Anas Ghanem's Blog

Programmatically Modifying the HyperLinks in the DataPager control

me.nospam@nospam.anasghanem.com (anas) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:05:00 -1700

Hi,

As you know,the DataPager control can be used to Implement data paging in any data Control that implements the IPageableItemContainer interface.

For now,the only control that implements that interface(In .NET 3.5 sp1) is the ListView ASP.NET control.

By default the DataPager control will use the postback to pass the page index of the DataPager control.

However,the DataPager can be configured to use the QueryString to pass the PageIndex for the Paged control, this can be done by setting it’s “QueryStringField” property to the name of the Query string field that you want.

Developers may use the QueryStringField option to when they want to :

Implement outputCache for the ListView pages based on the QueryStringField,I explained this in this post.
Implement a more user and SEO friendly Urls by using Url Rewriting.

You can implement Url Rewriting in asp.net by using the new Routing features which were introduced in ASP.NET 3.5. You can also use the urlrewrite.net tool if you like.

But when you will need to modify the Generated Url in the page of DataPager control ?

When you use Url Rewriting, you will need to modify the Urls of the Pager HyperLink controls in a way that can work with your Url Rewriting scheme.
By default,the DataPager control will not include the SessionId in it’s HyperLinks when you use cookie less session mode.This of course will cause a session loss when you navigate through the ListView pages using the Pager links.You can fix that by using the Response.ApplyAppPathModifier function which will take the Url and correctly append the sessionId to it.

Modifying the HyperLink in the DataPager will only require to handle the ListView DataBound event and loop though the HyperLinks of the DataPager control:

    protected void ListView1_DataBound(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        DataPager pager = ListView1.FindControl("DataPager1") as DataPager;

        // this check is important to avoid touching the Hyperlinks if the Pager doesn't configured to use Query string Field
        if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty( pager.QueryStringField))
        {
            foreach (DataPagerFieldItem Pitem in pager.Controls)
            {
                foreach (Control c in Pitem.Controls)
                {
                    if (c is HyperLink)
                    {
                        HyperLink tmp = c as HyperLink;
                        tmp.NavigateUrl = "....";
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }

Anas Ghanem.

My laptop is dead :(

me.nospam@nospam.anasghanem.com (Anas) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 05:21:00 -1700

Ok ,

I waked up today and noticed that my laptop is not working.When i pressed the power button, it just keeps showing the Lenovo logo and nothing else.

The laptop hangs and it didn't loaded the windows.

I tried to remove the Hard disk and plug another one, also i tried reset the bios settings , to remove the HD completly with no luck.

So i'm now living without a laptop and i don't know if i could survive !

Without my laptop , i will not be comfortable and all of my tools ,my windows 7,my configured windows services,my custom schedule tasks that cleans my windows periodically, my development tools, and other stuff all will be missing from my life until i got another laptop and recover the windows(i only have an acronis image that was taken 2 weeks ago).

Ok, now i'm looking for a good laptop that can run all the day without being off.

Scott Gu Presentation on Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 is available on channel 9

me.nospam@nospam.anasghanem.com (Anas) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 05:17:00 -1700

The presentation was organized by DotNED developer community.

Check out the recorded video [here]

Microsoft Maren , write Arabic by typing English characters !

me.nospam@nospam.anasghanem.com (Anas) — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 04:09:00 -1700

Cairo Microsoft Innovation Lab developed a very cool tool which allow the Arabic peoples to type English characters and to automatically translate those english characters to there Arabic words.

For example, if you typed: mar7aba , the tool tool will change it to مرحبا

This is helpful if you have a problem in Arabic keyboard , or if you Accustomed to write the messenger arabic language :)

Check this link for more information and download.

http://www.microsoft.com/middleeast/egypt/cmic/maren/

The pictures below will show how you can use that tool in any kind of text editing program inside the windows like notepad , word,live messanger,gtalk …etc.

HaVe FuN !

Which is better: Multilingual portal or separate portal for each culture ?

me.nospam@nospam.anasghanem.com (anas) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 09:37:08 -1700

I received an email which asks about implementing a multilingual portals.the question was “do we have to create a separate portal for each culture? or just create a multilingual portal that supports all the languages “.

My answer is that there are many factors that must be taken into consideration like :

Cultures: peoples with different cultures want to see a different contents, layout and other stuff.If your portal engine supports culture based layout , then this should not be an issue for you.
Domain name : Is there any requirement to run each portal on a separate domain ? if so , then you may consider a physical separation between the portals.
Divide the Load / Performance optimization :If you are building a portals that are expected to serve a large number of users, then it could be better to have a physical separation between each portal so that you can run each portal on a different server ( or at least on a separate app pool in IIS).
Content Management:A lot of news websites have different news editors; each of them are responsible for managing news for a specific language , in that case having a separate portal for each language may simplifies the portals content administration.
Security and permissions:Having a separate portal for each culture, it will be easier to implement the security and the permissions.

