That's all. Enjoy

Adding a Working Hyperlink to Your 'Windows Form' in .NET

Walt Ritscher — Sat, 18 Jun 2005 18:14:00 GMT

It's common in web programming to place links to resources on a page. The hyperlink tag is on nearly every page on your website. But what about Windows Forms?

In .NET it is easy to add a hyperlink to a form. At least it looks and acts like a hyperlink.

Add a LinkLabel to the form.
Change the text to the web address (example http://www.waltritscher.com/ )
In the LinkClicked event add one line of code.


    
Private Sub LinkLabel1_LinkClicked(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.LinkLabelLinkClickedEventArgs) Handles LinkLabel1.LinkClicked
        Process.Start(LinkLabel1.Text)
    End Sub

This works because Windows knows that a string with http:// is a web address and will launch the users default web browser. Process.Start merely asks Windows to launch a process based on the file/URL string being passed as parameter.