I need to create a multi-step wizard using ASP.NET MVC.
After thinking about this a while, I feel like the most efficient solution is to put the content for all my wizard steps in a single view, and just step through them by hiding and showing elements using jQuery.
But one area I'm not totally at ease with is MVC validation. How could I validate each step this way? Seems like I won't know for sure if the data is valid until the final step is completed and the entire page is posted back to the server.
Any suggestions?
You can validate individual controls using Validator.element(element) - see documentation here. An example of the approach I think you are taking is in this answer
Related
This more of an out of interest question than an urgently need an answer one, but I have been trying to find a good example of how to deal with a full postback from a partial view in asp.net MVC. The obvious example is the case where you have a small login form on every page. You can easily accomplish this through an asynchronous post back using jquery, but I am wondering if there is a way to do it without the use of javascript. I know it may be pedantic, but I don't like the idea of assuming the client has javascript enabled, particularly in this day and age where responsive design/ progressive enhacements are the big buzzwords around, so having you log in tied to javascript means that anyone on a simple mobile device won't be able to use it since their device probably won't support it.
Anyone have any ideas / examples of how to accomplish this? It's such a simple thing to implement in web forms I can't believe it's as tricky as I've heard it made out to be in MVC.
You just need a form within the view, that's all. The form will POST to its controller action method and generate a full page refresh (if that's what you mean by a full postback - I guess it is) irrespective of whether its a partial or not.
You can have multiple forms on a MVC view, and each one of them will give you a full page refresh, whereas with WebForms the pattern was one main form per page.
I need to port the functionality of this one and only one AJAX control to MVC, but given the poor selection of MVC controls out there, I think I need to bring this legacy control into the MVC world...
I'd rather not taint my MVC project with ASP.NET controls, and welcome json/MVC alternatives you know of. (post them if you know of any)
Sample UI that I need in ASP.NET MVC
Back to porting
Although it's unfortunate that I am left to porting this control to MVC, it seems to be a widely accepted practice since Telerik has detailed instructions on how do this.
That makes me ask:
How common is it for a MVC website to use ASP.NET controls?
Again I'll mention I don't want to do this so I welcome MVC-specific alternatives. That being said, I'll proceed with trying to merge that control with my existing site. </End Disclaimer>
If you click on this hyperlink, and look at the source code at the bottom, can you tell me where I should put the following in MVC?
Code behind (My first instinct is to use a Controller but another SO question indicates I should create a create a ViewName.aspx.cs file)
How do I port the SQLDataSource to the new "Model" way of thinking. I know they are different in nature but I don't know how to present data to a ASP.NET control in a way that it will consume the information.
How do I handle the AJAX component? This control has an AJAX component using callbacks. Yes this is getting ugly, but it seems like I have to do this.
Apparently this model saves data in session or view-state. I have no idea if this even work in MVC. Guidance, an alternate control, or a life preserver is much appreciated.
I've already done research and have instructions from Telerik here and here that describes how to get started with placing a simple menu, but I need a little assistance with the more complex controls like this one.
Note: For all the commentary that has hit this question, please remember that I only want this one ASP.NET control functionality; I can't find a comparable control in MVC.
porting from asp.net webforms to MVC is a paradigm shift.
Directly porting does not work.
The Model is where you typically describe your data and do the data access
the View is for displaying the data
The controller plums the other two together
So SQLDataSource is your data access layer and would therefore go to your model
the problem with the thought pattern of SQLDataSource == Model then you get away from the point of decoupling your presentation from data access
You have to think of MVC development as a new build
I would pick a book or video series from your preferred source and learn starting with MVC3 (it has some differences that simplify build speed and reinforce the difference between webforms and mvc)
Hope this helps.
This article explains how to run web forms and mvc together
http://weblogs.asp.net/rajbk/archive/2010/05/11/running-asp-net-webforms-and-asp-net-mvc-side-by-side.aspx
This is by telerik and explains the limitiation of the grid and what is need to get it to run.
http://blogs.telerik.com/aspnetmvcteam/posts/08-11-06/asp_net_ajax_controls_in_asp_net_mvc.aspx
Add an IFrame in your MVC view that just shows the WebForms page (or just use that control on a single WebForms page).