What do you think ? add your comment if i forgot something.

Request.Browser.Version is returning 7 when browsing with IE8

me.nospam@nospam.anasghanem.com (Anas) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 04:22:00 -1700

Hi,

I noticed that some developers are getting the value 7 from Request.Browser.Version property when testing the page with IE8.

If you are one from those guys, then you are viewing the page in the IE8 “compatibility mode”.By using that mode, you are telling IE8 to behave as IE7.

Regards,

Anas Ghanem

Adding custom properties to the Membership user , what are the options?

me.nospam@nospam.anasghanem.com (Anas) — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 23:50:00 -1700

One of a frequently asked questions is “how to add a custom columns/properties to the MembershipUser class?”.

Based on my experience , there are many ways to do that :

You can use the user profile services to store those custom properties, article [here].
Create a custom database table with a 1-1 relationship with the membership users table and handle the read/write operations on that custom table using ADO.NET or any other data access technology, article [here]
Create a custom MembershipUser that inherits the MembershipUser class and add the new properties.articles [here] and video.

But which method is the best for you ?

every method has proc/cons , i will list them all in the table below:

Storage method	Pros	Cons
User’s profile	Doesn’t require any additional code, just you need to declare the custom properties in web.config and you can then use the Profile class to read/write or manipulate these values	not suitable if you are going to display the user information via an external reporting tool like Reporting services.
Custom database table	Very flexible and can be displayed using any external reporting tool.	Needs more work to handle the data access code and write some helper classes to manipulate the custom user properties.
Custom MembershipUser and MembershipProvider	Cleaner,maintainable and flexible solution.Also integrates with the current Login controls.	It needs more more effort because it will requires to write custom membershipUser and MembershipProvider …

I just got my Driving License :)

me.nospam@nospam.anasghanem.com (Anas) — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 00:35:00 -1700

Yes i have a driving license and from the first try and just took 11 driving lesson.

In the last Wednesday, i took the test and succeeded from the first time which is not easy here in Palestine.

So now , i can work as a taxi driver :) if i decided to leave the development world (just kidding).

BTW, i worked with many things in my life , starting with bicycle mechanic during the secondary school , then working as waitress and Network support during the university (i was supporting more than 300 office) , and finally i landed to the computer world.

Getting the user Login date and time when using FormsAuthentication

me.nospam@nospam.anasghanem.com (anas) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 05:21:00 -1700

Hi,

When you want to get the user login date/time you can follow one of the following ways :

Through the user Ticket:

Get the current ticket of the logged in user and through it’s IssueDate property , you will get what you are looking for :


        if (HttpContext.Current.User.Identity is FormsIdentity)
        {
            // get the identity of the user
            FormsIdentity identity = (FormsIdentity)HttpContext.Current.User.Identity;

            // if authenticated , 
            //get the login date/time which is exactly the same as the authentication ticket issue date.
            if (identity.IsAuthenticated)
            {
                DateTime loginDate = identity.Ticket.IssueDate;
            }
        }

Through the membership Provider :

If you are using the Membership provider, you can get that user login date as follows:

        if (Request.IsAuthenticated)
        {
            MembershipUser muser = Membership.GetUser();
            DateTime LoginDate = muser.LastLoginDate;

        }

Anas Ghanem

Do you have to migrate from .NET 2.0 Ajax extensions to .NET 3.5 Ajax ?

me.nospam@nospam.anasghanem.com (Anas) — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 05:22:00 -1700

While i was reading the unanswered posts on the forms.asp.net, i came across a post that asks about whether we should migrate to .NET 3.5 Ajax or just stay using the .NET 2.0 Ajax extensions?

.NET 3.5 Ajax is better because it provided many additional features like script combining and Ajax history.Also,to be able to use the latest Ajax toolkit controls (like the HtmlEditor, Combobox and ColorPicker), you should be using .NET 3.5 Ajax features.

My advice is to migrate as soon as possible because by keeping your self with .NET 2.0, you may get more limitations in the future.

Migrating from .NET 2.0 to 3.5 may requires some little work.You have to take care of some breaking changes like the new “d” character(that will prefix the json serialized objects in .NET 3.5) .Also you will have to make some changes in the registered Ajax dlls versions to use the new 3.5 Ajax extensions dlls.And if you are using Ajax toolkit for .net 2 , you will have to replace that Ajax toolkit dll with the suitable Ajax toolkit version for .NET 3.5 .

The following are some resources on migrating your Ajax enabled sites/applications from .NET 2.0 to 3.5 :

Regards,

Anas Ghanem.