There is nothing that says you can't have a site with both WebForms and MVC pages. You can route a single URL to a WebForm just for this control.
Why not just use the telerik MVC controls? They work quite well. Either get them via a NuGet package or visit this link http://www.telerik.com/products/aspnet-mvc.aspx
I would rather use ViewModel instead of code behind
You don't have to throw away SqlDataSource you can use result set and buld from it your model, problem may be column names in result set... tricky but can be done
Since there is no components in MVC except helpers youll need help of jQuery probably, it easy
$.ajax({
url : "/controller/action",
data: { /*json or serialized form */ },
successs: function(data){
//if you got response as html from /controller/action
$("#some_div").html(data);
}
}
Session is available in MVC but viewstate not, you can use HttpContenxt.Cache or TempData if you need something like viewstate. USe TempData to keep data between redirections, or httpcontext.cache to cache your data further more.
I can't find similar functionality in an MVC control
MVC doesn't really have a concept of controls in the same way that ASP.Net does - there are only really the plain old HTML controls (i.e. hidden input, text input, checkbox, radiobuttons, select box, text area, password and buttons).
When you need something more complicated than the plain HTML Controls you need to use some JavaScript to achieve this.
I'm not sure that you will be able to 'port' the control into MVC - you will most likely have to try and re-create it your self using an MVC controller and a partial view with a fair bit of a javascript to create the control.
Have a look at the JQuery UI Autosomplete plugin - you could probably use this to acheive something similar
Is there a reference available of the html validation attributes for cases where we want to use unobtrusive client side validation without using Data Annotations?
Thanks,
Ben
I don't think you will find a reference for this but if you are not going to use Data Annotations I would simply recommend you hooking up the jquery validate plugin manually.
We unfortunately had to do this recently, since only the view was under our control. Since the unobtrusive validation is really meant to be used in conjunction with data annotations, you probably won't find documentation online for how to use them separately.
We found that the easiest thing to do was to create a spike project, and add the correct data annotations to some test model, create a simple "EditorFor" view for it, look at the generated HTML, and copy over the data attributes that ASP.NET MVC added to the text boxes.
using data source we can show the data in web page. but i want that there is radio button with all rows and after accessing the radio button the given functionality works?
how to do it please explain?
you need to be more clear with your question - if you already have some code then post it and then ask the how your code needs to do something specific
since the comment was amended
in ItemDataBound event
do something like (e.FindControl("controlname") as RadioButton).SelectedValue
im not quite sure if its c# or vb that you are writing in so cant be more specific at this time
Based on your comment in the other answer I understand that you're actually using WebForms server controls with Asp.net MVC application.
Avoid mixing an matching Asp.net MVC with WebForms
Unless you're skilled in both platforms I suggest you avoid this. It will only bring you headaches in the long run. Displaying and consuming checkboxes/radiobuttons (or any List<T>) should be done differently in MVC. Check this questions (and answer) out that will help you out and show you how this can be done in pure MVC way.
It also explains what things to take care when you dynamically add these items on the client side using Javascript.
We need to put a captcha image on our ASP.NET MVC 2 based website. We chose reCaptcha and built it in using the way described by Derik Whittaker. The idea there is baiscally to build some abstractions and all you need to do is decorate your Controller with a [ValidateCaptcha] attribute. This works all fine.
However, we have a lot of form-widgets in different pages and I don't want to have the captcha floating around everywhere. So I'd like to implement it the way StackOverflow does: Submit a Form -> Challenge Captcha -> Submit Captcha -> Perform Action on original form data.
Now, how do I redirect the user to the captcha page while keeping the originally submitted information?
I thought of some very ugly hacks (hidden fields w/ base64 encoded form data, etc.) but I think I'm missing something obvious. On the other hand, this sounds as if I wanted to do something in a stateful manner, and I shouldn't?
Session or persisting model state on the client comes to mind.